 Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Board of Selection Meeting for Monday night, January 23rd, 2017. Before we get into the first item on the agenda, what I'd like to do is, Allington has lost a really sweet soul, a sweet angel. Courtney Lynn Jones, 25 years old. Known her since she was pretty much a baby. Her mom, Robin, and her grandparents, Marilyn, and Richard, or as Marilyn says, my Richie. She is extremely active in Allington Pop Warner, in Allington Community Theater, in Magicals, singing, acting, and such a positive soul, and I have a pretty active, like everybody else, Facebook account, and I'm going to say 75% of the postings that came through were from people that I know and videos that I was fortunate to be there, but then also a lot of people I didn't know who shared a lot of love for her, and also really rallied with Courtney and her family in her truly courageous battle against cancer, as other loved ones have gone through. So on behalf of my colleagues who asked and joined with me in doing this tonight, we want to extend to her mom, Robin, and her grandparents, Marilyn, and Richard, our deepest, deepest condolences, and just have a very short moment of silence. Thank you, and I also want to thank the town manager. A lot of people have contacted me. Courtney had a rare form of liver cancer, which the color is green. Some of you may have seen across Allington, Courtney Strong in green with shamrocks. I've been contacted by 20, 30 people thanking me for lighting up Town Hall Green. I had nothing to do with it. I would like to say that I did, but I do want to thank our town manager, Mr. Chapter Lane, and Patsy Cramer, and others who were involved in putting that together. So don't mean to start on such a somber note, but if Courtney were here tonight, you all would be giggling and laughing, and she'd be entertaining you like crazy. So for Courtney, we're going to move on to the Board of Selectment First agenda item, which is a sort of bit of sweet proclamation. A couple here in Allington who has been, I can't even begin to say how they've helped the town of Allington, campaigns, nonprofits, et cetera, in terms of their longstanding business. I'm very happy for them in terms of the next step that Chuck and Nancy are taking. Kind of a little bit sad for all of us, because I always knew where I could find you all from Monday through Friday. So that's the bittersweet part. But Mr. Grilly had asked for this particular agenda item, so I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Grilly. Kevin. Thank you, Madam Chair. And first of all, my apologies to Chuck and Nancy. We were supposed to do this two weeks ago when I was sick. And tonight, my sister-in-law, Carol, who really is the one that started this, she's sick. I think she got whatever I had before. But there was a letter in the advocate this past week. I don't know if you all saw it, but it was by my good friend Jimmy Nicholson. And he was thanking the volunteers who have worked at the Boys and Girls Club Christmas Tree, their major fundraiser. They sold out like a week and a half before Christmas again. But the quote was something like, the world is hugged by the arms of volunteers. And the arms that were about to read this proclamation for have certainly hugged this town of Arlington and especially Arlington Heights. So let's bring them right up to the microphone to embarrass them even more. Chuck and Nancy. And the rest of you, we do public proclamations here. This comes from the Yole tradition, where a town crier the next day after a selectman's meeting would proclaim what had been decided that night. So there's a lot of where-as is and now therefore you're doing the where-as's. Don't make me call on any of you individually. Let's have it nice and loud now. So here we go. Where-as. Charles J. Papas Jr. is the founder and co-owner of Arlington Swifty Printing, a small family run commercial retail and trade print shop in Arlington, Massachusetts, established in 1980. Chuck attended Arlington High School, North Eastern University, where he started a nightclub directory publishing a listing of events at local nightclubs and eventually Suffolk University, where he studied journalism and communications. And. Where-as. Very nice. Chuck opened up a small office in East Arlington in 1980, purchasing a photo type setter to do the pre-press production of the magazine Disco Club News Entertainment New England. Disco Club, Chuck. He stopped publishing the magazine after one year, focusing solely on typesetting and printing and. Where-as. Chuck eventually moved his business to Arlington Heights, where in the past 10 years the focus has shifted to a business-to-business commercial printer. Today Arlington Swifty Printing has become a leader in digital technology and workflow for the small print shop and. Where-as. Chuck married Nancy after they worked together. He came in one of Arlington's most recognizable and impactful couples, maintaining not only their business, but also their grand view road home in Arlington. Chuck and Nancy have adopted a responsible business model over these past five years, with the focus to using recycled paper and purchasing equipment that leaves a smaller impact on the world. This model includes not just green sustainability, but a deeper quest to find products and vendors with similar philosophies and products produced in a responsible manner. And. Where-as. Chuck and Nancy were instrumental in helping revive Arlington First Lights, transforming their parking lot into a petting zoo, with pony rides and photos with Santa for children and families as part of this December celebration of Arlington businesses. Arlington Swifty Printing has been a paragon of local charity supporting the Arlington Educational Foundation, Trivia B and numerous other non-profit and school organizations. Last one. Where-as. Chuck, as former president and longtime member of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, has contributed to building and maintaining a vibrant business community. Chuck and Nancy have long enjoyed retreats to St. Augustine, Florida. It's almost over. And I look forward to spending their well-earned retirement years there. Now therefore be it resolved that we, the members of the Board of Selectment, to congratulate and thank Chuck, Nancy and Swifty Printing for their many contributions to the town and do hereby declare this 23rd day of January of 2017 to be Charles and Nancy Papas Day throughout the town of Arlington and ask all citizens to pay heed thereto. But amazingly enough, came from St. Augustine. We were down there walking around as a museum of oddities. We went in and there was a picture. Well, first, if we went in, he asked us where we were from. We said Arlington. He said, wait a minute, don't go anyplace. It goes in the back room, comes out, he says, I've got a picture for you. All the way from Arlington, the junior high west with A. Henry Audison as a student. Oh, that's awesome. In all the signatures. I was going to say, I saw the signatures of all the students from now. 1942. That we had hanging in the store. And that's Henry right there. So we had to purchase it. We've had it hanging in the store. A lot of people have come in. So I'd like to present it to the town. Thank you. Little hug in the kiss there, Nance. Thank you so much. Much better. Thank you. Although I just gave it to you, but Thank you. Thank you very much. See you. That's awesome, though, isn't it? With Audison himself in it. Oh, our director of the chambers here, perhaps, Beth. I'll be very quick. My name is Beth Locke. I'm the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce. This is Kathleen Darcy from Cambridge Savings Bank, a member of the executive board of the chamber. And we'd just like to take a quick minute to recognize Chuck and Nancy. As Kevin said, Chuck and Nancy have been involved in the chamber for many years. Chuck being the former president in 99 2000 around then. Does that sound right? Carol and I put Kevin way back. I think I went through some records today. It looked like around 99 2000. So I just wanted to take a quick moment to recognize you with this certificate and a gift. It's a certificate of appreciation presented to Chuck and Nancy Pappas of Arlington Swiftie printing for your many years of membership and service to the Arlington Chamber of Commerce and with recognition of your contributions and dedication to the Arlington business community. I'd like to thank you very much and a little gift from Chuck and Nancy. And thank you for that great find. I'm going to, with the town manager and perhaps Mr. Curo, sort of strategize on an appropriate place for it. I'm kind of thinking maybe at the Autison. But if I could, Mr. Curo, with the town manager, assign the two of you stewards of that fantastic photograph and see maybe, you know, where the colleagues on the school committee and Dr. Bodie think might be an appropriate place to have that hang. Because I think that will inspire so many questions, especially if you can have a name plate or something other and say this is, you know, Mr. Autison when he was here at the Autison of the West and East when I went to the school. Oh, that's fantastic. So I can see some really innovative teachers up at Autison Middle School. Really kind of maybe building a lesson or two around this. Or not. I'm not trying to dictate any curriculum. We're the townside there, the schoolside. But I think that's like fantastic. That is so fantastic. I'm so excited. I worked in the library as a teenager in high school. So things like that, when you find them in the archive, you're like, bingo. I noticed the dress code. I did. And thank you once again upon your moving on that you give something back to the town of Ellington. I really do appreciate it. And with that, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Gender item two, Minutes of Meetings, January 9, 2017, a request for a special one day beer and wine license from Lisa Padula, Ellington Center for the Arts on January 28, 2017 at the Robbins Memorial Town Hall for the Ellington Center for the Arts Gala. Then we have reappointments, all terms to expire January 31, 2020, Board of Youth Services, Mary DeCorsi, Joan Lyric, Carly Newell, Commission on Arts and Culture, Calla Dorado, Amy Tabinar, Commission on Disability, Susan Janes, Conservation Commission, Eileen Coleman, Michael Esnani, Historical Commission, Diane Schaefer, Poxson Rec Commission, Shirley Keneff, Redevelopment Board, Andrew Bennell, Trust Fund Commission, Damon Barglow, as well as a request for change of hours for all alcohol license on behalf of NART, your average Joe's, Lauren Dexter, manager. Is there a motion to approve, Mr. Greerly? We need to take the minutes of January 9 separate, Madam Chair. Otherwise, I move approval on all other items. Second. Mr. Greerly moves approval on agenda items 3, 4 and 5, seconded by Mr. Dunn. Is there any discussion on any of these? These are all reappointments. I don't see any of our reappointees, which we do not require them to be here tonight. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Move approval of the minutes. Move approval by Mr. Dunn on agenda item 2, second by Mr. Curell. Any further discussion questions? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Any abstentions? Abstain. 301 on that. And that brings us to agenda item 6. We have, we don't have a specific time. Two public hearings. The first one, they're both on behalf of an ever source petition. First one, Linton Lane at Hutchinson Road. And here's a stranger, Ms. Jackie Duffy, on behalf of, I'll let you say your name and company for the right. Ms. Jackie Duffy, ever source energy. We want to install 103 feet on Linton Lane in Arlington. And it's to improve the system out there. Right now we are out there because the system failed. We should be going in about two weeks. Weather permitting. Move approval, subject to conditions as set forth. Move by Mr. Greerly. Seconded. Seconded by Mr. Curell. This, before I call on my colleagues, this is a public hearing. Is there anyone here for ever source petition on Linton Lane at Hutchinson Road? Any comments, questions from my colleagues? If not, an emotion by Mr. Greerly. Seconded by Mr. Curell. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Unanimous vote. We go to agenda item 7, another ever source petition. Ms. Duffy. Hi, I'm Jackie Duffy, ever source energy. We'd like to install 37 feet of condorwood on Morningside Drive in Arlington. And this also is to improve the system. Is there a motion? Move approval, subject to conditions. Move by Mr. Dunn. Seconded by Mr. Greerly. Again, it's a public hearing. Is anyone here for the ever source petition for Morningside Drive at Bradley Road? If not, any questions or comments by my colleagues? On a motion by Mr. Dunn, seconded by Mr. Greerly. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Unanimous vote. Good to see you again, Jackie. Thank you. Thank you. We did have a couple names on the sheet. We did. Oh, I guess we do have some names. If you haven't signed up for Citizens Open Forum because you weren't aware of that, that's fine. Just let your presence be known after that. It's for anything that's not on our agenda tonight. If it's something you want to speak to that's on the agenda when we get to that, we'll call on anyone who would like to express their sentiments to the board. For Citizens Open Forum, except in unusual circumstances, any matter presented for consideration of the board should neither be acted upon nor a decision made the night 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. Who do we have first on the list, Murray? Brooks Harrison. Brooks? Oh, if you can come to the microphone and just say your name and address for the precinct, even though I already said most of your name. Hi, I'm Brooks Harrison, precinct 16. I'm actually here for discussion of the sanctuary town item to add some information into that so I can do that now or then. Then would be better. Just so we can just keep it all together. So if you're here on an agenda item, when we get to that, it's best that we get all the information at the same time or input, whatever you want to. Who do we have next, Murray? Calvin or Calvin? Oh, Heather Calvin. Okay. Is there a Megan? Okay. Becky. Yes. Okay. Okay. Is there anyone here who wishes to speak to you? Okay. Okay. Is there anyone here who wishes to speak under citizen open forum that didn't sign up? If not, citizen open forums closed. And the only distinction with that is if somebody wants to come in, it's not on our agenda so we can't really vote on it, it's something that we receive. And several of you are here for something that is on our agenda, which means we could could not take any action. That's why we kind of ferret it out that way. So I don't want anyone to feel, I'm making you stay longer than you have to. Not that you don't want to stay here all night. We'll move on to agenda item eight, a request for hand to cap parking sign at 32 Pheasanton Road. Is there a motion? Move approval. Move approval by Mr. Greerly, seconded by. Second. But is that, is he here? Yes. Is Mr. Makara's here? How are you, sir? Do you want to come to the microphone and just, you don't have to but it's, and if you can just say your name and address for the record and whatever you would like to present to the board. Al McCarris, 32 Pheasanton Road. And I'm trying to get a handicap space on the side of my house so I have trouble parking there. I think you know where I live in here. Yes, I'm your neighbor. Yes, Al. Between the teachers and functions at the gym, everybody parks there and I have trouble parking. I can't walk that far without getting out of breath. And if I could get a space outside the side of my house, I don't use the front door. Pheasanton Road's a private way. If I park in front, fire engine can't get by, trash trucks can't get by, and I've done that before in the last mirrors of my vehicle. So I generally park on the side. I have two vehicles. My wife has one, which goes inside the garage. I park in the back of it. I have to get out early in the morning and put it out on the mine out on the street so she can get outside. I don't have to go up and down because I have a problem with stairs too. So if I could get a space out there, I'd appreciate it. Okay. Motion by Mr. Greerly, seconded by Mr. Dunn. Mr. Greerly. Some of the parking spaces around your house being taken up by the wild parties at the Mahan Resonance. No. I'll tell you. Quincy Street, a lot of the spaces get taken up by Jimmy's help. They're not allowed to park in the lot. They all park up on Quincy Street. Thank you. Anyone else here for agenda item eight? Any questions, comments or comments? I'll get them up on my colleagues. Motion by Mr. Greerly, seconded by Mr. Dunn. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed unanimous vote. Good to see you. Thank you. Good night. Next we have agenda item nine. Requests for a third space on street overnight parking at 37 Brantwood Road. We do have a report from Officer Corey Reteau on behalf of the Arlington Police Department. Is there a motion by my colleagues? Mr. Dunn. I move that we follow the recommendation of the police report and not issue a permit. Not issue a third one. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Is anyone here? If you could just come to the microphone and say your name and address for the record. Harry Lipson, 37 Brantwood Road. We live in a house that was built before cars and it's up on the elevated side on the ledge on Brantwood Road and my adult son has moved home and has been living with us now and probably will for another year or so. He has a car and rather than get tickets it would be we have 130 feet of frontage space in front of our house. We don't block any other houses or since we have a lot of frontage but it's just way down below on the street so that's the reason for the request. Mr. Dunn? I'm sympathetic. If I felt like I had a free hand I would approve more of these than come across. We put it on the ballot specifically asking the town whether or not they wanted to permit overnight parking and it lost in every single precinct. I had actually even been hoping that we'd get one or two precincts that say yes and then I'd start doing overnight experiments doing permits. For what it's worth and it snows we all go down to Russell to park down there and we're never blocking plows or anything so it's just normal nights that we request. I understand but I'm still going to vote no because I'm going to respect the voters. I understand. But I wanted you to understand a little bit why I'm doing it. I understand. Thank you sir. Any further comments, questions? On a motion by Mr. Dunn of no action seconded by Mr. Curell. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Unanimous vote. We now get to what I think the majority of you are all here for. Again you're welcome to stay to the very end. We have four warrant articles for discussions. I want to make the distinction that our warrant articles which are placeholders to go before town meeting to discuss and get votes from our town meeting members of what direction the town should or should not take or what action it should or should not take is still open until I believe January 29th. 27th. I apologize. January 27th. The next four warrant articles for discussion are topics that have come to the board of select men, us individually and collectively, conversations with the town manager. And basically what we're doing here tonight, we're not having warrant article hearings per se we're having, these are proposed warrant articles. Who should the proponent or proponents be? And then whoever we decide on the first warrant article, you know, to take a certain action any vote that comes here tonight will basically say okay who's filing this. And then after January 27th and the month of February and March and hopefully early March, by early March is when the board of select men for warrant articles that through our town bylaws and codification that we should hear, you know, money article would go to the finance committee. Sometimes there's warrant articles where the board of select men and the finance committee weigh in because it's a financial issue but it's also a policy issue. Board of select men deals largely in part with policy anyone correct me if I'm encapsulating this wrong. I only say that to the sense of we will be having warrant article hearings for each of these four agenda items. So tonight's purpose is basically to, you know, stop the first cog in the wheel to get the process going. Hear from the proponents some proponents may say, you know, we would like to follow this on our behalf. And when it comes before the board of select men or any other entity, we would appreciate the unanimous vote or there may be some warrant articles that, you know, the board of select men collectively joins with citizens board of select men collectively joins with the town manager or some and I'm not trying to limit the discussion. It could be something else because we truly have not discussed any of these beforehand with the exception of when these issues have been raised to my colleagues we've had individual discussions with the town managers and other department heads. So I hope I've kind of set the framework for would any of my colleagues like to comment on that, Mr. Dunn, Vice Chairman. Just really briefly, like I just think, like I think you said this, but I just think it's worth saying a different way. What we're deciding tonight is what's going to be on the agenda for town meeting, which is going to be on the war which is also known as what's going to be on the warrant for town meeting. We're also going to talk about the town meeting and so town meeting is going to be the one that actually votes yes or no on any of this. But not only between here and there, there's also the question of what actual language is the motion that we're going to put forward and talk about a town meeting and we're not even talking about that tonight. That's going to be at the hearing. So tonight is just about what do we want on the agenda and the actual contents thereof we're going to talk about at a future date. Exactly. And the last thing I would comment is if for some reason the board of select men does not choose to be a sponsor, a co-sponsor of any of these four warrant articles, that does not mean they cannot be filed. Somebody else could file it. Somebody else could file it and somebody else could be watching this at home and say, well, I'd rather put a warrant article that says this language as long as you get it in by January 27th everybody's good to go on that. I think that sounds right. So for the first discussion for a warrant article, I don't know if you want to stop Mr. Chaplin. Okay. We're going to take them one by one. Sanctuary town status. Ready? Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. So this conversation regarding Arlington considering sanctuary town status frankly began the second week of November after election day with a number of town residents reaching out to me and I'm sure reaching out to members of the board and probably discussing amongst themselves the matter of whether or not Arlington should consider itself to be a sanctuary town. And some of those discussions started to revolve around what were the current police policies within Arlington and then also what federal funds did Arlington currently receive that may or may not be impacted depending on a decision to be made. So I feel like in the past few months I've learned quite a bit from talking with the police chief and with neighboring communities with folks living in Arlington about sanctuary town status that said I don't think I can sit here tonight and tell anybody what the impacts of the current president's policies will be on communities that choose to designate themselves as sanctuary towns. I know comments have been made that towns or cities that go down this path will have their federal funding in jeopardy if they choose to go down this path and our total federal grants for both towns and schools is approximately $5 million a year. So again I can't say with any certainty that there will be no impact or that there will be an impact but I think it's important to know that as part of the dialogue. Going further if the chair indulges Chief Ryan's here tonight and I'd like him if you're okay with it to talk a little bit about what the current policy of the Arlington Police Department is revolving around matters with becoming a sanctuary town and go from there if that's okay. Chief Ryan Thank you Madam Chair Honorable members of the board, thanks for having me. You know it's an important conversation. I'm glad it's on the agenda tonight because I think it's important to have these conversations publicly. As the manager said as a result of a lot of queries from citizens we've done our homework as to really what has occurred over the past. We did a five-year look back in Arlington at all of our cases involving ice detainers. There has been one. And that's the past five full calendar years. There's been none in the year to date in 2017. That said I think that's important information to have. That said the policies and the practices of the Arlington Police Department based on what I've read because I don't really know what a sanctuary city is. I don't know what the clear definition is but I've looked at some trust acts of neighboring jurisdictions. I've looked at some other language and done some research. The way we conduct our duties and the policies and the mission of the Arlington Police Department essentially are one and the same of a sanctuary city. We are a sanctuary city without having given ourselves that sort of label. It's not in a wheelhouse to enforce immigration laws. We don't train our police officers to enforce immigration laws. We don't ask people their immigration status ever. The only time it comes up is when somebody's under arrest for a crime. And so in the one instance where it did occur in the past five years this person had committed a felony, a violent a felony assault and battery involving a dangerous weapon. And when that person was booked at the Arlington Police Station his fingerprints were scanned into a digital scanning device. And part of that process is to get a positive identification. And when we scan those fingerprints they go out to a number of federal agencies. In this case it came up that there was an ICE detainer for this person who had previously been deported for having an unlawful border crossing on the southern border. He had come back into the United States committed a felony here in Arlington. And we became aware of the ICE detainer. The federal immigration officials chose not to enforce it that night because he was in our custody and he was transported to the Cambridge District Court the following morning. Whether they ever chose to enforce that ICE detainer we don't know what the disposition of that matter was. So the point of this dialogue is that the policies the mission and the practices of the Arlington Police Department amount to a sanctuary city. So you can rest comfortably that that's the way we're conducting our duties. Whether you all choose or the community chooses to take the symbolic move of adding the label to our community you know that's we don't really have an opinion on that. What's most important to us is that our fair and impartial approach to policing is alive and well and we're committed to that mission and that philosophical approach to policing. And no federal agency or federal policy or president will change our philosophical approach to policing in Arlington. Happy to answer any questions if you have any. Thank you chief. Mr. Dunn Go ahead. So I think you answered this already but just for the sake of clarity is there anything that you see or even if you after the discussion if you hear something that you think is that would affect the way you and your officers can do your job. So like is there something that you perceive right now that if we took one path or another on the trust like becoming a trust city or a trust town excuse me would it have an impact on the way you police or would it make it easier or more difficult for you to. It would have no impact on the way we conduct our duties. If your opinion of that ever changes please let me know. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Curell. Thank you. And thank you chief. I think we all recognize we have a very enlightened police department and we appreciate the approach and I think that the question we have here is about putting an article on the warrant that would allow us and town meeting to actually endorse the behavior of the police department. It looks though as I'm looking at the language in front of us and the town council's memo we have two alternate pieces of language and it doesn't seem to all actually pertain to policing. I see in the second version something around using town resources for the purpose of gathering information regarding the citizenship, immigration status, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation for discriminatory purposes. That sounds like that goes beyond policing. Is that correct with your permission? Mr. Curell, the second set of language that you see stems out of a warrant article proposal by a town resident interested in codifying some version of a trust act in Arlington. The trust acts are fairly comprehensive. It's certainly possible that there might be other means of gathering this type of information although I'm not aware of what they would be. There's not a law enforcement effort to go out and try to gather that type of information. I'm not sure maybe somebody else could speak to how that information would be gathered with the caveat that I think it's important to note that it's the gathering of that information for discriminatory purpose. We wouldn't want to exclude any town department or officials from gathering evidence for a non-discriminatory purpose and I think that's very clear from the trust act ordinances that some folks are trying to base town meeting action on. I only ask that question because I know one thing that we discussed a little bit at our selectman's retreat and I think this was kind of on me and I haven't enacted it was that we were going to take a look at all of our forms and some of our forms for licenses. We do currently ask about immigration status and such and I don't know if some of that comes down from ABCC or if it's, so I didn't know if that is encompassed. So that's a good example. A lot of our forms do come from the ABCC when we process alcohol license licenses and so we would have limited discretion with respect to some things and maybe some documentation that the school department needs with respect to students that may not directly ask those kind of questions but may contain some data that's potentially controversial but again I think the key piece is that I'm not sure that any of those types of sources of data would be used for discriminatory purpose because it seems to me fairly clear and I'm sure there's some folks here to talk about it here with us tonight that these trust acts are really trying to make sure that folks aren't going out canvassing trying to affirmatively identify these are folks whose immigration status is not legal for some punitive purpose rather than trying to make sure that they understand the needs of people in the community. Thank you. I'm just trying to get my arms around it. We have two alternatives here for warrant language and if this board were to go forward and place the language on the warrant I just want to understand the qualitative differences between the two. It looks like the first is more general but the second is more general. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Carol. Mr. No, that was it. Chief will be on standby for unless you have any comment right now in terms of going forward but if there's anything that we need you know you have some comment on just let me know and I'll call you in the next appropriate order. Thank you, Madam Chair. What I'll Mr. No is I think what you've heard is there's two different versions of the language if you'd like to come forward I believe Mr. Haroldson was first. Even though I say your name please say name and address for the record. If you could just and this board will take no offense. There may be some citizens who say we want this to be a citizen driven article only. If you could speak to whatever you want but I think myself and my colleagues would be interested into the two versions of the language if you like one more than the other want to advocate for one more than the other or something else as well as your input on should this be a citizen sponsored article or if you have an opinion in terms of whether this board or some other entity should also co-sponsor it. So name and address for the record. Sorry. Hi, my name is Brooks Haroldson. I'm in precinct 16. I'm also a member of the vision 2020 diversity task group for whom I am speaking tonight. The vision 2020 diversity task group wants the issue of Arlington being a sanctuary town considered and would support the selectmen putting forth such a warrant article to town meeting. There have been a number of issues raised for and against such an article probably the most the biggest one has to do with the possible loss of funding. I would like to refer everyone to a Washington Post article that was issued on January 18th which is a very nice analysis of what it means to be a sanctuary city and the possible implications of it. In particular I refer to a legal opinion that cites a Supreme Court ruling that funding can only be withheld if actions are relevant to the federal interest in the project. Thus only funding specific to immigration activities can be withheld for sanctuary cities. Secondly as Chief Ryan has mentioned the Department of Homeland Security declined to enforce on that day. It is a Department of Homeland Security statement that complying with those requests is entirely voluntary on the part of the town. There is much more information in this article about the possible effects. The diversity task group would very much support the selectmen going forward with a warrant article to town meeting with certainly advice from town council on these issues that I've raised. Thank you. And just the court reporter and me, no one has to ascribe to this but we're going to be or whoever is going to be presenting this, it will be a sanctuary town request. It's just the housekeeping court reporter and me so I just don't want people to get confused or say city, so sanctuary town. I'm going to let everyone speak but I just for the people who signed up was Heather who was next after Mr. Harrelson? Okay. Was it Heather? McAlvin. You can just say name and address for the record even though I've already Hi Heather Calvin. I just want to lend my support to the idea of bringing this before town meeting from the selectmen. I think that the support of these efforts and other communities near ours has brought it to the attention of many people in this room and I think that one of the most interesting things to me about this is making known and public within our community what the practice of our progressive police department is. Not that we are asking for a change in that but I think the value to public safety and making that understood so that immigrants undocumented or otherwise do not fear contacting our police when they need help. I think it's a worthy topic in terms of community dialogue and discussion and awareness and I would urge you to support that. Thank you. Next we had, I can't remember, Megan. Name and address for the record. Thank you. Hi, I'm Megan Bailey, 68 Milton Street. Actually you can just grab it, pull it down a little bit and speak up and thank you very much. There's millions watching at home. We want them all to hear you. So Megan Bailey, 68 Milton Street. I'm here in support of Arlington as a town sanctuary and I just here to give a little bit of my opinion. So for me Arlington is a town that symbolizes much for myself and my husband. It's not only a home for us, it's a place where we are proud to live because of its strong sense of community. Arlington has welcomed us since we've moved here four years ago. Since then I've seen people of all backgrounds come together, clean up spy pond. I've come to appreciate the local family owned businesses and many of them are diverse. I've made new friends here and I've seen my street become more diverse and I'm a very proud resident of Arlington as a result and based on the current what's happening with the president I don't want him to break up this community by threatening to round up immigrants through racial profiling, detention and deportation. I think Arlington is a community that values our diversity and is a home to a diverse group of people that hold family values close to their hearts just as America has been home to families of immigrants throughout its history and I'm asking the broads to seriously consider standing up against a regime of fear and insecurity and provide immigrants with the security of making Arlington a sanctuary town. Thank you. Was it a gentleman's name? Who was next? Oh Becky. Oh okay, thank you. Just name an address for the record. Thank you. Hi my name is Lynette Martin. I'm a resident of Arlington at 18 Eustis Street. I'm also here as a chair of First Parish Arlington's Diversity Inclusion Group and a member of their Racial Justice Coordinating Committee. I would like to recommend that this warrant be brought forth to town meeting. I want to stand by Arlington's commitment to diversity as demonstrated in our vision 2020 task force as well as presented by the many restaurants and small businesses we have that may possibly have immigrants and possibly illegal immigrants working in them. If we follow the procedures that Chief Ryan brought to our attention, the progressive procedures that we have in town but we don't declare them, then how will immigrants know that we are a welcome town that they are safe here and something that Chief Ryan was unable to measure is the crimes that are happening could be anything from domestic abuse illegal drugs. The crimes that are being committed but are not being reported because people might worry about reporting and their own status and don't know because we have not declared that they're safe. We have not marketed our progressive beliefs and just as a reminder as someone who is a member of these diversity task groups that unless we are unless we come from indigenous people then we are all descended from immigrants or immigrants in this country and then I have a question for Chief Ryan Hi Would the policing policy and practices you describe be in place if another Chief were in place? We're here in Arlington. In other words, how much of these policies rests on your discretion? I'm going to give you one bit of latitude there and definitely have the Chief answer that. Yes. But this is, we're talking about if a warrant article is going to be filed and given to the Chief in terms of any future Chiefs. You can definitely answer that. But tonight we're just talking about who's going to file this warrant article, who's going to sponsor it is it going to be just citizens, is it going to be a town department head and citizens, is it going to be citizens on the Board of Selectment. But the Chief He popped up so quickly. I definitely want to call on him to answer. Thank you very much. No, I just don't want to dig. You know, that's all. Sorry. Court report. Nice to see you. Thank you for getting me in trouble with the chair one. You know, it's a great question and some excellent points have been made. You know, I like to think it's become the fabric of the police department and it's a way of thinking. It's a mindset. You know, community policing isn't a program and it isn't a policy that I can point to. It's a mindset, right? And so that mindset