 Okay, please rise accompanying us tonight in the Star Spangled Banner is Jane Howard Howard Thank you very much Mrs. Howard welcome to the 2016 special town meeting we have a short warrant tonight about eight articles we're going to ask that we keep all our any announcements or resolutions or anything else that's going to be announced today strictly confined to those eight articles with the exception of one thing Mr. Greeley has. I would like to take a moment to recognize Roland Chappett passed away this past weekend. Roland was a long time member is 44 years of town meeting member he was a member of the redevelopment board the conservation committee the Friends of Robbins Farm, the Dallin Museum, the Taurus Council, he was on a lot of committees over the years so I just want to take a moment of silence for Roli. Thank you. One other announcement, Elsie Fiori took a fall the other day she broke her arm in her nose so she's just out of rehab so if you want to send her a note to the thinking about her she's at 58 Mott Street in Arlington you can find that on the the website she's are now our longest-serving town meeting member. Are there any town meeting members who have yet to be sworn in? Hey we know who they are if they don't because it clickers. If not I recognize the chairman of the board of select Mr. Greeley. Thank you Mr. moderator it is requested that members of the board of selectmen elected officials of the town town manager department heads of the town and staff superintendent of schools and staff committees commissions and boards of the town miniman regional vocational technical school district committee and superintendent members of the general court representing Arlington and also any consultants who have been retained to work for the town relative to articles articles to be acted upon by this meeting representatives of interested parties of article one and representatives of the news media be permitted to sit within the special town meeting enclosure. Second all in favor please say yes opposed hearing none. Madam clerk do you have reason to believe that this meeting was appropriately called by the board of selectmen and that the constable made a return of service on the warrant according to the bylaws she signifies yes she does. Mr. Greeley thank you Mr. moderator it is moved that in the unfortunate circumstance I'm sorry that's not there sir it is moved that if all the business of the meeting is set forth in the warrant for the special town meeting is not disposed of at this session when the meeting adjourns at adjourns to Wednesday January 27th at 8 p.m. All in favor please say yes opposed it's voting I so to clear it a couple of things put your cell phones on vibrate please and we're going to be using our clickers tonight I know there's a few folks haven't checked in but we have a test question Michael ready test question is going to be are we going to get more snow this year than we got last year we have a new toy a voting light so when Michael gives us the cue it's ready to vote when he figures it out over there it's going to go green while the lights green you can vote so go ahead and vote one is yes two is no and three is the you abstain so one is yes two is no and three is abstain remember it's the last time you click so don't put your clicker down because you may revote without knowing it until the lights going out yes Michael you're going to restart it okay this is why we have a test question work out our bugs yeah I'm a heck of a lot closer okay yeah and go ahead and vote oh look yes a little counter for us as well one yes two no three abstain all right so the time's up but the machine still counting and we got a green light still Michael oh oh it's still counting I guess that's the poll the room a few times and make sure it got all our votes ready so no no's win we're not going to get any more snow and do to do the thing make sure your vote came up right please hey Eric you forgot to vote okay quarms 62 six 62 people's a quorum mr. Greeley do you have an ultimate yes thank you mr. moderator since our last town meeting we have four new members of your executive team I'd like to introduce to you a position we have not had in Arlington before we have our new facilities director please welcome if you would Ruth Bennett we lost Andrew Flanagan our deputy town manager to become the town manager in and over he's been replaced by our new deputy town manager most recently from Amherst please welcome mr. Sandy Poehler we lost our director of planning and community development to Lexington please welcome our new director of planning and community development Jennifer rate and we lost our comptroller to golf most recently coming to us from Everett please welcome our new comptroller mr. Richard Beske welcome you all to the town of Arlington usually new people get a pass on the town meeting this is it so be ready in May or April any other announcements or resolutions seeing none article 1 reports of commit committees mr. moderator I move we receive the report of the Board of Selectment seconded all in favor it's so received thank you very much really go ahead I move that the report of the finance committee be received so received mr. moderator Charles Foskett precinct eight I move that the report of the capital planning committee be received all which favor it is so received mr. Cole John Cole chair of the permanent town building committee moved to have our report accepted received all in favor report of the permanent town building committee is so received any other reports of committees seeing none the tossing following my agenda here mr. Tosti I move that the recommended votes contained in the respective reports of the finance committee and Board of Selectment be before the meeting without further motion all in favor opposed they are before the motion without meeting without additional motions I move that article 1 be laid upon the table all in favor playing article 1 upon the table please say aye yes I'm sorry all opposed article 1 is upon the table that brings us to article 2 we have a force a recommended vote of the finance committee mr. Tosti we're going to speak to that no okay mr. Schlickman yes mr. Foskett oh I'm sorry yes thank you very much so because article 2 and 3 are very similar we're gonna have all discussions for article 2 and 3 now and that we're then gonna have separate votes as in our booklets for article 2 and 3 so just as a matter of convenience for everybody and not to have duplicate discussions