 Calling to order that meeting for the Allenton Select Board for Monday, April 5th, 2021. As a preliminary matter, this is John Hurd, Select Board Chair, permitting to permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Diane Mahan. So Mrs. Mahan is having some audio issues. So once she's able to connect, we'll note that for the record. Steve DeCorsi. Yes. Len Diggins. Yes. And Dan Dunn. Yes. And Saf, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Adam Chapterling. Yes. Doug Hyme. Yes. And Board Administrator Ashley Mars, participating remotely. Good evening. This meeting of the Allenton Select Board is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's Executive Order of March 12th, 2020, due to the current state of emergency in the Commonwealth, given the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the virus and reduce risk of COVID-19 illness, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings. And as such, the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting lot to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with the agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment. Even members of the public do not provide comment. Participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment and those persons are not required to identify themselves. For this meeting, the Select Board is convening by Zoom as posted on the town's website, identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you, take care, and share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. Please also take care to adjust your screen or device name if you would like to speak in order for us to recognize speakers appropriately in a couple of minutes. It is helpful for participants to see your full, first and last name when calling upon you rather than a nickname. All the materials for this meeting except any executive session materials are available on the Novus Agenda dashboard and we recommend the members and the public follow the agenda as posted on Novus unless the chair notes otherwise. We are now turning to the first item on the agenda before we do so permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate minutes. I will introduce each speaker on the agenda. After they conclude their remarks, the chair will go down the line of members inviting each by name to provide any comments, questions or motions. Please hold until your name is called. Further, please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. Please remember to speak clearly in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response, please wait until the chair yields the floor to you and state your name before speaking. If members wish to engage in colloquy with other members, please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself. This meeting will feature opportunities for public comment on certain items. After members have spoken, I as chair will afford public comment opportunities as follows. I will first ask members of the public who wish to speak to identify their names and addresses only. Once the chair has a list of all public commentators, I will call on each by name and afford three minutes for any comments. Please keep in mind that all participants and members of the public must be recognized by the chair before speaking. Finally, each vote tonight will be taken by a roll call vote. And Mrs. Mahan, can you hear us now? I can hear you, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. So before I go to our proclamation, I will just note that I have had an entirely virtual chairmanship. And so I haven't got to gavel in anything. But for one time, for one meeting, I'm going to use this gavel. And on the top, it says original oak from the USS Constitution. And the history of this gavel, if you'll indulge me, is it was first used in the early 1950s from by Franklin Herd, then chair of the Board of Selectmen. It was then passed on to Frank Herd in the early 1990s when he was chair. Then in the year 2000, it was used by my father, Jack, when he was chair. So they did want to have a little ceremony, but they never had an opportunity in the chamber. But I did want one opportunity to be able to gavel in with the same gavel that the four predecessors of my name use as chair of the slide board. So with that done, we'll move on to our proclamation. We have one proclamation, proclamation to declare April 5th to 9th, Community Development Week in Arlington. Ms. Chaplin, do you want to talk about this before I read it or don't want me to just read it? I'll give just quick 10 seconds on it. This is nationally the week that we celebrate Community Development Week, focused on celebrating, not just community development in general, but specifically community development block grants and the really great good that they've brought to the Arlington community and communities across the nation. As you'll read in the proclamation, over the 46 years, Arlington's received approximately $56 million in grant money from this program, and that's funded critical public services, affordable housing production, improvements to public facilities and their accessibility, many, many planning efforts. And again, it's really been a tremendous asset to the community. This week though, normally we would have a day where we would visit sites that benefit either through their programming or maybe even through their construction from Community Development Block Grant Money. We're not able to do that because of the pandemic, but on Thursday, this Thursday the 8th at 5 p.m. we'll be doing an online virtual panel with the planning department, Arlington Eats and FoodLink to celebrate Community Development Week. And for those two groups to really talk about how they've benefited from the CDBG funds in helping reduce food insecurity in Arlington. Thank you. I will read the proclamation. Whereas the week of April 5th tonight, 2021 has been designated as National Community Development Week by the National Community Development Association to celebrate the Community Development Block Grant Program and whereas the CDBG program provides annual funding and flexibility to local communities to provide decent, safe and affordable housing, a suitable living environment and economic opportunities to low and moderate income people. And whereas over the past 46 years, our community has received a cumulative total of 56,591,974 dollars in CDBG funds and whereas each year, affordable housing and affordable housing rehabilitation activities, public service activities, public facilities and improvements activities and economic development activities are funded. Now therefore be it resolved that the town of Arlington designates the week of April 5th tonight, 2021 as National Community Development Week in support of this valuable program that has made tremendous contributions to the viability of the housing stock, infrastructure, public services and economic vitality of our community. Be it further resolved that our community opposes any attempts to eliminate the program and urges Congress to recognize the outstanding work being done locally and nationally by CDBG and by supporting CDBG in fiscal year 2022, which is this is signed by the five members of the select board. With that, Mr. Corsi. Yeah, I'll move approval to the proclamation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. And Mrs. Mohan. I'll second that, thank you. Any additional comments, Mr. Diggins? No additional comments other than they do great work. Thank you. Mr. Dunn. No comment, thank you. All right, with that we have a motion to approve the attorney on it. Mrs. Mohan. Yes, thank you. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. unanimous vote. And that's just to our consent agenda. Appointment of new election workers, Agnes Baerkiss, Rewheeler Lane, unenrolled precinct 15, John Donato 16, Homer Road, Democrat precinct eight, Erin Creader, 22 Tower Road, Democrat precinct eight, Samantha Lockery, 110 Pearl Street, moving unenrolled precinct 20. Do we have a motion to approve, Mr. Dunn? So moved. Okay, Mr. Diggins. Second. Any additional comments, Mr. Corsi? No questions or comments. Okay, Mr. Mohan. No questions, thank you. And we have a motion to approve, Attorney Heim. This is Mohan. Yes, thank you. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. unanimous vote. Thank you. Appointments. First we have the Arlington Historic District Commission. Do we have the second Mr. Dunn with us? I don't see him. Listen, no, I don't believe he's with us. All right, so this is for Matthew Dunn, Central Street Historic District, term to expire in June 30th, 2024. Do we have a motion to approve from a member of the board? And then we can invite Mr. Dunn back to introduce himself. Move approval. And a second. Second. All right. And any additional comments, Mr. D'Corsi? No comments. Or Mr. Diggins? No comments. We're really looking forward to meeting them. All right, Attorney Heim, we have a motion to approve Mr. Dunn. This is Mohan. Yes, thank you. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Mr. Chair, I should have said this beforehand, but just to reflect, there's no relation between me and the other Mr. Dunn. Okay. So noted. All right, next on appointments, we have two appointments to the LGBTQIA Plus Rainbow Commission, Molly Blah-Gillis and Kerry Susportus. Would you like me to bring both of them up, Mr. Chair? Yes, please. Let me see. Molly. Her name is appearing twice in the attendees list. Let me try the other name as well. Okay. Hi. If you could just tell us your name a little bit about yourself and why you wanted to be on the commission. Oh, sure. My name is Molly Blah-Gillis. I'm a nearly 10-year resident of Arlington with my husband and our two kids who were raising here in the town. Love Arlington. Love Arlington Public Schools. Very proud to be a part of this community. My daughter happens to be transgender and that's what led me to get involved with the Rainbow Commission. I find it to be a really fantastic group that provides really important connectivity in the community for the LGBTQIA Plus community within Arlington. I'm passionate about the schools. I'm passionate about the Rainbow Commission and I'm really excited about the work that we can do together to create, you know, greater inclusion and diversity in the schools, which is already, by the way, the schools are already doing really important work in that area. But I guess what I'd like to say is that my daughter, you know, she transitioned her kindergarten year here in Arlington Public Schools and it was largely a really positive experience for her and our family because of the care and support that we received within the school. Teachers, administrators, staff, both principals really provided a ton of community for us and care that went into that experience and, you know, I'd really like that experience to be the rule, not the exception. And I think that, you know, our family and my experience might be helpful to other families in the community. Thanks for having me, by the way. Thank you. And Mrs. Saspors, you can just tell us a little bit about yourself as well and why you wanted to serve on the commission. Sure, hi. I've been an Arlington resident for 16 years. I live here with my partner of 22 years. I'm excited to be a part of the Rainbow Commission because of the work on intersectionality, inclusivity, belonging and community building. That's something I have a passion for. I work professionally in the field of public health. I do public health emergency preparedness planning and operations. And I think this past year has shown us that there's a lot of health inequities and still barriers to inclusion for people and barriers to accessing services. So that's part of why I want to join the commission and really driven to do this work. Thank you. And I'll turn to the board, Ms. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will motion approval for both candidates. And I'd also like to add to Ms. Gillis, it is for all the problems in the world and we certainly have a long ways to go. It's because of the fact that we have parents like you that it's really easy to be hopeful about the future because I think it shows that we've come a long way but you will help kids who are very different feel that they are a vital part of this world. And so I really appreciate the role that you play in. And I've seen you at some of the meetings. So it'll be great interacting with you some more. And to Carl Siportis, sorry, from messing up the last name, welcome aboard and I have noticed that one of your presentations to papers is on community resilience and emergency preparedness in stunning Cambridge. I mean, that's a very relevant topic, Ed. And I'd like to not only work with you with the commission but also see if there's something that we can help us with in our mutual aid pods that we have going on in town. So it'll be great to have more access to you through the commission. So thanks to both of you for joining. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll second Mr. Viggins motion. And I want to thank both Ms. Gillis and Mrs. Siportis for your willingness to serve and for your presentations this evening and looking forward to having you serve on the commission. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. To Ms. Gillis and Ms. Siportis, Molly and Carrie, thank you for giving extra time away from your family and away from your location to serve the town of Wellington to recognize that all kids are kids and all people are people. And we should look at it that way. And that's what we rarely strive to. So I'm very appreciative that you both are willing to serve in this capacity. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Nen. Thank you very much for serving, for volunteering. Volunteers are what make the town work. And I really appreciate it. And it's a great committee. I was a liaison for a while and I miss it a little bit. Maybe someday I'll convince somebody to appoint me to it. Talk to y'all. Thank you. I don't think I would take much convincing. Thank you both again, like my colleague said, for your willingness to serve. This is a really critical commission that our board relies a lot on and the town relies on it with the intersection with the school department, you know, it's really, it's a time commitment, but we do appreciate your willingness to serve in this critical role. So thank you. With that, Attorney Hime, we have a motion to approve. This is Mahan. Yes, thank you. Mr. DeCoursey. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Mr. Hart. Yes. Mr. Adamsville. Thank you both. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And that takes us to item number six on the agenda, licenses and permits for approval, common victual and wine and malt license. Teriah Japanese restaurant, 795 Massachusetts Avenue, Shinji Maraki. Yeah, Mr. Maraki. Almost instinctually, Attorney Leone was with us too, but it's alcohol. Why wouldn't I be here? Yes, it's attorney hat. And then the where's second hat and two agendas. Thanks for everything. If I could, Mr. Chair, I've had to step away a second time now. My husband's not home and my colleagues are aware of my family situation and I've had to step away very briefly. To get that under control. And I don't mean any disrespect to my colleagues or people for us, but I've had to do that. So I apologize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. No problem. Attorney Leone? Good evening. I'm here tonight with Shinji Maraki and Bob Foster. Mr. Maraki is the owner and operator of Teriah restaurant who was located in the shopping mall across from the high school that's now been demolished. He's wants to reopen in the former retro burger location. I think it's 795 Mass Ave. They were there for almost 20 years, successfully ran that shop. And the entire time they did, they had no alcohol violations that I'm aware of or that I was made aware of by the chief, chief of police. And basically he's going to open up, I believe just 19 seats. Is that right, Shinji? I think he's going to have 19 seats in there. So it's just going to be looking for wine and malt beverages and a common vehicle license to reopen and give us great Japanese food once again. So he's here along with Bob, Bob is the manager, the alcohol manager. He was the alcohol manager for the entire time they were open down at the other location. So with that, we all know the shop, but if you have any questions, we'll be glad to answer them for you. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. I'm happy to move approval. I will say that 20 years of operational is a great track record. And nonetheless, I'll take the opportunity just to remind you that when we've had alcohol violations in town, it was most often with a new employee who was not fully trained. And so I just ask that you keep that in mind as you keep your operation and you keep your training up to date so that new employees keep you going for another 20 years without a violation. Thank you. And Mrs. Mahan. I will take a nap and I would like to thank this business and establishment for doing everything they can to stay in Allington and continue on. And I know Allington will do everything to keep you here as we can. So thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I also want to echo my colleagues' comments. I was really happy to see that you were able to stay in Allington and move not too far from where you were previously. And I just note, I do see an application. It is a 19 seat restaurant, just bear in mind. That's the minimum for the license. So make sure you maintain that. But happy to go along with my colleagues on the approach. Ms. Niggins? Yes. Also express appreciation for you staying in town. And I know that my colleagues, former work colleagues but current volunteer colleagues and ACMI are happy that you're staying. They think you have the best sushi. I agree. Thank you. And I also just want to reiterate what my colleagues have said and thank you for originally choosing Allington and thank you for continuing to operate in Allington. So with that, Attorney Hymne, we have a motion to approve. Mrs. Vaughn? Yes, thank you. Mr. Dacorsi? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Dunn? Yes. Mr. Hurd? Yes. Mr. Adamsville? Thank you. Thank you all. We appreciate it and look forward to it. That takes us to traffic rules and order of the business for approval. No parking sign at 87 Pleasant Street. Traffic and parking unit police department. Mr. Chaplain, I know Officer Riteau is unavailable. Is anyone going to present this? Or are we just going to go off of his memo? I think if the board is comfortable going off the memo that would be fine with me. That was, Officer Riteau had reached out to the Southboard office and relayed this question to me. He's not available to be at the meeting, but his memo I think speaks for herself. So if the board is comfortable and so inclined, we can feel the emotion to approve this. Mr. Dacorsi? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I'll move approval. And just a historical note, 87 Pleasant Street is actually the Governor Bracket House and Governor Bracket built the house in 1887 and the Bracket School is named after him. So we don't have a plan to get an opportunity to talk about it again. So I just wanted to bring that up as part of my motion. Thank you. Mr. Dacorsi? Wow, Laura, something new every meeting. I'll second that. And also, I'll say I'm happy to see this happening because I think there are other places in town where this can happen. And when the Sustainable Transportation Plan is finalized, I think we will endeavor to explore how to make the town safer by doing this in more locations. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Dunn? No comment, thank you. And Mrs. Mahon? No comment, thank you. All right, Mr. Nats, turn your hand. We have a motion to approve. Mr. Mahon? Yes, thank you. Mr. Dacorsi? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Dunn? Yes. Mr. Herd? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I am number eight on our agenda. Discussion about authorization for remote annual town meeting year 26, 2021. You have Mr. Leone with us. Now we have moderator Leone. Attorney, how are you? Good evening. Thank you. John, do you want to take it away or do you want me to? You can start, Doug. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Leone, Mr. Moderator. The board has before it, as it's had both last year's annual town meeting and the special town meeting in November, a recommendation and request from the town moderator to conduct the annual town meeting center for April 26, 2021 by remote participation. That essentially means that it's going to be on Zoom alongside or paired with a special voting software from a voting platform from Zepato Research, I believe is the name. Mr. Leone took the appropriate steps, including identifying the platform being recommended for town meetings use, confirming that he's consulted with the Disability Commission or the ADA coordinator and certifying that the technology has been tested and enables the meeting to be conducted in substantially the same manner. It's not the identical manner, but it's substantially the same manner as we have done for the special town meeting previously. The basic steps that need to be taken from here are a vote by the board that the town meeting shall be conducted remotely via the conferencing platform. Second, that you approve a notice of which I touched a draft. It didn't make some corrections to some minor issues in it. Mr. Leone spotted. Thank you, Mr. Leone. And that we then have to post that notice for 10 days before the start of the meeting. Finally, the town clerk will certify a copy of the select board's vote as well as the moderator's letter and send it along to the Attorney General's office. So with that, I have a draft motion for the board that's the most recent version with this uploaded to Novus. And if you have any questions or you'd like to discuss it all with the moderator, I'd be happy to answer them or defer to Mr. Leone. Thank you. With that, I will turn to the board. Mr. Diggins. Well, I would certainly like to make a motion to approve me. I don't have it in front of me. I can pull it up, but if I need to make the motion in a more detailed way, let me know otherwise. This is sufficient, I make the motion. I'd be happy to read it if you like. Please. Moved that the top of our LinkedIn select board moves as follows. First, pursuant to Chapter 92 of the Acts of 2020, having received the written request of the town moderator, John D. Leone Esquire, dated March 25th, 2021, that the April 26th, 2021 annual town meeting and any special town meeting conducted within such meeting be conducted remotely by the Zoom telephone and video conferencing platform combined with the ZeePato research technology as recommended by the moderator. And second, that a notice consistent with the foregoing of a remote annual town meeting on April 26th, 2021 at 8 p.m., be issued in compliance with Chapter 92 of the Acts of 2020 in Chapter 39, Section 10A. So moves. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. I'm happy to second it and looking forward to another virtual town meeting and looking forward to hopefully it being the last one of that type. Anyway, second. Mr. Mahan. I just have one worry about too much question. I know there's language in here regarding town meeting voting to pursue by remote participation. And my reading says that at the beginning there'll be a vote whether town meeting agrees to do that. And if it doesn't, then the town meetings dissolve. So my question is what is that process? I know there'll be a vote of the town meeting members who are participating. What is sort of the nexus or what does that vote look like? Like if we did get the Dune Day scenario that town meeting voted not to proceed that way, what would that look like? Is it a two-thirds vote or majority vote or something else? Majority vote, I believe. That's pursuant to the enabling legislation that the governor signed last year, authorizing remote town meeting and representative town meetings. We have to get a permission of the body to proceed in that fashion. So on the first night before we start, once we do the pomp and circumstance which are gonna be limited, I'll just take a quick vote to authorize us to use the PTM as we did last year. And I'm pretty sure we'll get 100% vote back on that or a nearly unanimous vote. I don't think we're gonna get a negative vote on that at all but just by majority vote. Okay, my second question would be for those town meeting members whether they're new or among standing town meeting members that feel they're sort of challenged by the Zoom technology. Who do I and my colleagues sort of direct them to to help facilitate them? Similar to me, zooming into this meeting tonight, not being able to use my husband's because he's not home yet computer and having to do the phone and the laptop of my own. To home or what department should we direct them to for guidance on we can help you zoom into this meeting. Okay, I have sent an email to every town meeting member and we've also sent it to any potential new town meeting members who may or may not be elected this Saturday. We have two trainings tomorrow and Wednesday of this week for refresher for the existing town meeting members. We have a mandatory training on the 13th, I believe, Tuesday, Tuesday of next week for the new town meeting members. We've also in coordination with Mr. Kowalski, Adam Kowalski is a in-person training that he has kindly said he would do that in town hall when it has to be set up by in advance and they all got a link to go to set up for that half hour 15 minute training with Adam to be walked through. I don't know if anyone has signed up for that yet and for the two trainings that are coming up tomorrow and Wednesday we have 28 town meeting members looking for refresher. So we have a pretty good buy-in so far. So out of the 252 we're only having 28 wanting to come back. So that's a little over 10%. So the only two town meeting members or only two of them I know that don't have a computer and I still have to work with them. We're going