is in the fabric of the police department and I would like to think that anybody that would have replaced me although I, you know, intend to stay here until I'm in a rocking chair but if I were to be hit by a bus that that culture of the organization would manifest itself through any chief that might replace me. Can I say within any degree of certainty that, you know, I don't know, but that's why we have to have this chief for a long, long time if he'll help us. Was there any other name? Mr. Godner? Bill Godner? Oh, okay. Thank you. I think that's everyone that signed up on Citizens Open Forum. So if you could just come up one at a time on the sanctuary town or an article, just name an address for the record. Just make sure, as Mr. Dunn reminds me, there we go. Judy Weinberg, 39 Venner Road, Precinct 10. I have been speaking with the Human Rights Commission and I've also spoken with Doug Hyman, Mr. Chaplain and Chief Ryan about a warrant article which the Human Rights Commission has agreed to sponsor. If we could get a dual sponsorship, that would be fabulous. The wording on the resolution is very broad, which again is just a placeholder, but we have been doing some research in terms of what a sanctuary city is. It's not a legal definition so there's no legal term. It's basically how it's interpreted by any town or city that wants to adopt it. And it basically says what Chief Ryan has explained is that you provide your services to your citizenship. You don't ask them questions. The only times that their status would come into play is if they were in the system as having committed a crime. There is no central database of sanctuary towns and cities. I've gone online to look for them. The only database that seems to be there and it's not the most current is being run by an organization that is very much against the idea of sanctuary city. So it basically says these are sanctuary cities, you know, rebel against them. But in Massachusetts there are the sanctuary cities that have come forward are Amherst, Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, Lawrence, Northampton, Orleans, Somerville, Springfield, and Holy Oak. And that list is growing. There was a big meeting yesterday in Newton where they had a lot of conversation about it. There's many sanctuary cities and towns across the country. Here's a map showing where they all are. California pretty much the whole state right now has declared itself. So in terms of possibly jeopardizing federal funds I think at some point it's going to get to the point where most of the major colon areas are going to have adopted this policy and they just won't have too much money to go to the little towns. There's Somerville mayor Kurt Tony has been incredibly outspoken and he's basically says federal government bring it on. We respect our he said that Somerville would sooner tighten its fiscal belt than sell out on its values. And I really think that that's who Arlington is. Yes, we may have $5 million in jeopardy, the money that we get. I understand that it goes to the CDBG which is a community development block grant which is through HUD, the Arlington Housing Authority, the infrastructure improvement, and school aid. That's where the $5 million goes from federal money. And I mean it's not an inconservable amount but I do think that putting our money where our mouth is those of us who went to the march this weekend realize that standing up for what you believe and is important so I obviously support this. Thank you. Madam Chair. Oh sorry. Mr. Dunn? Since you from the Human Rights Commission and one of the two pieces of language we've got in front of us came from the Human Rights Commission. Yes, that was the one I submitted. Can you speak to whether why one is more preferable to the other or is it like two flavors of the same two flavors of chocolate or is one of them much better than the other? Well the one that we submitted is really very broad. The other one gets into more specifics. I thought that that was just the original placeholder and we were going to expand on it once we, is that correct? Yeah, so we would expand on it. Madam Chair, if I may, I just want to make clear that the two pieces of language you have one article as put together by the Human Rights Commission which is fine. As the Board of Slugging well knows there's always a tension at town meeting between specificity and broadness so the broader an article the more things that could in theory be contemplated but of course there's always the possibility that somebody says well is that really clear enough that that's what you meant we were talking about and then specificity obviously has the downside of being a little bit more limited. I want to make clear that the latter of the two options is my articulation of some residence efforts to duplicate the trust act that we see in Cambridge and in Boston very specifically. The trust act is a very specific ordinance. We don't pass ordinances like that in the town. We don't have a city council system obviously so it's a very different process and it's just my attempt to capture that's a fairly specific set of things that you're asking to do even if it was articulated as resolution. So I just want to make it clear that would not prevent obviously as you all have said that residents might articulate it on their own in a different manner through their own citizen sign petition but I did want to try to capture the dialogue that was going on in these somewhat parallel efforts because I've had quite a few people calling my office about the regulatory town sort of resolutions and separately the trust acts very specifically. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for sort of weighing in on the two. Again from the legal background that attorney Heim and I share if I had my druthers right now to me less is more more is less is broader the better but this is not to limit anyone who comes up to speak if you do have a preference feel free to express it. We certainly want to hear that. I didn't mean to cut you off. Were you all? No, no, no, no. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Ms. Barron you want to name an address for the record even though we all know you. We all know you. That's true. I can get it. Wait a minute. Sherry Barron, 10 Raleigh Street and I'm a member of the Human Rights Commission. I wasn't planning to speak but I am personally in favor of giving Arlington the sanctuary town label and I someone made a point earlier and I think that's exactly why and that is we found over the 21 years that I've been on the commission that we don't get a lot of complaints and I think part of the reason is that there are people in this town who are immigrants documented or undocumented but they don't feel comfortable coming to the police or to town hall because in their country that was not something that they did without some sort of recrimination. What I think is important to determine tonight if possible is we're trying to figure out who should write it. I'd like to know what you think about which one would have more impact coming from a group of 10 voters, the Human Rights Commission or you folks. So maybe we can have a you could discuss that or that can be something that you can look at down the road because the point here is that we want to, we want it to happen. So who has a better shot of delivering the goods? Thank you. Mr. Grilly. Just on that I personally like the idea of cosponsoring Human Rights Commission and the Board of Select. I think I would agree with Mr. Grilly. I think this is very important. I mean I can echo what Ms. Barron said. I don't talk about it a lot but for several years I worked as a refugee resettlement counselor and it's absolutely true that people who are fleeing very authoritarian regimes or regimes with oppressive circumstances do often have a suspicion of any governmental authorities or police or otherwise. I think it's very important that it come from the leadership of the town. I think that the leadership of the police department has stepped up in their practices. I think it's important for us to also step out up and at least make a statement by placing this on the warrant now. We can discuss the specifics as we go through our hearing process and get to town meeting. Personally I have a strong preference to the second set of language that's before so. I have no problem with the language put forward by the Human Rights Commission. It specifically talks about undocumented residents and I like the fact that the second set of language, the trust act language, talks about all immigrants being able to fully and safely participate in the civic and economic life of the town and also talks about, reaffirms our commitment to non-discrimination on the basis of citizenship, immigration status, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation. I think that it actually affirms some of the values that we have really held dear for many years in this town. I don't know if that was a motion Mr. Grilly? I would like to move that we cosponsored with the Human Rights Commission with their ascent, a warrant article based on the second the trust act version of the language that is in here, which does also reference the sanctuary community. It specifically references this as the sanctuary community. Motion by Mr. Carroll. Seconded by Mr. Dunn. And I'm going to see if there's anyone else who wants to speak on this particular warrant article. I do want to say, and I apologize if I didn't articulate it the way that I meant it, this and the next three warrant articles that we'll discuss in terms of how they get inserted, I felt so strongly about it and kind of felt I have a sense of my colleagues in terms of, and along with the town manager, if for some reason we didn't sponsor any a cosponsor any of these warrant articles, they would go before town meeting but because of this board's policy decisions that we've made in the past, some have to do with you know, debt exclusion, other, that has happened in the past and could happen in the future. I wanted to put forth along with the town manager to the board of Selectman to say these are going to happen but I would, with my colleagues which you have been and will continue to do consider whether we could and should or could not or should not cosponsor these warrant articles with the original proponents because I really feel they're in line with, you know, when we sit down and talk about our goals and how we move into the future and keep Allington the vibrant community that it is. So I just if I didn't make that clear, and aren't anyone else out there, these are warrant articles that are ready to go but just in conversations with the town manager and department heads and my colleagues wanted to make sure for these particular four, whether it really is a strong in my opinion positive community statement if the proponents were so kind that we could also cosponsor at Mr. Greeley. Did you have your hand up? I'm sorry. Well, yeah, you just surprised me but and so I'm just a little confused whether we're calling it a trust act or a sanctuary town but the first point I'd like to make is we are based on what Chief Ryan has told us and that police do not actually question immigration status and I'm proud of this town for that now to make an official designation and I hesitate to ask this question but I'm going to anyhow. If we are designated a sanctuary town are we giving a false impression we can provide more services than a town that isn't a sanctuary town for immigrants you know, I see two no absolutely not and I hate your guts Kevin Greeley for even asking the question but you know we heard there's no definition of what a sanctuary town is so I don't want to give a false impression if we're called a trust act does that we're still called a sanctuary town Thank you Madam Chair. So I would say that's a very good question and I think the answer would lie in the details of what this board and then eventually town meeting actually adopts and then further what we publicize and talk about if it was successfully adopted. I think we want to be very careful to make it crystal clear what it meant to be a sanctuary town or a trust act community so that there wasn't any confusion about some different level of services being offered. Because I think we should do what I just want to be careful. Thank you Madam Chair. Name and address for the rocket even though. Hi I'm Mel Goldslight co-chair of the Human Rights Commission meeting we voted on the first language which we recognized was very vague and we figured it was a placeholder in that we would work with the citizens and we would come up with the final language and Christine has permission to work with them on the final language. I want to say that as a private citizen I agree for all the reasons Joe said that we should do the trust act because it is very specific if you want people to trust you you have to tell them what they're trusting you about. You can't expect someone who possibly doesn't have a great grasp on the English language and has no background in knowing what a sanctuary city is or sanctuary town is to know what we're guaranteeing and so I think personally that we should go with the trust act. I don't know procedurally how that goes because we voted on the sanctuary town part versus this but I mean if you guys decide that it's not going to have the most impact for you guys to sponsor it to begin with and it probably doesn't matter but I just wanted to be clear about what we had already voted on if we want to do something else we would have to convene I guess before the 27th and do another vote. And then if we went which is where I'm leaning towards sort of the broader language that allows us when we get to town meeting as you and others have said it's a broader and then when the board had the warrant article hearing and stated exactly what their vote would be the place holders there and then you hear our vote and for some reason we didn't encapsulate for anyone particular language that you had hoped with the broad initial placeholder warrant article language you could file a substitute motion down on town meeting floor to say you know you've got 0.1234 but you forgot 5 so you could file 0.5 and then that would go on to it so I know you and just about everybody in the audience is very well versed with that but just in case we do have I see a few new faces here in the audience sort of what the process and the protocol is so right now but you know we haven't gotten to exactly if the board is going to vote first of all that we will cosponsor it and then the second step I'm just letting you know where I'm leaning right now just in terms of you know my professional background I kind of go to the broader because it allows us to but attorney heim did you if I can just be helpful in the debate I do think that the language put out by the human rights commission is very good and that it could encompass a lot of things that the trust act sort of contemplates so I just hope that we don't get too immersed in the trust act versus sanctuary town sort of status I do think the trust act is a specific model that was adopted and put forth by their communities and I think if you have a broader definition the thing that everybody should understand is that that could be include allow for substitute motions that maybe try to take it away from a very specific resolution and make it a little bit broader whereas if you went with the trust act version it would be harder to have a substitute motion maybe make it broader it would have to be a little bit tighter if you were going to try and change it so I just want to be clear that I think that the first language the one that was adopted by the human rights commission could definitely encompass most of what the trust act language talks about I just think it would be harder to go in the opposite direction Mr. Greeley and then Mr. Carroll so why don't we take the vote whether this board favorites no sponsoring and then refer it to Doug and the Human Rights Commission and let them work on the wording and then it's brought back here and then we do the move favorable action on the final wording nope that's not a good idea I don't think this wording has to be finalized by Friday this is the warrant article wording forgot that little thing so well I had a question from Ms. Goldside you said that the commission had actually authorized the chair to work with others on the language was that for the warrant article yes for the final wording on the warrant article what was that for the recommendation for the warrant article does that mean that the chair is actually empowered to endorse this alternate language on behalf of the commission if we would vote the second version of this language you're empowered by the commission I know I was sorry I know you love public speaking Christine sorry Christine Connie 98 Richard co-chair of the Allingtonian Rights Commission know what we voted on at our last meeting was that we would work with Judy with residents on the draft of the warrant article that they submitted they drafted and we would have the final language on that to be submitted to the warrant though yes okay so that could be this language potentially so it sounds like you have flexibility there is flexibility you were given flexibility in other words I was given flexibility between now and Friday specifically for the sanctuary town we did not discuss the trust act okay and that's why I was saying in terms of we're kind of getting to step two this is just step one my advice to everyone would be what I would like is put the broader in because it's in there and then all these subsequent conversations well that have already happened will happen in the future then when the select men have the true warrant article hearing that's when we have that broad placeholder in there that groups or individuals can come in and say this is what I would like you to vote on and get more specificity or keep it broad Mr. Dunn I'd like to recommend a different motion Joe that I think gets to where we're trying to go which is that the board select men votes to put the something of this general nature on the warrant to co-sponsor it with the Human Rights Commission and to empower the Doug to work with the Human Rights Commission so whatever figure out what facility Christine has we know what we want or we're telling Doug what we want and let them drive to the language we actually need by Friday I'm fine with drawing a motion and accepting that with one caveat as I mentioned I the reason I like the second set of language isn't necessarily because of trust act versus sanctuary town it's because of the broader protections on basis of citizenship religious so I'm going to make my motion Mr. Currow's motion seconded by Mr. Dunn is withdrawn we now have Mr. Dunn's motion seconded by Mr. Currow. Okay so the intent I believe of this board when we get to the actual thing when we get to the actual vote is to get a sanctuary town trust act discussion happening at town meeting in the most productive way possible is going to do it. The Human Rights Commission wants the same thing we are going to co-sponsor something the actual language of that whichever one between the one and the two the board has a preference for the direction that Joe is talking about and we are empowering Attorney Heim to actually hammer that out with the Human Rights Commission that's my intent that's my motion Mr. Greely does not look like he's happy because it's exactly what I said and I got no it has to be done by Friday what changed here in the last ten minutes so yes I support this my first years on the board you know my pain I said though seriously still has to get done by Friday I'm afraid we're getting no I think the difference Kevin is that I said power Doug and I think you said come back to us okay we're on the road and we're we're with that and I don't want to cut anyone off but I think everyone can see where the board's going Ms. Stamps name and address for the record I