and questions so article 2 and 3 are technically before us thank you mr. Foskett appreciate that mr. Schlickman good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Paul Schlickman I'm a town meeting member from precinct 9 I am chair of your school committee I was in this hall in 2000 1997 in fact I was the minute man school committee member from Arlington at that point when this whole start story started we had a debt exclusion to renovate seven elementary schools for the purpose of providing equity across town and quality facilities we had schools held together with duct tape the vote we lost it we thought we lost by 13 votes we had a recount a recount with the hanging chads of 1997 and we ended up losing by 34 votes pressured by the state because the deadline for getting local funding was two weeks away and the shovels needed to go into the ground and we would have lost it all if we failed 1998 we put three schools up Hardy Bishop bracket 80,000 and four votes yes 5539 no a 59.1% win we followed up with the other four schools in 2000 71 92 yes 2793 no a 72% win for that debt exclusion this proved to you when we split it up and said okay maybe it's not your turn now but we need you to vote for the schools across town people said yes and the people in the Stratton community consistently said yes for all the other schools and they were hosts for the children who were moved out of the other schools they've been a great number neighbor they deserve the equity and quality that the other six schools have had and that's what we're doing here tonight finishing a process we started 19 years ago and to talk to you more about the exact details of the equity and quality we're going to see as a result of your affirmative vote tonight is our superintendent Dr. Kathleen Bode Dr. Bode Kathleen Bode superintendent good evening everyone I'm here this evening to ask for your approval for funding for the Stratton renovation project and for the modular classrooms needed to house the Stratton students during the 2016-17 school year the completion of this project will fulfill the promise made to the community over 19 years ago to rebuild or renovate all seven of Arlington's elementary schools while some renovation work was completed at Stratton in 2011 the work was limited to the classroom wing windows were replaced the roof and new roof installed the HVAC and electrical systems were updated in that part of the building only work on the remaining part of the building was deferred until more comprehensive plan was developed in December 2017 we formed the Stratton building committee composed of myself the deputy town manager CFO Stratton principal and representatives from the school committee teachers parents as well as a representative from the finance committee the capital planning committee and the permanent town building committees the charge was to investigate what renovations would be needed at Stratton so that its facilities had parity with the other elementary schools that during that process the challenge was to define what is parity and then to be able to provide to the capital planning committee a report on that plan the following August 2014 so I said the challenge was defining what parity meant parents teachers and staff for survey meetings were held the committee took field trips to other schools data on rooms and comparison of facilities both in square footage and types of room were compared we also reviewed the inside onsite report through this process the committee was able to identify the key renovations and upgrades that were needed in order for Stratton to have facility parity with the other schools the infrastructure that was not upgraded in 2011 needed upgrading as well as there was a general improvement to the cosmetic appearance of most parts of the school the kitchen needed to be remodeled so students were not being served lunch in the hall the library needed expansion because it was about half the size it should be for the number of students in the school and the nurses office was deemed too small needed to be expanded the school also needed a conference room which it did not have the building committee hired with the support of the town town manager and the capital planning committee the architectural firm DRA to help develop plans and cost estimates a plan was submitted to the capital planning committee that presented four scenarios with cost estimates for the scope of work needed to achieve parity the scope of the work was planned out in timelines over 10 years five years three years and 14 months the longer the timeline to complete the project the greater the cost the capital planning committee chose the shortest time frame this option was desirable not only because it minimized costs but it concentrated disruption in a shorter window of time and probably most importantly was giving Stratton community the renovated school had waited a long time for this scenario requires that we lease temporary modular classrooms for next school year so we do not have the because we do not have the room capacity in our other schools to accommodate all the Stratton students unlike how we were able to during that the Thompson construction on the screen soon on the screen you you will be looking at the floor plan for the central part of Stratton that will be renovated the key changes of the library will no longer be located in this part of the building in order to be able to expand the kitchen and serving area as well as the nurses suite and also a space to provide a conference room the teachers workroom and cafeteria will still remain in this section this part of the building also contains the kindergarten rooms so in addition to the infrastructure work there they will be adding they will be adding bathrooms to that part of the building just 30 seconds okay I'll grant you the time because this is important thank you and what you see here is the floor plan for the new library and a rendition of what it will look like for those of you that know the Stratton building you'll know that this was it was the old gym that was at the far end of the classroom wing I'll be happy to answer any questions but but in advance I want to thank you for your support of this very important project thank you very much mr. Cole I'm going to grab a pointer over here John Cole chair of the permanent town building committee I gotta work from this side of the room I think I'm here for color tariff is a lot of my comments have already been made we shall begin