 to the first item on the agenda. Please, before we do so, permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate meeting minutes. I will introduce each speaker on the agenda after they complete their remarks. The chair will go down the line of members of the select board, inviting each by name to provide any further comment, questions or motions. Please hold your comments until your name is called. Please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. Please remember to speak clearly in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response, please wait until the chair yields the floor to you, if at all. And finally, in accordance with past practices, each vote taken in this meeting will be conducted by town council, Attorney Heim, by a roll call. So with that, we will go to agenda item two, which is discussion and approval. I'll turn it over to our town manager, Mr. Chaplain. Thank you, Madam Chair. So this is an idea that has been brought before the board via correspondence received. And I believe board members have also received emails from residents about an idea of given these times, given the desire of people to get outside and remain as healthy as possible in these times, the need for us to open up more public space for people to be able to get outside to avoid crowding on our existing recreational assets. So in a very short amount of time, Dan Amstutz from the planning department has done a great amount of work working with a group called Neighborways, who has been doing this in other jurisdictions across the country and locally, actually there's an Arlington resident working for them that has helped Dan do a great deal of this work. So I've asked, I've promoted Dan to panelists, and I'd like him to run through the concept that he would like for the board to discuss and approve tonight and then answer any questions that they might have. So Dan, do you want me to bring up the PowerPoint that you provided to the board? Is that how you'd like to handle this? Yes, that would be fine. Okay, let me do that. And Dan, if you could just identify yourself by name and position with the town. I'm Daniel Amstutz, senior transportation planner with the Department of Planning and Community Development. Thank you. And I do that because the way Attorney Hyme laid out for the rules when we first started I have to bear in mind that people are not only coming in through Zoom as we had last week. Sometimes people do attend through their phone so they don't have the benefit of seeing and with people's names under it. So it's just for an accurate record and to make sure we're affording everybody the same opportunity. Is that right, Attorney Hyme? He's nodding and said yes. That's right. So yeah, thank you very much. So Dan, I have the presentation up on the screen. So I'll just scroll as you advise me. All right. So I guess you have all the slides up then. Yeah, can board members can see the slides? Yes, thank you. Okay. I'll try to run through this fairly quickly. I believe you've been sent a copy of the slides in advance. So just a little overview, just some brief background as to how we kind of ended up on this idea, why it's needed, the concept behind it, the goals of it, the pilot itself, and then the kind of support needs that we were looking to have from the town, from the public works and public police department in particular, when I gave this presentation a week ago. We can go to the next slide. So there was an internal meeting that we had with myself and the town manager, chief of police, public works director and director of planning and community development. We had talked about doing, there were sort of two different concepts that had been raised. One was expanding sidewalks along Mass Ave and another sort of wide streets to allow for people to social distance while they were walking along those streets. And then another idea was sort of the shared streets where we'd actually allow people to walk in the middle of the street or bike in the middle of the street and just generally have more space for them to socially distance on lower traffic streets. And also this has been the issues with the Minuteman bikeway being crowded, also feed into this discussion. So we've had a number of resident requests in order to do that as it happened the week before we had this conversation, we had spoken to neighbor ways design and Jessica Mortell who is a resident as well who works for neighbor ways. They have some funding through the Lawrence and Lillian Solomon Foundation, which is a local nonprofit or local foundation. And so it matched up very well that we were interested in this or we pivoted to this shared streets idea instead of doing expanded sidewalks on Mass Ave as public works and police had some concerns about that. Onto the next slide, please. So why were we thinking of this and why did we receive some questions about it? Well, again, crowded trails that we've seen, many of the sidewalks in our neighborhoods are five or six feet wide generally speaking. So in order for somebody, if there are two people walking sort of against each other on the same side of the street, usually one will either have to walk into the street or across the street. I've done it myself a number of times. I also live in Arlington. There's, we've seen an increase in people walking and biking and with more warmer weather, certainly an increase in people wanting to get outside and out of their homes. Again, already see from pictures and just from experience people are walking in the street already. And then although there are fewer vehicles on the speed, there's actually been quite reported in incidents of increased speeding. This is an image from a news report from WBUR where the MASDOT has identified, there were something like 30 traffic fatalities in April of last year and there were 30 traffic fatalities in April last month, even though statewide traffic volume has dipped more than 50%. So the traffic rate has effectively doubled. So the speeding issue is raising to be very critical here. Next slide, please. And this is a very sort of well-known study or number of studies that have looked at the relationship between speed and pedestrian injury and fatality. That if, so even if a car is traveling at 30 miles an hour and it hits a pedestrian, it's still, there's 50% chance that a pedestrian will be killed in that instance. And so the idea of having, if you do try something like shared streets that it has to be a slow street and slowing traffic down is definitely a concern that many of our residents have when it comes to through traffic, of course, and cut through traffic, but now understanding that with fewer cars on the road, there's sort of less friction between different cars. And so the need for slow speeds is really important here as this slide identifies. Next slide, please. So this is a basic concept that we started working with and Neighborways Design created this is that it focuses on these local, quiet residential streets prioritizing active transportation so people can walk and bike and again, socially distance, keep things low speeds in the 10 to 20 mile an hour rage and really using materials that are easily movable and changeable that you can sort of test and remove and replace as needed. Sort of a tactical urbanism approach as we in the transportation profession talk about it would be closed to through vehicle traffic to reduce the amount of vehicles that are actually moving through there, but still allows local and emergency access as needed maintains existing parking. And again, as flexible and adaptable in case, it doesn't work exactly the way we think it does that it's easily, you can take things away. It's not permanent. Next slide, please. So there's quite a number of communities throughout the US that are doing this. I would say you could add in Europe and countries around the world are trying this. Oakland, California, there's a couple of images there, Bellevue, Washington, Burlington, Vermont. They're all doing some form of shared streets. Oakland gained notoriety for saying they were going to close off 70 miles of streets which they had previously identified in a transportation plan. And so again, it's using fairly movable, sort of easy to attain materials in order to do that and onto the next slide. And this is just a testament to the response from the local residents is generally very, very positive. I've also spoken with the transportation manager in Brookline about their, they did sort of an expanded sidewalk project that's ongoing and they have also found in Brookline that they have received no complaints. So it's all very, very positive from the people that are using those streets and have experienced it. Next slide. The goals of the project again, prioritize safety, we want people to go slow. There will be some elements that we want to put in the street that will sort of narrow the lanes a little bit and make it appear to be a narrower street. We do want to try to alleviate crowding in parks and trails and then sidewalks, repurposing these low volume streets because there's quite a lot of street space out there that people could be using and it's all public space. It's all public right of way. We certainly, it'll be a week long pilot idea and then during that time, we want to evaluate it, the impacts and the success of it and collect data through observations and traffic counts and speeds and similar type of data collection to have a debrief to see how everything worked. Next slide, please. And so this is some work that we had done prior to last week, which was that we'd done outreach to residents and community leaders. We had spoken with network analysis. We looked at different pilot locations and looked at different materials that we would need. And we've done quite a bit of additional outreach. I received about 40 or so comments on the project. Last week, we had gone out and we flied, put a 200 fliers on homes within the Brooks Ave. There Brooks Ave, Chandler Street. Actually, there's a map later on, which I can show you where they were put, but we've done a lot of outreach in the last week to get the barometer of the residents in the neighborhood as well to see what their interest level is. Next slide, please. And so the idea is that it would sort of demonstrate a proof of concept for this for potentially bringing or creating something larger out of it, but in place for one week. Again, evaluate, collect data, make sure people are physical distancing, hear feedback from residents and their perspectives, and then look at the next steps. And if it's successful, how do we scale it up to be something larger? Because I think we acknowledge that this is a pretty small space we're looking at and we'd like to make it larger. Next slide, please. And so we looked at Brooks Ave. I think we were looking for some location that we wanted to have a reasonable amount of success. It's a fairly small location. It includes Brooks Ave, Varnum between Brooks and Herbert and then the other adjoining streets which are Milton, Melrose, Egerton and Chandler. And so these would be the streets that would be shared and no cut through traffic, local traffic only, but with emergency and delivery access, garbage truck access, that sort of thing. We had considered Herbert Road as another alternate or as an alternate to this, but I think we determined that it was a little bit too lengthy and would be more complicated. In this version, we're looking at basically four gateways so that if you were approaching from Egerton, for example, there would be a sign, certainly an example that I showed earlier that sort of a sign that says either road closed or road closed or through traffic. And then there was other custom signs that we've ordered that say shared streets, local traffic only or local access only. And then it has some other images on it. Next slide, please. So why Brooks Avenue? We have thought about it as being a way to relieve some of the congestion on the Minuteman as an alternate. I don't want to say a diversion, but really it's if people feel like it is too crowded, they could use Brooks, but we are very cognizant that we don't want Brooks to get crowded either. That was one of the concerns that I heard from the residents. It is right next to the Hardy School, high density of young children that are in there. Again, where you received interest from residents that live on those streets and also that live in the greater neighborhood. And really this is more of a recreation type of asset or recreation type of street. There are other ways of doing this where you can have routes that lead to grocery stores or pharmacies or other essential businesses. And so this is from May 2nd, but it was about 70 degrees, a really beautiful day. And you can see quite a lot of people. This is between Lake Street and Varnum Street. Next slide, please. Again, so looking for support from the select board for this, we're looking for material support from Public Works and police, police have helped with data collection. Public Works is helping quite a bit with different materials. The Solomon Foundation has been helping a little bit with funding for different signs and things, but most of it has been technical assistance through a network analysis and sort of boots on the ground type of work. And on to the next slide. And then, so here is the timeline that we were looking at a couple of weeks out. And the idea is that we would implement this. We're probably looking at Wednesday and to actually put the materials on the ground and sort of officially start the shared street and it would be in place for a week. And we would do outreach to community