mean again this is just trying to convince us to support the motion that was just made accept sale just a quick suggestion for a simple amendment you could make to the broad language that's before you right now it says to see if the town will resolve to become a sanctuary town blah blah blah it's not a sanctuary town you could add or a trust act town or otherwise a town that is officially welcoming to all immigrants thank you thank you and what we what's on the table right now is the broader language to go back with attorney Heim and human rights commission and others where all of that will be incorporated so can I say anything specific and can convince a majority of my colleagues to agree to that and I miss something by the wayside so I think the motion Mr. Dunn has made it definitely encapsulates that will be incorporated along the way thank you Mr. Dunn did you have a hand up I'm sorry hi name and address just for the record my name is Hannah poor I live at 63 Hayth Road I was the original proponent of the second language on this I wish we got in touch a little earlier to maybe work it out a little bit I would just say I really appreciate your advice and all the opinions that have been brought forward I hope that eventually we would land on something very specific that clearly lays out what we hope to do as a town not just to say that we're a sanctuary town which I don't think it doesn't have any legal meaning so they aren't actually two different terms according to my understanding this would be our way of doing our sanctuary town here's what we're going to do so I hope we can choose the avenue that would lead us best to lay out very specific clear points that we would have especially given the part about the non-discriminatory collection of data specifically addressing the concerns about registering people based on their religious affiliation which has been a specific threat directed by this administration so I haven't been thinking about this but I hope that we'll land on things that perhaps we could translate into other languages but specifically saying this is what we're going to need to protect you and that could be the outreach piece that you know sort of time people what we will do what we can't do and again I definitely agree with that and in terms of our process when we have the actual war not a cold hearing that's when we'll all come back together and get into specifics and recommendations from individuals and groups and then it will be on that general placeholder will say so voted if that's the way we're going from the board of select men and that's where you'll see all those specifics in there but that's not where we're at right now we're just trying to answer the question of from what I thought I was hearing was that yes this warrant article is going to be filed perhaps by some citizens perhaps by the Human Rights Commission but felt that I wanted to give my colleagues the opportunity to see if we wanted to co-sponsor it so I really want to remind people that as well as be cognizant of the vote that's on the table and but anyone's welcome to come up I just don't want to you're going to have to come back and say that all again at the true warrant article hearing this is it's going to get filed who wants to be on the ship or in the car or in the train or marching through Boston Common attorney hind I got it I'm going to make sure that Susan and Judy and Christine and Hannah all get a chance to take a look at this so that hopefully we can have one warrant article and then there will be more that can include a lot of substantive discussion about the resolution when it comes and then everybody come back that night in February or March to say just want to get up and say you know what you got it I'm I'm great or I don't see it in there am I missing it and if not say can I convince at least three of the five of you to say you're also going to vote to do this also so I'm not trying to stifle anyone I just want to you know not we're just at step one okay next hi name and address for the rocket and wire Wilmer 15 Adams Street I just wanted to quickly address a question that had been asked by Mr. Currow earlier about what other than policing this affects so I'm a physician with a primarily immigrant population and the places that people report withdrawing from civic participation are often not schools engagement in health care services such as WIC and public housing applications thank you anyone else on this first if not chief we're all set I'm okay okay on a motion by Mr. Dunn seconded by Mr. Currow all those in favor any further questions if not all those in favor say I all those opposed unanimous vote chapter lane and attorney hind go forth and do good things okay I'm going to continue on this road again the next war an article I've had conversations with the town manager this is a war an article I'd like my colleagues to consider if it's something they also want to co-sponsor it's concerning a pride commission it's been brought up by various members of the community it's sort of mirrors which was one of my questions initially what we already have established at our high school with the GLBTQ a group that we have up there again this war an article will be filed I just wanted to where it seemed like a policy decision and just to chapter lane to fill in some of the details thank you madam chair this really stemmed from a series of conversations I had with previous speaker Mel Goldsibar member of the human rights commission as we were working on or I should say she was working on filling out the municipal human equality index that the town has been taking part in for the past two years and it came to light that without a liaison with the mayor's office that's called the charter so I suppose it would be a liaison to either the board or the manager we weren't getting some points that we otherwise should be getting that led to talk about the fact that our neighboring community Cambridge has a pride commission I'm not sure if that's the exact name of the group but the idea of being a pride commission and we talked about sort of the wise and where force of why we would have a pride commission and the general idea that I got from the conversation was it would send a strong message to those in the LGBTQ community in Arlington that we were very accepting of them and that they were part of the fabric of the community and this would be a place to have conversations about policies and programs to support that community so at that time and this is months ago now I had told Mel that I'd be happy to bring this article forward and that's why we're here tonight so I know I think Mel has put a bit of information I don't know if she wants to share any of it tonight or talk about it but I would certainly recommend that the board give strong consideration to filing this warrant article to move this debate or move this discussion forward Thank you Mr. Chatelang Would anyone like to come up and speak to this Mel? You don't have to but and the gentlemen What I should say for the Human Rights Commission is that this wasn't on our agenda for the last meeting and so we were not able to take an official vote we did discuss it and the view was favorable but we would have to have an official vote to be an official cosponsor so it sounds like that's not on the table for this stage I don't know if we can sign on later They don't have to be I do have some information I'd be happy to pass out if people want a list of projects that we could that this Pride Commission could do in their first couple of years and some questions to consider about how many people would be on the commission in order to be able to really do their work and you know can we start this with a really small budget I think we can and then just a technical thing about like who would be posting the minutes just because there's no administrative staff support for it you know just tiny little things but also a bunch of information from the LGBTQ survey that we did so if you guys want a copy of this I'm happy to. Do you have five or no? Can we get those some of us will speed so I just want to say that I really appreciate Adam's leadership on this he's been really supportive since the very first minute Jenny rate as well has been super super supportive so I love our town so much and just say your name and address again no gold site precinct 20 Human Rights Commission in case somebody just zones and you know queues up to this part of the meeting Mr. Grilly so can we cosponsor this with the Human Rights Commission or no I mean commission is it the commission on disabilities of human rights human rights and can we no because you haven't voted is that the idea so it could be us in the town manager could just be town manager I was envisioning board of select manager and then of course would be hearing from Human Rights Commission and others that you know I just I have a lot of trust in Human Rights Commission so what but I'm more than glad to sponsor it or whatever my this particular one the way I see it right now would be board of select man and town manager but Mr. Dunn right right oh no I was just answering the my colleagues question just watch out for that you're very tall I have such fears of I duck and I'm not even close just for the record sir thank you good evening my name is Bill Gardner I live at 11 monotomy rocks drive please don't send my mail to 11 monotomy road I'm here from the board of the Mystic LGBTQ youth support network we're volunteer organization in the community working with LGBTQ youth in our community I know many of you have teenagers and know the challenges of raising teenagers today and the issues that they face and our LGBTQ teenagers have all additional set of issues that they're wrestling with and so it's really important that they get support I've been very blessed to be able to have presence at the Arlington Center for the Arts on Friday night where young people can come for programming and support and very closely with the Youth Counseling Center with the parent form on education and so forth so really feeling we're getting some good momentum in the process of our doing our work here we've been identified as one of the structures in the town concerned about LGBTQ issues and so people have been coming to us from the community even though our main focus is on youth and it's created quite a dilemma for us because we recognize the validity of the issues that people are bringing to us they're looking for information about what kind of programming is going on they're looking for a safe space to have the emotional support that they would really like to have they're looking for people who will organize when a horrible thing like the massacre in Orlando happened and bring people together to express our grief and move forward from a tragedy like that so we see the real needs of people in the larger community but we're in this dilemma that's not our focus in fact we're trying to get our resources so that we can really work with the youth so that's why we're coming tonight encouraging you to set up that structure we know that structure is needed from our experience of connecting with people in the community and we're hoping that you're going to put that in place and also we're excited about the possibility of our organization working hand in glove with that structure in the future so also in relationship to that we have been doing research on such entities around the country and we've gotten through about half of the states on the list and it's really turned into quite a project but we have identified five or six other communities around the country that have such a structure and we're hoping to be able to from that learn what they're doing and provide some information that would help us actually shape what we might be doing here so I do stand tonight in hopes that you will give a shout out to this and that it will meet some real needs in our community I'd be glad to respond to any questions anybody has thank you thank you for coming out would anyone else like to speak on this warrant article discussion if not from my colleagues I think what I have before you is joining with the town manager in placing this broader language warrant article regarding the pride commission and then when we take the steps forward getting the specifics and details Mr. Dunn moved by Mr. Dunn seconded by Mr. Curell any questions I'm all set Mr. Chaplin on a motion by Mr. Dunn seconded by Mr. Curell all those in favor say aye all those opposed thank you appreciate that next again this is just to give the board consideration if I would anticipate along with the town manager placing this warrant article before town meeting regarding an appointed treasurer Mr. Chaplin thank you madam chair to be brief I know we talked about this at the last board meeting of whether or not the board would be entertaining moving this forward to town meeting and we talked about bringing this very question back to the board of this meeting so town council has drafted I think a broad and flexible warrant article and then laid out a timeline or series of timelines that we could utilize if the board was interested in moving forward so I will state for myself I'm still very interested in pursuing this I have already begun some conversations with folks across departments including the school department and I would actually defer to town council though with any detail questions you have about how legally the process would work out Mr. Grilly well I move that we recommend Fayette Blackman although are we not at that point yet can be okay well okay should buy Mr. Grilly is there a second second second by Mr. Curell is there anyone here to speak to this particular warrant article just for my colleagues edification I had envisioned that the board along with the town manager would co-sponsor this warrant article for myself the personal caveat would be I think this is an important discussion that town meeting needs to have if we do go the appointed treasurer route there's a series of steps we need to take this would be the first one and then I believe working out particulars having a ballot question in the future and then a further action possibly at the next town meeting depending on the outcome of that I will say that myself personally having conversations with the town manager and I've said a couple of previous meetings as far back as weeks and months if not two three years ago when I keep saying the tale of two audits but the only conversation I've had with the town manager which have been very positive and constructive and at the last meeting I had asked our colleague Mr. Curell to look at establishing a dialogue where I think the schools also Mr. Curell pointed out sort of at a unique place if they wanted to reevaluate anything and that's up to them and their purview and Mr. Chapter Lane when I met them in the middle of last week has indicated that you know Mr. Chapter Lane and Mr. Curell sort of been brainstorming on that in terms of outreach so why I initially when this question first came up I was 100% this should be an elected position right now I'm of the opinion that I want to hear from my colleagues on town meeting as well as the residents of the town as well as hearing from Mr. Chapter Lane in terms of he with the outgoing treasurer or any other department heads or expertise that he needs as well as you know if there's any movement which the school interest that I have is in no way tied to any of this I'm just sort of taking advantage of the moment so I know some people might say to me hey you were 100% on elected treasurer but I do stand by that when we commissioned that report from the DOR and they came out with a seven or ten I keep saying tenets bullet points whatever I would have liked to adopt adopted some if not all of them so but I think just getting a sense of the town of Allenton what it means to be a treasurer right now I'm right now in the middle of the road and open to and appoint a treasurer if I feel confident in what my colleagues in town meeting say what the citizenry says as well as another big hurdle for me was who the town manager was and I know I did everything but promise you the sun sky and moon because you know we really wanted you to stay here and are very extremely confident in your abilities and I have no qualms in terms of the process that our town manager would move ahead for that not only would be be serving your current administration and department heads but I really feel confident that you'll put an effective framework in terms of if this is the way we go for a future administration to treasurer for not only accomplishing that goal but also setting the framework for a future administration town manager whoever he or she may be and his or her department head so I just in case anyone and I know I'll get calls on that we're saying this might seem like a switch from my previous position yes it is but it's in a sense that just looking at currently with the town of Allenton looks like it used to be a treasurer from when someone was the elected treasurer many years ago when this was first established so sorry for that long winded explanation I just wanted to I'm not thumb printing it but I'm so leaning towards it but I'm also trying to see if there's any way I can pull some more of that DOI report in which is not in any way tied to this vote this is solely for a warrant article to explore and get a sense of a conversion to an appointed treasurer as a warrant article this is the first step for this year's town meeting motion by Mr. Greeley seconded by Mr. Curell any further questions if not all those in favor say aye I oppose unanimous vote thanks for letting me be long winded on this on this particular warrant article Madam Chair assuming just on that if it does change we as a board need to discuss the parking clerk position yes right now it goes with the term of the elected treasurer I agree 100% that's not related to this but it is something maybe Mr. Chapter Lane it's a good very good point kind of takes a look at thank you and I would like to have a discussion on that at a appropriate time and then on the thank you Mr. Greeley thanks Kevin on the warrant article for tax exemption for seniors and I'll let Mr. Chapter Lane sort of give more particulars on this but as we went through the lost at exclusion and went to the voters and spoke to many people and had such a strong support from seniors from low middle income families but also who had in veterans and disabled persons also had some strong concerns about them to say you know we love Allington and the fabric of this community but this is another thing that kind of puts a peg into perhaps we can't stay here longer so I'll let the manager outline that it's sort of a couple of I shouldn't say couple of some work off programs where you could work expanding what we have currently in terms of if you fit the criteria because we do want to keep those people in Allington that's why we're so diverse and we love it here because I love to hear a story of you know someone in their 80s and 90s and pushing hundreds or someone who's disabled whether it's a war or an illness their illness is here in Allington and what has been a benefit to them so some are work off programs some are tax exemptions and I just want to I did contact Kate Leary, Mariah, Terrell, Jane Morgan, Greg Cristiana just to make them aware of these war and articles that the town manager has before us as a tool for any future overrides and or exclusions as well as the question came up about whether this would be would this provide relief to the most recent debt exclusion in terms of being retroactive or not I'm going to let the manager speak to that because I pretty much know the answer but where you have all the particulars I'm sure you have exactly how you want to present each one I just want to put the question on the table that when I've been talking about these war and articles and asking people to advocate if they support them and support them that question