first I'd like to recognize a few members of the building committee who are in the hall this evening mr. Reedy mr. Marr mr. Chaffling Ruthie Bennett and Bill Hainer did I miss anybody we are also joined by Scott wooden principal architect from DRA who's in charge of the building program at Stratton it will be available for any questions later in the evening we are at the Stratton school the oh excuse me is there a microphone I can walk with no go around to the other side of the podium there you go quite as attractive that's okay they're looking at the screen not you okay how do I get this thing to go there we go whoa whoa whoa all right we're gonna get there yet so there we are at the Stratton school on the right-hand side this is the wing that was renovated in 2009 2011 I remind you that about a third of the cost of that was reimbursed by the state under the green schools building program which was set up to recharge the economy after the financial collapse in 2008 this is the proposed floor plan of the renovation which you saw from superintendent Bodie now I'm giving you the color version of it the main feature on this floor the the plan is too big to fit on one page so that cut line is actually where the two halves connect here are the renovated kindergarten rooms cafeteria gymnasium the reconfigured food service area admin classroom block music and art lower level as dr. voting mentioned as additional classrooms for the upper grades and the crown jewel of the project is the new media center in the repurposed gymnasium that's the plan it's fairly simple what is complicated are the logistics number one as mentioned we have no place to house the Stratton students during the construction period because the other district schools are near at capacity so we are proposing to lease modular units here which will be plugged into the west end of the building and during the construction period we are proposing to use the gymnasium here and the cafeteria as it adjunct to the basic classroom modules these are what the modular units look like they are designed they will be designed and fabricated to the school department specifications and then leased for by the town through the 2016-17 school year the schedule is where things get a little tricky what we basically have to do here is align the town's funding cycle with the optimal construction sequence to get everything done within a compressed time frame of 14 months that's basically why we have asked you to spend the night with us in a cold January to advance the funding so this project can start a little bit earlier let me explain whoops the back one we are here tonight town meeting we need to have fabrication of the modular units starting very soon so they can be on site in early May that will allow them to become a warehouse over the summer to receive educational materials and reuse furniture from the existing school at the same time we are completing the development of the architectural plans for the renovation of the existing building that will be bid next month we'll have real numbers in March that way we can start the construction process June 23rd the day after school is out over the summer period we need to complete the renovation of the cafeteria and the gymnasium so they can be part of the school for the next year the budget is a little bit dark here but I can go over it with you I believe you have a copy in your handout for the modular units we have bids in hand we are ready to sign a contract this week pending approval the contract amount is a little over three million we need about a million hundred thousand contingency for site work for a total of three point one million dollars on the general construction for the renovation of the school we do not have hard bids in hand at this moment because of the compressed time frame the architect had to work in what we have are ninety percent construction drawings which have been estimated by both the architect and a third-party estimator hired by the building committee they have come up with a number of nine point five million as the cost of the renovation of the stratum school on top of that we have soft costs should be items purchased directly by the town the furniture the technology and professional fees and then owner contingency one point two million that is basically our safeguard in the event unlikely I hope that the construction bids come in above our projection we will be able to execute a contract and keep this project on schedule rather than having to come back to the town meeting in the spring which would push the construction out four to six months I would like to thank school committee school committee school department the architect finance committee capital planning for their creativity and flexibility in developing this plan for your review tonight thank you thank you very much mr. Cole Mr. Foskett ladies and gentlemen my name is Charlie Foskett precinct eight mr. moderator sorry Charlie Foskett precinct eight and the chairman of the capital planning committee and we'll try to use this discuss some of these issues so the first first point I just wanted to outline the things that we'll talk about some of which you've heard from some of the speakers earlier the April 1st 2000 debt exclusion the the total project that we undertook what's been accomplished to date funds available and the vote this is just a summary of what was explained to you by chairman slickman a little bit a few moments ago where the 2000 debt exclusion for the four schools Pierce Dow and Stratton and Thompson won by a 72% to 28% majority so I think we can safely say that after all these years the voters did indeed support the renovation of the Stratton and they still do that's a little small to read but let me just say that one of the reasons why we're here 16 years later is that is that the original state funding for the school program from the school business school building administration board was frozen by governor Romney during a fiscal crisis in the early 2000s then the over budget and underwater SBA be was actually closed down and replaced by the MSBA the Massachusetts School Building Authority and that created about a five year hiatus in our overall program and when we finally got on to seeking support from the MSBA the MSBA declined to fund the Stratton so all of the burden of the Stratton really rests with our taxpayers this is a little schematic of the various the seven schools that were rebuilt over time and what they what they cost you