residents and see if they can do some observations on a volunteer basis, but we would also have staff, either myself or from Neighborways Design who would also be doing observations and collecting data, whether it's, again, seeing if people are socially distancing or also looking at traffic and potentially speeds as well and then be able to evaluate that after the week long pilot. Next slide, please. So again, we've actually, we signed an agreement with Solomon Foundation for the technical assistance and funding that they've provided for us. We've contacted community members, again, flyered as quickly as we can in the past week when we first were looking at this and trying to get it on the ground as quickly as possible, considering this is a very timely thing that we're trying to do. And then Neighborways is helping draft design and determine what materials that we need as well. Next slide. Okay. There is some more slides at the end, but that's more of a phase two if we want to talk about that right now or later, but I'll stop right here for any feedback at this time. Thanks, Dan. Before I turn to my colleagues, Mr. Chapter Lane, anything you wanted to add or? No, just thank you to Dan and the team from Public Works and the APD that have worked with Dan on this and an acknowledgement that about six weeks ago, maybe give or take six weeks ago, I received an email from a few town residents saying, hey, we should do this. And I, at that point said, hey, I like the idea, but we're really strapped for time and resources, but I have to admit six weeks ago, I didn't know where we'd be today. And I think given where we are with the next couple of months look like, even though we're starting a slow reopening, I do think this is an appropriate step. It's a one week pilot, it might work, it might not work, but I think we do have to be smart about how we're starting to use outdoor public assets to start to find a safe way for people to get outdoors over the next few months. Thank you. First, I will take a motion by Mr. Dunn for purposes of discussion. I move approval of the pilot as described and I leave it to the town manager the discretion of the execution. And I'll take a second by Mr. Curell. Yeah, a second. Okay. And now for discussion, Mr. Dunn. I like the proposal. I think it's well thought out. I'm really satisfied with the reach out. And I think that the scale of the pilot is exactly appropriate and we should give it a ride. Thank you. Mr. Curell. Yeah, thank you very much for all of the work on this. I think it is a creative approach to trying to create a safe environment there. I also appreciate the outreach to residents and I read through all of the responses which were overwhelmingly positive. There were some folks who had some concerns. I mean, they're concerned that this will attract more people into their street and impact their social distancing. But I just wanna emphasize, you know, as I look at this, this is actually to address that situation by opening up the street so that, you know, people can walk in the middle in a relatively safe manner rather than crowding on the sidewalk. As I've also seen this phenomenon that Mr. Amstutz, I think we all have, has talked about a people trying to avoid one another passing on the streets. So I'm happy to support the pilot. I presume that, you know, after the pilot is run and the analysis is done, then that you'll be coming back to the board for any next steps. Mr. Chapterline. Yeah, yes, that is absolutely the plan. Yeah, I mean, so depending on how it goes, right? It could either be an extension of this, perhaps a termination, or in the best news, I think we'd be asking for more neighborhoods to be tried out and extending it beyond just East Arlington. So, but after this one week, no matter what coming back to the board for further consideration. Great, thank you very much. Thank you to both of you. Thank you, Mr. Curell. Mr. Heard. I also am excited for this. I know we've all received a lot of correspondence in support of this and the sheer amount of correspondence that we received is testament to the outreach to the residents because I think a lot of the correspondence was for people that are in the area of Brooks Ave that will be affected by this. And I think there's definitely a need for it, you know, wear out as the weather turns our families out bicycling every day. And it gets a little hairy on the streets with cars going by. So it's definitely will be beneficial for families, particularly with the young children, to have a place to shoot towards where they know that they can safely walk and cycle with the kids and just for all residents. One question as to traffic patterns for pedestrians and cyclists, are we gonna recommend just like in a normal street that people walking in one direction and walk on the right side of the street, people walking the other direction will stay to the right side of that street just to prevent kind of, you know, even pedestrians from walking into one another as this gets crowded. Mr. Amstutz? I think that is something that we can try to communicate. I think in practice, it's difficult to have people do that without, I don't know, some level of enforcement or sort of oversight, but we can try to recommend that. But on the other hand, if you're walking along a street, depending on where you're going, you know, you're either walking on the left because you want to go to that side or you want to go to the right if you want to go to that side. So I'd say human behavior being what it is, it's a little difficult to ensure that people follow those types of rules. Well, I think the way you just pose it to them is just for safety reasons. We're trying to keep people spread out. And so if you're walking in this direction, you walk on this side, so everyone's back to back, as opposed to coming into head-on traffic. In the pilot, I assume a lot of people are going to gravitate towards Brooks Ave to try to participate in the pilot. So I just think that's something that would help alleviate sort of the social distancing concerns, particularly from residents on Brooks Ave that are concerned about more people coming on to the street during the pilot. So that's just a suggestion. And then I just want to mention that this came up at the Economic Recovery Task Force meeting today and the business owners in East Allington were excited about it and they were eager to help with the outreach to residents about the pilot. So you can get from Ali would have the names of the business owners that wanted to help with the outreach. So I think that's one resource to tap just to get the word out on the pilot. Thank you, Mr. Heard. And Mr. Chapter Lane, anything further to add on that in terms of, I don't know, no. Okay. Mr. DeCorsi. Thank you, Madam Chair. I also support the pilot program. One question and a concern that a couple of people that I spoke to about the project raised, and that's the first block of Brooks between Lake and Chandler. And some people thought that the signage wasn't actually going up until the Chandler block. It wasn't going to be at the corner of Lake. So I'm wondering if you could clarify that, how that would work because that is a concern for people coming up Lake Street towards Mass Ave, who might take that right onto Chandler, just in terms of knowing what they're, what they're coming into. Mr. Amstutz. Thank you. The idea is that it would go, or the actual sort of shared street area would start at the intersection of Lake and Brooks. There is some, there's some design considerations that my colleague at Neverways is looking into in terms of how that looks, but we thought that that intersection was particularly important. We've planning to put a pretty large road closed to through traffic sign at that particular intersection. So I think, yeah, because we were planning to have the Chandler be part of that. If we were to let people in off of Lake, then I understand people probably use that right onto Brooks and then left onto Chandler to get into the neighborhood. If it is local traffic, if it is somebody trying to get to their house, it's certainly not a problem. But, you know, we're also not trying to, you know, overly police this, we're looking for voluntary compliance for people to, to seek out a different route to where they're going. If they're sort of trying to cut through the Mass Ave. Okay. Yeah. And I think as you go forward in the week, you may, you may see that maybe that has to be pushed back and the numbers and the activity will dictate that. Another question in terms of what you are looking at in terms of shared streets and across other parts of town. And is there any, was there any discussion about perhaps not doing streets seven days a week, but maybe on weekends for future phases where via a Saturday or Sunday type situation. I don't know if I'm talking about Brooks, but elsewhere in town. Okay. Thank you. Mr. question for Mr. D'Corsi. Mr. Amstutz, tell me how you say your last name correctly. Amstutz is fine. Okay. Mr. Amstutz. We've been looking at it, I think as a sort of all day 24 hours type of situation. I think that was a concern that came up from public works in terms of the things being left out sort of all night. Long and potentially blowing over or, or I don't know, walking away. I think the, the issue with the sort of Saturday Sundays that it, we're trying to balance between what you might call an open streets where you do, you close off the streets for several hours or for a day and have a sort of block party type deal. We are trying to discourage, we want to discourage people from really congregating, but actually using it for movement and travel, but making it safer and more comfortable for, for people to walk and bike along those streets so that there's less traffic and the traffic is moving slower. So I don't know if I suppose, you know, we could, we could have those materials put out like at the beginning of weekend and then at the end of the weekend, that's something we could, we could look into. Mr. D'Corsi. Great. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. I think this is a fantastic idea from the word go. And I started to think of all the different residents that have contacted the board and when I got to about the sixth name, I decided I'm not going to name them all because I'm going to leave somebody out, but that's evident in terms of how much support that there is out there and from the comments we received all but three were pleased to do this. This is great. This is fantastic. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that the other three were more, more of a concern and you know, if it could work the way you say it was, but I don't think it's going to. I think this is exactly what we need to do. To adapt. Or as the governor lights, say pivot. In terms of Allenton. And how we move forward. In the next year or two. We need to really look at keeping people safe, keeping people safe. We need to really look at keeping people safe. We need to really look at getting some changes. In terms of routine, whether it be. Pedestrian bicycle. Other foot mode traffic. I do have a question and I think it might be, I don't want to put Dan. I'm stuck on the spot, but. And this is coming from someone who thought the bike path should have been closed long, long ago. And I'm glad you don't listen to me, but. I mean, in terms of the two areas. That we talk about at infinite. I sort of see a. Similar process, but I don't know if it would be through Mr. Amstapp's and others around. If this is successful and it works. I anticipate that perhaps. The same. Tank would look around the bike path and then my second question would be. As we've had discussions before. My colleagues have. in Arlington. I know, especially with the warm weather coming up, Mr. Chapter Lane and had spoken about that. If we were exploring the possibilities of retooling our streets in the business area, would that be a different think tank or would it be the same process? So first question on Minuteman BytePath, second on small business along the corridor. Mr. Chapter Lane. Yeah, thank you very much. So for the Minuteman, we do still continue to talk about it. Now is the weather starting to get warmer. We're going to continue to watch. We did hear reports that though it was busy this weekend, that it was near, you know, not hard to actually quantify it, but 90 plus percent compliance with face coverings, which was, we were all pleased to hear that. So I think that the hope is that if this pilot is successful, and we expand it, it can take the pressure off the bike path. And instead of closing anything, have more openness for people to get outside. In terms of the second question about businesses, I definitely see this as the seed for how we start to think about using our outdoor space over these next few months. I do think it's going to be very challenging for restaurants to safely open, especially smaller restaurants, to safely open with limited capacity. So I think though this is a different model, I do think that this can start to see the idea and all of our heads that utilizing outdoor space, potentially parking spaces, maybe even road lane space for restaurants to be able to do outdoor dining so that we can get them back open sometime in the near future, something we absolutely have to look at. And it will be the same or similar team of people that are looking at this. Since I raised two questions that were a little off, I just want to check with Mr. Dunn. Mr. Curell, Mr. Herd, and Mr. DeCorsi. Okay, so here. Thank you, Dan, Mr. Amstutz for this great presentation. You can tell we're all excited and behind it on a motion by Mr. Dunn seconded by Mr. Curell. Any further questions and comments? If not, a roll call vote. Attorney Heim. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Curell. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mohan. Yes. That's a unanimous vote. 5-0. Agenda item two is closed. We will now, with my colleague's approval for the consent agenda, we will take agenda items three, four and five as a group. First is there a motion to approve Mr. DeCorsi? Move approval. Is there a second by Mr. Herd? On the consent agenda three, four and five, Mr. DeCorsi, I know there was one here. Yes. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Just in terms of comments on one of them that I had received was the banners at the Arlington High School. And did we want to talk about each one of those now? Or did you want to? Oh, no, I just didn't know if you wanted to. The rest are self-explanatory, but if this is something you want to talk about a little so people are aware if that, you know. Sure. Okay. No, thank you. Yeah. So as you know, unfortunately, with the pandemic, the high school graduation is not going to take place as it traditionally does. And there is a graduation committee at the high school, and they've been working very hard on honoring the seniors and doing a number of different things. And you've seen signs across town. And one of the things that they would like to do is honor the seniors by hanging banners that will have pictures of, I believe it's between five and seven seniors that they would like to hang a long mass tab. And I think it's a great idea and really a nice way to recognize the achievements of the high school students and recognize the unique times that we're in. Thank you, Mr. DeCorsi. Mr. Heard, any further comment or? No, I'm happy to support it. I'm glad to see that we're able to do this for the seniors, since it's a tough situation to miss your high school graduation. So this is, this is awesome. Mr. Kiro? I'm fine. Sorry, Mr. Dunn. No comment. No comment. And kudos to the school parents and school administration and staff that I'm just amazed. I'm just dizzy with all the things that they're working on and I'll leave it for them to let that play out when it's going to. But I do appreciate people, you know, adapting to the current times that we're in. So without any further question or comments on Consent Agenda three, four and five of motion by Mr. DeCorsi, seconded by Mr. Heard. Roll call please, Attorney Heim. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes, Mr. Heard. Yes. Mr. Kiro. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mahon. Yes. That's five zero approval of agenda items three, four and five. We now go to agenda item six. Mr. Kiro. Yeah, Madam Chair, I will be recusing myself from discussion and vote on this matter due to a conflict of interest. And accordingly, I'll be muting and stopping my video. Attorney Heim, just Mr. Kiro stating that. Is that enough for the record? Yeah, we just want to confirm that his mic is turned off and his screen is turned off. Thank you. Then that it is. We look good to go. Okay, and the minutes shall so reflect. So with that, with my remaining three colleagues on Consent Agenda item number six, appointment of a new election worker, worker Savannah Kiro, Military, unenrolled precinct 15. Is there a motion to approve Mr. DeCorsi? So move approval. Is there a second by Mr. Dunn? Second. Dunn. Any questions or comments? Mr. DeCorsi? No comments. Mr. Dunn. He's saying no. Mr. Heard. No. No, Mr. Kiro has recused himself and I have no further comments on any further questions, but if not on a motion by Mr. Corsi, seconded by Mr. Dunn. Attorney Heim, roll call, please. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes, Mr. Heard. Yes, Mr. Dunn. Yes, Ms. Mohan. Yes, that could reflect agenda item six is a four zero vote and Mr. Kiro had recused himself and had virtually zoom left the meeting. We'll now continue on with the agenda to public hearings agenda item seven. And Mr. Kiro has just returned at the beginning of agenda item seven. So if the minutes could reflect that proposed tree removal for the Mass Ave sidewalk project, I'd like to start off with our town manager, Mr. Chaplain. Thank you, Madam Chair. So before the board tonight, our two requests related to two projects, one being the Mass Ave sidewalk project that we hope is soon to commence. The second being related to the Lake Street bikeway intersection project, which has actually already started somewhat and is looking forward to progressing. So I'm going to ask if the chair so allows, Director of Public Works, Mike Rodemacher, describe each to the board and answer any questions they might have. Thank you, Mr. Chaplain. Mr. Rodemacher, if you could just state your full name and job title for the record. Go with Mike Rodemacher, Director of Public Work. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and the members of the select board. Thank you for your time tonight. So we have two projects that Mr. Chaplain mentioned the sidewalk replacement on Mass Ave, which is from Pleasant Street to Franklin, Franklin, and as well as sidewalk replacement on Broadway through that same stretch. And in addition, we have the bike path project at Lake Street. The Mass Ave project, as designed, will replace all the sidewalks through those sections and provide better tree wells and other amenities through that stretch. Unfortunately, there is one tree at approximately 420 Mass Ave that the construction of a proper driveway apron will have a significant impact to. It's a 14 inch honey locus and it was determined that it was it's believed that it would not survive construction. So we felt it better to plan for its replacement rather than try to keep it in place. That Mass Ave project, in addition to replacing a tree in the vicinity of that one tree, will plant nine other trees throughout the limits of the project. As outlined in the memo, briefly, I can say that there are a few in front of Whittemore Park, a few in Broadway Plaza, three or four along the American Alarm Building, and a few on Franklin Street. So there's that one project, as I mentioned, that we're taking one down with planting 10 in total. And the bike path project, which its sole purpose is to create better visibility and usability for the bike path crossing for both users of the path and Lake Street. And one aspect of doing that was to widen the bike path, that location, to create a more visible location for folks to wait and cross Lake Street. The unfortunate consequence of widening the bike path is the impact to several trees along either side of the current bike path. So that project proposes to remove six trees, but also proposes to plant back eight in the immediate vicinity of that project with the commitment that we would look for other locations in nearby neighborhoods to increase street tree plantings in the near future. While both of these projects we would typically have a separate tree herring, they're not necessarily required by Massachusetts General Law. The town has taken a more transparent approach in recent years to tree removals where we have had tree herrings for projects other than those that require them specifically by law. Given the situation we're in now, it's a little more difficult to have these hearings and given that these two projects, because they are one, the bike path is not, they are not street trees, and two mass abs is a state route and because it's a town project on a state numbered route by law, it does not require tree herring by state law. So that is why I'm asking the board to consider these without a separate tree herring. I brought these both these projects up to the tree committee recently last week. We talked about the trees to come down and the proposed species to be replaced to replace them and I received overwhelming support from the members both in the trees that we plan to replace and the process by which I'm asking the board to consider this. Thank you Mr. Radamaka. In that vein, this is a public hearing. We're taking them separately because there'll be two separate votes. So if on the proposed tree removal on the Mass Ave sidewalk project, I'll give it a little bit of time if anybody waves through zoom or through I believe it's star nine on your telephone. Is that correct Mr. Chapter Lane? Correct. So I see Mora Albert who is one of our appointees into the next agenda item as her hand raised. So we can ask her if she would like to comment on this and also Susan Stamps has her hand raised. Susan Stamps. Okay, first I'd like to call Ms. Albert if you could say your full name and either Allenton Address or other Allenton affiliation. Can see your name but thank you there. There I am. No I did not have a question about that. I was just experimenting. Okay I'll move Ms. Albert back over and then we'll bring her back for the appointment. Okay next I'd like to call on Ms. Stamps if you could just identify yourself for the record. We see you but we don't hear you. You're still muted. See. There you go. Oh okay um Susan Stamps member of the tree committee and just wanted to support both of the projects and what Mike said about how actually he doesn't need permission from the tree committee or from the town particularly to take down these trees because Mass Ave is a state highway so there's an exemption for the DPW superintendent is in charge for Mass Ave which is a state numbered highway and also the bike path project where the trees are on the bike path which I guess isn't a public way so we think they both look like good projects and wish to thank him for his work. Thank you. Great picture Ms. Stamps. It really is. Sorry I couldn't help it. It's a girl thing. It's a she thing. Sorry. So uh with that I will um look to my colleagues on agenda item seven for a motion by move approval. Mr. Curell seconded by Mr. Dunn. JC and Mr. Dunn uh Mr. Curell. Any further comments? No I'm sad side of the presentation. I I greatly appreciate the fact that that the Mr. Rademacher did consult with the tree committee and that the warden was involved in this and mapping out a way to to pursue the projects with minimal well actually not just minimal tree loss with a great replacement program so thank you. Thank you Mr. Herd. I'm excited for both projects particularly the sidewalk project which has been a long time coming and thank you to Mike Rademacher for reaching out to us and having this hearing even though it wasn't required to and I think the plan you know we've heard from our residents as to how they feel about the trees and the tree canopy and I think the plan addresses that in a in a practical and meaningful way. Thank you Mr. DeCorsi. Thank you Madam Chair. I also want to thank Mr. Rademacher for his efforts in in reaching out to the tree committee actually posting the notice. I saw the notice actually on the tree on Mass Ave so so going through with with that process and their two great projects and looking forward to their implementation. Thank you and Mr. Dunn. It's a sound process and a good conclusion I'm happy to support. Thank you and my lengthy remarks would be ditto to what my colleagues all said so any further questions or comments if not on agenda item seven a motion by Mr. Curel seconded by Mr. Dunn. Attorney Hyme roll call please. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Curel. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mahon. Yes. That's five zero vote agenda item seven is closed we now go to thank you. You're welcome agenda item eight I know our GPW director Mr. Rademacher already outlined the parameters of that. I don't know if Mr. Chaplain or if we want to see if Ms. Albert or anyone else wants to speak. There are no additional hands raised right now. Okay so first I will take a motion to approve by Mr. Herd seconded by Mr. Dunn. Mr. Herd. Any further comments. Mr. DeCorsi. No further comments. Mr. Dunn. No comments. And Mr. Curel. No further comments thank you. Thank you so with that on agenda item eight a motion by Mr. Herd seconded by Mr. Dunn. Attorney Hyme roll call please. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Curel. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mahon. Yes. That's five zero unanimous vote agenda item eight is closed we now move to appointments. Agenda item number nine disability commission termed to expire 131 2023 Paul Paravano first I do we have Mr. Paravano here if I we do if I could ask through the with the town management permission to ask Mr. Paravano to state his name and address and give us whatever information to let everyone know why we're lucky enough to have found you especially in these times to agree to volunteer here on the town. Madam chair can you hear me okay yes sir thank you very much I'm so delighted to join with you and the board this evening and manager chapter lane I've been a resident of Arlington for 26 years I guess I'm supposed to state my name at the beginning here I am Paul Paravano I live on 70 bellington street in Arlington and I think I've had the pleasure of meeting each member of the board I formerly was chair of the housing corporation of Arlington's board of directors I work at MIT and I've been blind all my life pretty much since I was an infant and have benefited greatly from a lot of technology and I feel strongly that the disability commission gives Arlington a very a very special opportunity to take good care of citizens who have disabilities of various types I was just so elated a number of years ago when I approached my precinct to vote at the bracket school and found that Arlington the people of Arlington had purchased a voice output voting machine which I was delighted to use after many years of having to rely on someone else to mark the ballot for me so I think that Arlington does a number of things already for people with disabilities I'm anxious to talk about voting technology about pedestrian safety and use of sidewalks and streets and also transportation I think those are major issues I see that the disability commission already is working with high school students because it's important to talk to young people about inclusion of people with disabilities I'm very excited about this opportunity and grateful for the recommendation of the town manager thank you first I will take a motion to approve by Mr. Dunn and a second by second Mr. Curell Mr. Dunn I had the pleasure of meeting Paul when I was an undergraduate I was working in what we called the undergraduate association I was a both an appointed and elected official there at various points in time and he was excellent and you know it's one of those wonderful coincidences that you know 30 years later you get to run you get to work with him again and I'm so glad that he's volunteering we are lucky to have him thank you Mr. Dunn Mr. Paravano any insider information you can give us on our colleague I think we'll I think we'll have to wait for the end of the meeting to do that manager the secret is I had more hair on my head then I see well that's that's not something I would have noticed but I'm delighted that we shared the infinite corridor together thank you you got you there Mr. Dunn Mr. Curell yeah hi Paul I was thrilled to see your your name come through for for this I know we first met Paul on some educational matters locally and then through the HCA and so I'm just thrilled and very grateful that you're offering your talents in this regard and I love the that the three priorities that you checked off as well so thank you thank you Mr. Hurd thank you for serving this is such an important board in the of all the boards that we have in town and I think your experience will meet a lot to the board in helping you move forward as we in the next few years thank you thank you Mr. Corsi thank you Madam Chair and thank you Mr. Paravano for for stepping up to serve on the disability commission I like the other members of the board I met Paul years ago our daughter's excellent youth soccer and basketball together in high school and we would see each other often so thank you so much for your service thank you very much and I share my colleagues sentiments and I really appreciate the way you're continuing to contribute to the town of Allenton as well as really bringing good voice in terms of people who have problems with their vision or partially or totally blind or legally blind there's all kinds of facets of that and you certainly have been there and can help spread the word and advocacy about that and I hope it stands as encouragement you don't have to be an MIT professor but if if you are someone out there and you think gee maybe my disability isn't something that you know rises to the occasion that this is something I can do you and other members of the commission are certainly fine examples that in the best people we need to have on that commission any closing remarks I always say Mr. Paravano I want to say Paul I'm just trying to make a clean record thank you Madam Chair I should just clarify I'm not a professor I do a government relations for MIT my main job is to keep a smile on the face of town officials around MIT okay job well done if there's any further questions or comments if not on motion by Mr. Dunn seconded by Mr. Curell Attorney Heim roll call please Mr. Dacourcy yes Mr. Hurd yes Mr. Curell yes Mr. Dunn yes Ms. Mahon yes and no matter what I will now refer to Paul as Professor Paravano I've bestowed that title upon you thank you very much Madam Chair so agenda nine is closed we go to agenda item 10 under appointments LGBTQIA Rainbow Plus I for some reason it's not written down but I think it's Rainbow Plus commission terms to expire 131 2023 we have Mar Albert landed Goldstein Susan Ryan Ryan Volmer I'll just wait until the town manager says we have our three prospective appointees let it all three to be able to speak and be seen if they so choose okay and I'll go alphabetically as it appears in our agenda Ms. Albert if you could just say your name and address for the record please let me up one second you didn't get unmuted yet sorry now hear me now yes thank you okay my name is Mar Albert I live at 19 Wyman Terrace here in Arlington I lived here for about 20 years thank you and if you want to just a little background in terms of your experience or your interest in the commission or anything else you'd like to highlight for who's viewing this meeting okay I'm a former teacher from Winchester elementary school 37 years most of my connections have been in Winchester now that I'm retired I want to get to know my Arlington community more and especially want to help with the LGBTQIA plus live in town I'm a big proponent of intergenerational connections and just connections in general I know there are many different groups in the town that serve LGBTQIA plus folks but I like to see them connecting more with each other than they already do so that would be a goal of mine I'm really excited to participate and just to get to know all of you thank you I'm excited uh next uh Leonard Goldstein please correct me if I pronounced your last name incorrectly you have it right Leonard Goldstein I live at 23 Newmanway in Arlington and I'm really thrilled to be joining this commission an honor to to be recommended for this I have lived here for about 16 years with my husband and I thought it was about time that I give back to the community that has given so much to me in my professional life I'm the chief financial officer for a nonprofit called Keshet that works for LGBTQ inclusion in Jewish life naturally and so I've been in this world for quite a while on the professional side and I thought that I could use that experience both my my professional work as a CFO and my the work that I've learned about in terms of building networks and connections and allyship and working with other marginalized groups particularly something that interests me so I am I'm really thrilled to be to be joining the commission at this time thank you thank you so am I and uh Susan Ryan Volmar if you could just say your name and address for the record my name is Susan and I live at 67 Overlook Road and is there anything you'd like to highlight any interest anything you'd like to bring with you as you start work on the commission or totally voluntary sure my wife and I have lived in Arlington with our two daughters for about 14 years they're both at Arlington High School I have a senior it's been very sad I'm sorry oh it's brutal it's brutal but I'm thrilled to be joining the commission just very excited I think Arlington has been a wonderfully welcoming place but you know there's always room for improvement and there's always room for collaboration among groups so I'm just thrilled to be doing something yes and before I turn to my colleagues I want to thank you all for coming on especially during these times we had Mel Goldsype the previous chair who really took this committee and expanded it it blossomed and brought a lot of a vigoration to it along with commission members and I had occasion to meet the two recently appointed uh commissioner member presidents or chairs of the LGBTQIA rainbow plus commission so I'm looking to how you adapt in terms of continuing the mission of this committee especially around all facets of what the commission can do and the committee can do especially with our younger people which is just about anyone other than me is our younger people first I will take a motion by so moved mr caro seconded by mr dunn mr caro seconded by mr dunn any uh first uh mr caro I just want to thank you very much for offering your time to the town on this commission the commission's been really vital to the work that we've done in pushing up our municipal equality index and it really helping us to to brainstorm around those ideas and the mix of skills that you bring with teaching and media and communications and non-profit leadership I think will just just help to make it a much stronger organization and mr ryanform it's great to see you again so thank you very much thank you mr caro mr herd just thanks everyone for volunteering your time to serve this is really such an important commission um just like the last one and you know there's a lot of work that is done and there's a lot of work to be done so I look forward to working with you all thank you mr herd mr decorcy thank you madam chair and thank you each for your willingness to serve on the commission and thank you uh mr dunn uh volunteers volunteers are what make the town work so we really appreciate it and I loved reading your resumes and you're all really very well qualified and you're going to bring great things to this group so I look forward to it thank you very much thank you um so without any further question or comment on a motion by mr caro seconded by mr dunn attorney heim roll call please mr decorcy yes mr herd yes mr cure yes mr dunn yes this mahan yes that's a unanimous vote agenda item 10 is now closed like pet it is 10 okay we now turn to citizens open forum it's sort of a little out of line with our policy where I felt we were having a public hearing which we didn't have to have and we chose to have it and since there are no other warrant article hearings I chose to put citizens open forum on so with that and accept accept an unusual and if anyone is interested in speaking under citizens open forum if you could do your wave feature on zoom zoom or your star nine on your telephone or cell phone and accept an in unusual circumstances any matter presented for consideration of the board shall neither be acted upon nor decision made denied of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which the open forum was established it should be noted that there is a three minute time limit to present a concern or request um do we have anyone for citizens open forum well yes someone identifying themselves as kim kim and i'm just gonna give it a little bit longer in case anybody else is um considering uh no one else right now okay well okay so uh i'll turn it to uh kim and name and address our eileenton affiliation for the record please and kim has to unmute uh we have to unmute kim i i'm not in control okay sorry you're on thank you am i on yes okay hi this is kim holt sorry about that i didn't realize i was on this zoom i have two and the other one says kim holt okay this is kim holt um thank you for hearing from me tonight i actually i'm in between addresses in arlington but i've been an arlington resident for almost exactly 20 years now and i think everybody on the board and um mr tapldine and mr heim know who i am but for anybody else that's i've been working with youth and other people in arlington for almost a full 20 years now um thank you for hearing from me tonight it's become very apparent to me in the last several months for and especially the last weeks and days just how important my connection to arlington is and i'm not going to go into that right now most of you at the front of the room know why that is i had to leave arlington briefly because of the injuries from an accident in an nbta ride band and i've kept my permanent location and all my connections fair but it's been very hard and the love and care and concern of everybody in arlington as i've had to struggle with that and i'm on my way into another arlington address has been amazing thank you um oh sorry go ahead you still have time you should i just want to say you're welcome but yeah thank you you still have time don't worry about that for the ward tonight because last time i was before the ward was early october it was actually when i was still having trouble making words fell into sentences and stuff and it was a contentious meeting and i was the second speaker in open forum and chair mohon actually made me very angry and i think very appropriately but very vehemently and then in a letter to the editor afterwards i made very clear she made me very angry well i want people to know that this may be her last meeting as chair and this is dan dunne's last meeting on the board and i want to thank them both very much for their service i want people to know that chair mohon and i are friends you know if you can disagree with people and you can see heavenly and angrily disagree as long as you're appropriate and do things in the right way and get past disagreements and even we still don't agree on all those issues but we've been talking more friends she's actually been helping me we're supporting each other i understand what happened that night you know things happen things disagree you get past them you work together in a town and in a community and i want to thank her so much for her service and her support of this town and this community it's been wonderful dan dunne thank you so much for your service i'm sad to see you go thank you everybody on the board and mr. saffoldine i know it's been a very tough year or two and i've tried to be very appropriate when i've had criticism and private in the most part and talk to you individually about things and i'm really sad to see the state things have come in and i really don't like the attacks that are happening and i really appreciate the code of conduct for meetings that's being discussed and i just want to model that the last time i was here i was angry and i was vocal but i've tried to be appropriate and i'm back to say thank you and life goes on after