comes up would any of these be retroactive to the debt exclusion we just passed or is there no relief at all and I think the answer lies somewhere there in Mr. Chapelling. Thank you Madam Chair so if you don't mind I'll start by answering that question so for the debt exclusions that all passed last year all of those taxes are yet to be paid the borrowing the most the only borrowing that's been done to date is that for the Thompson school and that was just very recently done and as my understanding is not yet hit the tax rate so those recently passed debt exclusions will hit future tax rates and if any of these programs are adopted those who sign up for them will get the benefit in the future so though it doesn't go backwards retroactively the future impacts of those debt exclusions will be impacted by the potential adoption of all or any of these senior tax work off or exemption programs so I actually don't have a lot to add to what you already said Madam Chair but I'll briefly say to reiterate what you said I certainly heard loud and clear when this board put the debt exclusion ballot questions on the ballot that they wanted there to be a serious look taken in the future at how we can make sure that our senior residents are taken into consideration as taxation decisions are being made also I know the board and myself have heard from the Council on Aging about how they would also want to make sure that the population is taken into account as we plan financially and budgetarily going forward so a lot of work was put into putting these together by Christine Bardrono Director of Health and Human Services who is here tonight working in cooperation with the Council on Aging who I think maybe a quorum of is here tonight as well to possibly speak about these matters so to start there's four potential warrant articles before the board tonight the first two are property tax for work off articles one for seniors one specifically for veterans these both would operate functionally quite similar to the current Harry Barber program we have and really would work in coordination and be able to expand the amount of opportunities we grant for the folks in the community to work off portions of their real estate tax the third would be the creation of a voluntary fund by which donations could then go in the future to offset real estate taxes to go with elderly and disabled persons of low income and then finally the final article would allow for annual adjustments to the threshold by which one would qualify for property tax exemptions based on their income so right now that's a set amount if this was adopted it would allow us to go up by the CPI every year so that we could adjust over time we would if the board chose to put all four of these onto the warrant we would definitely start working on the specifics of the proposals to obviously come back and have more detail about what the specific impacts would be on seniors who live in Arlington if we roll these out Mr. Curell thank you Madam Chair could you just explain just a little bit more with the last one the CPI yeah so my understanding is that right now there's a certain threshold income threshold or income and assets threshold by which you need to qualify and it's not with this we can I actually have a question either for our town manager Mr. Chapter Lane or perhaps Mrs. Borgino if one summer all which I hope is all of these warrant articles are put for successful in moving forward could someone sort of not only take the microphone and speak to the constituency that I'm thinking of but in terms of and the town manager has done the Yomans 98% of work in his staff in terms of creating these but when myself and my colleagues were involved in the last debt exclusion as well as talking about an override possible future override and or possible future exclusions sort of how you would explain to that constituency in terms of you know what does this mean is it a for my file do I have to you know where do I go do you need to have you know all this financial information like how when I go out and say you know what we heard you this is before town meeting and or if it when it goes through how we just talk that 101 language to that constituency is that an appropriate question to ask right now is that okay so you can give me I'm just going to parrot back whatever you say to me hopefully when these go through when we're talking to seniors and families with disabled or developmentally delayed individuals because they don't want to hear the nuts and bolts oh yeah I carried this through town meeting was so heavy they just want to know it's a form you fill it out you go here or you call this number or whatever so if that's okay yeah I feel comfortable doing that just name and tradition for the record Christine Bonjourno health and human services director so of these four articles that are before you we really did look to other communities to see what was available what other communities are putting in place and looked at the state legislation so you have here I would say probably one of the most effective packages in addition to our current tax relief available if these were voted through but in order to do some education around these proposals the assessor's office does a really good job at getting the word out the council on aging does a great job and in addition to you know those departments working together on this we brought this to the veterans council we brought this to the disability commission so there are a number of groups that are working to make this happen and are really supportive of these efforts obviously they'll get that out to their constituencies to do some more education but really the council on aging and the assessor's help people with forms help with the applications and to make sure that people are able to successfully apply for these programs I think that answers your question thank you yes is there anyone else here from the audience that would like to speak to one summer all of these tax exemption much of the microphone stranger name and address for the record sir see he knows the duck when he gets to the team all right Bob, Radosha, Columbia, I'm all for some kind of exemption something to work but it can't work for me the income and the asset thing puts me out of play in terms of everything yet I can't afford it's getting so that I'm thinking we've got to do something I'm on a fixed income nothing changes social security went up but the medicare and part of it went the other way so there's no increase there I'm on a PBGC pension because my company went bankrupt and so it's fixed no change so I'm relying on maybe some good interest rates in the banks that's not happening and I have a way to save the town some money and that is if I didn't move and I got a $2,000 exemption say I don't know 20% I would save the town probably $30,000 $50,000 in school costs that these are three kids coming into live in my house that are going to have to go to school so we can save you some money if you help me along that way but I can't qualify for anything I mean the residential exemption thing that they have in Watertown and several other towns Boston anything Cambridge might have it also it's a great idea but it can't work here but if you could something like that adjusted so it was age appropriate rather than anyone something like that would help but too many people are fully in towns and when you sell a house two kids come in three kids come in and that's kind of going the other way from what it's doing to the school budget and so forth so that's my take on it would be nice to be here I can't even qualify to do some work in the town other than walk the streets and let you hear what I have to say thank you Thanks Bob anyone else name and position for the record I really just want to thank you for the opportunity of allowing us to bring this forward I think between Christine Buongiorno and the Council on Aging Board of Directors we've taken a lot of time to take a look at what we have in town that we can bring forward that's already in place in the legislature to basically try to ease some of the burden I don't live in Arlington I think Arlington is an awesome place and I'd really like the opportunity for everyone that wants to stay in town is able to take advantage of all the opportunities that we have with regards to reducing the expenses and I think the items that are brought forward are a fine example of the hard work that goes beyond trying to keep folks in town keeping Arlington an age friendly environment and how can you go wrong how can you go wrong it encourages civic engagement we're also looking at some of the war on articles about the possibility of individual stepping forward and doing the work in lieu of the senior so for those that feel that they don't qualify for the program because they're not able to get out and work the same way that they did that we might have proxies come in and help so some of these things are still in work but I just really wanted to say thank you and I hope that you consider it and bring it forward thanks Susan good to see you again Mr. Carol I like the move that we sponsored these articles I guess co-sponsor with the town manager is that yeah and if I may I actually I'm not clear has the Council on Aging voted on these articles Christine so all of them perhaps we should note the Council on Aging with the filing as well Motion by Mr. Currow on all four yes seconded by second Mr. Dunn any further questions is it Mr. Grilly so by any chance with the 28 years of sitting at these meetings and the 33 years at town meeting count as work for the town to be deducted probably not from real estate taxes against you Attorney Hyme we can vote on all four of these collectively because we're just voting to put them in unless the board wants to vote on them individually because there's a we have a motion to put all four together together as far as I understand okay and then when we have the hearings we'll do each of them separately on a motion by Mr. Currow seconded by Mr. Dunn any further questions or comments if not all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed I was yawning aye unanimous vote I thought you were trying to be a pirate maybe but anyways we now go to agenda item 11 discussion statement regarding President-elect appointments this was something I was contacted the board was contacted through an email from a Wellington resident you originally came in as correspondence received we're now following the process through where it's an agenda item and if I could I'd like to on the proponent please come up just state your name and address for the record even though we remember you Colin Frederick's 42 Rosson Road so what I'm looking for here is a statement of some sort by the Board of Selectmen in general against the appointments that have been made by now President Trump on the basis of suitability and poor suitability and especially on in many cases issues of just straight out bigotry things that we've been talking about earlier this earlier this evening and calling on the representatives of Massachusetts and its governor to make similar statements I don't know whether the board has made statements like this in the past whether you've considered those sorts of things or not this was just something that I felt strongly about and wanted to bring to you and just as my colleagues could glean from the original email I'm going to say Mr. Frederick's first and Colin after that okay what Colin had sent us was that he was trying to communicate with our current governor about asking him to express his sentiments to the then president elect regarding at least two of the proposed cabinet nominees I don't know if either one of those have been confirmed yet I know three have but anyways and wasn't having much success and was asking the board to consider sending a communication to the governor asking him basically to join with Colin to aid him in getting the governor to do that that's really where the tith of this started I've been in court all day repeating everything so my mouth's a little fried and since the request came in I put it forth on the agenda I'll just say for myself historically in terms of I've been on the board we've never communicated or any correspondence beyond sometimes you get a holiday card or something like that with a president elect or a president as an official board of select men as well as I'm trying to think you know the times we've communicated or contacted any governor it's usually been something that's come from the governor's office basically asking the board through our department heads to support something like that I do want to hear from my colleagues and I don't want to dismiss any possible avenue I fail in terms of myself being on the board of select men kind of what we did previously in the agenda in terms of sending out a message first sometimes responding reacting to current events at hand in terms of they could define us and perhaps not in a good way that perhaps goes against the mission and the statement and the goals that hopefully the citizens of Ellington think that the board of select men hears and is also in its day to day activities conducting itself that way to make sure that we define and correctly define what the town of Ellington should be regardless of any possible outside influence whether it's on the federal level whether it's on an environmental level whether it's on just an individual business or citizenry level but you did submit the request and there's no way any of us and I just happened to be chair this year wouldn't respond to it so I'd be interested in hearing what my colleagues think on this particular issue just myself personally not trying to be sarcastic or anything but Governor Baker I would bet he doesn't really care what I think and I don't know about president the president currently president you definitely it's something to be discussed and to see how we respond to this I hope you feel by some of the previous more nautical discussions and initiatives that this board has taken individually as well as co-sponsoring with other groups kind of answers some of that question and some of the concern valid, valid concerns that not only you have but every single member of this board and the administration on the left lives every day so I hope you and I'm not saying the board will or will not do anything I'm just saying that I feel if we do just what we've done tonight I feel we perhaps elade some residents concerns that Town of Allenton stay in the course we know what our community is we've defined it and we know how we want to serve it and we're still going down the road that way so but I pontificated I just wanted to explain how we got to where we are Mr. Curell Thank you Madam Chair I'm going to ask your indulgence too because I've thought a lot about this and I have I think some of the same concerns you have but I wanted to think about this how this applies to our prism so I think it's fair to say that all of us up here as elected officials we greatly respect the law of the voters I mean that's how we got here and that's how we've moved a lot of our great strides forward in this community as always relied on the will of the voters and I think we also know that the voters in this town overwhelmingly disagreed with the majority of electoral college so we're a little bit of at odds I think the chair was very eloquent in talking about some of the things that we did tonight I think it was a demonstration of some of the values that we hold dear in the community personally and I'm going to speak if I might speak personally just for a moment you know my family and I joined so many others on Boston Common this weekend four times the population of Arlington was on the Boston Common four times the population of this town was there and that was joined across the country and I kept running into Arlingtonians every corner and every street no surprise and on subway platforms for a long time on subway platforms so there's a lot of concern I think we've all heard it in different ways from our constituents personally I look at the prism of what we do as a town and what concerns I have when I see you raise the issue of cabinet appointments so I see a secretary of education has made a career essentially on dismantling public education struggled to really articulate the federal government's commitment to IDEA the individuals with disabilities and education act struggled with the whole argument between proficiency and growth these are central themes in education our school committee in our town really tries to do a out front with those sometimes we do better than at other times but we really make an effort and the voters have supported those efforts that concerns me when I see that we see there's a nominee for HUD brilliant surgeon no experience with this area this board has partnered with our affordable housing advocates in town this board every year relies on HUD for CDBG funds which we help forms really a vital part of the safety net in this town that's a concern for me as an individual and a member of this board we've seen a number of nominees who are climate change deniers and a nominee for secretary of energy who called for elimination of the department which flies in the face of some of the values that we've articulated here we hired an energy manager here this board endorsed the community choice aggregation act our town has put solar on the schools we've taken these things very seriously we see for attorney general who's really taken a punitive justice approach and has had a questionable civil rights record you saw our commitment to civil rights this evening and putting forward and working with some of our partners in the community we have a strong commitment here to restorative justice as well our police department excels in working on restorative justice as well as I'll just say in working with really partnering with our health and human services professionals on narcotics issues so I could go on and on but I look at it through the prism of what we have put forward as values in this town so I personally I have a concern with some of those I will say that one bright light one bright light all of this is that this board in particular spends an awful lot of time on transportation issues and the nominee currently for transportation secretary has more federal agency experience than just about all of the other nominees put together and if the president is to be taken at his word we will see hopefully a large transportation infrastructure package I say hopefully and hopefully the sustainable funding package and that's the big question mark there I have all of these questions I share that with you but like the chair I think that I think that we probably think that this board will be able to take a vote and convince the governor to convince the president to withdraw these nominees he's not going to do it he's not going to do it I think that what might be a more prudent course for this board to take in this regard is to articulate some of the values that we hold we don't have to necessarily address specific nominees because frankly the horses out of the gate the nomination hearings are going on now you know several of the nominees I think it's appropriate for this board to articulate some of Arlington's values and some of the things that we have done that we are most proud of and to forward those to our federal delegation with the request that they please exercise strong oversight and act in our interest in these specific areas and I think it's also appropriate for us to communicate with the governor and likewise ask him for partnership because it seems that on some of so many of these areas it's going to fall to the states and local communities like Arlington I think to really keep momentum going positive momentum going in so many of these areas and to ask the governor and the legislature for partnership and keeping these initiatives alive during a time which in my view promises to be a very dark