 Someone's going to do something about the heat. Hi, good evening everyone. I apologize, I think I'm actually running four minutes late. That's my fault, I had assigned some documents I should have come in early for. This is the Board of Selection meeting from Monday, February 28th, 2011. What I'd like to do first is take from our addendum, vote MWRA sewer bond. If I could call on our treasurers, Mr. Sieven Gilligan. Mr. Gilligan. I'm here this evening to request for both the group and organization of a sewer bond from the U.S. and URA. It's $450,000. It's a keeping with ongoing programs, the sewer infrastructure improvements, and it is a zero interest bond that will be paid off over the future. Is there a motion? So moved. So moved. Second. Moved by Mr. Hurd, seconded by Ms. Rowe. Any further discussion? And I see it's the same amount every year, $30,800. I've spoken with the treasurer as my colleagues have. So with that, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, unanimous vote. Thank you very much, Mr. Gilligan. We don't think I'll need the town manager to contract this end of the talk, so we'll send it off to bond council and the MWRA and we'll be all set. We expect to receive the money on or about March 17th of this year. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Next, if I could, with my colleagues indulgence, we received in our packet, our book, communication from Dave Good regarding Joe Mixis and let me turn it over actually to Mr. Sullivan and let him explain it and not myself. Yes, as stated in the memorandum that you have before you on Monday, February 21st, the holiday, Joe Mixis, an employee at the IT department, went into the high school to work on a project to get things set up so that there wouldn't be any delay in getting the new service set up on Tuesday when they come back from the holiday. So he's in on his own time just trying to get things set up and discovered there was a burst pipe with water coming down in the basement level that would have been catastrophic had he not walked in at that time because I think both the schools and towns, data centers would have been flooded along with several other offices. So that he called the fire department, he set up some dams and barricaded off the offices to prevent further damage and was able to contain, again, the damage. So we're very much appreciative of Joe coming in on his own time and just happened to stumble upon this and prevent some significant damage from occurring to town property. This is typical over his 27 years with the town just coming in all the time on his own time. So certainly I think he deserves some recognition for what he's done for the town not only on this incident, but over the last 27 years. I agree. Excellent. Having Ms. McCorton. Well, I just want to say that, yeah, this is typical of Joe and just in my experience, you cannot measure how big a disaster this would have been if he had not been there to rescue the servers that would have flooded, would have shorted out, might have started a fire in the high school and certainly would have meant that we were even now in probably would have been a several month recovery mode to get all of our systems back up and running. And so it's typical of Joe's work ethic. First of all, that he was working on holiday and second of all that he didn't panic, he didn't see to somebody else's problem, he didn't wait, he plunged in and really started putting it together to prevent the damage that could have been there. So we all owe him a big, I don't know, whatever we can do. Well, maybe we could, I'll compose a short letter of commendation or to go into his file or whatever it is and to go into his file. Cause I'm in the high school Saturday and Sunday with the cheerleading to see honest to goodness is there more times than not. I've seemed a good place also. So I will echo that. So why don't we draw something up and or if I assume what the manager's response is going to be is what Mr. Good submitted. So otherwise I would join with something that you did. So I'd like to put something in a letter of thanks commendation on behalf of the Board of Select Minutes. So we'll have that in our next week's packet. So moved. Second. Okay, moved by Mr. Heard, seconded by Ms. Rowe. Any further discussion? Great idea. I'll go ahead and say aye. Aye, aye. And thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you as well. We will now go to our regular Select Min agenda. I do want to say, welcome to Mr. Boyk, our new Republican Board of Registrar who I believe is not even on the agenda tonight but nice to see you here. No problem. First agenda item, consent agreement. Consent agenda moved by Ms. Rowe. Second. Seconded by Mr. Heard. It's minutes of the meeting of February 7, 2011 as well as a request from Patsy Kramer, Market Manager for the Farmers' Market, 2011. Is Patsy here? Anyone from the? Pardon me? She's not here. Okay. We do have the information in our packet regarding both things. So if not, any further discussion? If not, I'll just make sure everybody goes to the Farmers' Market. We'll be as at least as good as last year. Better every year? Yeah. It is. All those in favor say aye. Aye. I propose unanimous vote. Next we have appointments. The Allenten Bicycle Advisory Committee to their executive board, Douglas Greenfield, term to expire February 28, 2014. Mr. Greenfield here. You could just for the record come to the microphone, name and address. My name is Douglas Greenfield. I live at 29 Albemarle Street. And if you could just sort of, we do have the recommendation from the Bicycle Advisory Committee as well as your resume, curriculum, when you apply for the position. But if you could just sort of give us a 101 on who you are and what got you interested in the committee and what you hope to accomplish. Okay. I've been a town resident for about 10 years now. And I work in Newton and I commute by bike about once a week in season. And I do a lot of riding on the weekends. And when I heard about the board, I started going to the meetings as a non-member just to see if there's anything I can do to help them. And I've helped them with some work with maps that they produced, because that's what I do for a living and a few other projects. And I'd like to get a little bit more involved with that. Move approval. Move by Mr. Heard, seconded by Ms. Laporte. Any further discussion, Ms. Rowe? We love having anybody with GIS capabilities. I saw her on the desk. Yeah. That's really why we're appointed. Happy to try to help her out. I'm just kidding. It's a great committee. Yeah, thanks. And thank you so much. We do ask people who are first time appointees to come down just so you can see our faces. Yeah. God bless you. And we can get a face to the name also. So thank you so much for volunteering your services. And the same thing, I saw all the GIS experience. Along with everything else. And further discussion, if not all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, unanimous vote. We are past 7.15. So we have two 7.15 public hearings first, agenda item three, all alcohol, restaurant license and common victualer, Mint 76, Mayron, Khazradad. I apologize, I probably pushed it that. Doing business as Sabis, 352 Mass Ave. Is there anyone here to speak to this? As well as tell me how I pronounce either of those names incorrectly. Last name, part of it. The name of the address is Sabis. Oh, once you get to the microphone. Come to the microphone first. Sorry, I apologize. Hi, my name is Mayron Khazradad. Excuse me, it's only a beer and wine, not all alcohol. Oh, I have all alcohol. I apologize. Let me rephrase that, request beer and wine. Yes. Restaurant license and common victualer. Actually, you did a great job with the last name. It's cost for that. The established name is Sabzi. My name is Mayron. I live right around the corner. Got married in Arlington. Been here for almost eight years now. Been in the student and restaurant business since college, back to the early 90s. Then the opportunity arose with this, doing searching, Craigslist jumped on it and just wanted to sort of add to the diversity that Arrington has to offer. And that's why I request your approval for the common victualer and beer and wine license, not alcohol, alcohol. Move approval with all conditions. Second. Move by Ms. Rose, seconded by Mr. Herd. Is there anyone here to speak to this license since it's a public hearing? Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. I suppose unanimous vote. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you very much. Good luck. All right, luck. Yes. I don't know, is Bob Bose here? I can't see. Mr. Herd, actually if I could turn agenda item four to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Moving Wall. Mr. Herd. I'm not sure if Bob was aware he was on the agenda, but the town manager and I are both serving on this committee to bring the Vietnam Memorial to Arlington. So we both could probably speak to it. It's basically to enlighten the board on an effort by our Veterans Agent Bill McCarthy and a committee of people in town to have that displayed the Patriots Day weekend. So, Brian, if you wanna. Yeah, the plan is to have the wall available for public viewing on April 15th. It's a Friday and have it open through the weekend. They open 24 hours a day. A lot of effort that goes into it. We have a volunteer committee in place to help set this up. They're in a fundraising mode right now, doing well. We expect large crowds there. Let's see, there's a lot involved in terms of setting this wall up. Once it arrives on Thursday, it takes at least a full day to get it set up with walkways. We have to build a platform that has to be built for the wall itself. A lot of landscaping stuff that we do, but all with volunteers and all with fundraising efforts. So I think it bodes well for Arlington to be able to host this. I know they talked about possibly bringing in a Black Hawk helicopter as part of this, which would be a nice added feature. But again, it will be there that whole weekend. It's nice that it's there as part of the Patriots Day celebration. So it kinda works together very well. So it'll be more to come as we start putting plans together, but mark that on your calendar. And we would certainly encourage, you know, residents to help out in this effort, whether through volunteering their services in the setup and administration, this whole thing, but in terms of also donations to help defrate the cost of this effort. Mr. Hurd? Yeah, I should also mention that Brian, myself, and Marie is also serving on the committee. And the committee is being chaired by Kurt Morgan, who is a Vietnam veteran and among, as I said, Bill McCarthy and others. So the Patriots Day weekend was selected. It's not always easy to have that has to be in that area of the country, because it travels, you know, obviously, because of the importance of Patriots Day to the town of Allenton. So we're kind of a short notice when we were notified that they could actually come here. Where would people send contributions? Yes, it'll be right on the town's website. Just go there and you can make a donation online, if you'd like, or you'll have the address where you can send donations. That's excellent. So allentonma.gov backslash veterans. And the other thing is, we're gonna get more information as this goes along, but from what I understand, it's Manned or Maintained or Lit 24-7, that people are encouraged to come, but from what I understand, there'll be a tent if you're looking for a specific name. There'll be a process. It's not just walking past a wall and looking at it. There's different stations. And I believe some of the, Dennis Corbett-Marie was telling me about this, Dennis also, another Vietnam veteran, that some of the high school students through Nancy Ottwine will be doing the daytime hours into early evening that they can do. And I think maybe you're looking along with donations, volunteers for the overnight hours. But from what I understand, the committee, which I'm gonna get in trouble because there's probably at least another six to eight people that I didn't name. I can stop thinking of names, but I don't wanna do that. They're all working on that. So definitely donations, because that's something we need and a dollar, five dollars. But if you feel like you wanna do something, it is really a lot of volunteer labor, especially when the high school students can't do it. I think they have to leave by 9 p.m. And Mr. Heard, I'm sorry. I just wanna, we can recognize the entire committee. It's a very large committee and it's gonna take a lot of effort under Kurt Morgan's leadership. And I'd probably be remissed if I didn't mention that there's 10 members of the Allenton community, including my brother, David, who were killed in Vietnam that will be particular interest, of course, for Allenton residents. And there's all kinds of activities going on along during that, it's a very quiet and solemn atmosphere. I think it's typical of Allenton to host something like this on Patriots Day weekend. Thank you. Thank you. And I don't think we need a vote on that right now, Mr. Heard. It's just an update. Thank you. Gen. M5, Citizens Open Forum, accepting unusual circumstances in a manner presented for consideration of the Board should neither be acted upon nor is decision made the night of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which the Open Forum was established. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to anything that does not appear on our agenda? Not Citizens Open Forum is closed. I'm going to keep moving through because I think the next few items we can dispense of. Agenda item seven. So moved. Second. Moved by Ms. Rowe. Seconded by Mr. Heard. That is a vote for a special town meeting. No, special municipal employee. I'm sorry, I'm looking at seven. Okay, agenda item six, a vote for a special municipal employee. Ms. Rice, Attorney Rice, if you could just give us a brief description of what we're doing. Thank you, Madam Chair. There's actually another Ms. Nomer on the agenda. This isn't a special municipal employee designation. I think there was confusion because it came in at the latter part of last week and I was out of the office. But what this is, the Board has voted on these before. I don't know if it's always voted on them in this type of forum or more on a consent agenda type way. But there's a provision of the state ethics law that bars municipal employees from holding more than one employment contract with the town. And of course, there are several exemptions to that. One of the exemptions is when an employee from one department that's a full-time or nearly full-time position is hired by another department to perform specific work that's not the same as the work they're paid for during the regular hours and is separate and limited to 500 hours per week. The Board has approved this type of designation for, for example, firefighters who want to work for DPW on a contract basis and plowing or something like that. So this request is made on behalf of an employee in the Comptroller's Office who's been offered five hours' worth of work for the retirement board, per week, which she will do outside of her regular hours with the Comptroller's Office. So I reviewed the submission that was made on her behalf by the retirement board and by her and it appears that all the requirements for the law have been met. She will file a letter with the clerk's office disclosing her interest in the contracts and she can do the work if this Board approves it. And the letter that appears first in your binder is the letter that you would sign if you approve it. Is there anyone here to speak to this agenda item? Just come to the microphone. Name and address just for the record. My name is Charlie Maher. I was here at the Citizens Forum on the 24th of January of that divorce issue with the town clerk. I still haven't heard anything and I was told that they needed three or four more weeks to come up with an answer. And I still haven't got one and they've had the documents for probably close to three or four months at this point. Now the town clerk gave me an answer in 10 minutes. She consults with the town attorney. It's been seven months. And when does consultation become collusion? That's my question. I'm sorry, I'm, stay there. I'm confused. I thought you had your hands up for agenda item six. No, I was, I couldn't hear back there when you went over the Citizens Forum. Oh, okay. Can we, then we should finish this item first. Oh, okay. And then, you know, and then, don't get in another conversation. So when I, you know, I'll call you on again and then you won't not hear me. Okay, I'm gonna start over again. We have explanation by town council regarding an employee. I did have a conversation as my colleagues definitely had her. I do it on behalf of my colleagues with Mr. Greco. They're a time and board administrator to find out exactly what entailed this. The first thing was ask attorney Rice to explain it because she's the person who knows what the legal lease part, but also he did explain the two separate jobs, two separate contracts, two separate whatever, what it entailed, including the hours. It was like seven to eight in the morning and something else in the afternoon. They are separate and distinct. We have done this with other employees as town council is cited. So with that, Ms. Rowe, did you move approval? For Pamela, Alff, okay. And what we're moving approval is to sign or to allow Ms. Alfano, the chapter 268 section 20B3 certification. That's what the motion should be and then sign. That's the citation for the exemption. Okay. So Ms. Rowe's motion to allow Ms. Alfano, chapter 268 section 20B3 certification seconded by Mr. Herd. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, unanimous vote. I will now go back to, did he leave the room? Oh, there you are. Come back up to citizens open. I saw someone leave. Citizens open forum. You already said your name and address for the record. And I think what you said, and I'm going to apologize because I had my mind on agenda item six. Yeah, I didn't realize I didn't hear. We are talking about expecting a response from. This is over. Yes, I understand. The two marriage licenses. Right, I remember when you came in before in January. And is there something, Mr. Sullivan, because I'm not sure who's supposed to be on the town clerk. I thought it was just an issue with the town clerk, but I heard something. Yes, as far as I know it was to. Yeah, no, I just sent an email the next day indicating that this was not a town business issue that we need to deal with, that he needed to deal with as a private matter. So we got a response the next day. Okay. All I got was an email that said, don't talk to anyone. It didn't give me any answers. Didn't describe any course of remedy. I think what I'm hearing from the town manager is, and as a court reporter, the issue that you have, it's not a town issue. It's a private issue that you need to pursue on your own. It's not something that. Well, I mean, I came in and I got the answer from the town clerk. All I did was ask for written writing. Okay, so you're all set? And then the town attorney gets involved. You barred me from a public building with two policemen, and the police chief has not responded to that, and he reports to you. I asked, who did that? Well, okay. All I was going to say is he got a response the next day. He may not like the response, but he got a response. No, it was a non-response, other than the fact. You know, we're not going to go back and forth. So I appreciate that you're telling us it was a non-response, and you're not. So which is a valid marriage license? That's not what the Board of Selectment does. We don't do marriage licenses. We don't do it. Okay, so I can go back to the town clerk and talk to her. I don't. No. No. Why can't I do that? I already got your answer. I got my answer from her. All I asked for was writing. What you should do is consult legal counsel, indicate that you have an issue about a marriage license. If you ask the question, you got a response from the town clerk, and you're not satisfied and you don't agree with that. Well, I didn't see an answer in there. That was just a directive not to contact anyone. We can't do that. We can't act, believe me, you wouldn't want us acting as your legal counsel. So you need to. Is it possible to find out why I can file, I wanted to file a complaint with the police, and they won't call me back? Okay, just what I'm saying. And the chief reports to him. I can't answer that question for you. So what you need to do. So can he? You need to get legal counsel. I'm not going to go back and forth anymore. You've gotten your answer. You came in on January 24th. You got an answer from the town clerk. You don't like it. And if that's okay, you don't agree with it. Oh, I like her answer. It was right. Okay, well, this is not the proper venue or forum, okay? Oh, citizen forum. Okay. It's not anything that this Board of Selectment oversees. We don't oversee anything on a marriage license and a private issue that you have, that you want to use that as evidence. We can't join you on that. We can't weigh in on that. I must admit, I was very confused when she consulted with the town attorney when she reports to me. Oh, I thought you agreed with her decision, but thank you so much. Oh, I do. I do. All right, well then, thank you very much. On that. No. Is the citizen's open? Okay. I'd like to go. Okay, citizen's open. Okay, anyone else who was not listening when I came in, I'm really kidding. Come on, go ahead up. And then we're going to get, we have a lot of warrant article hearings that people are here for. So, that's not your fault, Mr. Fisher. Go ahead. Andrew Fisher, 25 Lombard Road. And I apologize that I missed the boat when the three expanded liquor licenses were issued four weeks ago, whenever it was. Three different hearings. Sorry, I blew it. This would have been much easier and much timelier if I had seen that. I was hoping to speak to ask you to write, issue those licenses with the conditions that NIPPs could not be sold. NIPPs are the tiny little airplane bottles. Those things have no good purpose. And. Just, I'm going to go back to you, Ms. Lombard. Sure. I believe that we wrote, didn't we write no NIPPs into the policy at some point when we were considering these licenses or something? I remember a conversation about this. Did we not? I've never seen that, no. I thought we had. I spoke with Chief Ryan a year ago and I cannot speak for him, but he was very interested in, expressed direct interest in doing that. So, I don't need to take much of your time, but it's a huge advantage not to have that and it's very hard to get rid of it once the license is issued. Framing him tried. It's a daily, their NIPPs are an integral part of a crack addict's day. And I could go into that much further. Also, do you strongly prefer that I not speak on the warrant article, which involves issuing two new all license, two new all liquor licenses? That's the warrant article. It's not on, it's not on, what's on it? Come back to me. You have a schedule that's on the website. On the issue that Mr. Fisher raised, I'm assuming we can't retroactively go back for the two that have applied, but could Town Council perhaps look into, I don't think Monotomy Bear and Wine has been before us yet. Perhaps if we could have Town Council look at retooling around that particular question and also consulting with the police chief. And then for the two that we have issued, if we could just inform them that through no fault of their own, if this was not included, they're not required and I believe every year they have to come before us, correct? So that- Get a new every year. You know, we could say to them, we'd like you to comply, we can't insist that you do, but know that we've now incorporated this and it will be in effect if you should apply next year as well as the third and remaining package store. I don't like to say that. All alcohol store license that comes before us. So we get that to the select men, we all look it over. And then if Town Council along with the town manager and police chief could also investigate if there's anything else that we really need to retool or include about Mr. Fisher. I would simply ask the town council to please make an appeal and maybe- That's what I just said. Yeah, but do that now with the ones that are in process. I just said we can't appeal our own decision. But what I just said, Mr. Fisher, is we're gonna inform them that- Encourage. We now change and as Mr. Herj just said, we're encouraging you to do this and also know next year that when you come it will be a requirement anyways. And the two businesses that appeared before us before have been very amenable to suggestions by the board and working with the community and doing what's best. But I thank you for pointing that out and we didn't catch it and you did. Next, I think we could do this quickly. Vote special town meeting May 9th, 2011. So moved. Moved by Ms. Rose. Second. Seconded by Ms. McCourt. I believe we're, any further discussion? I'm just wondering what's gonna be on the warrant. Several articles. One is for the Thompson School. We will be one of them. One is for Stratton School, additional spending authorization for the MSBA grant that we may get to assist with Stratton repairs. And there may be a couple other articles too added. Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. I suppose unanimous vote. Now that we voted it, we need to open it. Ms. Rice, town council. I think the, as the board knows, there needs to be a five day waiting period before opening up the warrant. And Mrs. Cropelka and I and the rest of your staff had discussed a workable timeline and thought that if the special town meeting warrant were to open and close on March 7th, next Monday, March 8th? March 8th. March, March 8th, this one's here. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. March, March 8th. Next Tuesday, that would give your staff enough time to get the special town meeting warrant printed along with the annual town meeting warrant, the saving on costs of printing and delivery. So we'd suggest March 8th. So moved. Moved by Ms. Lacourts. Second. And by Ms. Rowe to open the special town meeting warrant Tuesday, March 8th, 2011 at 8 a.m. And remain open until 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 8th, 2011. Correct. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Unanimous vote. We now go to update on graffiti. We've missed a, I saw Mr. Radocia. I do know that I just want to, I want to thank Mr. Radocia. I want to thank Bob for, you know, staying on this. I did have a conversation, some conversations with the town manager and with Ms. Rowe, who I knew was going to have a lengthy conversation with the town manager. Because I've noticed an increase in graffiti. All across town is one that has who is, and then the insignia. But Mr. Radocia, if you could, and then we'll turn over to the town manager. Okay, Bob, Radocia, come and be a road. All right, as you requested at the January 10th meeting, I came back and basically the report is on the 41 photos that I submitted that day, two of them have been addressed somewhat, okay? And I found, since I picked up another 17, and since Thursday I found another six to eight of them. The point is, we seem to be being overrun by it. I don't know what the answer is, but as a lifelong resident of town, I'm kind of saddened to see how this kind of thing is taken over and it's given us a bad look throughout the town as I see it. I think perhaps a lot of people don't even notice because they've seen it enough that they, oh, where is it or what is it? But if you look, it's in front of you, just about anywhere you want to go, particularly down the other end of town, more so in the bike path and all of that. The other night when I was listening to the redevelopment board meeting, talked about the Milbrook project, the corridor through there and how, the potential for that and so forth. And if you walk through that, particularly late in the day toward dusk, you feel as though, is this a safe place to be? There's just that whole element of, wow, what's going on here? Anyhow, and I hate to, I don't think we should be beating up on the poor victims on this thing, the business people. I'm not sure what the right answer is, perhaps a little publicity on it, maybe pointing out some of the, I mean, the advocate or something, we could get a photo going on once in a while of some graffiti here or there. And I wouldn't pick on the businesses. I think we ought to address what we have that we own that needs to be done and maybe then people will pick up the pace and want to step in and help out. I don't know, but I'm here to help and I'd like to see it cleaned up because I am kind of saddened to see what's going on here. And I just want to, I'm going to call Ms. Rowan before I do. I just got a text message that the water tower, the water tower at the circle of the bike path was tagged, I'll go take that photo. With my next round of... People are watching and listening to you, Mr. Adotia. So Ms. Rowan and then Mr. Sullivan, if that's appropriate. Yeah, thank you for your work. And I think that one of the hard things about this winter is there's been a lot of pent-up energy and also for the buildings that we own, the people that take care of that kind of graffiti happen to be driving snow plows. I understand all that. And so, I mean, I think I wish you'd started this in the, you know, maybe the summer because then we would have had a better chance of doing it because you're right. If it's not cleaned up right away, there's a feeling that gives you a feeling of neglect. And one of the things that it tends to be young teenagers that do this. And I'm very interested in trying to get teenagers to do murals around town and do things where that energy that artistic energy, because a lot of the tagging is actually it's a desire to be artistic. And their signatures are the tags that they have. And, you know, to try to come up with some way of involving the kids of the town in a constructive way, so that they can do their art in a way that is pleasing to all of us instead of something that we see as neglect. What is the Fox Library? Now, was that like kids from the Thompson or the Hardy School that kind of engaged in doing those foxes on the wall? I'm surprised the town gave them permission to paint their buildings with that sort of thing. What's the answer to, honestly? You know, it's... So it's from the community or? Yeah, I don't know. You know, it looks like, you know, maybe some little art class from one of the schools came down and the kids did it. They did a decent job with it. But the point is, is this what we're going to do throughout the town? We're going to do the town hall next and then the Jason Russell House and, you know. If I could, Mr. Sullivan, and then I do have a comment in the sum of my colleagues, did you, Mr. Sullivan? Yes, we checked with the police department as to the number of complaints they've got on graffiti. And you can see the report here that for the past 14 months, they had some 42 complaints that they received. And they did fall off with all 42. And most of these, most of them were like commercial establishments or whatever, they did comply after being contacted. There was one that did not fall up and erase the graffiti and that person was cited. They received the citation. Ultimately, they cleaned up the property. And there's a map in here showing the location of all those areas that get tagged. But it does point out, I mean, the police, DPW, they just don't have the resources to be proactive, you know, going out everywhere. They're scheduled to lose, as you know, more positions this year. So they're already shot in, they're going to lose more again next year. But, you know, as they receive the complaints, they will follow up on it. Ms. LaForte? Yes, so have all of the complaints that are constitute Mr. Radosh's packet been registered as this document that you've been passed on to the police department? And that I don't know whether the police have officially received it. Can we be sure to officially forward it to them and ask them to do the follow ups? This was just over the last 14 months, the complaints again. No, I understand, but it looks to me like, perhaps part of what's going on here is they're not receiving complaints for all of the tagging that we're seeing. So we need to be sure we get sort of a regular routine going here. So Mr. Radosh, when you are sending in pictures like this particularly since you've noted all the addresses, when you send something like this directly to the board of selectmen for publishing in our packet, it should also go to the chief of police so that he can enter it into the system and we can do the same kind of follow up and mapping that we're doing for all the other complaints. And then I think that maybe is our first line of defense for seeing if we can get some motion. The report doesn't mention anybody that's been apprehended or pulled aside for anything on that. No, other than, you know, the property owner was, I don't have how many actually kids or whoever that were tagging properties at clock. I would imagine a lot of that takes, go ahead. I'm gonna let you get one more time just because if we can get one back. No, no, no, that's fine, I'm all done. Then I have to do everything. No, I'll let you get one more wrap up at Mr. Herd. That's the question I was gonna ask, Brian. I know you participated and I did, I think at least two selectmen in this effort about four or five years ago and we created a bylaw. And I think there were, it was approached in multiple ways. One is communicating and communication. We did that through the schools, you know, developing a prevention program. The police chief was involved with this. Then there was the enforcement element and in the penalty phase and there was, you know, it was addressed in all those areas. So I'm curious to see. And I think it got better for a short period of time because we were addressing it. It was, you know, in the forefront, we weren't participating in as many efforts as our staff is today, but I'd be curious to see back to when we first had this discussion about the bylaw. You know, I know for a fact it improved, but obviously, you know, resources and priorities have changed. So I'd be interested to know if in fact some of these individuals have been apprehended. I know there was three or four years ago there was a very aggressive effort and they did in fact identify some of the individuals. So I think that's important information for us to have, you know, just to. Yeah, we can get that. When we have time. And, you know, kind of a benchmark of where we're at and part of the bylaw, and I know Mr. Radocia mentioned not putting all the the onus on the business owner. I think we all agree with that. And that's why this was approached in a multi-facet way that we're all going to take part, including enforcement, but at the end of the day or the week, I think we're asking our establishments to help us in this regard. And within a reasonable amount of time remove the graffiti of its own public property. We obviously are responsible for that. So, you know, it's an ongoing issue we've got to continue to work at. The only thing I would add to that, which has already been stated. I just want to reinforce it. It's two issues. It's cleaning up and removing the graffiti, whether it's a private or public. And then the second part is sort of identifying, you know, who the abusers, taggers or whomever are. You know, four or five years ago, basically this became an investigation involved several officers. Many means more than 10, several means more than three. So several officers with lots of man hours in terms of all the investigations we're not doing. This is one of them. We have other investigations, you know, that involve drugs and the like that we're investigating, but nowhere near what we had done four or five years ago. So, I understand what you're saying and you're not casting any aspersions or any critique on anyone, but for the second part about the identification, if we had more money in the budget from the state, from an override, from a generous bend to factor, that would allow us to do that again. But I do know for the last tagger investigation that we have, I can think of like five or six law enforcement officials along with three or four school officials who are involved in a multi-week, two, three month investigation because that's what it is. And then once you identify who the tagger or taggers are, see what that is. And unfortunately, we're all at the point that everybody else is in every city and town, everybody wants, everything's important. You know, say, if it's to school and we want this plowed and we have the graffiti and we want to make sure we have enough people and not people respond when I have a heart attack and there's enough teachers in the classroom and we're not overcrowded. So I don't want to mislead anyone that we're going to be able to launch a full-scale investigation as we did five, six years ago because we just don't have the manpower on the, definitely on the town side and I'm going to go out on a limb and say probably on the school side. But as soon as we can, but the thing that helps us is when Mr. Rodosha and people who are text messaging me right now different areas that we know about them, if it's public, we address it when we can when our guys have finished plowing, our streets have gotten there four hours of sleep and can do it and if it's private, we work with them on that. So I want to thank you, Mr. Rodosha. No, one final word. I suspect most of it happens on a Friday or Saturday night between nine and one. And I think if the community that's in the area that's getting heavily hit in East Darrington, if they could