anger and disagreements yes it certainly does and all of us know of kim k holds many many many contributions to the town even in spite of everything that we're all dealing with in the COVID-19 world and actually i'm in a COVID-19 isolation place right now i've had COVID-19 and they're warning me so i may have to go any second so i did want to let you know that oh that's okay that's okay and and as always every member of this board along with the town manager and i want to thank chief flowery over the weekend as well as the town manager in our affiliation with the coalition out of some of all that we have and i'm happy that we're doing everything we can and and kim is being taken care of and she feels she is safe and that i'm very proud of her it was amazing help that i've gotten this weekend and and and healed all the damage that was done over the last couple weeks thank you so much guys you welcome all right you get rested and get better um thank you thank you and so with that that's all i had on for citizens open form amora albert has raised her hand again i'm not sure if she intended to or not well let's find out um just name an address for the record please as soon as you're on don't worry i the reason i am not the moderator and control of this meeting is because you would be amazed at what i could and could not do i can see um miss albert i'm i think can i hear me now i can hear you name an address for the record please maura albert and nineteen wyman terrace and this time i meant to raise my hand because my wife linda who i didn't mention in my introduction has a question well not really a question but a comment i think this is the public comment part um and um really it was a just started out as a suggestion about the books app um i guess experiment or or whatever you're doing um i was thinking about how um i've been getting groceries delivered primarily and i was wondering how it would work if like my street was kind of a public you know whatever you want to call it like the extension of the bike path so i was thinking that if you do this in different places you could designate like one day a week we could advise the people who live there that would be a day we get deliveries because you're not doing it that day or maybe even just certain time during the day um especially if it's going to be ramped up and done on other streets i just know that's something that would be comforting to me as a resident i live there but if i did um that would be what i do consider thank you and um i think mr chaplain there was as we take this by a case by case basis in terms of the street being 100 close there would be exceptions i think all seven days is that correct for yeah so the the way um it was approved tonight local traffic emergency responders and deliveries could still access the road at safe or slow speeds but i think i think what was just described is one of the things we'll be watching not you know how disruptive our delivery vehicles um coming and going through the neighborhood whether it be grocery delivery or amazon or whatever it might be ups fed x and whether or not a designated day is appropriate or if the volume's low enough that it doesn't cause a problem will be something we'll look at during the pilot but i i think it raises an important point for us to pay attention to yeah oh great well thanks and i also just wanted to say how incredibly refreshing it is to hear uh people talking going through the law and the rules and it's just uh even all that we've been living through it's um it's really nice to see the whole government working well that's all thank you so much i'm so excited about it and thank you she's gonna be fantastic along with everybody else um so sorry i'm all i'm really cooped up you the only new people i get to talk to so sorry thank you thank you uh with that citizens open forum there's another there is an additional hand raised okay this will be the last we will move on because we do have um other things but i do want to hear someone who um the name mr chapterling i think i might be mispronouncing the last name jen zipes janet zipes okay um misipes if you could correctly say your name and address up sorry for the record when you're when we can hear you we can see your name but we'll wait until we get audio okay can you hear me now yes we can uh name and address for the record please janet zipes address is 96 spy pond parkway thank you so much so i'm not sure if this is related to the shared streets initiative which i i think is great um but i've noticed in the past few weeks that the traffic lights in east arlington and maybe in the rest of the town are staggered seem to be staggered in a way that it's um taking longer to get around by car um and i've even experienced some significant wait times on lake street waiting to turn to mass av despite very little car traffic so i'm wondering if this is related to the shared streets initiative or part of a traffic calming program or maybe it's the contactless street um the contactless um crossing signs the change that's made there i don't know if any of you have insight into that certainly for first i will tell you not imagining it that that is the case um i every day um the town manager mr chapter lane and health and human services director christine bonjourno and other members of the town hall whether physically there or the police station they meet every day since march 12th when allington took really decisive steps of um taking this extremely seriously and basically discussing every single thing every single day so i think it's not so much as uh traffic calming but i if i could i i'm pretty sure i know the answer but i know mr chapter lane would articulate it better than i um mr chapter lane thank you madam chair so yeah as you said she's she's not imagining it jenni you're not imagining it uh probably six weeks ago now we decided to turn off the need to push the pedestrian button and along massav and broadway have the pedestrian signals come on automatically to reduce the need for people to touch the button and reduce the contact surfaces people will touch so we will be as things start to ramp back up we'll be taking a look at whether or not it's appropriate to keep that in place um so since i say sometimes the next two weeks or so we'll we'll decide whether or not we want to continue that but that that's what you're experiencing is a long massav and broadway us turning uh making the pedestrian signals automatic rather than push button activated okay which i think is a great idea i was just i'm glad to hear i'm not imagining things so thank you you're welcome thank you thank you i have those moments too and sometimes i i am imagining them i maybe but anyways with that we will go to agenda agenda item 11 uh vote of adoption on arlington's hazard mitigation plan our tail manager mr chapter lane thank you madam chair and i know the agenda identifies miss rate however she's at the arb meeting tonight uh tonight what we're looking for is the board to formally adopt this updated or new hazard mitigation plan as the board may recall it received a pretty thorough in-depth presentation several months ago now during this planning process this is the rather than repeating that presentation this is the final plan after hearing feedback from the board after going through the public process working with internal and external stakeholders uh in putting this plan in place uh meets several regulatory guidelines as well as putting us in a position to be able to continue to access grant funds to better protect ourselves against future hazards so do my best to answer any questions the board may have but what we're looking for tonight is a vote of formal adoption of this hazard mitigation plan do i see a motion to adopt by mr heard seconded by mr decorcy uh mr heard on no comments you know i've read through the plan and it was a great presentation a few months back when we went through this additionally so i'm happy to adopt this mr decorcy i feel the same way as mr heard and we had a thorough presentation back in january i think there were a few things added based on the comments that night and um that's fully you're willing to support the plan at this point thank you mr dunn i'm also happy to support it it clearly represents a lot of work and uh you know this is the type of this is the type of preparation that would the generally turns you know what could be a much worse situation into a hopefully less bad one and uh i really appreciate the investment i think it's very good mr carol thank you i'll also be supporting it i i appreciate the inclusion of some of the public feedback that was received and the incorporation of some of the recommendations that also came in thank you and uh mr chapter lane if you could pass along our thanks to miss rate and the planning department they've had so many things they've had to do fast furious um and we needed it three days ago um whether it's the cdbg cares act uh whether it's uh the hazard hazardous mitigation plan all the other normal town business that needs to go on in this covid-19 world um i almost expect that we're not going to get this turnaround when we're undergoing these things because of everything else planning's doing with you know um alley cutter and uh lead economic developer working with the businesses so i just want you to pass on to them um i hope they're taking some time for themselves i know they're working more than 40 hours a week um i hope they can truly try to get a weekend and they don't do this all the time but it is a pre it's hard because we're asking them we need all this stuff done to a run the town and then b keep the town safe and running in covid-19 so um but please our sincere thanks on that mr chapter lane that's i will absolutely pass it along here and you're and you're correct they're a great team that they're keeping uncovid related or coven unrelated uh balls in the air and focusing their efforts on how we're responding to the pandemic as well so yeah my kudos to them as well and i'll pass along the boards thanks thank you so much so if i see any questions and comments if not an emotion by mr herd to adopt seconded by mr decorsi attorney heim roll call please mr decorsi yes mr herd yes mr curel yes mr dunn yes mr mahan yes so unanimous vote agenda item 11 is closed we now go to agenda item 12 discussion the massachusetts f y 21 budget which is one of those balls up in the air that could change at any given minute and our town manager has been very vigilant about um as we get news important news that impacts our town budget whether it's from the state house from the federal government from the long-range planning committee or others so with that i will ask our town manager mr chapter lane thank you madam chair so with the board's indulgence i i'd like to use this agenda item to provide an update on where we stand in the f y 20 budget what we're looking at for the f y 21 budget and how really primarily uh the state's budget for f y 21 impacts how we're thinking about things so um for f y 20 i know sandi and eda covered this a little bit at the board's last meeting or really covered it entirely for f y 20 we are in we're still in solid shape meals tax and hotel tax have been greatly reduced but otherwise local receipts and other tax collections have been near on par with past fiscal years and the big item we'd be worried about is whether or not there would be a mid-year state aid cut based on the tax revenues that the state is losing during this current fiscal year fiscal year 20 however the governor has said on numerous occasions it's likely too late in the year for state aid cuts and that the state will limp to the end of f y 20 in the governor's word so we feel we feel good about our ability to finish f y 20 in the black despite these very challenging circumstances f y 21 and beyond obviously is much more uncertain and likely to be much more challenging uh just a few months ago you know we were still in the the early early days or months after a successful override last year and looking at our long range plan and how much better our picture uh was looking after the governor's budget came out but unfortunately that has changed uh with the onset of this pandemic right now uh state officials are expecting anywhere between a four to six billion dollar revenue shortfall next year or they they expect to collect four to six billion dollars less than what had been projected in the governor's budget which was released in january so that is a tremendous percentage of their budget if you take out their non-discretionary spending on health care it's almost 25 percent of their budget so it's obviously very likely that we will see a significant state aid cut next year there is the possibility of further federal assistance though hard to count on that at this point which could backfill some of that revenue gap but i would still expect one way or the other to be for there to be severe or significant impacts in terms of state aid and FY 21 and beyond so we are we don't know what those numbers will be and the state like us doesn't really know what the exact impacts of this pandemic will be on an ongoing basis so it's going to be very hard for them to adopt a budget and they may even choose to adopt one 12th budgets for the first few months of the fiscal year starting on july 1st so that will be it'll be interesting to watch how that plays out over the next several months however locally two weeks ago we met with our revenue working group and last week met with our long-range planning committee to discuss what we thought a range of scenarios might be from a revenue point of view and then what the corresponding