time nationally and so I apologize for taking but I thought a lot about it and I think that asking the governor to convince the president is maybe a non-starter but asking the governor for partnership in these areas on a local state basis and asking our legislative delegation also to look out for our interest in this area makes sense that takes time to craft I'm sorry chair and I will say is Colin relayed to us and you're okay with me using your first name in his email that a lot of it my interpretation was really his frustration with you know what can he do as well as join with others to do he wanted to start at this sort of stepping off point to see have the conversation see if what he was initially proposing was something that is viable and could be done and or through discussion perhaps another route could possibly be taken that the town of Allington embark on that and then pretty much a lot of what Mr. Kiro has outlined in what we've discussed previously and then that would also be a tool for Colin and others to go out and say if you feel the same way I do and you want to take some action on it but you're not really sure what it is it didn't necessarily have to be exactly 100% what Colin was proposing but and he was saying if there's nothing this board can do then there's nothing this board can do but basically give him an instrument to say to his family friends or colleagues in other cities and towns well if you feel the same way I do and you feel there's no recourse this is what Allington and its board of select men has done you may want to propose that to your city council your board of select men or whatever the elected or appointed body is to your city and town so I just wanted to say my sense of your email was you weren't firm 100% on what you were saying but you were saying if this board can't do anything you understand but if it isn't this and you can do it you'd love to hear it Mr. Grilly so I would move that we do not as a board create a statement regarding elect appointments I don't think we should as a matter of policy and I don't think we're qualified either but I admire the passion that Mr. Frederick has shown us tonight in our colleague Joe Curo and perhaps a resolution of town meeting is something he might want to consider but I don't believe this board should any more than if Hillary who I supported was elected that we should make a statement that we endorse all of her appointments we need to focus on Arlington so yeah I move we do not so I guess I don't have to I guess I don't have to make a motion to do that unless someone is going to make a motion to do it its status quo otherwise right well I think what I was going to suggest as a motion is to just not necessarily with reference to any nominees that we just some of the accomplishments of this board that we have concerns about and ask our federal delegation the governor to partner with us to make sure that they they remain strong and protected to the extent that they are able to do so I don't think it has to be a specific statement about cabinet nominees because I agree I don't think that's our place to be to be as a board to be commenting on specific cabinet nominees we know what we've done and we know what values we've got here in Arlington and I feel that it would be appropriate to draft some statement of communication to our delegation and our governor just asking for partnership as we move forward and I'm willing to I'm willing to put that in a motion and I'm willing to volunteer to draft some initial language and if the board is not happy with it I'm happy to motion by Mr. Kuro is there a second by Mr. Dunn any further questions? No, I favor that. Here's what we believe in Arlington. Please help us. We know who you are but just name and address for the record. Boy, I got the Boston record. Bob I was going to say Bob record. I'm opposed to the board taking a position on this. I don't think it's engaging in partisan politics which has been going on too long I believe and it's undermined a lot of things in this country and I think it's time we get over it and I'm not sure I don't think the board should be speaking for everyone in town on this and if you choose to go ahead I'd like you to put a footnote on it saying excluding Bob Redosha. Bob did you hear clearly the motion is because he's not supporting that. I just want to make a statement saying that I don't support doing this. Doing what? A statement or a letter to the governor or anybody else from the town of Arlington. On any issue ever? No. This is partisan politics. Mr. Redosha I don't think you understand the motion. The motion Mr. Kuro just made was to make a motion to talk about the values and what Arlington believes in including things like talking about the inclusion that we understand. You don't even believe we should be talking to the governor about inclusion? That's something else I think. His motion is we just want to highlight and encapsulate this is what the town of Arlington has done, the actions it's taken around IDEA. I understand that. Just saying we understand in terms of politics just share this in mind when you're acting on our behalf and on a federal level or as a governor that this is what we've already adopted and we're already preserving and whether sustainability or you know it's just basically reiterating what we're doing. And just saying whatever you can do to help us on the federal level. No direction to the president or cabinet appointments. Just basically outlining this is Arlington, this is our community, can you help us out and protect us and keep us safe? Protect us from what? Pardon me? Protect us from what? To ensure that we continue to receive funding we already have or if there are future possibilities for funding that be possible. I thought I heard protect us from some of the appointments that are coming up. No, we're not getting involved in that at all. Okay. Not at all. I wasn't going to put it on, I promise. Okay. No, no. Put my name on. That's a footnote that I don't. We're going to do something from the Board of Selectment. You can definitely get a copy and feel free to if you want to send to the exact same people. But I don't want to get into it back and forth. Okay, that's fine. But in terms of getting the word out I have the telephone numbers of all my reps and I call them constantly on different things just to let them know where I am. And that's an opportunity for any citizen in town that wants to get his opinion out as a position on something. You can go stand in front of a supermarket or post office or something with a clipboard for people to sign for your statement and then you send your statement in. But I don't think it anything ought to come out of the town in terms of that. But we're just responding to something from a resident similar to when you pointed out issues to us with NSTAR now ever sourced. We could have said it called 1-800-588-8000. You're welcome to call them and inundate the phone lines. But when you brought very valid safety concerns to us we took the extra step and we did contact because I know myself and others did it. So this is the same thing. So I just want you to we're treating everybody the same. We had a request. We're not doing what the original proponent asked us to do. But I feel what we do owe any resident who contacts us is a discussion. And out of that discussion we either decide to do something or nothing. Thank you. Did someone have the hand up? Sure. Just name an address for the record. I just wanted to say I strongly support this idea. I think that many of us are feeling a little exhausted about having to call and call and call and call to express our opinion on all of this laundry list of things that we feel might be threatened. And so as one of your constituents I love the idea. You know we have voted for you. You know what we support and what we're concerned about and I love the idea of you saying here are the town of Arlington's values and here are how we are putting them in place and we really look forward to your support in their success in the future or so. Thank you. On a motion by Mr. Curell seconded by Mr. Dunn and any further questions or comments? Not all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed. Unanimous vote. We now have before us language in a discussion regarding a possible ballot question for Recreational Marijuana. I don't know if Mr. Chapter Lane or Tony Hine. Tony? Sure. I want to make clear at the outset of this this is not I'm not articulating an opinion as to whether or not Recreational Marijuana should or should not be legal for Salem Arlington. This is merely to present the options before the Board of Select and the larger community for regulating or not regulating the sale of Recreational Marijuana. The issue that I want to highlight the most for the Board is that there is not a clear path forward to either end at this point in time. The way the ballot question was posed and the way the law currently stands it requires a vote of the voters to pass a town bylaw restricting the sale of marijuana. Well those two things are not entirely congruent. There's not we don't normally have a vote of the voters to pass a town bylaw nor does and when we have a vote of the voters we don't usually go back to town meeting about it. There are some specific statutes that call for that process. We've actually talked about one of them earlier today with the conversion of the treasurer position. But at this point in time it's not clear what exactly we'd have to do if we wanted to prohibit sale of Recreational Marijuana in Arlington. So the options that the Board has is it could take a conservative approach and say well we want to put something on the ballot for this town election anyway under the non binding policy question but we wouldn't be sure that that would actually meet the requirements for eventually prohibiting sale of marijuana or not. Obviously if we put a public ballot question out there saying what do you guys think and the town said we want legal recreational marijuana sales in Arlington that kind of sends a strong signal at the very least. But we can't really be sure. The governor recently signed a bill extending the period of time by which the cannabis control commission would start processing applications from this fall to next April. So that's good news. We're hoping from the mass municipal lawyers association perspective that the state will clarify its rules so we don't end up in a situation like we did with DPH and some of these issues with medical marijuana facilities. I'm happy to answer any questions I can but at this point in time your options are if something becomes clear in the future or pursue actions either at town meeting or the ballot or both that may or may not actually be satisfactory for resolving this question. Okay and I just as a unless Mr. Chapter Lane had. Can I add one thing correctly if I'm wrong. I believe if the board did want to put a ballot question a non binding ballot question on an April they have until February 24th per month to do so. Yep. And this came out of conversations with the manager many weeks ago. When a lot of things were clarified and there was a timeline in place and the manager said the board may want to discuss since the vote was closer on recreational versus medical marijuana and I said I'd be happy to put this on the agenda. My personal opinion right now is especially of most recent weeks where everything's even gotten further muddied from DPH and all the other agencies that are coming out with a lot of ambiguous language that basically you know whether you read the globe or the alerts that we get from the state agencies and entities that deal with this. At this point I wouldn't and I'd want to hear from my colleagues as proposed putting a ballot question forward because I feel like if there should be one we only have one bite at the apple and we should know all the facts with clarity because when these new questions that were on the table some came up last year in August when we were going through ARB and medical marijuana and as a result of statements from that state agency added another layer of uncertainty and now within the past two, three weeks there's even more questions and more things have been opened up so at this point I wouldn't advocate for putting a ballot question on because we don't actually know what the rules are that it may come out that everything gets worked out and it's within parameters that we're comfortable with and we don't need any questions on it. Originally when everything was laid out it made sense for me right now I'd like to hear from my colleagues Mr. Dunn and others in terms of where you'd like to go. There is no path forward there is no urgency. I move receipt of the correspondence from the Board of Health and the Town Council. Seconded by Mr. Curell. Is anyone here to speak to this? Any further questions or comments by my colleagues to move receipt by Mr. Dunn, seconded by Mr. Curell, all those in favor say aye. All those opposed unanimous vote. Next we have, I want to thank the town manager in terms of once again forming your duties as our chief big person on top in terms of getting the budget materials out getting them out through the town website and through news media online and printed ink. Usually Mr. Chatholain said to me I can do a quick five minute presentation on this but I did ask him to maybe give us a 10 or 15 minute presentation. To me this is an important item to have not only that we're not immersed in it we are but a lot of people do watch this, do go into the links we provide afterwards and I think this is a good precursor for when we already have this information but then we put it out and it's an entirety and it will aid us in terms of when we're talking to people who have questions on the 2018 budget so I did ask Mr. Chatholain for more than five minutes so Mr. Chatholain and me asking him for more than five minutes but to me we all know this is a very important issue with the town especially with what we'll be moving forward with in the future. Mr. Chatholain. Great, right on cue. Sean has the presentation up just to begin thank you Madam Chair and like you said I think for the benefit of the board the benefit of those in attendance although it seems most have left I won't take that as an insult. And for those watching at home I think talking a little bit about the budget process is an important thing so thank you for indulging me the time. So if you go to the first slide Sean we're going to go over the budget process where we start and hopefully where we end and start again. Give a brief overview of the budget. Talk about broad strokes revenue and expenditures looking at FY17 and FY18 I'll then provide the board some of the departmental highlights specifically how we get to our education funding proposal that's included in the budget submission as well as some of the key investments we made in responding to community needs in town departmental budgets. I'll provide a brief long term outlook looking at our long range plans some of our long term liabilities and some of the big projects that we've been talking about but we haven't yet put a funding plan in place for and then talk about next steps and then obviously answer any questions or discuss any matters with the board. If we could go to the next slide Sean, thank you. So the budget process as we outline in the financial plan every year really you could carve it in a couple different ways of where it kicks off but to start at the beginning of the fiscal year as we all know all cities and towns of Massachusetts and the states fiscal year begins in July 1st shortly thereafter in September we have all departments submit their capital budget requests to the town manager's office which are then funneled to the capital planning committee for processing over the course of the fall in November by the end of November we have all operating budget requests due to the town manager's office which is initially processed within the town manager's office and then issued on January 15th to the board of selection and finance committee and that's the book that was provided last week and really is at the core of what we're going to talk about here tonight. Uh-oh, Brams. Brams can have to do some work. You can go back one Bram. Moving forward from here really starting actually February 1st through April the finance committee will hold hearings on the budget have discussions with departments have myself the deputy manager and others before them to answer any key questions that might have then in March primarily driven by when we get the group insurance rate set on March 1st will then create the more detailed financial plan and submit that to the board of selection and finance committee as well as make it available to the general public. In April we've hopefully by that point reconciled everything that's been proposed by the town manager along with the finance committee and that's all put into the finance committee's report to town meeting for their consideration. Again hopefully in May the town meeting is able to, excuse me, adopt the operating and capital budgets and then on June 30th the fiscal year ends and the whole process starts again. Moving forward from there again as I mentioned I'll give a brief overview of revenue and then a brief review of expenditures if you can go back one. Thank you. So I apologize I know it's a little small trying to fit it all into one slide. So you see we have the revenue, we have the property tax, local receipts, state aid, subset of state aid school construction aid, free cash, other funds and we're missing a label excuse me for override stabilization fund being the last revenue source depicted here on this chart. Two columns are FY17, FY18, the monetary change and then the percentage change as you go across the chart. The first line property tax that contains a 2.5% increase as allowed under the proposition 2.5 statute. It also includes $650,000 in new growth. Those board members that are members of the Long Range Planning Committee are familiar with a recommendation that's been adopted and moving forward this year where we're using the 10-year average of new growth in the next budget planning year and then we're ratcheting it down in $50,000 increments over the course of the Long Range Plan to try to hedge against an economic slowdown that would have an impact on our new growth. Also contained within the property tax line are monies that are being raised via debt exclusion. So you will see over future years those debt exclusions that we talked about under the senior property tax programs begin to inflate that figure. Below we have local receipts. That is primarily driven by motor vehicle excise tax collections. That's almost half of that near $9 million figure you see in FY17. The remainder are departmental receipts, parking violations, parking meter fees, rental income we receive from properties we rent out and really any other fee we collect that's not tax based in the town. So that's a real estate property tax based in the town. Historically we had started with increasing that line item by $50,000 increments last year and increased that increment to $75,000 this year after meeting with what we call the Revenue Working Group, members of the finance committee as well as the treasurer, the Comptroller, myself, the deputy town manager. Looking at historical collections we felt comfortable bumping that revenue increment up to a $100,000 increase going into FY18 and then beyond that as well in the long range plan. State aid, you see a total projected increase of 2.3%. State aid is primarily unrestricted general government aid as well as Chapter 70 and a few other smaller accounts that are on what's called the cherry sheet that comes from the state. We budget 1% increases in general government aid and then for Chapter 70, which is the education aid, we look at how many new aid students have come into the district in the prior year and we multiply $1,500 by that, which past