can see graphically the bracket was in the nine million dollar range in in 1998 and that Thompson was just under 20 million in 2013 and we're looking at a cost of about just under 16 million for the Stratton in 2016 now one of the questions that taxpayers and voters might be concerned about is what's the actual exempt tax impact on the taxpayers for this program and on this chart which is also I believe in the capital planning committee's report this in your hands you can see using the DOR inflation rate the original estimated cost of the four schools the actual costs over time and then the construction costs the nominal dollars and the actual construction costs discounted back in $2,000 so on the lower right hand corner that 42 million 643 thousand dollars means that the total expenditure exceeded the 34 million dollars that was originally proposed by the school department but this is the question is what was actually the tax increase that the voters have faced over the years during this time if we look at this next slide which is also in your capital planning report you see the proposal for how we're going to fund the 15 million 793 set 15 million 793 thousand dollars and it comes from a combination of non-exempt capital budgeting which is inside the limits of proposition two and a half some savings from other capital projects which would call a capital carry forward for total non-exempt contribution of nine million forty six thousand two hundred six dollars that leaves an exempt debt requirement of six million seven hundred forty six thousand seven ninety four dollars which can be further reduced by a planned asset sale by the an asset sale plan by the town which reduce it by another million dollars so what's the impact on the actual exempt tax that the taxpayers are looking at compared to what they were told back in 2000 and that's in this chart which is also in your capital planning report and basically on the screen behind me the red line is the is the assuming the original reimbursements of 63% in the first two schools and 50% of the second two schools the total expenditures discounted back to two thousand dollars are shown by the red line the blue dotted line shows what the actual expenditures including the 15 million 973 for Thompson for Stratton are the reason why these two come out so close is because first of all the town is using non-exempt capital planning dollars to fund some of these school projects especially the Thompson and the Stratton and secondly in the case of the Thompson and in the case of the Stratton the town is made the decision to dispose of some assets to help contribute towards the payment for these funds so we've used non-exempt borrowing in ass in the sales of assets to constrain the tax impact in the voters so the planned impact from from 16 years ago is very close to the actual impact in fact the actual impact is under the planned impact impact of 2006 2016 years ago so I think from the viewpoint of meeting the objectives from the academic program to renovate all seven schools and to meet the financial objectives set before the taxpayers the commitment to the taxpayers was met so we respectfully ask that that you you support articles two and three which will complete the renovation of the Stratton school and will actually complete the renovation of the seven school program that was started in 1998 as Paul Schlickman reported to you so we we ask you to support the recommendation of the finance committee on articles two and three thank you thank you very much mr. Foskett mr. Court Annie LeCourt precinct 15 I would like to have a resident of the town the president of the Stratton PTO Jane Morgan speak to the meeting for a few minutes at the town residents she has a right to speak and address the meeting is more she should come forward she's coming name and address for the record ma'am my name is Jane Morgan I live at 172 Brattle Street in Arlington 15 I'm a precinct 15 resident I'm a mom of four kids I have a third grader at Stratton I have two first graders at Stratton and I have a two-year-old so we are gonna be at Stratton for like another decade which is great it's really good and we really want to be there and I'm here to speak very briefly in support of both articles two and three for article two on behalf of the parents at Stratton we appreciate the town and the school department have found an appropriate solution to the challenging problem of where to house the Stratton community during our renovation using modulars on site at Stratton keeps our school community together at a time when no other elementary school was in a position to accommodate us as a host school for all the other elementary school rebuilds we recognize that next year will require some patience and adjustment but we look forward very much to watching our school rebuild happen in real time in terms of article three as an elementary community we are appreciative of the town's continued commitment to rebuild all of Arlington's elementary schools and we're grateful that it's our turn we feel as though the school department has been especially open to working with Stratton parents during the feasibility and design phases of this project and their spirit of openness and collaboration really make our families real stakeholders in the process and also the final outcome I've seen some of the sketches and mock-ups and some of the ideas that we're looking at I know that my kids are gonna feel as though they're walking into a very new very functional and very updated space so I'm really looking forward to that in September 2017 so we would like to thank members of the school department the school committee the permanent down building committee the capital planning committee the finance committee the town manager's office for their dedication and commitment to the Stratton project and we hope that you will vote in favor of articles two and three tonight thank you thank you Mr. Morgan for myself I would just like to say that I'm very much looking forward to finally having a construction project in my front yard thank you very much Mr. Harrington Stephen 20 years to get this to done I'm glad that Mr. Cole spoke he gave the reason why we have to do it now the compressed cycle but you know still feels like we're being rushed to do something and so I'm not opposed to this but I'd like to ask some questions Mr. Moderator if I may when I look at the capital planning committee report and of voted language radical three specifically it says