be a little bit more, some people could be a little more observant, look for a bunch of kids walking around and kind of check in on what they're doing. I don't know, but that's just one thought. So with that, I'll just continue to take my new photos and I'll share them with you and I'll drop them off at the police station. Thank you. Okay, thanks. On that agenda item, come up to the microphone, name and address of the record. It's not Joe Boyk. Last one I wanted to ask, the quick question was that if we do see that, who are we supposed to notify? I mean, if we see the picture, I mean, I guess I could just ask Mr. Odosia outside, but if we wanna... Police. All right, yeah. No finish. Are we supposed to email somebody other than calling the police? Is there a website or is there a phone number particularly for that? Other than have to ball by that? You could do several things. They could contact the board of slackmen, they could go on the town's website for the request answer feature and say I'd like to report this graffiti or you can contact the police department, either through the website calling the non-emergency line, seven, eight, one, six, four, three, one, two, one, two. I don't wanna get into that, like we are asking the advocate to publish the particular taggers and graffiti because then I think that might encourage them to say, oh, I made the paper, I'm gonna do it some more. I don't, you don't wanna make it a big deal, but just follow the reveal. If people wanna contact the town through the website, through the request answer, if they wanna call the slackman's office, if they wanna call the police department on the non-emergency number, any of those will work. Or if they wanna send a letter, they wanna do the old fashioned, send a letter to the town manager or to the board. Just so Mr. O'Jose is not the only one after doing that, if other people are aware, they can just, you like you said, just shooting new texts and stuff, anybody else that does see it, they can also do the same. Thank you. I didn't know. Thanks for clarifying that. Okay, any further discussion? If not, move on to agenda item 10, letter of support, and move support. Move by Ms. Rowe. Second. Seconded by Mr. Hurd. Mr. Sullivan, a brief, we have in our packet. Yeah, just briefly, this is a technical assistance program from the MAPC to provide assistance to the town in doing a community vision as a prelude to the master plan effort that the ARB and our planning and community development department are suggesting. Do you know, and I apologize if it's in here, and if it is, I just didn't get it. Can you estimate what, if any, cost that this will put the town? No cost, so then staff time. Yeah. Staff time. Okay. Ms. Rowe. One of the things I wanna say is that I think it's very creative of you to go for this grant, because I think our planning department is understaffed already, and this is a great way of trying to get the MAPC to augment our existing staff. And if there's any way we could get that wonderful Manisha Bhutra to, who's been working on the Scenic Byway with us, MAPC planner to help us with it. Yeah, she's great. She's wonderful, she's just great. I was really pleased to see this, because it's using MAPC money and we pay money into the MAPC every year, so it's nice to get some of it back, so. And that's fine, I'm just saying, I just don't want to, not that we are, go through the exercise, I've been to charrettes and forums and community events, and we get grants and people come out and we have plans, and I can think of seven or eight of them that have sat down on the planning department shells, and the other thing is, when we get to the point, if we are successful to get the grant, we can outline exactly what it is from the planning department in terms of labor, in terms of hours that they need to dedicate to MAPC. I envision from this that professionals from MAPC, and if we get the grant, whoever gets awarded, the project will do the yeoman's share of the work, but also if the board, in the past, through the town manager is involved in the notification process, because I don't want to on just a few projects, we've gone through something that's been a sort of town-wide decision, and I've heard from people after the fact that we didn't know about this, that we didn't hear about this, and how come this is something that town's adopting right now, so, but that's, I'm getting ahead of myself, we haven't gotten the grant yet, but I just want to make sure, you know me and meetings, and getting people out and getting babysitters and things like that, but what I'm hearing from my colleagues, that this is, we belong to MAPC, this is something we can go for, let's use it the best way we can, and I just want to make sure it's not a plan that sits on a shelf or a plan that, people say we didn't know anything about it, if it's going to be a town-wide, I want to see more than 40 people there. On a motion by Ms. Rowe, seconded by Ms. LeCourt, any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, unanimous vote. We are going to take agenda item 11 off. Future Board of Selectment meetings. Move to table by Ms. Rowe, seconded by Ms. LeCourt, any, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, unanimous vote. We now get to everyone who has been so patient with us. In this room that's about 110 degrees. In this room that I've lost two pounds, so if you guys, you know, you don't have to join Jenny Craig tonight, or anybody else waiting for us, I'm going to get in trouble saying the wrong thing. So we'll take them in the order as they appear, warrant article hearings. First, we have warrant article 19, bylaw amendment, increase fines for unleashed dogs. Only the article 18. We were going to get, not sure who was going to report to us, Mr. Sullivan, on what the fines should or should not be. No, I think this is town council. Well, I apologize. Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. I haven't made a recommendation because that really is the job of the proponent of the article. But when the proponent, Ms. Chalapadas, was here the last time, she made a suggested schedule of fines, which I have included in the materials I supplied to you. It essentially would be going from a warning for a first offense of an off leash dog or a violation of the leash law, to a $75 fine. The second offense going from 50 to 100. The third offense going from 75 to 150. And the fourth offense going from 100 to 200. And I believe she's here tonight. She certainly can address if she wants to stay with those numbers. The reason this article was tabled the last time is the board did not have official input from the police chief and the recreation department of the Parks and Rec Commission. And the board has received, I believe separately emails from both of those department heads in support of the proposed warrant article. Anyone here to speak to article 19? Formerly article 18. Take a motion from my colleagues. So I move approval of the fee schedule as listed here. Second. Seconded by Mr. Heard. Did you want to speak to this? I did, Madam Chair. Please, name and address. I thought the opponent was going to speak first. Well, John Worden, Jason Street. I wanted to say in the last public meeting I was at over in the police station, the heat is off and we all kept our coats on. You seem to, your furnace seems to be on steroids. With respect to the increase in the fines for unleashed dogs, it seems to be a solution in search of a problem. The, I mean, I don't know how much testimony you've heard about packs of unleashed dogs running around biting people. I don't see much report of it in the local newspaper. And it seems to me that I don't think you're going to get much more enforcement or more adherence to the leash law, which really is, you know, when enacted 30, 40 years ago, there were dogs running around and probably you're all too young to remember times like that, but I do. When I grew up there were always dogs running around the streets and it wasn't a biggie. Very few people got bit. In fact, if you analyze the reports of dog bites, you'll find that a very large percentage of them actually occur to the family members in on someone's own premises because for whatever reason. So it's not these random wild savage canines roaming the streets looking for people to attack. And as far as the parks go, what I've been able to observe, particularly at Monotomy, where some of the select men are known to walk their dogs, I'm sure in accordance with the bylaws, the dogs are very much under control. I can't remember when I've seen them bothering anybody. There are some dog haters in the community and they won't be happy until all the dogs, like in China a few years ago, were turned into meals. But I would urge you not to support this article and I assure you it'll have plenty of opposition at town meeting if you do. Thank you. Ms. LaCorte and then Mr. Hurd. Yes, so I'd just like to explain my thinking for wanting to in one second. Is this the proponent? Yes. I was gonna wait to see if someone encapsulated what you said and why you did it, but now you're gonna say why. Okay, yes. So, okay, and then we'll come back. Christina Chalapat is 172 Overlook Road. I just wanted to bring everyone current on my reason for proposing this warrant. I personally over the years, I was born here, grew up in Arlington. I've experienced some situations with dogs that were very uncomfortable. Didn't think twice about it, but an individual experience in November when my mother was knocked down by a dog and she broke her arm and the only tool available to the animal patrol officer was to give this individual a warning. And it's not so much an issue of whether we like or dislike dogs. It's to create an awareness from a safety perspective. And just to make the citizens of the town just more aware, we do have actual fines for dog waste that's left on the streets, but not if there's an un-eached dog. I think this whole thing is a work in process and this was just one proposal towards moving forward in a positive way. And I think if we're all more aware that perhaps we'll be on the lookout and the owners of the dogs will be more careful because ultimately they're the ones that need to be responsible, not the four pets. And that was my motivation behind proposing this warning. And I'm gonna say your name, Ron. You're Ms. Chalapathis. Just for the record, is it Christine, Christina? Christina Chalapathis. I'll go back to, is there Ms. LaCorte and then Mr. Herd? Okay. So my reason for supporting this particular free schedule which changes us from a warning to a $75 fine for the first offense and moving up is that I suspect that frequently when the dog officer encounters someone with a dog off leash and he gives the warning to the person, just there are enough dog owners in town, there's enough territory to cover that he's not likely to encounter that person a second time for a considerable amount of time. It's gonna be hard to keep records. What he really needs is the ability to find the person on the first offense and also therefore I would assume in filling out that ticket to record the name of the offender so that we have it in our statistics and we know when we come across a repeat offense. I don't think there's like a huge problem in town of people being attacked by dogs or anything like that. But the fact of the matter is that we have a bylaw on our books. We've created a situation in town by having off leash hours in a number of parks where the leash law I don't feel on a normal day is an undue burden to our citizens at this point. There is an option for running your dog off leash that is legal and acceptable. The rest of the time your dog needs to be on leash and in particular when your dog is not in a park and is walking down the street with you where they're going to encounter strangers, they could run into the street in front of a car. There's all kinds of mayhem that could ensue that's not good for the dog or for the public. The dog officer needs to have some means for enforcing that bylaw. So that's why I support the proponents position on the article that there should be some fee schedule. If there's some preferred schedule, let's make adjustments. But I think we need to do something to give the dog officer the ability to find upon first offense. So that's my thinking. Mr. Herd? I had a couple of comments. One was what selecting the court just spoke about the fact that with no penalty, chances of one officer citing someone over a period of a year is unlikely. And I do want to mention that although it is infrequent, there are some significant issues with on leash dogs with people being attacked that we receive correspondence about. So I don't want to make a light of that. The good news is that it's infrequent but unacceptable. Perhaps, I'm not sure, I know there's a schedule here, a $75 fine, maybe that should be 25 or 50 as a first offense. But I think the idea of having some monetary fine is probably the most effective way of enforcing. So people could just take their chances up until that first time and they all know they have the one opportunity. So I'm not sure if the board wants to consider the first offense, $25 or 50, so it's not as significant. But on the other hand, clearly it's a fine and it's a message that we do have a leash law and we're serious about it. Well, what I'd like to do is the Warren article was proposed, then we asked for suggestions from the proponent, she gave that and then we said we're gonna table it again as the police chief and director of rep. They agree with these fines. If we can maybe stick with these and then if anybody at town meeting feels otherwise, because I do want to say not only unleash dogs on people, we've had an increase on dog on dog. I can't tell you how many people have come into the microphone and said I walked my dog in a leash, got attacked by another dog. I picked my dog up and got bit, person from Summit Street neighborhood. So, and this is not an anti dog issue. It's just, I don't know if there are more dogs in Arlington. So, just for the sake of not tabling this again, if we can keep. I think that's fine. I just wanted to make the point. That the board is amenable that if you tell meeting anybody wants to revisit this, we're not hard and fast. Just to get through and get through. I'd also like to make the point that I don't think, I think it's a very small percentage of people of dog owners in town that are breaking the law. This is a very small percentage, but nevertheless it's happening. And it's a fine against the dog owner. Yes, it's the owner. We're not targeting the dog. So, any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. So unanimous vote. Thank you so much. Formerly article 19, article 20. Again, table from a previous meeting by law amendment use of Minuteman Bikeway. Name and address for the record, please. Chris, we're talking 27 Argyle Road, Arlington. I'm chairman of the Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee. There were a couple of clarification issues, I believe we can talk to you about. One of them was about motorized vehicles on the bikeway after consulting with town council. I think we want to leave out as is and don't make any changes there at all. And then I want to perhaps put in some historical context about why we have the hours we do when they were set up. Originally it was in article 84 of a time meeting of 1987. And the perspective on that is that L-Wife only opened in 1986. And then the bikeway itself opened in. Chris, will you speak just a little louder? I'm sorry. No one else can hear you. I can hear myself. Where do you want me to start a game from? Can you start from the beginning? Yeah, I'm just trying to move my lips up and down. All right, that's fine, no problem. Sorry. Two issues. One was the use of motorized vehicles on the bikeway. We proposed that there's no change made on that after consulting with town council. So no change there. Then I wanted to put some historical context on the why we have the hours we do have on the bikeway. It was passed in a town meeting in 1987 on article 84. And that's what imposed the nine o'clock to five o'clock hours. At the time, I think the bikeway was then considered as a link between the various parks and towns. And therefore they just went with the parks closing hours and had no relationship on actual usage of the bikeway. The L-wife didn't open until 1986. So any idea of who would be using L-wife and how they would be using it was not really taken into consideration at the time. And the bikeway itself didn't open until four years after the article was passed. In time, it's come that many of the subway runs or the tea, what do you want to call it? Runs till midnight. People then can either be on their bike or on foot and wish to travel along the bikeway. It is currently illegal to do so as it closes at nine o'clock. We feel it should accommodate, the hours should accommodate the usage of L-wife, which is a major pedestrian commuter and many other users. So that's really what I'm just proposing, perhaps that we think of that some hours around the L-wife usage because that's a major driver for a lot of the people who use the trail. Plus, there are a lot of people who walk, especially in fair climate weather, perhaps not tonight, but in the summer hours later than nine o'clock. I'm a great proponent of the bike path. And I think what you brought to us is a wonderful idea in a bad time. And I would suggest that I'm gonna vote against it because of what the police chief said. We are really understaffed in the police department now. I think if we have some changes in our financial condition, I think freeing this warrant article back to us, and at a time when we're a little more flush, we have more police who can really, you know, really do the kind of surveillance that we need along that bike path. I would vote for it on a heartbeat, but right now what we're asking the police to do is increase their participation in the bike path. And there are a number of detailed questions. I kind of wish that you talked to the police chief before you brought this to us because right now I don't feel I can support it because we don't have the manpower. And I think it's a wonderful idea. And hopefully when, and if things get better in the municipal world, we can come revisit it, but I don't feel that I can, in good conscience, support it at the moment. Please look forward. Yeah, similarly, well, first I have a question of town council, Juliana. Do we, is it literally true that if the bike path is open 24 hours and a crime has been committed within the proximity of the bike path and officers are in pursuit, they can't stop anybody they want to stop to question them? No, if they have probable cause, they can. But what I think should be my point was that a trespasser on the bike path, say at midnight, will give you probable cause even if you don't otherwise have it. Right. And so even that he would use judiciously based