expense changes might need to be in FY 21 so last week we met with the long-range planning committee we discussed impacts on our own local receipt collections our own projections of free cash our own expectations for what state aid would be how much overlay surplus we may or may not want to use as an operating revenue on a go-forward basis and we ultimately agreed to meet again this friday as a long-range planning committee and we were though no decisions were made we're honing in on the assumption of an approximate 15 percent cut in state aid for FY 21 and the committee asked both myself and sandy on the town side and superintendent bodie and mike mason on the school side to come up with two expenditure scenarios one where we look at reducing what our expected increase in FY 21 was supposed to be and reduce that by 10 percent which is a moderate to light expenditure reduction and we're also we've also been asked to look at it much more serious so much heavier cut which would be just level funding the FY 21 budgets for the town and the school as compared to FY 20 which would be a much much more significant reduction so we're going to bring back the frameworks of those two those two approaches to the committee on friday and then hopefully within a week or two from friday we'll be able to go to the finance committee with recommended alterations to the FY 21 budget so the finance committee can consider those and then produce a final finance committee report which would ultimately go before a town meeting currently expected to be held on june 15 so i tried to go through that there's a lot to parse through there but i tried to go through that pretty quickly i'd be happy to answer any questions the board might have okay first if i could take a motion to move receipt by mr currow seconded by mr decorcy mr currow thank you for the update it's obviously of you know great concern i'll i'll look forward to hearing the outcome of the long-range planning discussions you know clearly if if if the outlook is as dire as it seems to be for the state you know looks like it is going to impact you know one or more of the commitments that we made you know prior to last year's override i mean if the math doesn't add up so i think it's going to be very important as long-range planning runs through scenarios and you come back to the board to um with you know your intended path that that we are all clear about how how um those commitments are are are impacted so that we can assist in the uh the communication around those thank you mr decorcy yeah thank you madam chair and mr dunn and i attended the the long-range planning committee meeting last week as is the board's designates to the committee and it's being particularly difficult because we don't know what the state government's going to do but state government doesn't know what the federal government's going to do and it makes such a big difference and and of course um we may not know for several months whether there's going to be federal funds available to backfill revenue losses or if there is a future act that that will provide state and local relief and and so that's what makes it so challenging in terms of what you do in terms of the projections but i think we had a good discussion last week and tell me and you laid it out in terms of what the ranges of um possibilities are for for fiscal 21 and and we'll have a further discussion this friday but to mr cura's point and there's no question is there are certain assumptions made in terms of what state aid will be over a period of time next four or five years and those change dramatically as other assumptions and i think the important thing for us is to try to get as good of information as we can um act on it come back to the board to the people and let them know what's going on but but really continue to press the need for federal help because that's that's really critical and and because states and local governments have to have balanced budgets we're reliant on the federal government in terms like this to to backfill frankly and so we'll just have to keep our eye on that and and meet regularly okay thank you and i must say i miss remembered i had in my head that mr cura or mr decorcy were on long range um finance committee i couldn't remember um who mr decorcy stepped in for i usually try to call on the people who are on the committee first so apologies to my colleague mr dunn mr dunn thank you madam chair um i agree with uh with the with the previous comments and entirely and uh adding to the list of unknowns include things like what is school going to look like in the fall and are they going to be able how many kids are going to be in the classroom or are they going to be remote learning or are there going to be two shifts and that is going to have dramatic impact on the you or one could imagine it could have could have dramatic impact on the school budgets and we also don't have a way of looking at that right now um i guess the one thing that i want that i'm that i'm particularly concerned about is that uh when you think about our other multi-year plans we've always gotten if we got a surprise it was always a good surprise early on and it made those multi-year plans effectively relatively easy for us to stick to because we got good news early that we could then carry on and uh we are in the unfortunate situation where we're getting bad news early and i think that that really means that we we you know this is yet another thing that we can't just do what we've done before and i do think that that's going to require us to look harder and be more aggressive about cutting and i uh one of the proposals i got an email from another member of Long Range Planning afterwards was to consider doing the moderate cut for 21 but level fund the budget for 20 FY 22 FY 23 FY 24 which means of course if you level fund the budget it does mean reduction in uh you know in staff it probably doesn't mean layoffs it probably means through attrition and such but it does remain a reduction in services and i think that that's a very serious proposal that we should think about because uh we i think that we we may need to start thinking what that is that look like there are a lot of things the good news bad news about that is that if we adopt that level budget look forward there's still plenty of months for us to be pleasantly surprised and then be able to add money back in but it also sets the posture where we're kind of where we were thinking about the hard choices that we need to make rather because i don't think autopilot or cruise control is going to get us through this i think it's going to require us to make some hard choices thank you mr don mr hard thank you for the presentation you it was the numbers are bleak but not unexpected but it gives me confidence to know that the town is being proactive in anticipation of what could be some tough times to come and you know certainly y'all old outage plan for the worst and hope for the best applies here where it's a wait-and-see situation i'm glad to see that we're taking steps to prepare for it thank you mr chopped lane i saw i've read everything because everything is sent to everybody like you all have to so i may be mixing apples and sneakers at this point so please correct me if it's not relevant but i have in my head that i review reviewed a release either from state senator cindy freedman and our representative shon garbally outlining sort of end of end of week summary um and saying that i believe i could be scrambled eggs uh under the federal's cares act arlington's designation was approximately four million am i correct on that so yes but can it do would you like me to explain that whatever it's going to say is could you explain that because i don't know if it's yes could you explain that so right now the state has in its coffers 500 million dollars approximately from the cares act that is airmarked for distribution to cities and towns so our initial uh take from that is just shy of four million dollars but right now based on the way the cares act was written none of that money can be used to backfill uh revenue loss and none of it can be used um it can and it can't be used for already prior budgeted expenses can right now only be used for COVID-19 related response so we are um rapidly compiling all of our money spent to date on our COVID-19 response as well as what we think we might spend in the future um but unless there's a change in the way the cares act is written that money is not going to be able to save us from what we're talking about right now now it is worth mentioning there are multiple horses riding in washington right now there is an ongoing effort to change the regulations of the existing cares act so those monies can be used in a different way and there are further stimulus bills being discussed that could funnel money either to states or directly to cities and towns but uh yes it's accurate that there is a large amount of cares act money that could be available to the town the challenge is um what exactly we can do with that money per the cares act regulation is an ongoing dialogue and am i correct that um just i'm trying to get at the information that the funding initial funding we received under cdbg cares act two of approximately six hundred and seventy thousand and we anticipate but things could always change at the last minute a possible uh second funding um to that facet of cdbg um is that included in the four million or is that separate from that totally separate pots but like um what you just stated on the possible four million we still have the same uh stringent or not stringent um in terms of the cdbg cares to act funding we just received and may received a second um allocation there are also really uh strict guidelines around that or do we have a little more flexibility i think i know the answer but i want to ask the general cares act money is is not restricted by income eligibility or census block or census tract limitations like the HUD money is like the cdbg money but it is restricted for what it can be expended on okay and i guess i would leave it to uh the town manager and anyone else in finance committee long range planning town council in terms of um if there's any way um the way the language is written about the four million that where we now have um what the governor has issued today in terms of um opening up the economy and um the board boards of health already have um enforcement powers um but have been uh extolled or um added to that in terms of part of the enforcement of um opening up massachusetts safely and slowly i was just saying i guess i'll leave it to you all in terms of um saying it couldn't go to a personnel couldn't go to a salary per se but i don't know if the case if it's worth it could be made to say we now have employees um that we budgeted under salary for job duties and responsibilities that now are doing additional doing all that and on top of that and i don't know if there was some way you know if it was allowed through the law that even partial um monies from that four million could go to salaries my point being if we can find a way that we we can be allocated and spend that four million don't go through that exercise but i would hate like everybody else too when we're making the hard decisions to not do everything we can you know legally which is what we should do for that and then my second question is again scramble legs um i've been um listening and um reading some uh statements and and view tubes from senate president caron spilka and she keeps referencing and i have not done my research or my homework that um the the she anticipates the senate to come out by july first with a possible proposal and my read on it is it's still going to be um we're we have the option of doing a budget a one and 12 budget doing it monthly but that may be the senate has some other way that that they're going to propose so my thing is do you know what might be coming out of that and is that something we would even avail ourselves up because i don't want to you know spend extra time on something i shouldn't but i think what you might be referring to is a bill the senate has passed and is now before the house that would allow for a remote town meeting okay i'll send you yeah no there was something yeah no she kept you kept referencing the one slash 12 um and then monthly budget so you know what maybe i'm misreading it and i'll forward it to you yeah the all legislation that's already passed would allow the town to do a one-twelfth budget um and i but i know the senate and the house have been talking about doing one-twelfth budgets for the state uh which would mean our clarity on a number wouldn't come until the fall likely um but we currently if we if we thought the most prudent course was to do one-twelfth budgets we could we currently could do that under existing law okay thank you um so um with that on a motion to move receipt by mr carol seconded by mr decorcy any further questions and comments if not attorney heim roll call please there is a hand raised madam chair i don't know if you want to take any comments or questions from the normally don't but since it is a budget item and we're in cova 19 if you could just give me the person's name i will take this person uh it's elizabeth drae okay uh mr drae if you could just say your name and address for the record when you're unmuted we can see your name but i can see that your microphone i think you might be on now i think i don't know if mr i can hear us i'm hearing a little bit of clicking so i want to give it a little bit more time and her name is gone so um uh attorney heim roll call mr decorcy yes mr