that there's 499,268 dollars coming from the phase three community safety building renovation project does that mean that that project is completed Mr. Moderator Mr. Cole we the one can answer the question John Cole permanent town building committee the final phase of the community safety building is nearing completion we expect it to be done in August or September project is going along very well contrary to prior phases which were total nightmares and we have voted as a committee to release $500,000 back to the town for use on other capital projects so the project start or will be in September will be done in August okay thank you the second question I had we saw Mr. Fosk it show us you know sort of the the if you look at your capital planning report in page three you'll see that you know there's 42 million dollars been spent in actual construction costs in $2,000 versus 34 million for project value you know that all depends on what rate of inflation you use and I'll draw your attention to like 2004 through 2008 where the rate of inflation was five six percent and you know there's a footnote that says how it's supposed to be calculated and it's the CPI you for Boston Brock in Nashua and those aren't the numbers it when you use the numbers from the CPI you it comes out to 46 million dollars so the difference from 34 that the voters approved and the actual expenses today of 46 million isn't quite as compelling that somehow the voters agreed to overspend it by you know more than 35 percent finally I'd like to make one more point in the non-exempt monies that were transferred over in Mr. Fosk it's presentation he had a million dollars for a sale of a building that building is a former DAV up on Mass Ave up near the some tire place up there and that building's assessed for 300,000 a little more than $300,000 and so it's quite generous to say all there's a million dollars that were taken off from the sale of a building so that we somehow fit in under the cap that the voters approved back in the year 2000 the 34 million in fact it's nowhere near a million dollars it's more like 340 thousand it's a dump so I'm sure that that million is overly optimistic so given the rate of inflation change in the over optimistic it looks to me like we're actually not doing what the voters approved in 2000 so be that as it may I'll still vote to support this thank you thank you very much mr. Jamison thank you mr. moderator Gordon Jamison precinct 12 I might have missed this but I have one very quick question what is the current capacity of the Stratton and does this capacity stay the same or does it increase given our pressure in that regard after the rebuilt dr. Bode still no one mentioned the capacity dr. Bode is getting your answer superintendent we have about 400 412 students when Stratton is completed we have three classrooms that could be repurposed and the same thing will be true after the renovation with the projection that we have from December from dr. McKibben's numbers Stratton is only going to change slightly in enrollment maybe in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 students perhaps tops but in the new configuration there's some swing space as required the rooms that could be converted you mentioned that would be so be three classroom they will be used but they could be converted to additional classroom space yes okay and they be used for art or music now or just we will have an art and music room the goal in all of our schools is to keep a dedicated art music room okay I just I just didn't understand what the what the what the stated capacity of the building is versus now versus the future versus the current number of students capacity is a it's it's it's sort of a tough way to look at the building because sometimes you can have classes that are very small numbers we have a we have three supported learning centers up there was with smaller class size numbers than you might have in a general ed classroom gentlemen over here stood up the gentleman over here is the principle of Stratton school we should you have additional information that'll help mr. Jay perhaps you will be able to lighten us further thank you all right mr. Hannah thank you thank you mr. moderator Michael Hannah on principle stratton school right now those classrooms or could be classrooms are being used for other programming right now one of them is being used for teaching non-native English speaking students it's an entire classroom we probably wouldn't need an entire classroom for that so that's why it's a swing space another in is an administrative suite for special education which again can be contracted into some other environment and then finally the third one is a classroom but as dr. Bodie mentioned it's currently servicing a special education population which again if pressed we could contract into another special education so as the principal you feel comfortable that after the rebuild given the projections you'll be in a good shape as far as space very thank you yeah thank you mr. Paluso Ted Paluso from precinct six I like to keep things simple when you have a school committee a finance committee a capital planning committee a town building committee a paid architect I assume that's what our fellow was right and you have people who say this is what we need right now we can spend a lot of time because I guess everybody in this room has an engineering degree and I'm sure everybody in this room are architects as well and I do understand that it is our job to look at the cost of everything and the whole bit but it does come down to something simple let's do it right that's all either yes or no but do it right thank you mr. Paluso mr. McCabe mark microcave precinct two I stand to terminate all debate on articles to and three and all matters before it we have a motion to terminate debate on articles two and three we're gonna take a vote on that article soon as Michael's ready it's two third vote one yes to no okay you just vote ready vote one yes to no this is to terminate debate on articles two and three it was 196 we have a motion to terminate debate it is in the affirmative 176 to 20 but debate is terminate on article two and three so we have before so recommended votes of the finance committee first going to do article two some of 31 million dollars this does require bonding so we're going to use our clickers it's a two-third vote so 3.1 yeah it is 3.1 million it's good thing these things don't have to be read out as soon as you're ready Michael