on his additional suspicions or? Absolutely, I don't think there's any concerns or complaints about people using the bike way to commute after 9 p.m. being ticketed or stopped. I mean, I understand the committee's desire to have clarity and I appreciate that, but I don't understand that this is a big problem right now. Yeah, I hate to say it, but I'm with Clarissa on this. I hate to take any capability out of the hands of our officers at the moment given how stretched to the department is. And although, you know, I suppose it's inconsistent with what I just said about the need to enforce the bylaws that are on the books. Okay, I think that our officers are reasonably judicious about advising people who are using the bike path off hours as to the hours and treated as a community policing issue, but they need that tool of being able to say, I have my probable cause and I need to hang on to this person until I've determined whether or not they were involved in the whatever was just reported. And certainly at no time would I be willing to consider extending the hours to 24-7 because I do feel that given that there are people's properties of budding the bike path, that there has to be at least some minimal closing time that respects their right to have peace and quiet in their backyards when they're sleeping. It's not that there's ever been lots of complaints about noise on the bike path so on and so forth, but if somebody decided to be standing on the bike path talking loudly at two in the morning and it's open, there's also not a whole lot we can do about that. And I would hate to see that instance arise. So for the moment, I'm a no vote. And in fact, I guess that means Mr. Heard? I have nothing to add. I agree with most of what was said. The only other comment I would make that given the fact that we understand we don't have the resources, if we were to change the hours, we would be actually encouraging the use of the path in a great portion of that as doc, as you well know. And we're not certainly going to be lighting it. So the enforcement issue is a real issue, but also I'd feel irresponsible to encourage people to use that later in the evening when I know that we have no ability to protect them. It is, as Chief Ryan has said in the correspondence, it is a favorite alley for people that have committed crimes to run to. And that's, so if we have people that are using that late in the evening, they may have some visitors that we can't support. So maybe there's, at some point down the road, maybe a more compromising time would be appropriate as opposed to 24 hours. I'm gonna agree with my colleagues and on just two different points. I know, I've seen people on the bike path after 9 p.m. that have been coming home from ally for on bicycles and they've never been stopped by the police and prohibited from doing that. So to me, that issue doesn't exist right now. And then the other thing is just from the legal standpoint and town council can stop me my tracks if I'm wrong or anything, but having been in many courthouses on many different issues. If we passed a bylaw like this that said the bike path is going to, you can traverse it 24 seven as well as the police are going to patrol it. And God forbid there was an incident on the bike path and a complainant or a plaintiff could demonstrate that you passed this bylaw. You encouraged me to walk at midnight one in the morning or ride my bike or whatever. I was attacked in some way and can prove that we didn't have any police presence down there by virtue of we don't have the money. We don't have the resources. It could potentially open the town up to a liability saying you passed this bylaw, you encouraged the use. This is my court reporter coming in. I apologize. I've been in cases like this where cities or towns have done this. And so that's the other reason I'm not in favor of it. So I think I heard a motion by Ms. Rowe. Yes. Seconded by Ms. LeCourt. Anyone else? No action. Motion of no action and further discussion. If not, all those in favor say aye. I oppose unanimous vote. Thank you so much. Article, oh, I'm trying to keep all my paper for recycling. Article 21 bylaw amendment closing of warrant. It started at the crest of the town meeting procedures committee. I don't know who you are. Name and address are the record. John Leone, chairman of the town meeting procedure committee also town moderator. We put this warrant article on it was the same one we had on two years ago. As you recall, same wording. At that point in time, we agreed to agree with the board that we would move no action on the premise that you would put it into your board of selection policies and procedure manual. Well, this year you forgot. Closed the warrant on January 7th. The committee met and we decided we put it on again and asked if we could now have it as a bylaw. But didn't we correct that within a day? We did. Yes. So one day everybody was egregiously. But that was at the best of Mr. Warden who pointed out. No, I agree with that. He sent me an email. I think you're kind of, I'm going to take this personally because this is me. It's not my colleagues, okay? I was notified of it within a day and it was corrected within a day, right? Correct. But Diane, in all due respect, you four aren't going to be here forever. I'm not going to be here forever. John Warden's not going to be here to watch you forever. No, no, no, that's fine. Several years down the road. I just want you to give just, you know, give the best words, too. I'm not pointing fingers. I'm going to tell you right now I'm not perfect. Yep, none of us are. Several years down the road, we're going to have a whole new cast of characters and we're going to come up with the same problem. The reason we want the warrant open is to give the citizens enough time to, one, it's over the Christmas holidays and breaks. Give them time to realize the warrants open, time to get their articles together, get them in here. I know Ms. Krupp-Helk was going to tell us everybody comes in at the last day. I don't disagree with her, but people do have the right to put things on the warrants. That's why we're a town meeting. That's why we have a town meeting for a government. It's for citizens petitions. We've asked for 60 days in the beginning of the meeting. The beginning of the meeting is the April 2nd vote. That puts you back. If you do the calendar around January 28th or something, maybe you want to pick the last Friday to month or something like that. So we have a date, calendar date certain, not an actual day, but a date in the calendar. People can point at and say, okay, last Friday, close to warrant. We know what's going to close then. Every year if we're going to do it on a haphazard, pick a date now, pick a date, no one's going to know what goes on. I just feel as the policy for the town for everybody to know what's going to happen. I'm going to think we don't have enough time. Several years ago, the elections were pushed back from the beginning of March to the beginning of April because of various religious holidays and Easter and things like this. So you got a whole extra month anyways at that point. So a couple days, just give the folks a couple days to know when it's going to close and give them time to get their warrant articles in. That's all we're asking. And what I would say is I agree with what you put forth which is what the Board of Select been voted three years ago. We followed it for two years. One year. But then we followed it last year, this year. Okay. Okay. Whatever. We agree with you. All I'm saying, Mr. Moderator, when you're a town moderator and God forbid you slipped up on something, I'm going to give you a pass on it. No, no, call me on it. I was contacted by Mr. Warden. It was corrected. I agree with this. If you want to make, if you want to put another bylaw on the records to make sure future Board of Selectmen do this, whether I'm on the board or not, I'm not, I'm not arguing with you on that. I don't want to set a specific date because then if it falls on a Sunday, we're going to get people in here on a debate saying Monday should be Friday. So I think what you have before us is just putting what the Selectmen voted in, followed for a year. We didn't do this year. We corrected within a day. We're making it a bylaw. Motion by my colleagues. They want to make it a bylaw. I mean, well, you know, I would be no action on this. I think that this is something that should be a policy. So my motion would be no action, but I do think as a policy, we have to be sure that we follow it and that we have it in writing somewhere so that we know that we've committed to do this. I think this is the kind of thing that is just not appropriate as a bylaw. Or did you guys? You probably both have. Yeah, Julianne and Brian. Yeah, I did. Thank you, Ms. Apart. I did submit the concerns based on speaking with your staff, just trying to list out all of the tasks that your staff working with me has to get accomplished from the time the war on closes until the town meeting opens. But there was an additional point which I actually had not considered. And I just want to bring to your attention. I don't know which way this would cut but I haven't discussed it with Mr. Leonie because I just realized it today. I'm not entirely sure and I certainly could be wrong that such a bylaw would be approved by the Attorney General because for zoning bylaws, the state law gives the redevelopment board or the town's planning board 65 days to hold its hearings which could not start until the warrant closed. So I'm just not sure how that would cut. And that might be a reason for such a bylaw to be disapproved by the Attorney General. I haven't researched that issue. I don't know, but the state law does give them 65 days and if this bylaw were in place, they would have less than that. So doesn't change my argument, supports my argument. My argument is that this is the kind of thing that when you put it in a bylaw, it becomes inflexible. But what we really need is we need it in a policy and the policy has to be that the warrant for the annual town meeting will be open for a reasonable amount of time and that the weeks between Christmas and New Year's just don't count. People are not around to sign articles for proponents on and so forth. And so we need the warrant to be open for at least three weeks into January, which was what we corrected the date to. Yeah, but third week in January, that's Friday. So yeah, so I guess I'll move in no action. Move by Ms. LaCorte. Mr. Ward. Second. Seconded by Mr. Herb. John Worden, former moderator, same address as before. The, just a couple points. The planning board in our town, the redevelopment board can have a hearing on an article once it is submitted. And they don't, and the timeframe is till when it's voted for town meeting, they don't have to have all the reports in the date town meeting actually begins. The point about the policy, and we're not trying to cast aspersions. I mean, as you say, none of us is perfect. But historically, as Mr. Loney pointed out, when the elections were in March, the warrant closed at the end of January. And we pushed the elections a whole month downstream but kept the warrant closing at the same time. So you already got an extra 30 days to do your thing. And the point about, yes, you did turn around very quickly once I reminded you. But I mean, it shouldn't really be up to an old retired moderator to remind the board what his policies are. And as Mr. Loney pointed out, neither he nor I will be here forever, especially me. But the point is that the closing of the warrant for January 7th was widely brooded about and printed in the Advocate and whatever other sources people look at for quite some time. And so I suppose if somebody who's got a bright idea on Christmas Eve and they started running around doing something, saying, oh geez, I've only got another week. Maybe I should not do this. So their warrant submission clock was kinda shut down. And as Mr. LeCourt pointed out, it's really hard to get people to focus on this around Christmas and New Year's period. So giving to the end of January, people get revved up a little bit. But so then, yes, and I remember when you had the unprecedented Thursday afternoon meeting to reopen the warrant, which I'm glad you did that. But meanwhile, by the time that word got out, we were almost up to the end of January anyway. So I would hope that- The extended the warrant, it hadn't closed yet, right? Right, so it just ran continuously. It actually had to. It had to close. I think so. Not you sure? That's positive. Yeah. Yeah. It went to the 23rd of January. No, no, no. The original date was January 7th. The meeting was after January 7th. Okay. Well, the, well, I guess I've made the point. And I think there is enough time. The policies are apparently not cast in cement like the bylaws are. And so I would hope that you would be able to rise above your concerns and support. And if it says 60 days before the election, that's really easy to calculate. Obviously, if it falls on a Saturday or Saturday, Sunday, non-business day, it kicks over by state law to the next day. That's not difficult. Thank you. Ms. LaCorte and Ms. Raul. So one more quick question for Ms. Kropelka. How many of the articles that were 10 registered voter articles came in on the last day that the warrant was open this year? I would say that 10 came in the last two days. And- 27 and 23rd. Okay. We had the snowstorm on the 23rd or whatever, 24th. And people actually walked in with one of the articles. Right. And we were one of the few town offices open. Yeah. Suffins office was the only one open. Yes, because our administrator doesn't know what's good for her. Should have stayed home in the middle of a blizzard. But anyways, that's another bone to pick. So did you have other articles that came in early where there are people who met the deadline of the 7th because they were confused about the date? No one came in because they all came in. Some of them came in early because they were predicted in the snowstorm. Yep. We got most of them in the density before that. Right, so you did have some folks who had planned ahead. Yes, all right. So then you know I'm teasing you about you're not being there on the snow day, but really. And do we have about the same number of articles this year as we normally have? As we had last year and other? We had 78th issue. We have 76th. Okay, so it seems to me that the confusion about the date didn't slow down the number of articles we normally get in the warrant and that given that we had 10 articles that came in the last week, there were people who were able to figure it out. Well. That said, let me finish what I'm saying. That said, I do think it is very important that we cement this policy that that warrant is open. What we don't want, nobody on the Board of Select of Selectman wants to prevent citizens from putting an article on the warrant. And nobody on the Board of Selectman wants there to be the appearance that we are preventing citizens from putting articles on the warrant. And what we agreed was fair was to open the warrant early in December and close it fairly late in January with consideration for our staff preparing the articles and doing all the things that they need to do to get us through the hearing process and so on and so forth. I don't know how we did it when this was done, when we had the elections in March because I wasn't on the Board at the time and I know what a struggle it is for us to get through all the warrant article hearings and so on and so forth between now and April and we will be adding meetings probably shortly unless we stay on this schedule, which we always do so that we end up meeting once a week and so on and so forth. Possibly before we chain move the election date, we were meeting more frequently. I know there was a point in time when we were, so. I think the warrant December 7th, it opened. Right. We kept it open until 23rd or 24th, whatever. Right, which is in keeping with the policy that we structured last year. So I apologize for our slip as a Board. I'm sure that I voted to close the warrant on the 7th and probably shouldn't because I know better but in any case, I'm still in no action on this one. And we're gonna go to Ms. Rowe and in the interest of this, we still have five or six more. I know the hearings that we need to have, I really think. Be very quick, I'm gonna support this. Motion by Ms. LaCorte of no action. Seconded by? Second. Mr. Herb. Your comment? I mean, I just wanna reiterate the fact that what the proponents are asking is what we are presenting as a policy that was obviously an error. I don't suspect that's gonna happen again. So we are agreeing to do what was asked. And regardless of who's sitting here this year or next year or five years from now. So I don't wanna give the public impression that we're not agreeing to that. And I think what we're trying to do here is create a reasonable and acceptable amount of time to have the warrant open in a reasonable and acceptable amount of time for our staff to prepare for town meeting. And that's really what we're doing. So we'd like to keep it open longer if we could, but that's the reality of it. There is a policy. I have a discussion. If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Aye. Aye. 2-2. Motion fails. Thank you. We will now go to Article 22. By-law amendment, town meeting standing votes. Move positive action. Move by Ms. La Courte, seconded by. Second. Mr. Hurd, the proponents here, and then I'm gonna call Ms. Rowe. No, that was just seconded. Oh, you go ahead. I have Ms. La Courte moving and Mr. Hurd seconding. This would be an adoption of master general law that allows the moderator to actually call a two-third vote if one of those items that require zoning by-laws bonding. Although I'm bonding, I understand the bond council does like a standing vote. So unless it's unanimous on those cases, at least I as a moderator, and I would encourage my future fellow moderators to do the same thing on those. But this, in my opinion, is something I brought forward to the committee so that we can eliminate those votes where it's unanimous except for one. And we have several of those every meeting. And on those kinds of votes, the moderator would be able to declare a two-third vote and we could move on in an expeditious manner. So thank you for your support of this article. I'm in favor of this, even though I like to count and you call on me and I get to get a number. I'll still call on you. You can roll a town meeting sometimes when I don't have anything else to do. Is there any additional verbiage that will be or needs to be included? Is this purely if just one person stands up or if it's- No, it's same as a regular- The first time this comes up, if someone challenges it and says you just said one. Right, but it's the same as if we have, I can call a majority vote without a standing vote, but if five people arise and challenge the vote, it's the same. If five people can arise, we can challenge the vote and have a counted vote. It doesn't change any of the other rules. It just gives the additional authority to declare a two-third vote by voice as opposed to having to have a standing vote. And Attorney Rice-Neier is working on language. I think I have a motion by Ms. LeCourt, seconded by Mr. Heard. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. It's closed. Thank you. Madam Chair. Mr. Heard. I was wondering if you would consider going to Articles 26 and 27. I know there's quite a few young individuals here that I think are here for those articles and should probably want to be home doing homework. And they've heard enough of me, actually. So thank you, Mr. Heard. I will take that as a friendly suggestion amendment to the agenda. Agenda item 20, I'm sorry to slow things down. And of course the board should take that, but I just need a little clarification on what you all voted on under article 21. Because I think the motion was a no action, which failed. So it's no action. So, but that failed. Right. So favorable action. Right. So what's the favorable action? So you want favorable action? I just need to know how to write it. It was a tie and I thought with the tie, the motion fails. The motion fails. And nothing else comes from that. So no motion. There's no motion. So there's no recommendation. Yeah, like Ms. Rowe and I could say, okay, positive action, and then that would be a tie and fail. Yeah. We may have to bring the article back up when there are five of us. Right, why don't we postpone that article? No, no. No, it's already done. I just want to understand what motion. We can always revisit it. I know it. When we have a full board. We may not. I know what happened. Okay. Can you explain it later? Sorry, Ms. Rice, Attorney Rice, I should have made sure before I moved on. No, that's okay. I'm sorry to interrupt. Article 26, bylaw to ban motorboat wakes within 50 feet of the shoreline, of any shoreline of Spipon. Is the proponent here to speak to it as well as the proponent, and then anyone else who wants to speak to it, make yourself known so I don't skip over you. Name and address for the record. Madam Chair, I need to make a disclosure. Okay, I just want to disclose that my daughter rose on the crew team in the fall. So. Thank you. My name is Betsy Leander Wright. I live at 21 Belknap Street, and I can disclose that I was in the adult rowing program and I loved it. When they had an adult rowing program last year. This is a proposal coming from the Friends of Spipon Park. We have a number of members of the Friends of Spipon Park here in support of it. And we got a majority vote in favor of this. This was a compromise between people who wanted to ban gas motors on Spipon. A lot of us thought they already weren't allowed. And there's been some really alarming hot dogging behavior last summer more than previous summers. But there's other people who don't want the ban and don't want more regulation than necessary. So a no-wake zone near shore was arrived at as a compromise that would take care of a lot of the issues because it's not so much what people are doing out in open water as what motor boats are doing on some occasions near the shore. I think the other misconception that I want to clear up is that I've seen some things saying, well, the erosion is not significant because there's erosions from so many other sources from motorboat wakes. And the erosion issue has already been dealt with by the crew team agreeing not to go into the cove where the Spipon condos are, which is really good. And just the thing I want to make clear is that erosion wasn't the first concern or the only concern. It is one of the concerns. There's some very sensitive spots along the shore on the parkside. But the first things that were raised were noise, but near the boat ramp has gotten a lot noisier and danger to kids wading, dogs, other kinds of boats and the potential of crashing into rocks or whatever and leaving gas and oil pollution behind. And I feel like all of those concerns would be eased if when boats came out of the boat ramp in the park, they had to go slowly at first. So that's our main goal. It's not at all against the crew team. They've been fantastic. They've sat down with us. They've invested in electric motors, which we don't really have done that so quiet and has a more modest maximum speed. So we feel like with the crew team, things are working out with them being so good at doing dialogue with the people with the concerns. But we definitely have noticed more hotdoggers, more irresponsible boating. And there already is a 10 horsepower limit and a 10 mile per hour limit, but that's really, really hard to enforce because if you just look at somebody and they look like they're speeding, they're coming too close to the shore, they're coming too close to kids or kayaks or whatever, it's really hard. I do a lot of calling over to motor boats, hey, I think you're going more than 10 miles an hour or is that motor more than 10 horsepower? It's like really sort of confusing conversation across the water and they may not know but I don't know and wake is so tangible and every motor boater understands it because this is something that virtually every water body has is zones of no wake allowed. So they're all familiar with it and it's a really easy thing for us to call from the park or to call from another boat. No wake near the shore. They'll understand that, it'll communicate. We can instantly tell if they're in compliance with the law whether there's wake, we can instantly tell if they're breaking the law. So it's a modest step. I don't think it would interfere. I saw the coaching boats most of the time ease out from the boat ramp with a courteous attempt to be quiet, not always, but most of the time. So I don't think it would cramp the style. It's important not to have wake near one. Those boats are so tippy. It's really terrifying to sit in one of them for us amateurs. You can't have a wake right by them anyway. So I think to have the coaching boats slow down when they're near the shore, especially near the park, we hope would be compatible with the continuation of the rowing team. So I wanted to, that's sort of the, what I'm telling you is the sort of majority consensus of the Francis Bypun Park. And, but we have some neighbors with their own points of view and maybe we can start with Neil. Well, actually why don't I, just because I'm sharing this. Oh yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to pass it. I don't want to make it look like this is, you know. Okay. Anyone who wants to speak, stop lining up. Regardless. All right, let me just make a point that one of my. And recognize if you're saying the same thing over and over again. And I want to make a clarification. Has a change that we do allow waiting for swimming and spy pond anywhere? No, we don't. Okay. I just wanted to get that out there, especially because we have had even Board of Health go down there because people do do that when they have been extremely high level. So in terms of the issue with waiters, they're really not supposed to be there because it's not safe for my health. So anyone who wants to get up in line and say your piece all you want. I just wanted to point out that one of the people who want to testify has an earlier bedtime than the other, so I was hoping he'd be able to. If they're in line, they can do it, no problem. I just want to try to get the kids. Well, spy pond is the center. Can you say your name and your street? My name is Neil Tracy, and I live on 25 Marion Road. Thank you, ma'am. And well, spy pond is the center of my life. I boat there, I play there, I have summer camps there. And I think if there was speeding motorboats around, it would ruin the peace, both the noise and the fumes. And also it would be very dangerous because, well, if there's kids boating out there and there's motorboats zipping around, there could be a collision. So I think that the wake line is a good rule. Thanks for your time. Thank you, Neil. Just thank you. Am I good? Name and address. My name is Keith Person, and I live at 16 Linwood Street. I am one of the people that wishes there was a stronger article up here today than in a wake zone. I've lived on the pond for 10 years and have walked there several times a day, most times a day. And my experience is that before the cruise started to practice there, it was a common understanding even though it wasn't accurate, that you weren't allowed to have motorboats on spy pond. Everybody that I knew, that lived there and that I talked to, believed that. And I think that kept there from being motorboats on spy pond, even though you were allowed to have them. And then once the crew started to have the gas engines that were going fast around the pond, we started to see more motorboats on other days going on the pond. And that's when many of us called up or got online and looked and said, why are there all these motorboats thinking that there had been an exception made for the crew? So my concern is that first of all, I have been out in a kayak, I've been sitting by the pond, I mean canoe rather, and sitting by the pond and have been swamped by wakes, by motorboats on the pond, just in the past couple of years when that had never happened before. I now don't feel comfortable going out to kayak or canoe or go on a raft on the pond because I don't know if there's gonna be motorboats. I've even when the crew's been practicing, I've hear the coach saying, watch out for the canoe, watch out for the canoe. And it's just a different experience to be out there than it used to be. Even walking by the pond in my experience is very different now that there are motorboats out there than it used to be, plus the fact that the crew's out there six days a week, but then on the other days of the week now there's more boats. So in general, my concern is that there now people are knowing, oh, there can be motorboats on the pond. I don't think it's gonna be as likely that those people are gonna go on into the bylaws and say, oh, but you have to keep it under 10 miles an hour. I'm concerned about jet skis. I'm concerned about safety. I'm concerned about also gas engines. My understanding is that gas engines that are affordable to most people are lubricated by engine oil. Engine oil goes right into the water and spy pond is a pond that has, the outlet is very, it's not always, the water is not always higher than the board that holds the water in. So most of spy pond's water actually leaves the pond by evaporation. And the engine oil doesn't go anywhere. I have a letter here from my friend who grew up on Mystic Lake, the upper Mystic Lake. As far as I know, it may be different now, but certainly for many years, motorboats have been banned on upper Mystic Lake. It's a lake that's actually smaller than spy pond. And the lower Mystic Lake is allowed to have engines. So I will, if it's something that would, is I'm able to do, I'd like to give you a copy of this letter that he wrote about his experience of growing up on Mystic Lake, nearly being killed by a motorboat. His father gathering other people together in Winchester to stop to ban the motorboats on Mystic Lake. Before the ban and the ban, it was, they were banned. And at that point on there were no motorboats. Before that ban was made, he said there were motorboats on Sunday afternoons on a sunny day, just all over the place. And his belief about that is because there was a public park next to the Mystic Lake that had parking and a boat ramp, which is now what we have for the first time since the park has been redone in spy pond. We didn't have that before. So now we have some awareness that motorboats are allowed on pond and a boat ramp that is very big. You can put quite a big boat on there. And despite the small size of upper Mystic Lake where you would think people wouldn't want to go on a big motorboat and zooming around there, they were. Jet skis, I'm concerned about that. I think that the no wake zone as much as I wish it was stronger ordinance, I feel like it will at least be something that will temper it and that like you can't say to someone, you're going over 10 miles an hour, but you can say you're making a wake. So those are my concerns. What I really most want is to be able to kayak on there, walk down there and to have it feel peaceful again. Thanks. Hi, I'm Margaret Moore, the Chico High, 369 Park Ave, Arlington, a member of the board of directors of Arlington Belmont crew. Arlington Belmont crew is a nonprofit 501C3 that oversees the Arlington Belmont crew team. It's not a varsity sport at either of the high schools. It operates as an independent club program with the board of directors, all parents. As you can see, we've got a pretty big turnout tonight from some of the kids. Pretty big crew, does that mean? Pretty big crew. Because they do feel strongly about this. The no-wake zone would have a deleterious effect on the crew team operating on spy to pond. The 50 feet from the shore zone, going all the way around the shore, all the way around Elizabeth Island would effectively narrow the navigable channels on either side of Elizabeth Island to about 50 feet. The distance from the island to the shore on the west is about 150 feet. From the island towards Calvin Manor is about 200 feet. Take away 50 feet on either side of that and you've got a very, very narrow passage. It would be extraordinarily difficult for our coaches to be keeping an eye on boats, coaching them, telling them what to do while simultaneously estimating, am I 50 feet from the shore? I don't know about any of you all in the room, but I don't know how big 50 feet is. From one end of this room to another, if you were out on open water, would you know where 50 feet begins and ends? No wake means quite literally that, no visible wave. Our motorboats are small, outboard motorboats, depending on how many people you put in them, how fast they're going, the weight, the shape of the hull determines wake. They would have to be traveling a little over an idle to create no wake. Around the boat ramp, obviously they're going slow anyway. They're launching, they're keeping an eye on kids, they're loading the boats, they're not moving fast in the boat ramp area. Once they get out towards Elizabeth Island and Route 2, that's when the team really picks up speed. That's where the coaches need to be with them at their side at all times. And by narrowing that channel on both sides of Elizabeth Island, the coaches are not gonna be able to do that. They're not gonna be able to keep an eye on the team, be available to them to offer coaching, be available to them if they're needed in an emergency. And that's why Arlington Belmont crew, as a board, as a team, is requesting that you take no action on Article 26. I think some of the other issues that have been brought up are not really addressed by a no wake zone. You know, the type of motor that we have, that sort of thing. We certainly feel that the existing bylaws, 10 miles per hour, 10 horsepower limit, ought to be adequate to control the amount of noise and busyness and speed on the pond. You can't really go more than 10 miles per hour super close to the shore anyway. There are rocks, there are hidden shopping carts under the water. So I think some of the other issues of danger to wading toddlers aren't really an issue so much and certainly are not an issue with the crew team. The crew team has gone out of their way to be respectful of other people using the boat ramp, other people using the park, other people using the playground. We have a new coaching staff coming on this spring who have pledged to stay out of the narrow cove area. That runs along the spy pond condominiums and to limit their practices to basically making a figure eight sort of from the park out past Elizabeth Island to Route 2 and back. That distance from Route 2 towards the baseball field is the only length along spy pond that comes close to approximating what the rowers experience in an actual race. They generally race 1500 meters and that distance passing alongside Elizabeth Island is what they need to do to be able to practice for a 1500 meter race. I think I will yield to a couple of the rowers themselves to let them. Thank you. I'm Helena Awad, Five Magnolia Street. I attend Arlington High School and I have been a member of the Arlington Billmont crew team for three seasons. And if this passes, it will greatly inhibit the ability of our team to perform on the pond. The safety of each and every one of the rowers depends on the coach's ability to reach boats in a short period of time. Now, I know that means that sometimes they'll have to go fast, but the coaches are taking drastic measures to reduce wake on the pond. They're going to do their best to remain respectful to the area and the residents. For example, new numerical limits of rowers have been made to the team. Therefore, there will be fewer boats on the water and less time will be spent going back and forth between the boats by the coaches. Also, as said before, the board of directors has pledged to stay out of the cove by Hamilton Road. That was a very residential area and a lot of the times the boats would be very close to the shore. So this will reduce the amount of wake in that area and also the noise level in that area. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Annalise Rutenberg. I live on 47 Buena Vista Road and I also go to Arlington High School and I'm also a member of the Arlington Belmont crew team. If this measure were to pass, then like Helena had just said a lot, the team would be greatly affected by it because basically we wouldn't be able to practice because they're like Margaret said earlier, the places where the motor boats could go wouldn't be big enough for them and they wouldn't be able to follow our boats and the whole point of our team is that we improve and we race and we do better. And without the coaches, they'd being there to follow us and being there to help us improve, we wouldn't be able to improve. And if our team was shut down, then a lot of opportunities would be shut down. Like this fall, our team raced in the head of the Charles, which is a really, really big opportunity for a lot of people. And I know a lot of people on our team are looking into colleges that have crew teams. I know I'm doing that. So that like opportunity and the experience of being on a high school crew team wouldn't be available anymore for a lot of people who wanted to row in college. So a lot of like things that aren't necessarily, they don't necessarily seem like they're affected by this no wake zone idea are being affected and it would just greatly not benefit the team. And I mean, we're only there from, we're only there from March to May and then August to November, like the entire summer, our team isn't there. And I mean, the winter, we're not there either, but. But I mean, there's just, we only use it for like such a small amount of time and we like, we don't leave a huge mark. So I feel like it just wouldn't benefit anyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You want to use it in the winter. I see ice cream sheet out there. Oh, you're worn out. I'm only kidding. I'm only kidding. So I'll launch here too. Hi, my name is Kelly Sullivan. I'm from 23 Belknap Street. And I just want to start off by saying, and this is definitely not against the crew, team members, because I think the majority of the people in the spy pond area have been supportive of the crew team themselves. I think it's a separate issue and I think we need to work together. But I do think it's interesting when people are standing up here and talking about the safety of the crew members and the need for the boats to go fast and to speed up and the motorboat has to get fast because the crew boat's getting faster and we have to watch the safety of the crew members. Well, I have, I can tell you about 100 other children who actually live in the area. I happen to have two of them and right now I have an 11-year-old who's finally able to put her life jacket on while I'm on the shore and kayak around with her friends. This is very exciting. Many, many, many children are out there. I say children, that means from 10 to 20, I'm calling them children at this age, but they're out there on their own and they're not going fast and they're in different kinds of rafts and pleasure boats and sailboats. And I think that if you could somehow get an exemption for crew or for the safety boats from the Boys and Girls Club, hurrah. But this is a compromise we're talking about today, but I'm not really on the compromised side. I'm really on the side of the safety of the people who have been using this and when respecting this pond peacefully for years now. So please consider the safety of those kids too. Thank you very much. Hi, Karen Grossman, 32 Hamilton Road. I'm the president of the Friendsless Bypond Park. Our intention certainly is not to inhibit the crew team from performing their practices on spy pond. They have been wonderful to the Friendsless Bypond Park, volunteering in the park on our work days. And I feel that we have a good relationship with the crew team. So I wanna make that very clear that if in fact this no wake warrant would impact at all the needs of the crew team that just like I believe there was a waiver, some kind of waiver that was given to the crew team originally when they were practicing, I'm not sure what it was in reference to, but that there either would be a waiver for the crew team, but for other people who get the idea that they can hot rod as someone else previously said on the pond because they see the motorboats, I feel that it's important to be proactive and not to wait until it gets to be a hazardous uncomfortable situation. I do wanna point out that there is waiting allowed in spy pond. It says no swimming, I don't know that there's any regulation against waiting. There are little children who go to the end of the handicapped ramp in the park and stick their feet in or whatever. So, yes, so whether or not that's illegal, I don't know but parents happily watch their children there when they wade in the pond. So we would support an exemption and or if there needs to be some kind of amendment made to our warrant article, I don't know what the procedures are, if that's possible. We can't amend the warrant article right now because we haven't finished hearing from everybody who hasn't even taken a vote. Okay. And I would say everybody who's coming up, if you wanna come up for a second time, that's fine, but we have other warrant articles and I'm guilty of this myself if your point's been made like three times, if you could make it but make it more succinctly. I'm not addressing that to the person at the microphone, I'm addressing that. I keep seeing the line growing and growing and keep going and. Okay, so that's about it, so, you know. Thank you. I'm Elizabeth Diggins and I sent you all an email letter in my support of the crew team, of course. I can't say enough what a wonderful program it is and what it's brought to Allington and to a lot of kids that have no other sport interest in its phenomenal. There's a lot of contributions from family, from friends and I have lived in this town all my life, 50 years next week and I hate to see laws and laws and warrants and warrants over and over when we all really just wanna, you know, do what we want in the town and to be townspeople together. A couple of items that were brought up, I would never let my kid and spy pond with an open wound on their foot ever. You know, I've lived here and I know what the pond is all about. You know, I think keeping your kid safe is a personal parental problem and if I wanna keep my little toddler safe at the end of a ramp, I'm gonna be standing right there with them. I have never seen the crew boat accidentally run anybody over. In fact, when we do the fireworks in Allington, we all use, they use a motorboat to go out onto the pond. I have never seen an issue in the dark with the boat. I think everybody just needs to be, you know, caring for everybody else that's around them, not banning a program or banning a motorboat. I've never seen anybody, I work on the Appamistic Lake, my office is on the Appamistic Lake and I don't see motorboats flying around there. There is no, there are no motorboats allowed but there is a sailing program up there with the Medford Boat Club and they do use a motorboat on the waters to keep the kids safe. There are kids flipping over on those boats all the time. If they didn't have a motorboat there, a lot of those kids could drown or those kids are learning how to sail and they have life jackets on but that motorboat secures them and where they are with their fear. I don't think anybody is asking to go 100 miles an hour on the pond. I've never seen it happen. In fact, all I see is parent volunteers down there directing traffic, keeping everybody down there safer than probably they've ever been during that training period time. As far as noise, I can't agree with that. We have route two over here, we have a pack full of kids over here. I don't know how, you know, kids rowing and learning this amazing sport really create bad noise. There were a couple of other things that came up. The kids were recently on the head of the childs in the fall, some of the crew team was lucky enough to go to the head of the childs and I don't think there's a wake allowed on the head of the childs either. We could check but there are motorboats going up and down the head of the childs during the head of the child's regatta and I don't think I've ever heard anybody complain about the noise, the motorboat, the oil in the water. I just do think that it's more everybody trying to help each other in their efforts and not have something go through that's gonna force kids to lose something. They have worked really, really hard to do. I don't know if any of you have seen it but it really is an amazing and challenging sport for a lot of good athletes and I oppose anybody trying to stop the motorboat and I ask for your support, thank you. I'm Jackson Miller, I've run on this, I live on 25 Dartmouth Street. I've run on this team for two seasons and in my experience, the coaches and the rowers and the coxsons are always very conscientious about safety. We are always like, if the Boys and Girls Club come out with kayaks, there are always people with sailboats and rowboats, they always try to be very careful around them. Our boats only go from six to eight miles per hour so really like the chances of our boats and this isn't the motorboats, this is our, the boats we've row in. They only go from six to eight miles per hour. There isn't really a huge risk in hitting them, we never have hit them before. So, and I mean like, and I know that the coaches are also really, really careful. They drill it into our heads to make sure that we're very careful around everybody so that we don't hit anyone or injure anyone and we never have, it's never really been an issue. So yeah, and in my experience, like when we get, when we take our boats out and we go into the water, the wakes really aren't that big, like we pass by and the most they go is like maybe three inches. I can't imagine someone getting swamped by a wave because I mean, the boats generally go about 10 miles an hour or less. So, I mean this team, it provides so many opportunities for us. I was one of the people who rowed in the head of the Charles and I'm so thankful for it. It was a really great opportunity for me. And I mean like, I'm gonna be rowing in college so this crew program is really great for me and so many people and if we can't operate safely on the pond, the coaches have made it clear that we might not be able to operate at all. So, I really want to make clear that, so if we can't operate safely, we aren't gonna operate at all and it really be terrible for everyone on the team. Thank you. Thank you. I must say I'm a bit confused here in everybody who could get to row in a crew on the head of the Charles. I'll have to live vicariously rowing through you all. Good evening, Bill Icamp, 246 Pleasant Street. I'm here representing Vision 2020 Environmental Task Group Spipon Committee. As we have told you before, the Spipon Committee is very much in favor of things that use the pond. We want the public out there, we want it used and we've got some wonderful things that use it. We've got hockey in the winter, we've got the Boys and Girls Club in the summer and now we have the crew spring and fall. When this article came to us for consideration, we brought the crew people in and had a long heart to heart talk about the issues. And we are aware that in the Cove there is an issue, there's an erosion problem around the Spipon condominiums. But after a long discussion, the crew people were extremely responsive to our request not to operate row boats doing U-turns in the Cove. Clearly that's a problem because you get to wake on both sides and then wake around the end. Basically, we found that it'd be very responsive. We think this program is to be encouraged and we think the no wake law will kill it because it's our opinion that if you, if this is on the books, motor boats, even if they're crew boats will operate by unanimous consent and I don't think that's a good idea. So without bothering you with more things than you want to hear, I've got a whole page full and I'll come down to it. I've lived, I've been in a butter for 40, I've moved in in 69, I've been in a butter. I've seen the big ski boats, I was delighted. In fact, I was instrumental in getting them banned. Since then, we have rare problems. It's like going 60 down a mass ad. I won't say it never happens, but I won't say it's a big problem. It's not. So our conclusion was that the law is undesirable, unnecessary, and I leave it to you to judge whether it's also unenforceable. Thank you. Thank you. Second time, so you're gonna be really quick and the only reason I'm here is because I wanted to clarify a few things that other people have said, particularly when the kids talk about zooming or the boats going really fast, it's a relative term. The kids row about six to eight miles per hour. We really would like them to row faster than that. They do better in the head of the Charles if they did, but that's, they're going about six miles an hour. So for the coaches to stay with them, obviously they're going six miles an hour. For the coaches to overtake them, they're going only slightly faster than six miles an hour. No one on the crew team is ever going above the 10 mile an hour limit. I also wanted to address the, what was mentioned that we had a waiver. Crew team does not have any sort of waiver to be on the pond. We have a permit from Parks and Recreation. Just like the soccer team gets a permit to use a soccer field, the little league gets a permit to use a baseball diamond. We have a permit to use spy pond. There were never any exceptions made to any existing rules or regulations to allow us to row on spy pond. We are one of the very few public school rowing programs in the state. We're part of the Massachusetts Public School Rowing Association. There's only a handful of other towns, public schools with rowing teams. A lot of them are places like Weston and Wayland and Acton Boxborough, although we do compete against Cambridge and Latin and Brookline as well. The opportunities that afforded the kids by rowing in a public school rowing program are phenomenal. This year's group of juniors are being recruited to rowing college. I think some of the past alums have been rowing in college, but sort of as walk-ons, this is the first time there's actual recruiting going on. And just one other thing that sort of the suggestion, people have suggested muttering, well, why don't you go row on the Charles River? There is no space on the Charles River. The MDC, DCR, whatever they're currently called, permits rowing on the Charles River as well. There are no open spots for additional rowing clubs on the Charles River. All the colleges, BB&N, some of the private schools have boat houses along the river. There's no room for additional people. That was all I wanted to ask. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, I'm Brad Barber, 74, Spypon Parkway. And just a brief word about, not about the rowers and not about that end of Spypon. I live at 74 Spypon, which is in one of the lowest-lying areas, to the extent where I paddled my canoe around my trees a year ago. And erosion is a problem, but it's not from the boats. I occasionally do see a boat. Fishermen are out there. An occasional way, nothing worries them. Wind, of course, kicks up quite a lot of waves. And that's where my worry of erosion comes from. And I think for others along that southern edge. Thank you. I have Ms. LaCorte and then Ms. Rowe. And then Mr. Herd, Ms. LaCorte. Yeah, so I'm listening to both sides of the conversation here. And as I said, my daughter rose on the crew team, so I'm not going to claim to objectivity. But I'm having my usual reaction to these disputes, which is that the proponents of the article and the crew team members and staff don't seem to have actually had a direct conversation with each other about what form of a bylaw would meet everyone's needs. And I know we're trying not to postpone any articles and I don't want to drag this one out. But, you know, barring the ability to recommend a postponement that allows them to talk to each other. I'm no action on this article simply because I believe there's a compromise out there that could be reached with a conversation between the two parties here. And in the meantime, we do have a bylaw which prevents boats from going more than 10 miles an hour and prevents boats with more than 10 horsepower engines on the pond. And what we need is we need people who believe that there are violators of that bylaw to come forward and let us know when they see those violations so that we have some kind of track record of what the actual activity on the pond is that we think may be violating the bylaw and we need to enforce our bylaw. So that's what my position is, but given the delicate nature of my daughter rowing on this team and my dedication to the team, I'm not going to make the motion. I'm going to leave it to my colleagues to decide what the correct motion would be. There's a row and that's to her. Yeah, I'll vote no action on this. You all are really lucky because my daughter also was a rower. She was a coxswain. So I'm sorry to the friends of Spipon Park. I think there's a compromise here and I'm sorry you all didn't reach it before you got here. I also think with the addition of the boat ramp, changes have occurred in the pond and I don't think it's really the crew team and they're coaches that have brought the change. It's probably the boat ramp and I think we need to watch over what's happening in the next couple of years. Crew is an outstanding sport. My daughter did it for four years. Got scholarships at Duke because of it. It made her a wonderful person. She was an NCAA coxswain for Duke for four years. She went all over the country. It is a wonderful, wonderful sport and the fact that two public high schools are doing this is just terrific because it doesn't have to be an elite of sport. It is one of the most boring sports in the world for a parent to watch. It's really boring. However, spy pond is really, it's a recreational asset for us and whether that means you're standing at the side of the spy pond and looking at it and it's peaceful sometimes and not peaceful other times. I think anybody of water, you're gonna have to teach children how to navigate it, whether they're in a kayak or they're in a crew, skull or in a motorboat. That's part of being on the water. I grew up, I've been on, in all the different kinds of boats, I haven't been on the skull. I just watch them. But I think that I'm gonna vote no action. I don't wanna be punitive. I think we need to watch what's going on in the pond but I don't think that we need this warrant article. I think this is a great program. I think that some of, I don't for one second believe that motorboats going 10 miles an hour are causing the erosion on that pond. Also, this is not a pristine pond. This is a polluted pond. It's a pond that we close almost every summer. It's got its own problems with its sediments that if there's a tiny little bit of oil, I don't think that's gonna be a problem. I really think this is something that I'm sorry you all didn't work out before you came to us, but I don't feel comfortable voting for this. I've had the good fortune of living near Spy Pawn for 23 years and two years ago where we downsized and moved on Spy Pawn and I can't tell you how excited I was. The first day is I spend a lot of time, if I'm home, I'm out in the yard, I'm looking on Spy Pawn when I saw activity, when I saw these crewboats. I think I might have started calling people, come out here, see what's going on. I think it's awesome and I think it's awesome that the pond is being used more and more by all kinds of interests. I have a kayak, I have a canoe, I have a sailboat that I have not learned how to sail yet, but I also understand that there are a couple of people that have small seven or eight-horse motorboats and quite frankly, if I see one of those boats once a week for a half hour, it's a lot. I just don't see it. Maybe they're on the other side, but I never see them. So I don't think that's an issue in itself, but with that said, everybody has an interest. I like to skate, I like to play hockey. Last year there was a lot of ice fishermen cutting holes and some people were saying, well, why are they cutting holes? Well, I said because they like to fish. My point is that there's all kinds of interests to use by ponds. This is probably one of the best I've seen since I've been there and I enjoy watching. It's activity, it's