herd yes mr curill yes you're done yes miss mahogan yes that is a unanimous vote agenda item 12 is now closed we now go to agenda item 13 policy review code of conduct um i'm gonna have very little to say on this i'll let mr curill explain it um uh i did ask that if you would afford me the opportunity is nearing the end of my 14 month 12 month chairmanship that um i wanted to pass the gavel which has been sanitized and i haven't touched it since march 12th i've been back in the chambers um just to formally ask him in one of my last duties is chair to uh basically oversee this uh board item but with a time frame that i'll let him explain it mr curill yeah thank you madam chair um yeah i don't i don't have a lot more to say um on this at the last meeting i had um actually referenced um a couple of forums that i attended during the master's municipal association's annual meeting in uh january i attended two panel discussions um one was on social media policies um and actually one of the presenters was liz valerio who's been a long time a labor council for for us um and i also attended one on uh it was public speaking and civility so it was around really the conduct of public meetings um and i'd say both of these panels they they kind of talked about the covenant and the two-way street and and policies that public bodies can take to kind of set expectations around their own behavior as well as expectations for for the conduct of you know civil discourse through their meetings um so we've had a lot of questions that have come up over time i the material that's on novice is really just all of the handouts that i that were provided to panel participants there's the presentation of from the social media panel there is the presentation from the public speaking civility panel a couple of model policies from some other massachusetts communities as well as a tip sheet that was actually put together by a school board association that has a lot of good information in it the nature of the mma meetings as you all know is is the audience is mixed so you know some of the audience will be you know select board members and elected officials and others will be um municipal administrators and managers so i'd say that nothing that's in here is really like something you could lift and shift to to arlington because of our particular form of of municipal government but what i wanted to suggest or offer is to take some of these materials and these ideas and take a look at the the select board policy handbook once we get past town meeting which i know that town council is is deep in town meeting if the board is so inclined i'd like to offer to to work with town council on a model policy that would be appropriate for us and for inclusion in the handbook that addresses some some of these issues and then bring it back at some point you know we will have you know one or two new members at that time as well for for consideration by the board and that's really all i wanted to present make sure that you had all the material thank you so much and we don't need a vote on this it's more just laying the the groundwork and passing it over to the next incoming chair after we get through our unique town meeting you know into the fall beginning of winter i'll leave that to the incoming chair and mr caroll's discretion on that so now we go to you're going to decide whether dan and i move on or stay on in our current roles agenda item 14 discussion June 2020 select board meetings as you know we have the June 8th meeting which is an organizational meeting but it also can be a business meeting but with June i believe June 22nd is the anticipated or stated date of our regular town meeting focused merely purely on the town budgets and doing the business of the town so we really can't count the 22nd as a select board meeting and again with continuing on with doing the town's business what say you all um do you want to add June 1st or June 15th i'm not sure it's funny to say everyone check their schedules but you really do have to because i don't know like anybody else i'm working doing so much you know what work here at home i've never worked so much i did less work when i went out to do my job but um uh what say you uh who wants mr don or mr decorcy the first versus the eighth i was thinking the what let me not the first versus the 15th or some other night anyone madam chair uh i will obviously be delighted to attend any meeting that's called before june 6th but at the same time i wonder whether to me i would be asking my question is uh do you need a meeting after the election but before town meeting okay so that's one six one five um i think we do um for the select board's office to uh get the how out if we do this can we all look at our schedules and see if we're available june 1st um if we do need that second meeting and then i will check with the select board's office and mrs kruppelka to a do we need that meeting if we don't i'll let them communicate that and if she says yes we do but it would be better on the 15th um i will instruct them to have that as an agenda item on june 8th is that too confused is that okay mr chaplain we may want to come back on june 1st with the results of the shared streets pilot so i i don't mean to bring the board in unnecessarily but if we if we have results they're positive and we want to move forward i i think we'd like the opportunity if the board's willing so harlington's 2020 groundhog day select board kovat 19 i'm sorry no i i feel like we like is it monday i'm meeting right but anyways is that i don't mean to be disrespectful and show me about that i've never seen the movie ground day groundhog day but i kind of understood the concept but living it is a whole nother thing mr de coursey is that june 1st uh amenable okay with you yeah that that's fine i'm glad mr chaplain spoke up i think the uh mr curl mr herd and i were reluctant to throw out a date and and um i think for that reason that he cited and also that there it will be two weeks passing and there may be a need to appoint more election workers that evening so reluctantly and i'm looking more at mr dunn here because uh that will require another meeting of him but uh i think it probably does make sense i'm just gonna put a meeting every day that week but anyways mr hard yep it works for me it's a very little inconvenience to mark down to the basement so i guess i'll see you there oh mr curill yeah it works for me i mean my my only concern with it would be if um if it was an issue for the staff where they're getting ready for the election um i know we usually avoid uh mondays when there's a tuesday election so i don't know if that's that's an issue i want want that checked but um i i can see um the wisdom in having that and just just for clarification i mean we're definitely looking to schedule june 8th correct that's already that has to happen yeah yeah that's a real organizational meeting correct correct that's why i ask it yep okay okay and though my friend it seems your fate is sealed i still will turn to you mr dunn and ask for you to be delighted to join you all on june 1st okay um attorney haim do we need a vote on that or i i think it's probably wise that we take one just in case okay so we'll move uh approval by mr dunn who's smiling at the fact of doing that seconded by mr curill who also is agreeing with that wholeheartedly um to schedule a regularly scheduled meeting for monday june 1st 7 15 p.m june 1st 2020 roll call please attorney haim mr jacorsi yes mr hurray yes mr curill yes mr dunn yes mr mawn yes okay and so we will hear from we all missus kruppalka but the select board's office did say you know it looks like they might need another night to meet so um we're prepared and we can big thing pivot if we have to i'd like to say adaptive i'd say pivot whatever we now go to final votes and comments articles for review article 50 endorsement of cdbg application article 51 revolving funds article 52 endorsement of parking benefit district expenditures is there a motion to approve final votes and comments on articles 50 51 and 52 so moved moved by mr curill to coursey seconded by mr herd i know we've all had the opportunity to read it are there any amendments deletions or if not on a motion by mr de coursey seconded by mr herd to move approval final votes and comments of article 50 51 and 52 attorney haim roll call please mr de coursey yes mr herd yes yes done yes mr mawn yes and that is a unanimous vote for final votes and comments we now go to correspondence received we have two um from patricia barron awarding um as well as one from uh beth malofchuk first is there a motion to move receipt by move receipt mr herd seconded by second mr curill any comments or questions on either of these pieces of correspondence if not an emotion move receipt by mr herd seconded by mr curill attorney haim roll call please mr de coursey yes mr herd yes mr curill yes yes mawn yes a unanimous vote on correspondence received five zero we now go to new business uh town council attorney haim just one small piece of new business going on right now we received two uh timely applications for host community agreements for retail marijuana dispensaries one from callix peak i believe applied in the previous round and one from a new applicant called the human connection just for the public's information the process is that there is a preliminary review team made up of different department heads that will take a look at these applications do things like background checks examine the claims made and then make sure they're in the proper zoning areas then we'll have to convene the marijuana study group to take a look at these applications um and provide any substantive questions or comments the board before the board convenes a hearing to decide which applicants if any it wants to grant um a the last sort of remaining license to it it's a little bit complicated because the hca shouldn't be confused with the special permit but realistically speaking it's unlikely that we would want to have a situation where we have more than three hca's at any given time the board is not obligated to issue any hca's thank you thank you excuse me thank you attorney i'm our tail manager mr chapter lane thank you madam chair three pieces i'd like to briefly touch on one brief election update for the board so i think as the board is aware the postcard that serves as the early early mail-in voting request form or application went out last week and i heard today that people have started receiving the postcard so folks can get that back into the clerk's office they'll turn it around as quickly as possible to get those ballots back to anybody who sends that signed card in we've also purchased and acquired three drop boxes and picked sites for them there will be one in east darlington at the corner of mass av in lake on the winter street side near town tavern there will be one in front of town hall on the lower plaza so down below the stairs on the brick part of the plaza and there will be one on the heights at the corner mass av and park av in front of or nearby the the clock or what used to be brigham's diggums or now of the optometrists location so those three will be there they will be very plainly and easily marked saying ballots only do not insert mail so either absentee ballots or early voting ballots can be put in so that people won't have to pay posters to drop those off we're currently still meeting mostly every other day a sort of a cross functional team of myself town council health and human services facilities select board's office clerk's office as well as the public information officer to make sure that we're doing all we can to both provide outreach and notification about this election as well as plan safely for the election i want to give a special thanks to jim fene the interim facilities director in jim o'connor the assistant town moderator town meeting member as well as a warden who's really been providing us his invaluable expertise in the way polling places actually worked and he's been going with jim fene location by location and providing detailed schematics of how we're going to safely get people to come in one way access their ballot inserted into the voting machine and then leave another way so that we can safely have people enter an exit without any cross current so there'll be more updates to come but i wanted to provide that update to the board tonight in regards to the election i also wanted to mention the work of the economic recovery task force that the board created at its last last meeting it's now already met three times i had provided the board a memo via email of their work to date they met again today and starting at the board's next meeting they'd like to start making a regular update to the board on the work that they've done progress they've made and potentially changes or relief they might want to seek either through the board or other means so that work has been has been ongoing i think it's also very timely and obviously important given the governor's announcements today about the start of a reopening i think today was a soft start with manufacturing and construction but more to come next week and then obviously future phases to come so we're going to continue to focus on from both an economic and planning point of view but also a public health point of view how we best start to reopen our LinkedIn over the course of the next few months and then finally i'd like to mention that i heard from several board members today as well as several residents and others about a very disturbing incident that occurred in the mugar woods on saturday evening there was a fire involving