and go ahead and vote one yes to put the money to know you don't want to do it one for yes to for no okay times up is an affirmative vote 194 in the positive four in the negative that's a pretty overwhelming vote folks thank you very much okay we have before us we have a recommended vote of the finance committee and this again is for borrowing I'm not going to read the numbers out because there's a lot of them soon as we're ready again it's a two-third vote we'll use our clickers and go ahead and vote one for yes two for no okay time's up 199 to the affirmative zero is he you know me it's a unanimous vote and I so to clear it thank you very much a town appreciates it now that brings us close to article 2 and 3 brings us to article 4 we have before us a recommended vote of the finance committee mr. Tosti mr. moderator respectfully request to the town meeting for 10 minutes for myself and for the town manager in other words total mr. Tosti has requested 10 minutes all in favor please say yes opposed you have your 10 minutes mr. Tosti okay actually I'm going to take one minute and the manager will take the rest town manager will follow me as chairman of the aroma task force to explain what the group has done to date and the topics going forward I will explain why the vote is worded the way it is before the vote before the bids came in on the stratum modulars we had planned to use funds remaining from the police station project to be transferred to the capital budget for this purpose for the Thompson modulars but when the bids came in so far over the estimates all the remaining monies in the capital budget had to be used for the stratum school I mean we we had to fund it we had to keep going and so we basically stripped out all the all the remaining accounts so there was no money left in the capital budget since the tax rate has been set the decision was made or the record to make a recommendation to utilize the town's reserve fund which had been built up a little bit higher each year over the years to an amount that could take care of this to get the project going but since the article was already before the town meeting in the warrant the finance committee felt it was inappropriate to not ask the town meeting for their opinion so that is the purpose of this vote so resolution for you to see if you will support this if you vote no the finance committee will not vote to transfer the money for the modulus for the Thompson if you vote yes we will proceed to get this project moving as soon as possible I'd like to ask the town manager to give the background in the enrollment task force and what's happened today thank you Adam chapter lane town manager excuse my voice I'll do my best to not use all eight minutes so building on what chairman Tosti just spoke about going back into the fall or actually back into the summer after looking at there being several years of enrollment growth within the school district the school department decided that it was very appropriate to perform a demographic study to analyze the growth and provide a future-looking forecast in terms of the enrollment and what it would look like over the course of the next decade so that forecast was produced by dr. McKibbin and some of you may have came to the public meeting that school committee held where that forecast was discussed in detail and initially that forecast predicted the growth of approximately a thousand students over the next ten years in the Arlington school district since the original release when we got actual numbers on October 1 of this past fall that number has been modified by dr. McKibbin and reduced to approximately seven hundred students to grow over the next ten years so this forecast prompted the superintendent and I after consultation with both the board of selectmen and the school committee to call together a task force that we named the school enrollment task force to study and address the capacity issues that this forecasted growth would cause in terms of space in our actual school buildings this task force was made up of myself the superintendent three members of the school committee two members of the board of selectmen the chairman of the finance committee chairman of the capital planning committee and the chairman of the permanent town building committee we met a number of times over the course of late 2015 and we've met once in 2016 and thus far there's been a few key agreements that led to this recommendation or resolution here tonight that agreement that was unanimously decided by the task force was to go forward and identify the need for two modular classrooms at the Thompson school next year to address capacity issues and also there was a more conceptual agreement about the need to address specific excuse me space issues at the oddison middle school based on forecasts a few other areas that we're going to continue to look at beginning at our next meeting scheduled currently for February 23rd we'll be looking at potential classroom and shared space expansion permanent expansion at the Thompson school and also the need to process and decide on what the proper course of action is at the oddison middle school whether it be on site or at another site in town so we have a lot of work to do over the course of the rest of this winter and spring leading up to town meeting and what the hope is that we'll have at the very least a report but most likely recommendations for this town meeting to consider at the spring for further addressing of these space needs that are enrollment growth is causing and happy to answer any questions thank you thank you Steven Harrington Steven Harrington precinct 13 I have two amendments to this article I'm don't oppose modules at the Thompson but this is a horrible funding argument you can see that it's rushed and it's not a good idea I'm going to try to convince you that it's not a good idea so my first amendment if I could have it up on the screen is I just want to change three words from the town's reserve fund to the town's capital budget and why does it matter we're building with spending capital expense we're spending money that's a capital expense the reserve fund is for operating expenses it's so that we don't have to have another override for a number of years if we're going to spend the money out of the reserve fund it puts Hamilton in a less physically secure position and what that means is that you may get those new classrooms but you're going to have services cut in about a year or two you're going