history has shown seems to be just about the right metric for how much new aid students bring in along with them. On Saturday at the MMA annual conference, the governor announced that he would actually be increasing unrestricted general government aid by 3.9% to match with projected growth in state revenue. So that's just about $211,000 more than what this budget actually contained for unrestricted general government aid. So that's a very good thing. He announced also that Chapter 70 would be going up by a gross $90 million. However, until we see that funneled through the formula, it's hard to tell exactly what that means for us. So we'll know more at the latest by Thursday when the governor's budget is officially released with all of its detail. Below that is school construction aid. Those are monies we received from the program that was in place before the MSBA, before the Mass School Building Authority. It was called the SBAB. And back then, they would basically pay down debt service with us as opposed to paying in real time as they do now. And these are the remaining payments we're receiving for prior projects. Between FY17 and FY18, and FY17 effectively, they'll have made their last payment for the Otteson School. So that goes away in FY18. And then if we looked at future looking documents, we'd also see that starts to go down over the course of the next four years until, in fact, by FY2022, I believe it's all gone. Free cash, the town has an operating policy of using 50% of its certified free cash as an operating revenue. We're still waiting for the Comptroller to have free cash certified. However, based on its estimates, we feel comfortable using a status quo estimate from last year. But when that number becomes available, we'll update that through the process. Other funds are representative of funds that we take from the overlay fund. That's the money that's put aside for abatements, our potential abatements against tax assessments. This year, you'll see the increase of $400,000, and that is specifically tied to we are coming up on our nine-year revaluation process that we have to go through. And the assessor's office has received some quotes of how much that will cost. The high end of those quotes are $400,000. So corresponding to that revenue increase is an expense ask to fund that. And we want to take that money from overlay. The assessors feel comfortable with that. We'll still be working out some details, but that's why you see that jump in that revenue line. And again, I'm sorry for the mislabeling, but that final line is the override stabilization fund. This is the first year since the override was passed for fiscal year 2012 and calendar year 2011 that at least this proposal is asking to take money out of the override stabilization fund. As you heard me say earlier, unrestricted general government aid is coming in higher than projected depending on where free cash is certified. That number could be very, very small if not be eliminated by the time we get to making a recommendation to town meeting. One question. If this still exists and where is it in here? I know we made a policy decision several years ago to the, I'm going to get the acronym or name wrong. It was a municipal building trust fund that had several million dollars in it and had been pretty stagnant for many, many years. And then there was a policy decision to take a certain percentage of that every year. I want to say anywhere from 150 to 250,000. Do you know the account I'm referencing? Is that in there somewhere or is that all gone? No, no, there's still there is a municipal building insurance trust fund. My understanding is it was set up long before I was here, but my understanding is it was set up so that we could maintain high deductible property insurance programs. Right now our property insurance in our buildings has a deductible of $100,000. So you want to make sure you have a sum of money around to be able to fix up smaller claims that might happen because you're not going to hit that deductible. I believe there's just about $750,000 left on that fund. And what the practice has been since I've been here is to take, and I can't tell you why this number is this number, but $20,625 out of that fund on an annual basis and use that to offset our property insurance bill that we paid at the insurance company. So that actually shows up as a revenue. It shows up as an offset within expenditures. But you're right about that. Thank you. Go to the next page, Sean. The next page is a breakdown. Again a higher level look at expenditures. You see the first line is municipal departments. Municipal departments are actually in this budget, budgeted to grow at 3.15%. I don't get the benefit of the rounding there when it goes up to 3.2%. The Long Range Planning Committee had agreed that town budgets could go up to 3.25%. So this budget as proposed is coming in under that recommendation. School department budget you see is projected to go up by 6.57%. Again rounded there at 6.6%. The next slide gets into more detail about how that actual school number is calculated. Below that we have the Minuteman School. You see a pretty significant increase in that assessment. That's primarily driven by less in district students being part of the calculation right now and operating under the new regional agreement. The actual amount of money we're paying to the Minuteman School is greater than this amount you see here. But there is a portion that is actually the first tranche of the excluded debt for their building project. They've already issued bonds but we've put that into the capital budget. I should also mention we are showing that back on the revenue page as being raised in FY18 on the tax rate. Below that we have non-departmental which is healthcare and pensions. We budget at 5.25% but as we start to go through the budget process we start to actually hone in on the amount of contracts, the amount of people on health insurance that we think we have. So the number is actually under 4% as we look at it today. Pensions we have an agreement with the retirement board to keep that at or below 5.5% which they've committed to. So that you see there the cumulative number is a 4.6% rate of growth. Capital planning you see the total of 10.9 million down slightly from last year's budget. Capital budget annually is supposed to be 5% of operating revenues and then over the course of the 5 year capital plan should also balance out to 5% of the total revenues. So that figure again if we're looking at the capital plan fits into that criteria as advised by the capital planning committee. Below that you see the MWRA debt shift. The board has talked a lot about this and I've talked a lot with Mike Rademacher and the department about starting to look at ways to lower this and we can either begin that through this budget process or through the next budget process depending on when we actually think some of the debt exclusion impacts will start to hit. One thing Mike Rademacher has also done that I can share under another agenda item of the board is starting to look at what the rate pair impacts would be of backing off this taxation. But at least for this budget presentation that figure is still contained there. I think it was you Mr. Dumb that raised, was it around this point of the manager? So I would be guided in terms of whether it doesn't have to be tonight in terms of what process the stock went on that. But that was what you were talking about. I guess I had been under thinking that we would tackle it in June when we set the water rates. I think the town manager is saying he's going to, Mike Rademacher is working on it and I look forward to it. I am a strong advocate for reducing that number and I held off while the water rates are going up so much but they've leveled off and I think it's time it's more fair as a policy thing to change that. Could I with my colleague's permission appoint Mr. Dunn officially to sort of parlay that forward and be the steward of that and with you and the town manager let the future chair the board or if I'm still cheer by then what should happen and be an agenda item. So we're now going to officially sort of start moving on that. Thank you very much. I'm sorry to interrupt. Moving down from that you see the warrant articles line. That's the line that has a number of miscellaneous warrant articles. The largest one being the OPEB warrant article that's contained in there. You see a pretty significant increase of 551,400,000 of that corresponds to that revaluation process that I mentioned we were taking revenue from the overlay surplus for. There's also some further funds for the zoning recodification effort included in that increase as well as I'll get into a little more detail some funds I've put into support town day and other town festivals as this board has talked about behind that increase. The next line reserve fund and elections. That is just as it's labeled the town's operating reserve fund overseen by the finance committee and the elections budget. It's gone down slightly this year because there's less elections projected in FY18 in the absence of any special elections that might come up and that's why the number goes down. It goes up one year down the other year sort of in alternating fashion based on whether we're in a state election year or just a local election year. I would say if you could help us in any way possible in the future it always gets me very frustrated when the board of Selectman's office gets grilled so hard about elections and whatever way you can join us when you're at the finance committee the cost of elections it is what it is. We're constantly being I shouldn't say constantly but there has been a somewhat recurrent theme of really questioning those numbers and I think to me those are some of the most static firm numbers because it's so many elections by so much. So I don't know what it is that I'm not doing right or on behalf of the board of Selectman when it comes in terms of when people are looking at numbers and crunching them but it just seems to me there's an awful lot of time spent with the Selectman's office going over elections and you know how can we cut costs and you know it's really so you and I can have a future discussion on that and maybe there's just something that I'm not doing right and it hasn't just been this year it's been pretty much the past 10 years so I just wanted to raise that whatever aid we can get from you on that so thank you. That's fair. The next line is the override stabilization fund deposit that was made in FY17 corresponding back up to revenues. We're projecting to use override stabilization funds as revenue thereby not projecting to make a deposit into the override stabilization fund for the first time since the override. Excuse me. That we have not appropriated expenditures the lion's share of that figure are our state assessments nearly I believe three and a half million dollars are our state assessments. The remainder is the amount that we pay towards the sims debt service we raise it within property taxes moving into the urban renewal fund but then account for as an expense under not appropriated expenses as well as an additional hundred thousand dollars that we set aside for a potential court judgments against the town. The reason that figure has gone down from FY17 is we are no longer budgeting for snow and ice deficits in the not appropriated and that's why if you look back to FY16 you'd see reserve fund has gone up pretty significantly we're now putting that money in the reserve fund and not carrying it as a deficit to be raised and that's why you see that reduction there. Any questions before I go to the next slide. So on the override stabilization fund does that empty that account does that or that's what we're taking out of it that's what we took out of it for 17. So with 17 we put $2.3 million into it. Okay so that's why it's okay that's what's under expense. And so in FY18 we're talking about today taking $360,000 from it. It has nearly $22 million in the fund which will support the town over the course of what will most likely be the next three to four fiscal years. Thank you. You're welcome. Next slide. Highlighting departmental recommendations that have been made on this budget. Bless you. This slide focuses solely on education. You see we have a breakdown of the education budget as it's put together with a corresponding chart. So general fund or excuse me general education costs are increased year over year at 6.26%. The reason you see that larger percentage is year over year if you go down to the growth factor line we roll the growth factor into the base inflate that by 3.5% and that's why you see the larger percentage increase. Special education costs are allowed to increase at 7%. Kindergarten fee offset which you may recall from a number of years ago now was given as funding to the school department when kindergarten fees were eliminated and then Chapter 70 came in to replace those funds actually in excess of that $970,000 and that's carried as a separate line. And then the growth factor is the amount of money that we budget to give the school department based on their increase enrollments. So the chart below shows that the FY17 enrollment growth as of October 1st was 242 students. If we take 35% of per people costs for Arlington which last year or actually I believe that's the FY15 per people cost $13,383 35% of that's $4684 brings us to a growth factor of $1,133,528. So that brings the total increase for the FY18 budget for the school department to $3,756,042 or a 6.57% increase. I think it's important to acknowledge that I looked back at the past 10 years of educational funding increases in Arlington and outside of the years of the override where there was some significant catch up happening. This is I believe this is the largest if near the largest if not the largest increase that has been proposed in educational funding. I completely understand what the school committee and the superintendent are dealing with with the needs they're trying to fill and I don't want to minimize those but I think in an environment where we're confined by proposition 2.5 and the amount of revenue we can grow to be able to as part of this plan give this significant an increase to the school department should be acknowledged and it should be acknowledged as a significant investment in the town's educational system. I also want to mention that like last year if the Chapter 70 proposal that comes down from the state is higher than what's been projected in this budget, what I am proposing is that we give that difference in addition to what's being proposed here today. We'll know more what the governor thinks on Thursday when we see those figures. And I thought that was a really important fact and as the manager to highlight not that anybody was questioning but again how we as a board operate not only with the town manager but our colleagues on the school committee we both listen to each other's concerns and what we have to deal with so I did ask the manager to highlight that. He figured it out, I did it and he told me and so I thought that was a fun interesting fact so thank you Mr. Chapter. If I can go to the next slide. I wanted to see what you said. Did you say that the desi per pupil cost is FY15? Yeah I don't seem to have it listed here. I believe we end up being in arrears several years as they certify. It may be FY16 and I'm sorry I don't have that. It's always more years than seems appropriate based on when they certify. Actually it is FY16 because what's happening right now school department is a process that they're still going through where they submit all their FY17 enrollments. It is FY15 because they're still certifying FY16 right now. They're still spending 17 and they're certifying 16. Basically what it is is they don't certify budgets, they certify expenditures which takes, you need to go through your audit, you're going to get everything done to get that. Town department highlights that. As was outlined in the budget message I want to just take an opportunity to talk about some of the things that we're proposing. There's been a lot of talk actually. Susan Karp used the term age friendly community earlier tonight. That's an AARP program that we're undertaking and trying to achieve a designation as an age friendly community. Several other communities in the state have already done it and I think the terminology they use is to make the place that you live or your city or your town friendly to people ages 8 to 80. It's not just senior focused but it has a strong senior focus to it. So in the operating budget we've made an investment in increasing the social work hours in the Council on Aging in direct response to the Council on Aging's appearance before this board asking for some consideration and attention to the growing senior population in Arlington and the needs that they're presenting. But I think it's also important to mention and I mentioned here on the slide within the capital plan is the proposed investment in a renovation of the center and there's also the continued investment in curb cuts and ramp upgrades for accessibility as well as a new investment being made this year and increased up to $500,000 worth of sidewalk repairs also aimed at creating accessibility and ease of getting around pedestrian access in town. So that might not necessarily immediately seem like a senior focused investment. I think it is. I think it's a townwide investment but a senior focused investment and we care about providing you accessibility, livability and walkability in town to try to make this a place that you feel comfortable living. Can I on that? It's probably inherent in the public meetings that you've had. A, you've heard this and B, it's being discussed but the number one thing I hear from seniors besides services when we talk about the senior center and Council on Aging renovating redoing those bricks in front of the senior center. I've heard time and time again most seniors nine out of ten will say, you know, I trip on them, I'm scared to walk on them, the snow in the ice so as you move forward if you could, I know I do a lot of work in government center and they've started to replace the old bricks that I've seen quite a few, I was last as a woman but I've seen quite a few attorneys come in who had a little bit of heal that you know, go and slide on that so it's not just seniors so have you heard that? Are we tied to those bricks? The designer has been hired, the design is being put together to you're talking about the semicircle parking lot in front of the Council on Aging Driveway, excuse me. The plan is underway being drawn up to redo that, that will eliminate the bricks from the circle not entirely from the area. I'm not going to hold you to that but as long as you're looking into it because that's the number one thing with seniors when I go over there, they're like, look at this, I have to take my, you know, and it really is, and like I said, it's not just seniors when people are going in there with strollers and stuff like that, you know, sometimes you need an extra friend when you get stuck in one of those ruts of the bricks. I've taken my share of falls in the bricks. Okay, sorry, I took a bit, go ahead. Okay, senior center. The next area that I wanted to talk about is what I call the investment neighborhood protection. So the budget proposes adding a new full-time building inspector, upgrading the position of conservation administrator to an environmental planner position, transitioning the project manager position within the Board of Health Office under Health and Human Services to a director of public health. And these are really all focused on being able to tie into some of the recommendations that the residential study group is going to be bringing forward to town meeting in regards to residential zoning or residential construction, as well as meeting some needs that have gone unmet, excuse me, over the years. The building inspector and