to have them phone their votes in and we've coordinated with Ms. Brazil, Tom Clerk in order to coordinate that and how that's going to look. Okay, last hopefully brief question. Will there be a person designated from the town or via the town moderator to sort of be the person when the town meeting is happening and you're having trouble connecting or voting there'll be a live person that can address that and that person will be announced and how to reach them. Yeah, that's actually a good question we have. Mr. Dennis Lowry, he's with the school department. He has a staff of four to eight people and depending on how many we need we need more the first couple of nights at town meeting and it tapers off as people figure it out. Their numbers posted on the town meeting webpage I believe where they will be if they're not already but we also have added a Zoom on the Zoom, excuse me on the Zepedo research platform a get help button now so they can just click that button and that will connect them up with Dennis and his team. They're really good data guys and gals who work with the kids who have trouble logging on to their home classes. So they've really know how to work through and hold people's hands at this point. So they're going to be there and- Is the last resort when we start town meeting will you give that information out? If you're trying to connect and you haven't able to do it here's the number you call, here's the email you email. Yeah, we have their numbers will be out and it'll trip down, they set up so it trips down to the different people. Worst case scenario is to call up and say this is my phone number and one of them will call you. By the time we finished last fall special we had it pretty much figured out for the help line. Okay, thank you, Mr. Margaret and thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I have no question. Chair Nehemi have a motion to approve that has been seconded. Ms. Degen? I just wanted to add that I really appreciate the report that you and Mr. Kowalski did after the survey. I mean, I thought it was a really, really good report. So I appreciate that. And we learned a lot from the survey. All right, Attorney Hyam. Mrs. Mahan. Yes, thank you. Mr. Dekorsi. Yes. Mr. Degen. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Mr. Herrick. Yes. Mr. Degen, let's go. Thank you, Mr. Nehemi. Let's see all three weeks. Item number nine for discussion, draft select board report to town meeting. Attorney Hyam. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to touch base with the board to make sure that I understood the board's intentions based on prior practice in the last couple of years, as well as the some discussions that you've been having with the ARB in both joint meetings and among the chairs recently. So tonight you'll have your final set of final votes and comments for depending on how you decide to look at the one article hearings, approve certain articles and then potentially approve all of the final votes and comments including for those items up for hearing tonight. If you agree with the sort of preliminary draft that I composed. Based on last couple of years, what we have done after that is I've worked with your office to basically proofread and go over all the final votes and comments in your report, transmitted draft to you for your individual review. That report is traditionally come back after the election and any changes or major issues have been noted to make sure that the report looks in a way that reflects this board. And then this board's votes and we would put in a note about whoever the new select board member is not having sort of participated in the discussions. In terms of an appendix, what we've done in the past to my recollection is that we've had some information on some detailed CDBG reports, parking benefit expenditures. This year there's a couple of special matters including the Prince Hall resolution. If you're inclined to approve the comment, I thought it might be nice to include Prince Hall's charge to the lodge of monotony. But I also wanna make sure that I include anything else that you folks would like to see in the appendix to the report, especially if we haven't done it in years past. So I wanna make sure that that is a baseline, correct understanding of what you folks would like to do to make sure the report is in tip top shape. And then secondly, this year, the board is for the first time in theory going to provide some opportunity for supplementary comment on certain ARB articles. The ARB is deliberating this evening and then I believe they're scheduled to finalize their own report next week. As they do that, there will be an opportunity for the select board to provide what is essentially any supportive comments they would want which I think the ARB invited this board to do. I wanna make sure that this board agrees with the sense that I was contemplating that you would essentially have a little section, perhaps at the end of your report saying, the board's comments on ARB articles. So with that, I just wanna make sure that I'm not missing anything in terms of what you might like to see in appendix and make sure that you sort of generally, obviously you'll take a vote on it if you don't wanna support or comment on any of the ARB matters that they'd ask for your sort of support on. You don't have to, but that's how I was sort of envisioning doing it, wanna make sure I execute that properly. Yeah. And Teri Han, I don't have it written down in front. Do you recall the article numbers that we had designated at our joint meeting for the ARB's hearing? The article numbers changed a little bit, but there's probably five or six articles that have asked for your sort of comment of support on if the board is comfortable providing that. And it's a little bit awkward because it'd be hard to do it before their report is ready and they haven't voted yet. Yeah. We'll just, we'll circulate that for the board just so they know ahead of time. Of course. And they can start taking a look at the articles. All right, with that, I'll turn to the board for any comments, questions, motions. Mr. Diggins. So the question is, so we'll be making those comments on the ARB articles next Monday. That's a question to Mr. Diggins. Yeah, are they gonna be done with their hearings by Monday? So they're done with their hearings. They're deliberating tonight. And I'm not sure that they'll finalize their votes until next Monday. But I think I could have some preliminary sense for the board if you'd like to have it at your sort of post-election organizational meeting. Okay. Mr. Chaplain, does that make sense to you? I'm sorry. It does. If we still want to accomplish what you're describing, I think timing to be ready for town meeting would require staying on that timeline you've described. Yeah. All right, I'm just trying to understand when we will make the comments and then put on them because we, as a group, will want to vote on each of them, no, and then, or are we just kind of like taking them all and then saying we approve all and then, I guess I'm at a little loss in this house, it's gonna work. I'm sorry. Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, may I? Yeah. It's the first year we're doing it. It has been, the timing of it is proving to be a little bit more tricky than I think the board said anticipated. But I think what I would do is take the playing department sort of draft votes to the ARB and the ARB will be finalizing them. And I think providing some sort of draft comment from the select board to see if the board is inclined to provide some moment of support. Now, obviously that might be contingent if the ARB changes its position on the articles that it's asking for your sort of support on as far as the playing department understands it, then fine. But I think what I'll probably do is draft something in conjunction with the playing department's understanding of what those motions are to provide it for context for you and then you can vote on each one. Do we want to submit a comment of support for the ARB's position or not? All right, you know, I'm fine with that. I mean, I just really wanted to be a process where, you know, we really get to deliberate or at least I really get to think about it. And so that when I say I support it, I come from a position of having it thought about it now significantly. So that's where I was coming from on this. So I guess now the deal is to make a motion to support this play of action. I'm happy to do that. Is there any motions that you need at the time, Trayhan? I don't need a motion per se. I just want to make sure that I, understanding what the board wants to do based on its prior discussions with the ARB and based on our prior practice with the select board report. I know that the timing of also just the select board straight up report is a little bit awkward because there's going to be an election. But that's my recollection of how we've done it. It's been after the election, the report comes in, we distributed it to all of you to make sure that there's no adjustments that need to be made, not a new fresh discussion, but any adjustments that need to be made, make sure that we're including all the materials and the appendices that you want to have in there. And that you get a look and sort of a vote to approve it as a final product. I have no more questions. Thank you. Sundan? I'll just say the thing that I thought about but I don't think it, which is, I was thinking about before the election, the, sorry, the rank choice voting, the concept of having an explainer about how the process is going to work. But then I also, after thinking about it for a while, I wondered if rather than having us do it, we should ask the Election Modernization Committee to do it instead because, you know, they've spent a lot more time thinking about it, I think than we have. So in the end, I actually decided that I wasn't going to ask for that, but since I was kind of teetering on the edge, I figured I'd share it with the rest of the board in case other people were like, oh no, Dan, that was actually a good idea in the first place. That's all I got. And that sounds good. And I of course will not be here to make those votes and I'm okay with that. Cindy Boise? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Attorney Heim, for the explanation that all makes sense to me and to Mr. Diggins point, I think we were just going to have to wait and see what the ARB presents to us. And then if we're comfortable or comfortable, we'll have the vote of support. If we can't reach consensus, we won't. And I'm with you, I'd like what they have and be able to have a discussion on that and before we do anything. So thank you. And for now, I have no further comments or questions. Yep, Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess what I would say, two points to Attorney Heim regarding our report to town meeting in the ARB actions. Sometimes in the past, I felt like when a board committee or commission had multiple issues to report back on, they sort of didn't do the report until all two, three, four, five issues had been resolved. My request would be after tonight when the redevelopment board meets, whatever can be presented to us in the 12th and or the 19th through our board agenda information and no later than the 26th. My thing is, I don't wanna, if this can happen that if everything isn't resolved after tonight, what is resolved is held in order to present sort of a package presentation to the board. I'd like to take a piece mail if possible so that we're not getting a lot of information either the week before or the night of town meeting we can kind of resolve and take a vote to agree or have some questions for that. And to my colleague, Mr. Dunn's comments, I totally agree. I've gone in favor of against in favor of against ranked choice voting for many reasons. And I agree with his comments in terms of getting comments from the election modernization committee and sort of letting that be not so much the guide but the draw focus point or the, I don't know, launching pad to have that discussion because I've gone back and forth on this so many times. I think that's a prudent way for us to proceed. So if Attorney Hine and the town manager can whatever comes out of tonight out of ARB that we can get to the Slack board, we can review and indicate how we wanna vote on that. And my big thing is don't hold everything to the end if there's five or six things and one or two of them haven't been resolved yet. If we can clear those three or four, that would be great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Yep, and this all looks correct to me. In discussions with the ARB chair, what they're looking, we had talked about this as a board and we also talked about this in our subcommittee meeting with the chairs is that they're certainly not looking for any competing motions in their motion can be put before town meeting, but they're just really looking for the board to support the decisions that they've made on a few articles and provides any additional comments that we might have. So I think