to hear all this talk about how we can't afford teachers because we need another override this is a bad idea to take the money out of the town's reserves it's a much better idea to take it out of the capital budget now people are going to say oh but you know we're going to get the money from in the capital budget the capital budget's not on here it's not up if this was a spring discussion it could be very clear where it's coming out of the capital budget we could have gone through the whole discussion of it but because it's being jammed in at the last minute and by the way there's no dollar value associated with this appropriation so you're in a position to offer no dollar value you're voting on something that you're just giving a blank check out of the operating account cash to do something that belongs in the capital expense in the capital budget and so my second amendment I ask you to put that up shows that where we can get it from we can easily get this from using community preservation act money in a very good way and the way that you do I see Clarissa and the people who pushed for the CPA who told us that the CPA was going to be used on capital expenses so that we could have a better budget well hold them to their promise we can use the CPA money to fund the next two playground rebuilds that are scheduled for 2017 and 2018 of about a half a million dollars each we can use that CPA money for that no one society yet where the CPA money is going to go we can then buy those modulars rent them through the capital budget no extra cost keeps Ellington on a good financial footing this article does not put us on a good financial footing and it really comes down to you know a question of value is for Miss Roe and the people who supported the CPA whether you really want to support education in the town or spend it on things like a swamp in East Ellington and that's really for you people up there too you're all East Ellington residents whether you want to educate your kids or dump it into a hole in the ground really is your choice but by passing it as it stands you're going to put Ellington in a bad position and there's already rumors of an override when the talk starts to happen believe me services are going to be cut they'll be cut in the schools and you might have modular classrooms but you won't have the teachers to fill them so I urge you to vote yes on amendment that will change it to the capital budget and yes to use the CPA funds to keep Ellington on a good financial footing thank you okay we have two amendments on the table his first one is town reserve fund do I have a second on that and seconded he has a second amendment on the use of the CPA money do we have a second on that okay they've both been seconded they are before us Mr. Carmen member of the finance committee I yield all of my time to Mariah Tyrell resident of Ellington who's entitled to address the meeting by right yes she is name and precinct address for the record please my name is Mariah Tyrell live at precinct seven at 87 Harlow street I currently have three children at the Thompson elementary school a fifth grader a third grader a kindergarten in the kindergartner as well as a three-year-old that will enter in the fall of 2018 yes I am one of the main reasons the town of Ellington is facing these enrollment challenges I stand before you tonight in support of the finance committee's recommendation to add two temporary classrooms at Thompson for next year because they are desperately needed I am hoping that the slides I am about to show you will demonstrate the urgency of this need at the same time I stand in disagreement with the school enrollment task force's decision to not recommend additional measures at this time specifically the appropriation of money for architectural plans in designs for a permanent addition the enrollment challenges at Thompson and in East Ellington in particular are just beginning we have a long road ahead of us the children on this slide are my own William Caroline Lucy and Peter since they are situated within the time frame of the school's projected growth I thought I would use them tonight to show you how the enrollment challenges are affecting them and all of their fellow classmates next slide please this is my oldest son William and his friend Dylan who are in fifth grade this year they attended kindergarten at the old Thompson school building spent two years at the Stratton school during the rebuild and came back to the brand new school for third grade their class sizes have been creeping up every year since coming back to the new school and now William is in a class of 30 and Dylan 29 these boys have more students in their classes than any other elementary class across the district and this was because there was not another classroom available for a third section that is a third class for the fifth graders the Thompson school with 19 classrooms is over its capacity by one and thus on a daily basis these fifth graders have less face time with their teacher than any other elementary school student next slide please most of you here in the room tonight have probably heard about what is referred to as the McKibbin report which projects the enrollment growth in all of our schools for the next 10 years here is a graph that shows the growth at the Thompson school based on McKibbin's projections the blue arched line demonstrates how our enrollment will grow over the next 10 years the orange straight line on the bottom demonstrates what the school was built for 380 students as you can see the Thompson school is just beginning its climb the red star on the chart shows that our current enrollment is 435 students this star is actually above McKibbin's newest projections which were just released in December thus indicating that his projections for our growth may actually be too low it's also important to note that since school started in September our enrollment has grown by 10 students while it looks like the graph starts to drop off after the 10 year period in fact the projection state that 480 students is where the school will level out this is 100 students higher than the building's capacity next slide please this next picture is my daughter Caroline she is currently in third grade next year when the two fifth grades leave Thompson and the projected number of four kindergarten classes come in the school will be two classrooms too small if portable classrooms are not approved for the Thompson school tonight Caroline's class could be chosen