young people getting exercise, competing and far as erosion, I think it was mentioned, Bill mentioned someone earlier that on a halfway windy day, you'll see wake with these small boats going around. I don't see originally any wake at all. So I certainly am excited about the program and I like to see more people using the pond. And having, although I have access to the pond, I think it's wonderful that there's a public boat ramp that allows others to use the pond as well. I certainly don't feel that the pond is monopolized or should be by those that live or have access to it. So I think it's a wonderful program. We're also gonna support the no action vote. Motion by Ms. Rose, seconded by Mr. Heard. I'm gonna be real brief because my colleagues have made just about all the comments. I do want to say in terms of process following up on what my colleague Ms. La Courte said. And I think I've sort of another silent partner here, although we did receive one of the eight pieces of correspondence, also as the Boys and Girls Club. What I would say to the components of the Warren article is I am going to vote no action to the crew and Boys and Girls Club. If you all get together, either before town meeting and come to some sort of compromise, I'd be happy to, near the end of our, one of our select men's meetings, entertain that, but I'm not gonna hear the same things over and over again. I'm gonna hear the compromise. If it's not a compromise, if 10 people that say, we want this, it's a compromise, and 10 people say they're not, then go to town meeting floor. And make it there. But I will say, and it's not a requirement that you do this, but just sort of piggybacking on any Ms. La Courte's suggestion. And there may be some other vested groups, but I really just see Allington Belmont crew, Allington Boys and Girls Club and Friends of Spipond. And I want to join with the Friends of Spipond. In no way do we want to lose this sport. I'm one of the biggest cheerleaders for sports. And I heard that from Sharon and Betsy and others that they definitely respect and admire the sport. So my vote of no action right now is because of what I've heard and what's before me right now. If you all can make a compromise, if we can do it before town meeting starts. If not, the board is always in session. We don't adjourn until town meeting completely ends. So we can even take a vote on town meeting floor if you come up with a compromise then. Because I think I'm hearing a lot of commonality here. Allington Belmont crew is a great sport. We don't want to eliminate it. We want to encourage use. When we did the redesign of Spipond and all the amenities, the boat ramp was included. We had public hearings and people spoke positively about it. But if we can, or at least the planning department put it in there and take it, people spoke positively. So on a motion by Ms. Rose, seconded by Mr. Hart, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? No action. And now we will go to Article 27. Actually, it'll take us one minute recess for anybody who has to, as much as you all want to stay here and listen to us up here, I'm going to demand you note note. Thanks for coming in, guys. Thanks for coming. Good luck. Thanks, Annalise. OK, with that, Article 27, which is vote for Spipond motor boat regulation signs, the court. I have a question for the town manager. Can we just put this sign up? Yep. I'll defer. Town council on that. But this is a great plan. Oh, yeah. It's a law that they can't go over 10 miles an hour. Can't we put it here? So we just put it up? Is that a making it a bylaw? Yeah. I mean, by we, you mean the manager of the park. Right. The manager and, yeah. That's why I was asking you, Brian. Can't we just put this up like another sign? Do we have the resources to do this? Yes, we don't need a special appropriation. OK. So can I then move no action on the article with the condition that the town manager will post said sign and we'll maintain it into the future? Can we split it? Can we first have the vote of no action by Ms. LeCourt, seconded by Ms. Rowe? All those in favor say aye. Aye. If I could take a motion from Ms. LeCourt to ask the manager a motion to ask the manager to post the sign requested and to make it a permanent part of our sign collection and keep it maintained. Or signs, because it says sign or signs. Yes. Whatever signage required. I'm Elizabeth Carpatty of Fortran Colonial Drive. I'd like to point out there is already, there are actually two signs right and left of the boat ramp that state the 10 mile per hour limit and the 10 horsepower limit. And the signs are misspelled. There's a disagreement between verb and noun. One singular, the other is plural. And no greater than than is spelled the H-E-N. So they need to be corrected. And when they are corrected, you could add any courtesy expectations if you'd like to. Thank you. So Ms. LeCourt's motion is to post the signage and correct any defects in the current signs. Yes. Seconded by Mr. Herd. Mr. Herd. I just want to make one comment. I was going to make it before, but we had exhausted that. I don't personally see the boat issue at the moment, but I also would like to say that I, and I'm sure members of this BIPOC committee, if in fact it becomes an issue, there'll be many of us that would be very aggressive in resolving that. So from my perspective, I don't think it exists, but if it does, be assured that we would be aggressive in enforcing it and changing the law if we have to. Absolutely. And just to point of clarification, not necessarily have to have the answer tonight, but say I'm visiting Mr. Herd down at Spipon in his backyard and I do observe somebody, and for some reason he stepped away, who do I contact? Is that the non-emergency police line? Is that somebody else? Let's get that clarified in the future also. That when we put the signs up, we say we put them up. We've corrected these signs, as well as pseudo-notify. Yeah, maybe something's on the sign that says, you know, not complaints, but whatever the consumer-friendly term is that says if you need to call to report. This is the number. That we do that. Okay, on a motion by Ms. La Courte, seconded by Mr. Herd to correct signage and install signage. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, unanimous vote. We will now go back and I thank the component of Article 24 and 25 for letting us get the crude team out. Article 24, by law amendment, mass public records law. Name and address. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chris Loretty, 56 Adams Street. This is one of two articles I'm submitting this year that are related to my investigation of what I consider an appropriate action by town officials and the special permitting of 39 Dudley Street. And as part of that investigation, back in October, I filed a public records request for a number of emails. And the response I got was that I could have the emails, but I would have to pay between $1,000 and $1,500. And that amount seemed excessive. And I spoke to David Good, our chief technology officer. And he was very helpful in explaining how that fee was arrived at. But after looking at the public records law, it still seemed clear that the fee was too high and in fact was not consistent with the law. And I ended up appealing that fee to the supervisor of public records and the Secretary of State's office. And in fact, I believe they agreed with me. And so I'm submitting this article for a number of reasons. And I believe the town is very inconsistent in the way it charges people for emails that are provided as a result of public records requests. It seems to me if the town wants to get the information out and thinks it's good public relations, then there's very low fee. On the other hand, if it's something, as in this case, that might be embarrassing to people, then the town is using a high fee to try to dissuade people from getting these records. And I am sure that I'm not the only person who this has happened to. I understand there are others who have been charged tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars for emails. And I'm also putting it forward because the state public records law does impose maximum fees for certain types of records. But it seems to have been designed or came into force back when, back before email even existed. And the fee for computer records pertains to printouts, paper printouts. And this article is really geared towards emails provided in electronic format. So the way I've structured the fee is that it will always be less than what is allowed by state law. Now because there's no specific number giving for emails under state law, the state allows the town to charge the actual cost. But there are limitations to that. And the town has to maintain its records, including its electronic records in an accessible format. And it cannot charge for a high priced employee to provide those records or search those records if there's someone who can do it who's much cheaper. And part of the reason I appealed, I wrote my appeal is that I was being asked to pay $100 an hour for an outside consultant. When Mr. Good told me he was perfectly capable of doing the work himself, he just didn't have the time to do it. The other thing he told me was that the townside email server, the email records on that server are not searchable unlike the school system email records. So the system itself is not compliant with state requirements. So I guess in short, what I have put forward is an article that gives a very specific maximum number for what can be charged. And that fee would be a flat fee of $50 plus $0.20 per email. However, if the town wants to waive the fee, they can still do that. If that fee turns out to be higher than the actual cost of providing emails under the public records law, then the state law would supersede it. And so I'd like to just address some of the comments that town council made to you in terms of inconsistency with the state law. The Secretary of State or the supervisor of public records actually encourages towns to provide public records for free when it's appropriate to do so. And in no way does this article change that. In no way does it set a fee that would be higher than what's allowed under state law. The goal is to achieve some consistency in how people are charged for records, regardless of who they are, regardless of what records are being provided. And I tried to get some information on what the fees would be, what fees have been charged recently for email requests both on the town side. And I think as you know, Madam Chairman, I asked town council for this. She didn't have the information, and neither she nor town manager responded to my request for who might have it. But I think if your board were to look at that, you would see the types of inconsistency I'm talking about. And so I believe as a matter of public policy, if the town's really committed to transparency in its business and making its records available, this type of bylaw change is needed because it's clear to me the way things are happening right now and the way people are being charged is not consistent. The charge are not consistent with each other and they're not consistent with state law. Thank you. So I have a couple of questions presuming you're willing to tell me, Mr. Loretty, what exactly was the nature of the records request? What were you asking for? I was asking for all the emails that contained the term 39 Dudley Street and various permutations in the subject line in the body of the email over a period of about a year to 15 months. And then I have a question for town council. Am I correct that when we respond to a records request for emails that even though our emails are all officially public record, we do have to examine them in some way to be sure that they don't qualify for a provision of that public records law that says that we can't reveal records that would be where the public interest doesn't override the interest of the individuals involved in the email, you know the one I'm talking about. Exactly, yes, we do have to do that, although that is not the reason for the cost estimate that Mr. Loretty is unhappy about. Okay, in his case, this was strictly because we were going to read higher consulting time. Are we under some kind of time constraint for responding to a FOIA request? We have 10 days to respond and in fact that 10 day deadline was met in this case that Mr. Good prepared his estimate of what it would cost to put the records in a searchable format and that response was given to Mr. Loretty within 10 days. Okay. I won't say more unless you have a question. All right, is there a provision in the state law that says that our email records have to be searchable in this way? Not in the state law. The supervisor has made statements to that effect. And what the situation is, is that when Mr. Good came on, he found that neither the school side nor the town side, we were saving everything but everything was going into this unsearchable archive. The first thing he did was order the equipment to put the school side all in a searchable format. He responded to the supervisor of public records inquiry that went directly to him after I had not been afforded the courtesy of a copy of that appeal and the information we have given the supervisor of public records which to date has satisfied the supervisor of public records is that in order to put the town side online, we had to acquire certain equipment, we had to move out other equipment and in fact, that's why Joe Mixis was at work on last Monday, the day of the flood was to install that equipment. And after that equipment was installed, I had committed to the supervisor of public records that we would see if it was possible to give a revised estimate, cost estimate for the cost of providing Mr. Loretty's records that he was asking for. So to the extent we may have been not at the level of instantaneous searchability that might be, it might be wished for, certainly Mr. Good has worked very diligently since he has come here to put all those records in a searchable format. Our response was acceptable to the supervisor of public records. We have not been ordered to do anything differently. Excuse me, can I respond to that? No, I'm not doing that. I'll give you a floor back to the last opportunity. So Mr. Sullivan, let me ask you a question about non-electronic records because I believe this bylaw would also apply to paper records, am I incorrect? Or are we talking only about email records here in terms of $50 plus 20 cents a copy? I believe the bylaw's written or the proposed amendment would be written only to my bylaw. How much staff time would it take you if I made a freedom of information request to the town, for the town to provide to me a record of every property in town that we have outside lines on? We have outside lines on? Yes. What do you mean outside lines? This is a request that I made at one point for information from the town about, you know, paper roads? Paper roads, like Venner Road, outside lines. Oh, I want it. Oh God. I'm just using this as an example. You're asking for electronic records of old engineering plates? I'm asking for copies of the paper records of old engineering plates. How long would it take you? I have no idea. I had to ask the town engineer, but it would be a long time. Okay, so $50 plus 20 cents a copy wouldn't exactly cover your costs in that case, correct? No, I mean, as you know, we don't have the staff would have to have someone full time just dealing with the public information request and we just don't have that. I don't know, yeah. I don't know that that's relevant. I mean, well, no, I'm okay. Building up to something here. So to go back to the issue of our response to Mr. Loretty and the new system that we now have in place would make it possible for us to respond with using less staff time. Okay, do we have any way to build a policy or assign someone who would be responsible for making sure that our response is always consistently fair and objective and the same regardless of the content being asked for? Do we have? A town council review, so. Town council? I review when I'm asked public records responses. I believe that the procedure when they come in is that they are sent to the department head who would have the responsive documents. If there's no dispute about them, they don't necessarily come to me. They're not answered through a centralized person. Okay, because it seems to me like there's two issues here. One issue is, are we overcharging? The other issue is, are we overcharging because we don't want the information to be exposed? Are we being obstructionist? And I'm just wondering, well, perhaps I'm reading too much into the question. I'm not saying we are being, I'm saying that that's part of the question that's being asked. And so I'm wondering whether or not rather than a change in our bylaws, what we need is a simple change in our procedure that says that there's somebody who oversees these requests and makes sure that we're responding consistently and objectively, regardless of the content being requested. Yeah, I mean, if anyone has an objection. Is it possible for us to devise that? The response they get from the department, they certainly can file a complaint from Secretary of State. It ends up with town council. Right. And she'll make sure that it all will be deal with failing inappropriately. Okay. So there is a path of appeal. There's a way we can request in terms of, well, we don't want to give that information so we're going to charge more. That does not happen. That's complete fabrication. I'm not suggesting that it does. I'm just saying that sometimes it behooves us in terms of customer service to be sure we're going out of our way to make sure that we're being fair. But it sounds to me like there's a process for dealing with it if you feel like you've been unfairly treated. In which case, I would move no action on this article. And just before I call on anyone else, and I apologize if you said it's just the court, just in terms of process, from what I understand from all the correspondence, Dave Good is also someone who double-checks the research and double-checks the accuracy. If he does the search himself, or if somebody else does the search, then it comes back to him and he goes over, researches the request, looks at what was produced by an outside contractor, and checks it for its accuracy. So I'm just saying you're saying who are the different players or individuals involved? We also do have to. Yeah, I have no doubt that staff are being as fair as they can. I'm just saying that there's, let's be Caesar's wife about it. And did you make a motion? I did make a motion. I made a motion with no action. A motion by Ms. LaCourte. Second. Seconded by Ms. Rowe. I promise Mr. Loretty. Thank you. Just a couple points. And I appreciate Ms. LaCourte's comments. And in particular, one individual that's supposed to be designated in every town is the records