that we should be able to easily do this on Monday and just wrap that up so we can wrap our report up for town meeting. So with that, I don't believe we had a motion. So we can move on. Anything else to turn it in? No, Mr. Chair, I just based on your comments and Mr. Svahan's comments in the, I don't wanna say the worst case scenario, but one alternate case scenario is that the board does a supplemental report rather than folding it into your report because I know that your board's office will wanna try to get out the main body report as soon as it can. So things aren't ready to go. By Monday, we'll figure it out another way. All right, it takes us to item number 10 on the agenda discussion, the Mugar property. We put this one on here. This came out of neighbor meetings and me and Mr. Corsi had attended and I know we've had a number of emails on this as well just regarding the garbage situation at the Mugar property. There's some loose garbage and loose debris to be picked up. So we asked Mr. Chaplin to provide us with a plan to retrieve the garbage, Mr. Chaplin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I suppose I'd say a few things. I think as the board knows, the police department, the health and human services department in coordination with the Somerville Homeless Coalition have really put forth great effort to provide services, referrals, and I guess just general services to those residing in the Mugar Woods. However, it is becoming an increasing challenge based on an increasing number of people inhabiting the woods as well as the chairman alluded to a growing amount of trash in the woods is attributable to those residing there. So a focused approach to clean up now we are scheduling a cleanup effort on April 24th on a Saturday. Chief Flaherty and Officer Kniff who's assigned to the homelessness task force are putting that together. We'll be recruiting volunteers from the community to help town staff in undertaking that effort. We have also as the board knows the board approved the letter going for me to the Mugars to ask for their assistance. I was finally able to reach by phone the representative of the Mugar family for a very brief conversation who expressed the potential for some involvement by the Mugar family in supporting a cleanup. I then forwarded pictures that Mr. Dacorsi had provided to me demonstrating the pile up of trash on the property and sent that to that same representative of the Mugar family and have yet to hear back. So I'll now follow up now that we have a date with that representative to see what type of involvement either people involvement or financial involvement we might be able to get from the Mugar family. So I think the final thing I'll say is in speaking with the chief today, there's an acknowledgement of an escalation of concern or an escalation of the challenge on the site based on the number of people inhabiting the site and their conduct and she'll be meeting with her team the Health and Human Services team as well as again the team from the Somerville Homeless Coalition to develop a potentially new strategy for addressing concerns on the property. And once that's developed, I'll have more to share. Again, specifically to reiterate back to the issue of the trash on April 24th, we will mobilize a cleanup to start removing or hopefully remove a good deal of the trash from the site. Mr. Dacorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chapterling. Got a few comments and I appreciate what you just said. I think that the last week or so that there have been increasing challenges at the site. So I'm glad to hear that there will be a meeting tomorrow and just so people know that the last cleanup was November 20th. So there hasn't been anything removed from the site since that time. I appreciate the fact that there's a cleanup scheduled for April 24th, but I think the trash that is at the edge of Thorndike Field in particular as well as a site that may have been vacated that you can see from Birch Street as well as a site that you can see from the end of Parker Street. I think that should be cleaned up ahead of time. And that's the type of participation I think we should seek from the Mughars. And frankly, I was at Thorndike Field today. There are carriages that were put at the edge of the site back in November that are still there. And the Thomas Coalition did direct that some trash to be put at the edge of the site near Thorndike that just piled up. And I think that the cleanup in the 24th is maybe more inside the site, it'd be more appropriate there. But I think these areas on the outside, I'd like to see something happen this week on it to be honest with you. And if it's done, we have to hire a contractor to do it and send Mughar the bill, I'm fine with that. But I really, with the spring sports starting at Thorndike Field and what's piled up there, I really think those edges need to be done sooner rather than later this month. Ms. Chafflein? Mr. DeCoursey, could you just repeat the third? I have the trash at Thorndike, the trash from Birch Street and the third that you read. At the end of Parker Street. And I don't know if that encampment has been abandoned, but if you go to the end of Parker Street, you can see this, it's very visible. And those three areas in particular, and there is a great need for the rest of the site. And there are other issues that are gonna be addressed tomorrow. But I think those three really have to be done soon. Meaning like within days, not weeks. Okay. Thank you. All right, Mrs. Mohan? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree with what Mr. DeCoursey said, especially in terms of cleaning the site and sending the bills to Peter and Caroline, if you are afterwards, I know that those bills may never be reconciled. But the other thing I'd like to do is, the Board of Health has been outstanding in terms of dealing with the homeless population down there. But I'd also like to, if we can, and ask the child manager or anyone else to evaluate, if there are any steps through penalties or fines that the Board of Health can issue against the Miugas, again, recognizing they may not pay them, but perhaps it will give us some speed in terms of when we're going to state agencies, when we're going to HUD, just sort of add into how unresponsive and unaccountable the Miugas have been with this property that they're trying to super overdevelop. The answer may be no, but I look to town agencies, Conservation Commission, Board of Health, et cetera, that really, the FLEC Board really doesn't have any sort of oversight authority, but these other boards and commissions do. So I know sometimes people say, well, the Board of Health can issue a penalty or a fine or an assessment, but the Miugas are not going to pay it. My thing is I'd like to issue that edict, because maybe on off chance, it might help us in convincing a state or a HUD agency as maybe another demonstration that might get us over the hump of them actually dealing with the site fairly that is being proposed for a ridiculous development. I know I'm reaching, but I'm going to keep reaching. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. I have no additional comment. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I do support what Mr. Dacorsi has recommended. What do you think, how much does it cost? Chairman, to do it, Mr. Dacorsi requested? Yeah. Did you have that quantity of pickup? I mean, I would guess a couple of thousand dollars. All right, because I mean, the deal is I think we need to work on keeping it clean. And I think we need to factor that into our budget. And that's the cost that we as a town, that we as a society are paying me for homelessness and for the lack of mental care. Mental health for folks. I mean, and I know if I live in that area, I mean, I want it to be clean. And I want the town to support me in keeping that clean. And I say that because I feel that, yeah, to send the bill, I mean, but Ms. Mahan is correct to be in that, I mean, the likelihood that it's going to be reconciled at least anytime soon is remote, but I mean, let's take care of the people of the people who live near there. I mean, they're going to be taking care of themselves because I mean, they're part of the town and it's coming up, the town's budget. But I think we should do something on a continual basis. That's my recommendation. I mean, I'm not dictating that by any stretch. I don't even think it's my place to dictate that. But I'm just giving you my sense of how I would like to see it handled. So that's it. Thank you. Yep. And I thank you for the presentation, Ms. Chaplin. You know, I think what we need to do is as Mr. Corsi mentioned is first take care of the piles of trash that people reach out to us about, which are visible and particularly from the soccer field. We, our residents shouldn't have to see that, but we also have visiting neighbors to our soccer fields. They want to show a good face for our late kids. So I thank and certainly in the neighborhoods if we can get those up immediately, then certainly we'll reach out for a show of hands from some of the people we see before us for volunteers for the 24th, but that will be a good community effort to try to get people both in the neighborhood and from all aspects of town to join in the effort. So we'll look forward to that one as well. All right. So with that, do we have a motion to receive? I don't think, I don't know if there's any motion that we need, but all right. With that, we'll just move on. Mr. Chairman. All right. That brings us to warrant article hearings, articles for review, article 25, home rule legislation, real estate transfer fee, home rule, article 27, revolving funds, article 52, endorsement of parking benefits district expenditures. First article 25, home rule legislation, real estate transfer fee. Do we have anyone to present on this, Ms. Chaplin? Or, turn it hand? Yep. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm presenting on this article tonight on behalf of representatives of the housing plan implementation committee. I've been briefed fairly extensively by the planning director, Ms. Rage, who's obviously at the ARB's hearings tonight, as well as Ms. Swarco. The recommended vote in front of you is supported by language from HPIC, which reads a little bit like a cross between a resolution and then a vote. The resolution piece of it explains the rationale behind it, and then the vote I've sort of translated into a proposed vote in the comment that you guys should have received. We also provided an FAQ and some other supporting documentation. If the board would like, I can run very quickly down the sort of general purpose and features of the real estate transfer fee as the housing plan implementation committee has recommended it. So, what's before you is really a table setting measure in the sense that any vote that this board takes or town meeting board takes would basically be to submit special legislation. Then get approved by the legislature and signed by the governor and then go on a local ballot to be approved before any real estate transfer fee would actually take effect. So, again, the board's making a recommendation on a vote for this proposal from HPIC, town meeting would have to approve it, it would have to get passed by the legislature and then would ultimately get put on a ballot to Arlington voters to before any real estate transfer fee would be assessed. The features of the way that HPIC has designed this is a little bit different from some of the many communities in the surrounding area, Concord, Somerville, some of these other folks who have proposed real estate transfer fees that are either sitting in the legislature now or will be there soon. They're essentially recommending that this board have discretion to set a real estate transfer fee at between 0.5 and 2% of any real estate transfer that is over a certain dollar amount. And they want you also to have the discretion to set what that dollar amount would be, but in no event would that dollar amount be less than the state median sale price for the entire city of Massachusetts. So right now, recently the median sale price for statewide was $445,000 for a transaction. Therefore the board could set a real estate transfer fee for anything above that. And the board would again have discretion to say it's 0.5% all the way up to 2%. You couldn't go above that and you couldn't go below that. The next feature also gives this board discretion to decide who's gonna pay. Is it gonna be the buyer? Is it gonna be the seller? Or is it gonna be some combination of both? There's some real estate professionals who would know better than I would. Practically speaking, it's likely that the buyer is going to absorb some amount of that no matter who pays. But there are versions of this where the seller has borne all the responsibility. There are versions where the buyer bears all the responsibility and there are versions of it where it's some combination of the two. They would prefer as part of the Affordable Housing Trust Action Plan for there to be some recommendations made to you on all of these scores before you ultimately decide how you wanna sort of sort out those three elements. What the actual rate of the fee is gonna be the threshold that triggers the fee and how it's divvied up. Finally, it's important to note that there are a whole lot of exemptions. Probably the biggest category gives an exemption that I don't wanna gloss over is that if you transfer a property to somebody for $100 or even for $1 because you're transferring it to your spouse or your children, that's not gonna trigger the real estate transfer fee because that's under $445,000. But there's also gonna be a further exemption for a lot of different types of transactions between immediate family members, anything involving affordable housing like the Housing Authority or Housing Corporate Varlington because the Affordable Housing Trust might be helping to facilitate certain new developments of property. And sometimes those things can change hands as a part of that process between different developmental corporations. The other sort of half of this is the why. The why is to develop a steady stream of income to support the town's goals of creating affordable housing. So the Planning Department has provided a chart that I believe I included in your memo to you that sort of highlights how much revenue you could expect under the real estate transfer fee set at different permutations of these rates and minimum thresholds for transfer price. But it would be a steady revenue stream that is totally separate from the rest of the town's revenues. You're not taking it away from anywhere else in order to help find affordable housing. With that, I think that's probably a relatively 500 foot view summary if there's more detailed questions or issues that I can address, I'm open to the world. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Okay. Here's my initial thoughts on this. I'm thinking about what we've presented to the voters in the tax pays of our engine. We've had debt exclusions, including the current ones for the high school. We've had consistent overrides. We've had Community Preservation Act. And yet again, here we're talking about the tax burden increase. I'm just seeing the objective to get monies to this affordable housing trust. But I think, you know, as Charlie Frost says, because I said to him, some people, which include my husband, kind of feel like the town of Allenton considers them as a personal ATM. So my first question would be in terms of the Recovery Act and the funding that this program needs and the monies on the town side, which is separate from the school side, which they will probably know in about two weeks, which we have to budget between now and 2024. I'm trying to look at a way to avoid, yet again, putting another tax on people, whether they're selling or buying in Allenton, would it be a viable option to, instead of creating this new tax to buyers or sellers, would it be appropriate? And I know when Jenny Ray and Erin Zarco presented to finance committee, it was well received, but in terms of who would pay for it, what's the viability of, instead of imposing an additional tax, perhaps being able to factor that into the 30, approximately 36.7 million recovering funds that have to be budgeted between now and 2024. I don't know if Mr. Chaplain or anyone else could answer that. Mr. Chaplain. I think the honest answer is we don't know yet, Ms. Mohan, we're still awaiting that guidance from the federal government in regards to the specificity of what we can spend the American Rescue Act funds on. It's not clear to me, we'll be able to spend it on affordable housing, so I'm not trying to sort of gloss over, but we just don't know yet. I've been on, every week I'm on another call with another group hoping that there's some information and I was even on a call with Senator Warren directly last Thursday and even her and her staff don't really know what the money can be spent on yet. Okay, I guess I would, not I guess, I definitely would be interested in what my colleagues have to say on this, but it just seems like every time we turn around, we'll find another way to tax residents or future residents in Allenton. I think we've gone to them a lot, plus we're talking about going back to the voters in the near future for another override. My personal opinion, think that with the Rescue Act that would be a way to fund and give the seed money to this affordable housing trust. And again, it's one of those things that I always say when song tells before us would be a good idea and we ask them where the money's gonna come from and they say, well, we just wanna establish it first and then we'll find a way to pay for it. I just don't think it should be on Allenton tax payers to fund that again, especially if you want a success for an override in 22 or 23. Maybe with the Rescue Act that goes out 23, 24, but I just have concerns about that and I'd like to hear from my colleagues. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not in favor of it right now. Mr. Zucorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I think there's a lot of unknowns here right now. I think I know it as the other cities and towns and the commonwealth that have passed this, none of them have been approved by the legislature. There are two bills pending in the legislature, one in the Senate, one in the House. Representative Garberley is one of the cosponsors of the one in the House that would provide a local option. It is slightly different from what's being proposed here because it would only require a vote at town meeting. But I mean, I think this is a multi-step process and I think given the vote on the trust fund, I'd be willing to move the process along. I do think that when it does come up, if it is successful at town meeting and goes to the legislature, this board, whoever's on it because this could take many years before several years anyway before this could happen, has to be very clear what the fee is because right now it's between 0.05% and 2%. And what the exemption amount is, I think it's very important to be clear, but I think it is also good that this proposal actually requires an affirmative vote of the Arlington voters as opposed to the acts before the legislature which only require a town meeting vote. So it's a multi-step process. I think there'll be a lot of discussion going forward and I'm comfortable moving it forward at this stage, but I am aware of concerns about being upfront with what the exemption amounts are, what the percentage is and what the funds are gonna be used for. Mr. Dunn. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would say, so I am inclined to move this forward and on a couple of different reasons. First off is that I think the important characteristic here is that it's something that it goes to the voters and in the same sense that there are questions about like whether or not the select board should stop things before they go to town meeting, which of course most of the time we can't because it's not there. This is one of the things where we can't stop before we go to town meeting, but town meeting could stop it and I don't think it should. I think town meeting should push it before it were to voters. In 2019, this board voted to support an override and our commitment was no proposition two and a half overrides for at least four years. And so I would say, and so clearly this isn't the proposition two and a half override. So we're certainly following the letter of our commitments, but I would actually also say that we're following the spirit of the commitment. So in the assumption that this wouldn't actually come before the voters until 2023. And so one of the things I really espoused as a real positive thing about the last override vote we did is that we did it in conjunction with the high school. And there are a lot of people who at the time, the council was separate the vote stand because people aren't gonna wanna vote for everything all at once. Like you should vote for the taxes, you should vote for these revenue increases one at a time. So what I said, and I still think was the right choice was to give everybody the whole menu and say, this is what it is. This is like, and you have a really expansive, really candid conversation about what it all means. And so I would consider that a positive vote tonight and a positive vote at town meeting is setting the table really for a future conversation where we get to look at our overrides. We get to look at the impact of a real estate transfer fee. We get to look at the impact of our other revenue sources. We get to make a decision that's very broad and inclusive about the entire town financial situation. So I guess I actually, if it's appropriate Mr. Chairman, I'm gonna put that in the form of a motion. I move that we recommend a positive action on this article. Thank you Mr. Degans. I'm gonna second that. And I have a bunch of questions. I'm from myself and one from a town meeting member that I think will be good for us to answer because then we can refer them to the video with other town meeting members. I think we'll have the same questions. So the first thing though, I guess it's a statement regarding the setting of the fee. I mean, one of the members of the HPEC and on the select board liaison to that committee has stated that he thinks there's some ambiguity as to how frequently the select board would set that fee and he feels in the committee to feel that we should make it clear. Excuse me, should make it clear that the select board would set that fee once. It wouldn't be a matter of the select board setting that fee every year. I mean, so if we set it at 1%, that would be it. I mean, I guess at some point in time, we could change it, but it wouldn't be the expectation that 12 months later we'd be changing it again. So if you think it is necessary, and I guess this is through you Mr. Sharon to Mr. Hyme that we set an amendment, make an amendment, I will do that at the proper time. Mr. Chairman. Yep. Yes, Mr. Diggans. I don't know that the way I read what I put in front of you, that the select board wouldn't have the ability to change the fee at some later point in time. So if you want to put in a specific timeframe for how often the fee can be changed or to state that it can be set at just once, I would definitely want to put some sort of language in there to that effect. Let's leave that for discussion a little bit more, I mean, so yeah, I need to think it through a bit more. I mean, we can't say that we'll never change it, that's for sure, you know, and so now it's a matter of whether we want to set how frequently we change it and that may be something that should be discussed at town meeting or definitely amongst us some more. And so then another question I have is in regarding the draft, I mean, there's a line in there and the town may not by law otherwise eliminate or reduce any exemptions set forth in this law. So that means we can never change anything exemptions? So thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes. So yes, Mr. Diggins, I should have noted that one of the other provisions of the draft special legislation would be that again, contingent on voter approval, that it would authorize the town from time to time to promulgate further bylaws and regulations to sort of flesh out certain details of how this should work. But I think the idea to my understanding is that the things that are exempt are sort of sacred things that are exempt in the special legislation. And in order to alter that, you would have to go back to the legislature and amend this special act that it couldn't just be done even by a voted town meeting, that it would have to be very, very firm for voters that these are the categories of things that are exempt. Got it. Okay, great. Thank you. So unfortunately, I don't have the email pulled up so I'm gonna ask you a question and look away while I put that email. So the first question the person had was if we pass it, it goes to the state or to the legislature and they can move it forward or not. If they don't, let me see if I remember the question correctly. I mean, what are the hurdles to getting them to moving forward? Why is it the current ones that are in front? Are it moving forward? In front of the legislature, are it moving forward? Tony Hyde. I'll do my best to answer the question. There are probably a variety of reasons that some board members might have a better pulse on than I do. Some of it might be because there's a proposed local options that might offer more uniformity. The downside of course to uniformity is that it's not specifically tailored to what Arlington is trying to achieve. There may also be or have been at some point some concerns about, I think my guess is these concerns have lessened about whether or not this is a, I think at one point in time it was phrased as attacks I believe I conquered for example. Whereas now I believe they're being termed as a realistic transfer fee which addresses sort of slightly esoteric legal argument that's probably not super important for the board's sort of consideration of whether