the director of public health in particular will go a long way towards meeting up with noise abatement requests as well as what, I know this Board hasn't had the opportunity to see it because it's not fully developed yet, but the residential study group, the primary thing that they're going to be recommending to town meeting is the creation of a construction control agreement, maybe better called a good neighbor agreement that will outline in one place all of the town's bylaws and statutes that have governance over how loud you can be, how long you can work, what you can do, what you can't do, and how you have to keep your job site safe when you're working on a construction site in town. And having a specific personnel that can go and enforce that and make sure that it's happening, I think, are entirely key to being successful. And as compared to past years where proposals are brought forward, a discussion happens on town meeting floor of whether or not we have the resources to manage the enforcement of what's being proposed, instead this is front-loaded. This is something we want to do, we're recommending at the town meeting, and here's the resources we think are necessary to make it happen. The environmental planner will be somewhat tied into that, but more importantly, we'll respond to some of the also growing conservation needs that I think the Board has probably heard being expressed over the past couple months. So to continue to do the work of the conservation administrator, but also broaden that work to further protection of our natural resources in towns, probably primarily things like Spipon, Milbrook, the reservoir to be able to work proactively on planning measures to protect those assets. Any questions on that? A note of a continuing investment in information technology. To be honest, I think there's a little bit of a catch-up happening with this budget proposal this year. We're proposing adding an assistant director of information technology as well as really changing a position to a munis project analyst, or a munis systems analyst. We're moving almost entirely to munis for both our accounting as well as our collections. We've been working with the Comptroller and the Treasurer, and having somebody on the IT staff to manage both all of the updates to munis that happen on a regular basis as well as account access and permissions throughout the system is really crucial to having an efficient and effective financial system, and that's why we're adding that. We're proposing to add that. On that, if Mr. Currow could follow up, it's my understanding, and I've just been told anecdotally that the interim, I don't know if it's CFO, her name is Tony. I believe she also by and large is using munis. So I don't know if that moves forward that she along with Dr. Vody should be included with that in case there's something that they something they can bring to the table in that discussion. But I'll leave that to Mr. Currow and Mr. Chapter Lane, because ultimately which I think is what is happening right now, which make me really happy is we're all talking the same language as munis and everybody's in the same reporting framework. But I'll leave that to Mr. Currow to hash out. Sorry. I'm just telling you, I haven't even met this individual who I'm calling her by her first name only because I'm blanking her last name, but it's Tony. Tony Mertz. Ms. Mertz, I have not. I've heard other things people who speak highly of her who work with her, so I'm not stating that for a fact. Okay, sorry, go ahead. That's fine. The next note is funding included support town day. This is in direct response to a discussion that happened at the board's goal setting session as well as some follow up conversations I've had with a number of board members. What's included under warrant articles is $10,000 to support town day and that could offset the cost of police details, fire detail, and public works time. I know it doesn't pay for all of it, but I hope it's recognized as a significant investment on the part of the town to offset the amount of fund raising that needs to be done. And then there's amounts of $2,500 apiece to help Feast of the East in Arlington alive achieve those same ends. Obviously, that's still open to discussion with the finance committee and the board of selectmen as we go through the process, but I did want to point out that investment is being proposed to be made. Not on this slide, but I think it's important to mention we did add hours for a part time social worker within the police department to assist the existing police social worker, Rebecca Wolfe, to even further improve the follow up that we have as part of our opiate program. Also hedging against, given some of the discussions from earlier tonight, I think the board knows that Rebecca Wolfe, who's just been an amazing employee is funded by a grant and is actually, by definition, an employee of the Edinburgh Center in Lexington. That grant comes from DPH to the Edinburgh Center and then she's assigned to Arlington. Should that grant funding ever be lost, we would need to scramble fast to replace that service. So this is the police department looking at how we can both supplement existing services, but also start to plan accordingly for what is not a guarantee going forward. Then finally I want to mention with the good work of the library director working in cooperation with the friends of the Fox Library, we are proposing in this budget to expand Saturday hours at the Fox Library, which I know has been a big community desire in East Arlington. Any questions on any of this? Moving to long term outlook, if we can go to the next slide, Sean. Thank you. If we look at the long range forecast, the override that was passed in 2011 for FY 2012 currently projects to last through FY 2020. A good portion of those override stabilization funds will be used in FY 2021 and this budget projects a deficit in FY 21 of $4.6 million. Before we get there, that number will go up and down based on a number of different assumptions that we might make, but as we sit here today there's no anticipation of needing to ask for an override before FY 2021. I want to note that in this budget proposal the town continues to invest in its long term liabilities, both pension and OPEB, putting nearly $900,000 towards OPEB, which will bring how much we have in our OPEB reserves up to nearly $10 million in terms of, as compared to the total liability, that doesn't seem like a large amount, but we're definitely one of the leaders in the state in how much we're putting into our OPEB reserves, which keeps the rating agencies happy, which keeps us at a triple A rating, and thereby reducing our borrowing costs. I think it's important to mention as part of the long term outlook that we're in the MSPA process. We're soon to start the feasibility study portion of the process with the MSPA for the high school and we still have to have a lot of discussions about how we're going to fund it. I would imagine there'll be a lot of talk about a debt exclusion but I would also imagine it'll be a very large debt exclusion and I think there'll be a lot of conversations to be had about what that looks like and how it's communicated to the voters. And then finally, also within the theme of a lot of what we've talked about tonight, the impacts of the federal budget and other federal policies and what those might mean remain quite uncertain. I don't know that there's necessarily a lot that we point to outside of community development block grants that would be direct funding to the town that would have an impact on us, though changes to that would have a serious impact on us. What worries me are major changes to Medicaid or major changes to state highway funding that have an impact on the state, whereby trickle down and have an impact on us. We don't know what that looks like yet but I think we should all be cognizant of that going forward that there could be impacts on the town, not just Arlington but cities and towns in general. Can I just ask on the high school, I have just a memory of receiving something. We received something recently about certifying a number and the number that perhaps we, the school were submitting was like 1600 something and the state came back with 1,435. Do you remember seeing that? Joe, do you know anything about that? Has there been some talk about? That was the enrollment number, the design enrollment number. Yeah, so we've been negotiating with the MSBA using the McKibben study to try to settle on a design enrollment figure so we've had a series of meetings with the MSBA finally settling on an enrollment figure. So that's settled. So that number is what it is then. Well, it... does the feasibility study give us one more crack at it? It's not intended to. Okay. So it is at least for now what it is. I suppose was there some significant data that came in over the course of the feasibility study or before we went to construction? We could present that to them though there's no guarantee that they would. No, no. I'd leave that to our colleagues on the school committee. I just remember receiving something in the past week or so I didn't know how that impacted. So thank you. And then finally, the last slide. Next steps sort of in coordination with what I spoke about at the outset. Finance committee hearings begin on February 1st or at least my first appearance before the finance committee probably giving a similar presentation to what I did tonight and talking about some of the other warrant articles in general as Dan knows the finance committee. Sometimes likes to stretch how much its authority has learned about what else is happening on the warrant as it's very much their right. Also, as I mentioned several times, local aid numbers are going to be released by the governor later this week and we'll continue to update this budget with the finance committee as the governor's budget number comes out and then as the legislative budgets come out first from the house and then from the senate over the course of the spring. Also mentioned earlier the group insurance commission sets its rates on March 1st. That allows us to really hone in on what the health insurance number is going to be because we know how many people are on plans what the actual rates of those plans will be so we'll update those figures accordingly. And then finally again we'll update all of those things and the other changes that are made through the finance committee process or suggested by the board of selectmen have those all updated through the finance committee and prepared for the finance committee report for its own meeting. That closes my presentation and happy to answer any questions that the board might have. Mr. Grilly. So finance committee meetings you don't have to do all of those right? Sandy can he's a chief budget guy right? Sandy is definitely the chief budget guy as can be seen from his cracked fingers putting all the budget document together but yeah I'll go to the I'll definitely go on February 1st to talk about the long range plan and give a budgetary update then the finance committee breaks up into subcommittees and goes and meets with individual departments Sandy will be part of some of those and doesn't have to be part of some for various departments and then there always seems to be one or two key issues that the finance committee takes a focus on and might have some more questions about which I depending on you know what other meetings might be happening I may go I may not go but Sandy has definitely grown accustomed to attending finance committee meetings and I think they're growing a trust in him as well. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you. Move receipt. Move receipt by Mr. Grilly seconded by Mr. Currow. I kind of indulged and got my questions and my colleagues did also but if not and I want to thank the town manager for putting this presentation together because a lot of people really do watch this stuff believe it or not especially now that you can stream it and queue up to it. So on a motion by Mr. Grilly seconded by Mr. Currow if there's no further questions all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed you need to move this vote move receipt. Next the town manager evaluation process I just asked Adam if he could just outline where he sort of anticipates setting out a timeline for it and then I think it'll bring us into perhaps into April and as we get closer to that we can either discuss whether current chair and or vice chair finishes that process sometime in the middle of April or next to the incoming chair which I'm also as equally comfortable with that person whoever does the final step Mr. Chapter Lane will outline with HR. Thank you Madam Chair. So as provided in the memo to the board what I'm proposing for the board's consideration is that by February 6th I provide the board with a narrative self-evaluation and an updated goals document. The board could then take a month from March 6th to complete their evaluation instrument on same day March 6th they can transmit their completed documents to the chair of the board. The chair can then work from March 6th to March 20th with the HR director to create that consolidated document and I put a date of April 3rd for the evaluations to be discussed by the board in public session at a regularly scheduled board meeting though I note my expected paternity leave so I would ask for the indulgence of the board with a little difficulty depending on when the baby actually arrives when we do the final report out at a meeting. It could be, I guess it doesn't help to pick dates because it could come early late and maybe we could meet in March 20th. That's why I said it made the boss part of the process. We'll deliver this evaluation one way or another. No it's the original thing I'm like you got a new baby coming then but anyways is a motion move approval by Mr. Greely seconded by Mr. Dunn. Any further questions if not all those on a motion by Mr. Greely seconded by Mr. Dunn. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed in the end of this vote I can't talk anymore. New business Mrs. Krupa-Palazza. Yeah. Joni Hyme. None. Thank you. Mr. Jafferling. Just seven or eight pieces of new business. I'm kidding. Demand to take 47 minutes. Come on I gave you the budget. Friday and Saturday were the MMA annual meeting. It was a very good meeting heard from the governor from Senators Markey and Warren. Not necessarily a lot of clarity about what's going to happen with the new administration but we know we have good people there fighting for us here in Arlington. I want to mention we did win first place in the annual report contest. Is that going to be showed up? Actually I didn't stay to get the hardware I'll have to pick it up at some point. And I also just want to quickly mention that you know I think Arlington was very well at the MMA. Jenny Ray, the planning director, moderated a session on housing. Fred Ryan was on a panel with Commissioner Bill Evans from Boston on community policing. Nice. And that wasn't just a session session that was one of their super sessions and both Jenny and the chief just got rave reviews from everybody so I think Arlington showed very well to the state at the MMA so I was proud and I would think the board would be proud as well. That's all I have. I just have one, it's you know we've talked a lot about the opiate issue and you know our chief of police has kind of become a state and national spokesperson for it. My daughter was in a gas station and a gentleman came up to an open window that she thought was drunk or something turns out he was overdosing and was hey you know baby give me a ride let's go out on a date and all this and it scared her. Luckily the owner of the gas station saw this called 911. Within minutes they were there and Officer Chad Brown particularly liked to you know and let your own daughter of course it really hits home a lot more. So Katie was safe, the police were there, everything was well handled and the officer told my daughter she probably saved his life by the call and how quickly police and first responders and ambulances responded. They knock him and they really do believe that saved his life. It was a pretty serious overdose that he was going through so God help him but you know I really appreciate the police and fire even more. Thank you. I did attend the council on aging as the board's liaison just two notes. One I mentioned the age friendly community initiative that is with AARP and with the World Health Organization. There are like five or six pages of criteria and I think a lot of them actually intersect with work that this board is doing. I think we may well be interacting with that because a lot of it has to do with mobility issues, transportation issues, housing issues and such. So you know stay tuned for that. I suspect we've actually, I know we've actually already done a lot of the groundwork probably with the complete streets initiative and some of the other work we've done but stay tuned and I'm not going to explain this correctly but I think it is very important to note there was an issue that was raised that there is a time sensitive situation that affects some seniors who if I understood it correctly who have retired earlier and gone into exchange health plans and did not take certain Medicare benefits they were eligible for. Later on they are potentially subject to a penalty a severe benefit penalty. There's a deadline of March 31st for a social security process and I can't for the life of you remember the term. I just want to put it out there because I know that the council is scrambling to pull together as much information as they have on this to get the information out to impact its seniors. It sounds like it hasn't been very well publicized. This is another one of these areas where we really depend on the, our community programs on the federal government but it hasn't been publicized very well and it could have a serious impact to a number of seniors that fall into this situation with a clock ticking to the end of March. I don't know maybe the manager wants to follow up with the executive director. I know this was just a couple days ago that this was raised at their meeting and they are putting together some public information but I think it's something important to get out there pretty widely. Mr. Dunn. Nothing. Nothing. I just want to congratulate Arlington resident, Teen Kilroy on her chopped championship not only winning it and they said she used aquafaba, an ingredient that hadn't been used before something to do with peas and condensation. Pea juice or something. As well as from the 10,000 I think she's donating 6,000 to I think the Trevor Project. So I want to congratulate her and her family. I got a Facebook posting from them recently. They said we're cooking something up. Anyone come on over. I couldn't make it over. But with my colleagues indulgence, if I could ask Mrs. Kruppelka and or the town manager just to reach out and if it's appropriate and she hasn't been before the school committee I'd love to bring her in and just very briefly congratulate her and I'll give her Arlington's chopped champion proclamation or something. And she's also homeschooled. So Kudos. I thought she was a notices student. She was previously. My daughter knows. Oh she was? Okay. She's homeschooled. She is homeschooled now. They don't have to come in but if someone could just contact the family said we'd like to relay our congratulations. We could just do it in writing but we'd like to extend the invitation for her and her family to come in in the future. And it'll be quick thing. They don't have to say all night like Brom and Bob do. But I just thought it was a great feat but I think at the pay it forward aspect of it that she did afterwards is really to be commended. So with that I'll take a motion to adjourn by Mr. Carroll, seconded by Mr. Grilly. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed. Unanimous vote. Good night everyone. Thank you.