custodian. And trying to find out or figure out who that is in this town is frankly a real mystery. I addressed my initial request to Mr. Good because I was looking for emails and I believe he was the right person. But in terms of the town's response to my appeal, as I mentioned, Mr. Good was very helpful in explaining how the email system worked and its limitations and the fact that it was undergoing these upgrades on the town side. In fact, when the appeal was made and the Secretary of State accepted it, I believe they first contacted Mr. Good. And I'm not sure why they didn't copy Ms. Rice on my appeal. But in fact, Mr. Good did not initially respond to the Secretary of State. I believe Ms. Rice did. And Ms. Rice was giving the Secretary of State's office information that was completely different from what Mr. Good was giving them. And it wasn't until I raised this issue with the attorney I was dealing with and the Secretary of State's issue that this all got sorted out. And that's why I feel that there is inconsistency in the way people are being treated and there is this desire to keep this information private. Thank you. Thank you. On Ms. LaCorte's motion seconded by Ms. Rowe, any further discussion? If not, those in favor say aye. Aye. And we go to article, I'm sorry, 25, by-law amendment solicitation and receipt of gifts. Thank you. Chris Loretty, 56 Adams Street still. This is a second article that relates to the 39 Dudley Street property and my investigation of the special permitting of that property. And one of the things I did come to discover as part of this investigation is that the zoning enforcement officer was accepting essentially a free gift of assistance from a local attorney who frequently has business before him and before the zoning board of appeals. And according to this attorney, what happened is that the zoning enforcement officer sent him a letter to review. He read it and then suggested a couple changes related to format and then apparently returned it to the zoning enforcement officer. And this in part is part of the reason I made this email request because I'd like to see exactly what these format changes were and whether there were any other changes going on. And the letter is one that was sent to me, I believe, I mean it was sent to me as an explanation of why the zoning enforcement officer was not applying or enforcing the zoning by-law as it is written and as it was enacted by town meeting. So I'm submitting these articles for a few reasons. One is I believe that it's completely inappropriate for any attorney who has business before the zoning enforcement officer to be advising him in any way. And I don't believe it makes any difference whether he's advising him on a particular piece of property with which that attorney might have an interest. When you're dealing with the zoning enforcement officer in these ways, the same sort of issues come up again and again. So while the advice he may be providing on one piece of property or he may be providing advice on one piece of property that he has no involvement with whatsoever, the same types of questions are very likely to come up for other properties for which he does have an interest. And so under the state conflict of interest law this sort of thing would not be prohibited if the value of that advice is deemed to be less than $50 and that's why I've set a threshold of zero. It's very difficult to put a price on professional services. How much, what was the value of these so-called formatting changes that this attorney did? Well, who knows, how can you tell? Even if you agree, and I hope you agree, that it's inappropriate, in this situation, this type of situation, where you have someone advising an administrative official of the town, when that same person is going to be, before that, same administrative official on similar types of business, there is, I can't think of any easy way to prohibit that sort of thing without saying you just can't do it at all. And that's why I have, I've put this article forward. So I mentioned the zoning enforcement officer really as an example, because I would consider the same sort of, consider it equally inappropriate, say, excuse me, if a doctor were advising the Board of Health, how to inspect doctors' offices or someone else's doctor's office when they were going to be inspecting that same doctor's office a few weeks down the road. Clearly that person would have an interest in how the, that person would have an interest in how the town officer carries out their duty. And so I've put this forward. I realize that the text of the warrant article itself may need some work, but I believe just as a matter of public policy, this town should not be allowing the sort of thing that occurs. And I don't think the example I found was an isolated incident. I've heard from others that it's not unusual for what happened in that case to happen in others. Sorry, wasn't my train of thought here. Paper roads. Yeah, paper roads. Don't bring that up. Don't go there again. Have you filed an ethics complaint? I haven't. I'm not sure, I'm not sure that the state ethics are applies in this case, frankly. I think the way to find out is by filing an ethics complaint. And as part of the reason I ask you to do that is because we are not sure whether or not the law applies. And if you believe that there was a violation of ethics, perhaps we ought to test that before we add another law. Okay, in addition to the issues brought up by Attorney Rice, our town council, which if I recall correctly, and I read this four days ago and my brain doesn't work anymore. Julianne, what you're saying is that we don't think this would be an okay law anyways because we don't think the Attorney General's gonna let us do it or am I, is that something else I read? No, I think there are concerns. I don't know if the Attorney General's never interpreted this portion of Chapter 268A. Now, I mean, I'm not exactly sure that now that I hear the proponent describe what he wants to do, then changing the definition of gift would address the issue that he's trying to address. I'd have to think about that a little bit more. So I don't know whether the Attorney General would approve it or would not, but I think there's a serious consideration that there's serious concern that the area is one that is already comprehensively regulated by the State Ethics Commission. Right, and I don't mean to be shocking. I don't mean to suggest that I think that there was an ethics violation. I think that probably we're gonna end up with our employee cleared. I think there are certain things you can't regulate that you have to count on everybody's goodwill and appropriate policies to regulate those things. I don't think this gets at what, if I understand your concern, your concern is. Okay, which is that we live in this town. We know a lot of the people who come before us to do business, all right? I mean, the Article 26 is a perfect example. I know Annalise, she eats Shabbat dinner at my house. I know Karen Grossman. She goes to my temple, okay? The entire cast of characters that came before us tonight are all personal friends of mine on both sides of the issue. So how do you regulate my ethics where that's concerned? I have to do that, okay? And so I don't think making a gift zero is going to change the fact that, you know, we have friendships and relationships and we have to keep our personal and our business relationships straight. So. Sorry, Ms. Rao, Mr. Sullivan, and then Mr. Warden. Chris, I'm just concerned. This is obviously a longstanding personality conflict that you've had with one employer, a one employee of the town. And, you know, we as selectmen have to sign an ethics statement, a 10 page ethics statement that says we can't accept any gift over $50 for anything that we do. I'll take the test. And we took the test. But I think I'm a little confused. I just worry about putting this kind of bylaw in. You know, I walk down the street in my old neighborhood in the spring and I give out free advice about people's lawns because I'm a landscape architect. And, you know, it's, I'm not a lawyer, but I have, I'm in a family of them. And they give me advice whether I want it or not. And they all give me advice and sometimes it's conflicting advice. I don't, I don't see, I'm having trouble understanding what you're really saying. I think that that's, I see a bylaw that's come out of a bad personal experience you've had. But I don't, I don't get, I don't get it. I just don't get it. I'll explain. I'm gonna call it a P, and then I'll do it again. Otherwise, if we keep going back and forth, guess what, we're gonna be here till Tuesday. Mr. Sullivan and then Mr. Warden. Well, it sounds to me like, you know, an example where we're thinking of adopting the stretch code and we asked the building commissioner to meet with residents and contractors to get input on this issue. And maybe he shouldn't be soliciting input from contractors that he'll have to regulate on the regulations to want to effect. We meet with businesses that we have to regulate to get input from them. The select may get input from licensees on new regulations you're proposing. Maybe we shouldn't solicit that. I think that's our job is to meet with, with all parties in town, the public, the businesses, the contractors, whoever to get input before we implement some of these things. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Mr. Warden. Sorry, the foot went to sleep, but not the resume. Just a couple comments. I appreciate the sentiment raised by Mr. Sullivan. That may be a point, but I think consulting with a group of people on an issue like the stretch code and contractors or something like that is discreet from a member of the staff consulting with a lawyer who's gonna give him some free advice and then come back next week and say, by the way, would you give me a permit? And I think if the board appears to be countenancing that sort of thing, you're on kind of a slippery slope. I'm not gonna get to where the ethics law is and I certainly we are hemmed in by too many silly regulations at the state level about we can't talk to each other outside of public meetings, blah, blah, blah. But I really wonder if you wanna go there and I think you can sense the impropriety of it and to say, well, this is Mr. Loretty's perfect personal spat with employee X. I guess he hasn't been named. That is kind of trying to sweep the problem under the rug. The fact that employee X may have, and apparently did, consult with attorney Y in order to bolster a defense of what I understand to be an indefensible position about enforcement of the bylaws, I think that's troubling and I think you had to be troubled about that. And if this bylaw or something like it is what we need to alleviate that problem, then we had to go for it, thank you. I'm gonna one final moment. Hey, Paul, I'm Ms. LaCourte, I have my comment and then I'll give you a very brief story. I don't think a bylaw is the remedy for the problem that you're pointing out, Mr. Warden. I think that if that is the problem, okay, that it's a personnel matter, okay? And I guess my libertarian's coming out tonight. All right, and if it's a personnel matter, it's a private issue and it should be dealt with in a different way and not in this forum. Yeah, I truly take exception to anyone suggesting that this is a personnel problem because I have the utmost respect for the zoning enforcement officer. I view this warrant article as something that protects him and it protects him from undue manipulation by other people in this town government. I fully believe that he did not, in this particular case, that he was manipulated to not enforcing the bylaw in the way that he did, that it was not his personal judgment, but rather that other people in this town imposed on him to interpret it the way he did. And that's what I think is a real shame. And so it's not, you know, I think it's very unfortunate that people in this town try to frame differences as being personal when they're not personal at all. And I would simply like to make that point. I think if I received all those emails, if I had all of the information that I requested on this matter, including some of the actions of the folks sitting at this table, you would have a very different opinion on this matter. And I think just as you know, or as you should know, once I revealed that there had been this attorney involved, that attorney threatened to sue the town because of that. And I would later learn that as part of that letter that he wrote, he was assisted by staff in this town in writing that letter. Thank you. I'm not gonna say I accept what you said because as you said, it's what you think. I think it's outrageous. I know. I had to stop it. Unfounded. And for your sake, Mr. Loretty, because this is a public meeting and that's a public transcript you just made. I am not in support of this. I can't go on what they think and they think people were manipulated and they speak highly of the person that they're publicly ostracizing and saying very inappropriate, incorrect. I can't accept what you believe in your head. If you failed as an issue, you have a Mass General Law, Chapter 268A and you've chosen not to pursue that. Exactly. And Ms. La Courte said on the onset but I wanted to make sure everybody did that and I really get offended when people come up and say, here's my issue, it's not personal but here's my personal dealing and I'm not saying the employee didn't do anything he shouldn't have done because he or she's a great employee but then they were manipulated and then they were told and we're talking about, we're trying to set some ornate hearings for bylaws. So I don't know if anyone wants a motion on this. I'd pass the gavel myself if my colleagues want. I believe I move, have I not moved no action? I'm happy to move no action. I'll action by Ms. La Courte. Second. Seconded by Ms. Rowe. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed. Item is vote. We now go to final votes and comments for article 2345, 1823. Move receipt and acceptance. Move by Ms. Rowe. Seconded. Seconded. By Mr. Herd, any discussion? Thank you, Attorney Rice for encapsulating our very wordy discussions on these articles to report to town meeting. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those correspondents receive. Move receipt by. Salute. Mr. Herd, seconded by Ms. Rowe. Any discussion on correspondence received? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. I opposed. One other thing. I was gonna say you're gonna go on the first one. I was gonna say you're gonna go on the first one. Ms. Rowe. Oh, the heavy trucks. Yeah. I wasn't gonna say that, but I think that's a good idea. And one of the things about the Comcast price hikes, we should remember to remind our residents that there are a lot of other cable companies in town and that they don't have to live by the Comcast rate increases. They're at least two other places they can go and get those services. Ms. Rowe has a motion to refer to the police chief through the town manager. Second. Matilda Calles' correspondence, seconded by Ms. LaCorte. Any further discussion on that? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. I opposed. Unanimous vote. I think we're all set with correspondence received. New wave, a new business. Mrs. Crook, you have nothing to say? Attorney Grace. No business, thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Manager. Just one quick one. We have a report from the Mass Tax-Based Foundation on retiree healthcare costs of a ticking time bomb for cities and towns. And it is, it's becoming a bigger problem in liability for cities and towns than pensions really. We're well over a hundred million dollar liability for Arlington and it's a problem that really needs, we need to deal with. I know that the finance committee is grappling with it and will probably be presenting some recommendations but just so I commend you to read the report, take a look at it. It's something that we're going to have to deal with in the coming months. Is it? No new business. Mr. Hurd. I just want to thank Town Council on her preparation of the comments for tonight's meeting on the Warren articles. This is a new format. I know your predecessor did a great job of providing this but having the Warren article in the comments on the same page is extremely efficient. I would love to take credit for that. Whoever come up with the idea. You want to give it to me? No, it was, I'm sorry, it was, I think Mrs. Sullivan and Mrs. Krupalka who decided, I just said my memo was always and they chop it up and they do that night. Well thank you to whoever was responsible because typically we're thumbing through one book. So thank you and that's all my new business. No new business. I think I've talked enough for one day. Okay, I want to thank Bernie Smith. Mr. Smith, we received his resignation from as many years of service to the Cemetery Commission. My colleagues, I received at the last minute only because Mrs. Krupalka received at the last minute the two page agreement that had to be signed with the mass school building authority for improvements, renovations, et cetera, to the Thompson School. It had to be signed by like five, like 430, but I did have conversations with the town manager and the purchasing agent and Mrs. Krupalka because you know I read everything and I thought the language looked restrictive on page two but I was told pretty much it's boilerplate language. It's nothing to be concerned about and it's only because this is not my forte that I did that. And I do want to say thank you Attorney Rice and also Mr. Buckley, her legal assistant for staying here the whole night, listening to everything that we had to say welcome. I hope we did. It'll never happen again. We didn't scare you too much and also besides we're all going to be together again at the very least Thursday night, March 3rd for the budget review hearing. Still having conversations with the town manager, Mrs. Krupalka, any of my colleagues, any suggestions that you want in terms of the format, they pretty much have it ironed out. And I want to say Mr. Sullivan, they did you make up very well. I saw you on the news regarding the plight of the union workers in Wisconsin. And there I am. Was he in Wisconsin? Oh no, no. Where were you? He was speaking very highly of union employees and how we don't want to balance the budget on the back of our public work union employees and perhaps even retirees. So I'm not going to be ashamed of your remarks when all my labor organizers are relatives who are camping out in the capital. Thank you. You also know I have those recorded and typed up. And I do as a court reporter from time to time type up transcripts for people for free. So I hope I'm not in violation of that. With that, I'll take a motion to adjourn by Mr. Heard, seconded by Ms. LaCorte, all those who favor say aye. Those opposed? Nope, my recycling. And I have a second. Look at this.