propane tanks that was very rightfully disturbing to many of the residents in that area so i plan to obviously communicate with board members but work closely with the chief of police the director of health and human services in town council to develop what that what the right next step is this is not an issue that's been ignored it's actually an issue that health and human services the police department working with the summer bill homeless coalition has paid a real tremendous amount of attention to over the past few years this board created a homelessness task force which has been populated in meeting so a lot of focus attention and efforts have been put into working with this population but the incident that occurred saturday night has obviously increased people's desire to for us to to focus more and see what we can do to create a safe environment so those discussions will be happening in the next few days and i hope to be able to report more publicly soon and that's all i have thank you madam chair thank you mr chapter lane mr decorsi thank you madam chair and thank you mr chapter lane for for the comments on the the incident that the mugar site it was very troubling and and we had a discussion earlier today and and the town has been doing a lot there but it's a very challenging situation i know that that you've already reached out as you said to to different agencies within the town and you know probably outside the town as well regionally so i look forward to working with you on that one piece of new business since since our last meeting i attended a a salute that took place it happened at mount auburn hospital mount auburn hospital is one of the two hospitals that our linkedin rescue brings patients to and in fact the primary location and there was a salute that day of first responders to health care workers and the linkedin police and fire department belmont cambridge and water town all saluted the health care workers he has a picture from that day of the police department and the engine two and this is a very powerful very powerful presentation because you can see there the the health care workers came out just before the the police and fire came down to salute them and and that very morning the the boston symphony had released a virtual presentation of some of the heroes which they dedicated to first responders and health care workers and the heroes were here in your picture and just we've seen this across the country but i watched it and it found to be very moving and and again throughout this whole pandemic i want to thank our first responders and our health care workers and so many others who are working so hard thank you mr jacarcy excuse me i'm getting that tickle again mr herd yep just two things um so as i alluded to earlier the economic development economic recovery task force has met twice now uh two weeks straight i just want to thank the economic development coordinator alicata and planning director jenny rate for their work with the uh with the task force it's really it's we're very early in the process but we can already tell that bringing the businesses together to brainstorm on ideas on how to move forward as we get more information from the state as to when the business can do so it will be very beneficial um so i look forward to continuing with the task force um and then just want to remind everyone that memorial day is coming up and there is still going to be an event it will be closed to the public but you can look for it on acmi it starts at at 9 30 a.m jeff chunglow has been doing a lot of work to continue to honor fallen soldiers on memorial day even in the midst of this pandemic so be sure to look for that on acmi thank you mr herd mr curell uh thank you very much i i just wanted to note that um in addition to the um postcards i received my early voting ballot my wife and i did today so folks should be looking for those in the mail as well because they they have gone out um i would have had more new business but we have chosen to keep the gavel in your hand and mr dunn in his seat for one more meeting so uh i will defer until june 1st thank you one more time mr dunn uh i was ready to give a report on long-range planning but i think we covered it sufficiently and uh i think that uh mr decorsi covered the thank you's better than i can so i think that's enough for me it's enough for you um mr chapter lane spoke to mugar um and i will for i'm going forward to mr chapter lane and mr decorsi the correspondence i received from mack mccabe and um with that forwarding i'll not give it another thought and let the two of you follow through on that if that's okay um i did want to bring up a something that i believe is already starting to be addressed because of the seriousness of the um incident we received correspondence myself and i believe mr chapter lane from a resident on appleton street and that correspondence has been time and date stamped by the select board's office for a resident who witnessed that unfortunate tragic accident um and i'm not speaking to any causation or anything like that i don't know any particulars but my you know hot goes out to everybody on that as well as someone who witnessed it and she has some statements about what she witnessed that day that was very sad so um when i had it stamped correspondence received in the office i mentioned it to the town manager and i believe it's something that he has already been addressing so i don't think it will need to be an agenda item but i want to check with mr chapter lane on that um letter from the email from the resident regarding the accident on appleton street and possible referral mr chapter lane due to the nature of the issue the police department has already asked tack to renew a review of that intersection so if the board was so inclined we've already discussed with the town council to take a vote to endorse that tack review i think that would be in line okay um since this is an emergency situation um unless attorney heim tells me otherwise if uh attorney heim i'm sorry mr chapter lane um just to be just to be clear it's it's your position that the board's vote is is necessary for referral in this case i i know i don't think it's necessary i mean i think practice has been the board sends things to tack but i don't i don't believe that it's actually quantified anywhere i think i think what i'd prefer is is is you can also use you the town manager can also use tack as a resource and it wasn't on um it'll be on our next agenda's correspondence receipt but i don't want to slow down the process so with my colleagues agreement on that um prefer to leave it that way and if we need to take a procedural vote we'll do that at the next meeting um is that okay i'm going to take that visit yes thank you so much and then um i want to um thank mr herd for his service on what is going to be an extremely busy economic development committee um i have been um putting a lot on alley cotter and jenny rates of the planning department's plate um and one of the things that i discussed with her this weekend which will mean more work for you all i went into one of the cleaners which different one than mine and spoke to the woman who was behind there making her own face mask ace cleaners they were five dollars kids and adults and um i could see that she you know was really stressed and i started talking to her about the quality of the mask and you know how did she get her her price point of five and five and i could see that um she wasn't she was familiar with that term but a different way and then um i started to fill out information just you know direct her to alley cutter and her email and she said she didn't know anything about email she's never used it and then i asked her about you know these days a small business you really have to get your word out safely and that's usually through social media she didn't know about face and she's a very intelligent woman you know she can speak english and um her nativation um language and it became apparent so um i just wrote some information on her card she does have a daughter i asked to call alley and so what i posed to ali that i'd like the committee to address is a lot of the small businesses um not just cleaners restaurants and others um not only uh they not familiar or use social media or websites they don't even have the laptops or um the capability whether financially or not so when i was talking to ali about that she said she'd discuss it with the committee sort of go through and target those businesses will identify those businesses and have um whether it's a mailing or whether it's um people from the town going out safely to deliver that information with a possible translation at top and and so the reason i say that is um i would like this committee when they go through um economic development especially for small business um whether it's through the town planning whether it's through the chamber of commerce or something else that a lot of these small businesses just need to know um governor says pivot i say adapt you know i said to her you know you're a cleaner you're doing face masks you should put that down also and you know think of it like earlier we were talking about possibly a pilot program for uh businesses on the car corridor um restaurants and the like you know so make sure those people um know that they need to rethink how to stay afloat and survive um and that there is a resource so i'm sorry i'm longing the truth on that but i'm just like like all of us i just feel for these small businesses and then um my last well i thought this was my last meeting uh you thought just when you're but also um i have never done this and i think uh mr don and mr kiro really rubbing off on me um but i wrote something this morning about 30 45 minutes before the governor came out with his um reopening plan and just reading comments over the weekend and leading up to it and really seeing um two opposing sides um in terms of you know what would be announced and what wouldn't be announced as well as so far the five years allington and we all have gone through since march 12th um i just wanted to put something out and i just thought it was appropriate and uh before i adjourn take a motion to adjourn my head's gone i just wanted to read it um and i put as we embark on phase one and i'm not wanting to get into a debate of government control versus public health precautions i hope when the governor puts forth his advisory board recommendations for reopening massachusetts that everyone will act on the side of caution and remember that we're far from coming out on the other side of this i know the current situation stinks and people are getting a bit antsy to return to the normal life but that's about a year or two away and we probably will never completely return to normal life please remember the reasons we have been and will continue to need to wear face masks and coverings and practice social distancing i have to say since march 12th i have seen so many acts of kindness here in arlington kindness toward our family's friends neighbors and businesses as well as the partnership between the town and our community i've been humbled by your actions arlington by coming together to support local businesses by looking out for your neighbors and making sure they're safe and have what they need by watching friends help each other whether it's around food security or even starting the most recent social trend wine social media groups by making sure our high school seniors get the acknowledgement they deserve at reaching graph graduation and due to their sacrifices missing out on important milestones like prom traditional graduation ceremony last day of school signing each other's year books staying overnight at arlington high school last last party just to name a few in order to obtain our collective goal of flattening the curve of COVID-19 and saving lives along with this i'm so thankful for the many acts of appreciation towards all those working on the front line and our first responders whether they be health care public safety developmental residential workers all essential store workers that remain open for us and the list goes on we need to continue to keep them in our prayers and thoughts and wish them good health and strength as they work every day and night to help us get through this i suspect someone some will be undoubtedly disappointed today with the governor's decisions later this morning but i do feel he and the advisory board have stuck to relying on the data from the medical experts in the field and we need to adapt survive and thrive moving forward i'd love to return to the days before we had this COVID-19 world that took over but we have to face our new reality and move forward from there some have asked me if being an elect official in these times is sort of a no-win situation but i don't feel that way at all i've been working really hard to get it right and we'll continue to do that while trying to serve as a positive force here in allington the community i love so much so i'll stop there i apologize for the length of dismissive but remember i'm also a cheerleading coach and as bob sprague wrote i am honored to be known as a cheerleader for allington and with that before announcing our next select board meeting will be june 1st i will take a motion to adjourn by no moved mr herd seconded by second mr dunn um non-debatable and a motion to adjourn by mr herd seconded by mr dunn attorney heim roll call please mr decorsi yes mr herd yes mr curel yes you're done yes mr mawn yes thank you goodnight god bless america allington america where am i i'm losing it good night everybody good night everybody