or not it's a good idea or a bad idea. But that's my guess. My guess is that there are probably one concern, a little bit of concern about like if we're gonna do this should we have the same set of rules for everybody hence Representative Gardley and a few other folks idea of a local option. And I think the other obstacle may have been at one point in time, I remember reviewing this and then noting that at one point in time, Congress had phrased it as a realistic tax which is hard for a local community to assess outside of something that's approved broadly by the state versus a fee and some of the modifications and evolutions of these things whereas the money is all getting put into an affordable housing trust established under the general laws, that helps to alleviate some concern about this idea of a tax being levied and only getting put into a very specific pot. All right, thank you. And I'll add to that too, that you know, I think the current ones in front of the legislature have gone to study and I suspect everyone is waiting to see what's going to happen either within the abling legislation as before the legislature or what the governor is going to do about this because it seems like everyone wants a piece of this. I mean, I heard about it first with respect to trying to fund more public transit and I think the governor did have something in the last, up last year and so I suspect not until that gets resolved will we get any movement on that home legislation, home rules, on the home rule decisions. So the second question was, let me just read it instead of try to sum it out. My reading this document is that if the home legislation is approved, the select board can set the rate anywhere from 0.5 to 2% and further justice anytime with any additional bylaws without any further public approval, is that correct, I mean? And I guess that's what's getting that with respect to how frequently we change it. So that'll be up to us to decide how frequently we change it. If this is correct, so by voting yes to this, TMMs will be authorizing 2% home sales above the state meeting single family average price when not subject to inception. And so the answer to that is that we can determine up to 2% but not necessarily 2%, we can be anywhere in between. Correct Mr. Attorney Heim? Yeah, so I think it's really important to note there are three things that the board is being giving a discretion to do. And that discretion is within a specific band. You're being just, you're giving, if this all was approved by the voters after the whole process, you'd be given discretion to set the rate, 0.5 to 2% without any further process after being approved by the voters, but without any further process, you wouldn't have to go to town meeting, for example, to set the rate at 1% or to change it to 0.75. The second thing you're being given discretion to do is to decide who's gonna pay, buyer, seller, some combination of both. And then the third thing you're being given discretion to do is decide how much, what price of a transaction should really trigger this? Do we only wanna apply this to a million dollar sales? Do we wanna apply it to sales over $800,000? Or do we wanna apply it to every transaction over $445,000, which would, that number might change. So if the housing market tanks, for example, that number would decrease and you'd be looking at a much lower average sale price. If the housing market goes crazy and homes are selling for the average state price is $700,000, then that floor would creep up. I guess in some ways that would be a good problem to have for folks who are selling, but I understand that that piece is what it's in your discretion in terms of where you want the threshold to ultimately be within that as long as it's above that floor. You're not gonna be given discretion to pass town bylaws without town meeting approval. So while the special legislation talks about being authorized to pass certain bylaws to sort of flesh this out as necessary, the select board or anybody else would still have to get town meetings approval for anything that's available. Great, thank you. Two more questions, Ada and so I'm assuming that we can add exemptions if we want to. And one concern this person had is he's selling a property in town and then buying another one in town. And I imagine this is something that some seniors might encounter where they have a large house or whatever, they don't need much house and they want to buy something smaller in town within a limited amount of time. This person didn't see that exemption, there's one that was listed. We would be able to add that exemption if we wanted to correct. That's right. So that's the type of exemption that you might want to add by local bylaws. So you've got your sort of sacred list of exemptions that can't be changed without going back to the legislature. And then you've got your other exemptions that you might pass by town bylaws saying, look, we think that I'm not advocating position myself, I'm not answering just your question. But look, we think this is a good idea, but we really don't want to see people get hit on this twice. So even if the select board decides, I only want the seller to bear this expense. I don't want buyers to bear it because I don't want seniors who sell their homes and want to buy in Arlington again to pay this thing twice. But it turns out that either you're concerned in advance or the actual practical experience shows that people are paying it twice because the seller is just adjusting the purchase price to adjust for that effect. Well, you might say persons over 65 by-law who are selling and buying a home within the same 12-month period shall be exempt, be a little bit hard to figure out exactly how to do that, but that is something that you could do by-law. Great, and last question, which is a little two-parter, it's kind of related to that, the person says, who will have the authority to grant waivers? Would it be the select board? I mean, does the proposed legislation require that additional by-laws be put in place to manage a waiver process? So I'm not sure in terms of what specific waiver we'd be talking about. So the by-law, sorry, the special legislation establishes, what is it, A through J, in terms of transfers, that are exempt, further relief from it, I would think would be something that you'd want to put into a town by-law at a minimum, in terms of granting some sort of waiver process. So it could be the select board, it could be that you have another process for doing that, I would think you'd want to detail that further. All right, well, thanks for answering other questions. And I thank my colleagues for indulging in those questions too, and I'll add is that it takes, it takes some money to run a society and we really do want to help those who can't afford in housing, because one way or another, we're going to pay for it, either we pay to help people out or we pay to watch them suffer. And so that's why it's easy for me to support this, thank you. And I just say that I do certainly understand the hesitation amongst homeowners in town to enact legislation where the house is one of the biggest assets and many people, their retirement, but as we go out and talk to residents, affordable housing is the critical issue that people are talking about, the issue that they want action from the town, from town meeting and this board on. And there's a lot of residents who are really excited about affordable housing trust. And this is one step to try to get the trust going and make the trust effective. And as Mr. Corsi said, this is just a first step in a long process that ultimately ends up with the voters of the town before we can enact any sort of legislation regarding the transfer fee. Attorney Hyman, just one question, just the way this works, my attorney, my closing attorney had on, how does the fee get paid in other localities? Is it at closing? Is it due, is it billed to the individual? Is it assessed against the house? So... Or does it have to be worked out? So I think there's, we would use basically our existing methods for collecting. So if you, you're more familiar with how this practically shakes out than I am, Mr. Dury, but essentially, you know, it would probably have to be baked in to something on the sort of checklist that buyers and sellers have to do before they get their certificate from the town saying that there's no sort of lien on it. And if there's an outstanding balance, it would be a potentially lienable thing against the home. So it'll probably be some combination of incentivizing buyers to make sure that it is dealt with at closing and the municipal lien certificate process, the sort of checklist that we have for making sure that, you know, all those things are clear when the final sort of transfer is made. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. I mean, I think we'll have plenty of time to perfect the process. It just, you know, 97% of purchases, the attorney gets an MLC in some cash deals or private deals, they don't. And I just want to make sure that we can, as we work this through, we avoid situations where buyers buy a property and find out that they have a lien for this amount sitting on their property because they didn't know about it. They were closing attorney didn't know about it because it's specific to one locality. And it kind of costs headaches on the back end of that. But I think that's something that we certainly have some time to work out. It's a good point. I'll definitely do a little bit more thinking with the treasurer's office as well as folks on it. All right. With that, this is a public hearing. If any members of the public would like to speak on this issue, please use the raise hand function on your Zoom application. We do have a few phone insert. Mr. Chaplin, can you remind me what the raise hand process is for a phone in purchasement? I believe it's star nine. Star nine, so it's star nine on your phone, raise hand function on your Zoom application. Yeah, no members of the public wishing to speak on this one, so I will go back to the board for any additional comments or questions. Mrs. Mahan. I guess since it's just the beginning of the process, I will vote in favor of it, but I also will re-emphasize as well as make a request, re-emphasize if we can fund the affordable housing trust through the rescue act monies. I'd like that to be an option. And if that's the way we can go, I'd like to do that instead of imposing another tax on Allington taxpayers, whether they're current or future. And then my second request would be through the chair to the town manager that if we are able to obtain this pool of money whether through the rescue act or imposing another tax on Allington residents, I'd like to see from the planning department within the next two or three months, sort of if they were to receive these funds with a 0.5 or 2% tax increase on sales, what they have identified. I don't wanna go through what I've gone through with CDBG that monies come in and we have six, close to seven figures of monies that are on program funds. So I would like to see a plan of what the planning department and I know Anne's work girl has been ridiculously great on this, but unfortunately I think we don't have her anymore. I think she went somewhere else and there's a planning director somewhere else. I'd like to know my thing that I'm fearful of is A, imposing the tax and then B, collecting the money and it sits there as unencumbered, free cash, unprogrammed, whatever word you wanna use funds. And if the planning department doesn't have a viable plan on how to spend these funds if we can collect them whether through the recovery act or an additional tax as well as an override which would go to something else then maybe we need to reevaluate. So I'm willing to vote for this initially, but I had a lot of questions because I'm just looking at, I'm trying to think of where in the town that the planning department would be able to use this large amount of funds and I just don't see it and I think Mount Gavola and or the sale of that also needs to come into the discussions we have in the future. So I just wanna put that forward. I'm just very concerned with going to the voters, going to the voters override exclusion. Now we have community preservation in act and now this is another tax increase. I wish Dan would help me out, you're the libertarian, but I don't think we can just keep looking to Allenton residents as Allenton's ATM to do this. So this does move forward. I'd really like to see something from the planning department, what vision they have and what they think they can acquire for affordable housing and or town properties that are already under our control like my mom Gavola, which has been a sweetheart deal in my opinion, not all years, but for some years. So I really want something out of the planning department to, if they get 0.5 or up to 2% from whoever, where they're gonna spend that money and or if they don't have a plan to spend it. So I don't need to be negative, but I just, you know, I'm just really cognizant of turning to the taxpayer as far as everything went, especially in these current times, which I don't think we're gonna see the light at the end of the tunnel until at the earliest 2023. So those are my comments. Thank you, Mr. Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, just a few more comments. And I'm gonna support Mr. Dunn's motion and just to Mrs. Mahan's comment, there is a provision in the act that requires an annual report in terms of what was received and where the money was spent and whether it's being, how it's being spent. Is it efficient? Is it, are there other ways to spend it? So I think going forward, that there is that requirement if this was ever approved past the time being approved by the legislature and approved by the voters. The thing that does concern me, and again, I'm willing to go along with the language here. I am concerned about maybe providing a little bit more certainty as to what ultimately the amount is that's gonna be asked for both the percent of the, and I'm gonna call it a fee because it is a fee. And I know people will look at and say, fee or tax, you're still asking people to pay more money, but technically it is a fee on the sale of a property. I almost think, and I think this is worthy of discussion even at a meeting as to the changes in each year. We know the way this is written, it's between 0.05% and 2%. So that's the limitations on it. I wonder if that determination, if there's a change shouldn't be made by Tom meeting, not by the select board. I'm not, I don't wanna make the change here. I think we go forward and we have that discussion, but I think that that is consistent with what the two acts that the legislature call for, it's the legislative body that determines it, not the executive branch. And I also think when the time comes, there has to be certainty on the exemption amount. And we know it's at least gonna be 445,000. I would imagine it's gonna be an amount perhaps higher than that a few years out. But I think it's important to lay that out, not have that as an unknown from year to year. So I'm comfortable with moving this forward and having putting this before Tom meeting, but I did wanna just raise those two concerns in terms of what happens if it's implemented. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. No additional comment, thank you. Mr. Niggans? Well, I'm all in favor. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I'm all in favor of a plan and having some idea how the monies will be spent. And I don't want to say, offer some ideas now because they might be out of bounds of what's really possible and we wanna get people's expectations up. But I will say it'll be, hopefully we can get some sense of the scale of the problem because as much as I support this, the real issue is poverty. And we've really gotta solve for that. And I kind of misstated what I said earlier. I said we can pay by helping people out or we can pay to watch them suffer. What I really meant is that we cannot pay and watch them suffer. And that's a cost to all of us. And I don't think it's a cost that we really want to keep paying. And as long as I'm around in whatever position and I'm really gonna be pushing that we try to solve the poverty issue because it's not enough really to say we're gonna give you money to help you afford a house but now you can't really afford a food and you can't afford education. You can't afford health care. We really have to work at that. And it's gonna cost, it's gonna take money from all of us who have some to those who have a whole lot less. So that's why I support even these incremental acts because at least we're trying to do something. So I encourage us to keep trying. My voice is a little raspy. I'm not that emotional. So just have to calm my throat a little tired. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, and again, I'll support the motion. It's the first step in the process and this is an issue that's really near and dear to people around to try to help fight our affordable housing crisis. I want to thank Attorney Hyam for providing us with the framework. And for anyone that's looking, just know that as my colleagues have said, this is the beginning of a long discussion as to figure out what those figures are. So you don't have to necessarily be scared off by the figures that you see there. I think we as a board, as the community can come up with whatever the appropriate amount is if we move this forward. So with that, Attorney Hyam, we have a motion to approve that's been seconded. Mr. Chairman, I make one note. Yep. There's just a, if the board is comfortable with the vote and comment that was sort of drafted, I can either proceed that way or I can draft a comment that reflects tonight's discussion with a little bit more nuance. In either case, the proposed vote that I put in front of you in section two, the Housing Planning and Transportation Committee updated their recommendation. In section two, where they set the statewide median sale price of a single family as the threshold, they asked to strike the language, reading for the prior 12 months from the date of the select board's determination. Basically that just means that they're not anchoring into a 12 month period anymore. I'm not exactly sure as to what the rationale was, but both in their recommended version and the recommended version that I sort of adapted for you, the basically language being stricken would just be the reference to the 12 month period. I guess DHCD reports on whatever the statewide median sale price was and the 12 month piece of it isn't integral for you to have in the legislation. Okay. Any board members have any thoughts on? Mr. Chairman. Yeah, Mr. Dunn? I'm curious if, so it would be my, I would like to suggest that we include a reference to our commitment of the 2019 override and talk about that timeline and remind that, I think I personally think the reminding people of those commitments and the fact that we're sticking with them as a positive thing. And I like being repeating that message. So I would be inclined to change the comment and include that reference, but if the rest of the board doesn't agree that I won't be upset. Any additional comments from board members? Mr. Diggins? Yeah, I'm fine with changing the comments and giving the town council time to add more nuance to the comments and need to reflect what's happened in this hearing. Yep. Thank you. All right. So, I think what you can do. Yep. Mr. Dunn? I'm fine with what my colleague, Mr. Dunn suggested. I would like to include my comments or request that if rescue funds through the federal program that we're looking into, if that instead of this tax or fee that that could be in the source to fund it, as well as I'd like to strengthen up the language that the planning department really has to come up with a framework of the 0.5 to 2% money that could be collected, that they really have to come up with. So they're not banking money, which I've seen happen, hadn't been item. In order for that, the board or the voters to consider what that tax or fee should be 0.5 to 2%, that the planning department comes up with a viable plan on how those money and where those money in Arlington, which is extremely dense. I'd like to ask a lot of these people that are also pro affordable housing that are living in one to almost $2 million homes if they want to sell them at cost and it's a lot less to use them as affordable housing. And I think the answer is no. So I'm like, it's possible. But if my colleagues don't agree, that's fine. I still want it in like asking as an individual board member that we need to be determining if town meeting and the taxpayers do vote for this, whether it's 0.5 to 2%, planning department really can't bank this money and then unencumbered funds, free cash, unprogrammed funds or any other term, they need to come up with a reasonable and viable plan on how to spend them. And if that isn't obtainable, which I would totally understand because I don't know where we're gonna let you do this, then we can't impose that tax or fee. Thank you. Mr. Corsi. Yeah, I'm fine with the individual comments to being added to Mr. Dunn's and Mrs. Mohans. And I have no further comments. So I try, I think the question is one that you want to include our comments from tonight. So you can include these comments and any comments that you've heard from the board during the course of the discussion in the final report. So that works for us. So what I would do, assuming the board votes positively, Mr. Chair, is I will adapt to the comment to include these additional pieces and have that be in the draft select board report. Yes. Just to be clear though, this won't come back for a final vote or a comment or a separate agenda item that will just be, okay, great. All right. We have our vote. Mrs. Mohan. Yes, thank you. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. That's five zero vote. Thank you. Articles 27, Revolving Funds. Chair Plain. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. This is the annual authorization for spending out of, excuse me, the town's revolving funds. The key things to look at are what the expenditure limits are. That's what's actually being reauthorized each year. What had been provided to the board in the agenda packet last Thursday was accurate, but all for one of the revolving funds, which is the field user fee fund and updated copy was sent to the board's office today that had been listed at an $80,000 expenditure amount. We'd like to increase that to a $100,000 expenditure amount as both the director of public works and the director of recreation feel that that more closely aligns with what we expect to expend out of the field user fee fund for the fields in town. Otherwise, again, this is an annually recurring authorization that the board approves and then is, of course, brought to town meeting for approval. All right, Mr. Dunn. Move approval, no comment. Thank you. Yeah, Mr. Corsi. Second. Mrs. Mahan. No questions, thank you. Mr. Higgins. No questions, thanks. All right, this is a public hearing. If any members of the public wish to speak, they can use the raise hand function on the Zoom application. Seeing none. We have a motion to approve. Attorney Han. Mrs. Mahan. Yes, thank you. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Five zero. That's a warrant article hearing. Article 52, endorsement of parking benefit district expenditures. Mr. Chaplin. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. So as the board recalls with the establishment of parking meters in Arlington Center several years ago now, part of the entire plan was being able to generate enough revenue to create a parking benefit district and thereby reinvest in Arlington Center and its transportation infrastructure and sort of associated benefits to the district. To date, the biggest and best thing we've been able to do is put approximately $180,000 out of the parking benefit district towards the sidewalk, the center sidewalk project that was completed last year. So that was real, I think, significant achievement on the part of the benefit district and this board's wisdom in establishing it. However, over the last year, as we have suffered in many ways from the pandemic, parking revenues have suffered and we still incurred a great deal of the costs associated with the meters and parking control officers but we weren't generating as much revenue because we all collectively made the proactive decision to cease with metering during the height of the pandemic. As the board knows, metering has once again started. We've also rolled out pay by phone. So we have further options for people to be able to pay for parking. But so last year was not a good financial year for the parking fund or the parking benefit district. We still have residual balances unexpended from prior years and we expect a rebound next year in terms of parking revenue, but nevertheless, the parking advisory committee agreed with my advice that we should budget very conservatively for expenditures to come out of the parking fund for the Park and Benefit District and the only expenditure we're asking for authorization for this year is $20,000 for plantings in Arlington Center. There's 12 large planters that were installed, I believe in 2019 that we contract with a local company to change them out four times a year once for each season with seasonally appropriate plantings. And these funds would go towards that and potentially some further plantings around Arlington Center. It's very much appreciated by the businesses. It's something that even, again, in the grips of the pandemic, people commented on when they were able to walk seeing, seeing these planters nicely cared for and nicely planted. So we're asking for approval for $20,000 for next year to continue that planting program. Thank you. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move the rule. Thank you. Mr. Corsi. Second. Mr. Dunn. No comment. Thank you. Mrs. Mahan. No questions. Thank you. I'll only make one comment. I feel like I've said this before, but it's funny to me that this idea of the parking benefits district was promulgated by the vendor, the representative of the vendor trying to sell us parking meters. He's like, oh, you know what you could do? And you could create this district. And it's really been successful. And we implemented the meters to create parking spaces not to create revenue for the town. And it was really a great idea that we built on it. It's done a lot for Arlington Center and we'll continue to do so. So happy to endorse it. With that, this is a public hearing. If any members of the public, wish to speak on this article, they can use the raise hand function on the Zoom application now. Seeing none. I turn it on. We have a motion to approve and second it. This is Mahan. Yes, thank you. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Daines. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Mr. Heard. Yes. Mr. Ann. Thank you. That closes warrant article hearings for 2021. Final votes and comments. We've articles for review, article seven, article 16, article 20, article 21, article 23, article 24, article 79, article 81, article 86, article 89 and article 90. So we'll go through them one by one. Just call out if you wanna make any corrections or modifications to the article. Article seven, article 16, article 20, article 21, article 23, article 24, article 79, article 81, article 86, article 89 and article 90. Mr. Chair. Yes. We have a brief, a few notes on article 89. The board directed me to work with the article on Ms. Malachek. She did provide a few corrections to dates on the proposed resolution and really noted something that I just wanted to highlight to the board that I thought was terrific for addition. She noted that the following language would be nice to insert into the resolution if the board finds acceptable, I'll put it in. That in addition to petitioning the general court, for the abolition of slavery, that Prince Hall was quote, the first American to publicly use the language of the Declaration of Independence for political purposes other than justifying the war against Britain. So she was hoping that that could be added. She had a few other corrections that she was asking for with respect to naming Prince Hall by his full name throughout the resolution, which seems perfectly reasonable. And again, correcting a few dates, there's also some minor historical stuff that it's not about Prince Hall being a minister. So I've taken out a few of those sort of historical citations if they weren't clearly supported by some record. So if the board finds those changes acceptable, I'll just incorporate them into the final vote. All right, so we'll look for a motion to approve with the modifications as just outlined by Attorney Hyde. This is a question. Mrs. Mahon. Second, thank you. Is it done? No comment. Thank you for Mr. Hyde for all the hard work. Mr. Diggins. No comments. Attorney Hyde, we have a motion to approve that. Is it seconded? This is Mahon. Yes, thank you. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. It's a five to vote. And my personal thanks to a lot of proponents and election modernization committee for their patients as I was trying to sort some of these details out in my own head, as well as of course, to the board for a lot of terrific feedback on different graphs and versions of this. Thank you. Thank you. And that will take us to new business, Attorney Hyde. Just one piece of new business. I attended a terrific CLE today with a number of folks in the law enforcement and civil rights community, including a Senator Brownsburger for a sort of comprehensive continuing legal education course on the police reform bill. There were a lot of really interesting discussions about details of it. Judge Hines was also a part of the panel. I'll look forward to providing the thinking about with the chair, the next chair, the right way in which to sort of summarize what's a really, really, really long 102 section bill for the select board and the public as you folks are interested. Thank you. Mr. Chaplin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. One brief piece of new business as the board knows and those subscribing to town notices know. Last week, the town issued town manager's annual budget and financial plan, which is the product of a great deal of work by the deputy town manager, Sandy Pooler, management analyst, Julie Wayman and all the various department heads contributing to that document. It's a big document. It is a lot to dive into, but for those who are interested, there is a great deal of information about the town's revenues, expenses, narrative description of town departments, goals and objectives and accomplishments, workload indicators, organizational charts. So it really is an informative document about both town budgeting, town policy and town operations available on the website. If anybody would like to look at it and I just wanted to call attention to that. Thank you. Mr. Degans. So my new business is just to say this ends my freshman year on this elect board. And I liked you all before I got on this board and I like you all even more. I really appreciate all of your patience to meet and guidance to meet. Even whenever I had a question, it reached out to you all, you answered and you reached out to me when you had questions. And I also want to thank the town manager, me, Mike Week gets off to a great start every Monday morning at 8.30 when we have a half hour conversation about usually questions I have and I get his input on various things. I mean, and so it's been a wonderful opportunity. I look forward to two more years. And to Mr. Dunn, when I was running, my only regret was that you were leaving but you're back. And so as you leave again, I give you this poem. My dear Mr. Dunn, it sure has been fun. Like a mid-July P-town sun, this tour with you ranks number one. Thank you very much. Follow that one. I don't have a poem, but I do have a couple pieces. Well done, Mr. Biggins. I, first of all, I did want to thank Mr. Dunn. He came on board again February 22nd and this is the second time I'm thanking him for his service and telling him how much I enjoyed working with him. But this year it was on a very short period of time and Dan, you really came in. We had some long hearings and you did a great job, added a ton to the board. So thank you very much for your service. And I also want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your work as chairman this past year. As you said tonight, you never got to use the gavel and in the chamber, every meeting was run remotely, which is a real challenge in itself. And I thought you did a great job with that under very challenging circumstances. And I really appreciate the leadership that you provided to the board and to us over this past year. Ms. Mon. I know I had something for new business, but that poem kind of knocked it, oh, I do remember. First, I will thank Mr. Dunn for coming back and joining us. I know we have our past history in terms of your feelings about me and my patience to serve on the board, which you didn't think I have, but I do. But I definitely do appreciate. I said to the manager today that my PCP diagnosed me with SPSS, which is Select Board Fatigue Syndrome. That's a syndrome where you're a member of the Select Board and you meet every Monday night, sometimes going into the next day. And I don't think Mr. Dunn really knew that's what he was signing on to. So I do appreciate that. And I have enjoyed the presence of the meeting. So I thank you on that. And I mean that sincerely. I know I send a little shot across the bow. I had to get that in. But I do appreciate you doing that because you also have your business and family commitments. And that's taken away from that. To the incoming chairperson, and dare I say chairman, because I'm not the incoming chairman. So it's a chairman, not a chairperson, a woman. What I'd like to put forth to the incoming chairman as well as my colleagues and future colleagues. I know the law that went through the state house regarding the Allented Housing Authority and the resident appointments has pretty much been refined and laid out. And it would be my personal wish. And I'm not saying it's not any of my colleagues, which also that we sort of in limbo with the resident, which is a few are all of the delia that we appointed in terms of whether we appoint her again to continue on for a number of years or not. I'd like to have that on the quickest future agenda that we can and I'm not sure how the process goes. If we can just vote her and keep her on or we need to open the process. And if we do again, but I really think fear, I know fear, I've been in limited contact with her along with Nick Metropolis who she's been working with and Joanne Preston. I'd like to really kind of cement that and get that taken care of. I hope it's for you, Arella, but if the process says we have to reopen it again and accept other residents who are interested, then we should do that. But I'd really like to the future chairperson, make sure we take care of that as the first meeting we can under the law as designated. So thank you. Mr. Dunn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So first off, reminder to everybody that it's election day on Saturday. Tomorrow is your last day to request a ballot if you wish to do early voting or absentee voting. And that ballot has to be dropped off by Saturday, which is of course, you can vote in person on Saturday and you can also drop off your ballot on Saturday. And good luck to all of the candidates. That is my first item. The second item is... So the last time I did a farewell speech, I gave a really long list of thank yous and all of the thank yous I gave are still true. Town employees, town volunteers, voters, colleagues, everyone. Still the great people that you were when I left a year ago. Tonight though, I wanna focus on the town manager. It's easy to forget how good he is at his job and how skilled he is at putting this $180 million business running. There are dozens of projects and initiatives running at all times. He knows every controversial issue, every difficult call makes it to his desk somewhere along the way. He's got more than a dozen department heads. He has bargaining units. He has committees. He has citizens. Not least in his list of challenges is the five of us. On February 8th, which was before I got on, back on the board, there was a vote of this board unanimously in support of his leadership. I'm really grateful and gratified that we all agree on this. And that unanimous vote is really important. The way the law works, all it really takes to retain the manager as a majority vote, but as a practical matter, it's possible for a single member to undercut or undermine a majority decision. It's possible for a dissenter to make the manager's job harder or just plain unpleasant. But with the unanimous board, we can work together as a team to guide and support the manager. And so I leave the board again knowing that the town is in good hands. Thank you all for putting me back on. I've enjoyed the last few weeks and I'm gonna enjoy the next few weeks too. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Dunn, for your willingness to serve. I think as was mentioned, we might have understood the amount of time that you're gonna have to spend here, but that's okay. I know you love serving, so I'm happy to have you here. I just wanna thank the whole board for helping me this year. It's been a difficult year to take my first role as chair, but with members that support me, it really makes it that much easier. I wanna thank the town manager for all his help. Had a lot of conversations, a number of them after hours on weekends, just because we had time critical issues is always available. And I wanna thank Attorney Heim. I've had many, many, many conversations with Attorney Heim. And a lot of them have also been after hours on weekends and he's really been a great help in helping me navigate the agendas and get through this first year under odd circumstances. I wanna thank Marie, Ashley, Lauren, and Frank, who has recently departed us in the slipboards office for all the work that they do, which is incredible the amount of back-end work that they do to put our meetings together and really keep the town running from that aspect in our office. So they do a ton of work and certainly I do appreciate it sometimes. So I wanna thank them for everything that they did. And just saying, I love serving on this board. I enjoy serving on the board. I hope to continue to serve on the board in the event that I do not, I know that the board will continue in five sets of capable hands, but it really has been a privilege in order to serve on the board and I hope to see you next Monday. With that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Seconded by? Second. Second. The diggings. So Attorney Heim, we have a motion to adjourn. Mr. Seconding. Mr. Malan. Yeah, thank you. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Mr. Barry. Up. And see if we're gonna put it in. We're adjourned. See you next vote. Thank you. Bye. Take care guys. Good night everybody. Bye.