as the class to be blended which means her four current sections could become three and her class would likely have 27 or more kids in it if portable classes are not approved tonight it also means that the art room will be turned into a classroom if the art room is taken away the art teachers will visit each room with their supplies on a cart and the Thompson school will be the only school in the district without a dedicated art room it will be very hard for the students to be able to complete the level in kinds of projects they currently do such as Caroline's painting in this photo it would be a huge detriment to all of the students in the school to lose such a valuable enriching space as I stated at the beginning I fully support the recommendation by the finance committee to fund two modular classrooms for next fall as I do not want to see Caroline and her fellow students at the Thompson school miss out on valuable educational milestones that will be lost in overcrowded classrooms next slide please but I also have two other children that you see here in this slide Lucy is currently in kindergarten at the Thompson school and if a plan for permanent construction is not in place and executed for the fall of 2018 she is projected to experience class sizes of 27 or more students by the time she is in second grade next slide please by the time Lucy is in second grade there are projected to be 482 students in the school that was built for 380 and class sizes for every grade will be large by the time Peter is in third grade the enrollment will have reached its peak of 500 students with smaller class sizes teachers can get to know their students better and thus ensure that each student receives appropriate instruction based on their styles and needs this is especially true for students from low income families and for English language learners the Thompson school and the Hardy school both have the highest number of students in both of these categories in any other school in the district that is why it is especially critical that our school has the space that it needs so please vote yes tonight on this article to provide a one-year band-aid at the Thompson but know that this will not solve the problem long term in that additional steps will soon need to be taken William Caroline Lucy Peter and all of their classmates and future classmates thank you thank you very much Mr. L Mr. Liggett Stephen Liggett oh he had his hand up don't know where he went uh Mr. Leonard oh wait he's getting up he heard me wait John the first guy got up you know you're up this thank you mr. moderator uh Steve Liggett precinct nine excellent good evening i am the proud parent of two children in the Arlington public schools a third grader at Thompson and a sixth grader at oddison i stand before you tonight in support of article four which will provide critically needed classroom space at the Thompson elementary next year i stand here to applaud the decision by the school enrollment task force to recommend adding two modular classrooms for next year so that we will be able to keep our art room instead of turning it into another classroom i stand here to thank the finance and capital planning committees for their efforts to secure the funding to actually pay for those modular classrooms so that we anticipate having only one grade with class sizes of 26 or above it would be far worse if we didn't have the modulars i stand here to express my gratitude for the support shown by the school committee the facility subcommittee and Dr. Bodie as they explored alternatives and proposed solutions i also stand here to say that two modulars at Thompson is not enough next slide please as you can see from the slide behind me um which is not that sheet my thing is good there we go the chart behind me is showing the revised enrollment projections commissioned by the town last month the McKibben report for only Thompson since that report as mariah mentioned is actually too low i updated the numbers to use the current enrollment of 435 students instead of the projected enrollment of 425 the numbers on the chart show how many students above or below the number the school was actually intended to have so the zero line represents the as built capacity above that which is where the line is very clearly is showing that we have more kids and additional uh crowding with the current of 430 435 students the red dashed line indicates that for this school year we have 54 more students in the school than it was built to hold next year Thompson enrollment is projected to increase significantly which will be addressed by article four which hopefully will pass however the increase continues beyond next year at which point we will need additional space so far i've only spoken about Thompson because that is the official scope of article four the reality is that this is a much larger problem than just Thompson next slide please here you can see that the enrollment at the other elementary schools which is the target of this slide uh is also above capacity in many schools the enrollment at bishop the yellow line is significantly above the capacity it was built for it isn't projected to increase at as dramatic a rate as the Thompson but they are already crowded and it will increase hardy the dotted red line will see increases similar to that of Thompson and face the same challenges trailing one to two years behind and that does not include the potential impact of the moog our property should that project move forward next slide please voting yes for article four which i strongly urge all of you to do is one simple step we can take tonight to reduce the overcrowding at Thompson for next year but the growth in the school enrollment is a townwide challenge and we clearly have a lot more work ahead of us to meet those challenges to that end i will be submitting this exact article for our spring town meeting so that this body will have an opportunity to continue this dialogue it is not clear today exactly what the best options are or the best combination of options are to address the enrollment challenges we face there are many opinions and not nearly enough facts at this point to decide which options are the best to address both the short term and the strategic needs of our community to determine which options best align with the values that we espouse for educating our children between now and april we need to figure out which of these options those that you see above or something else are the appropriate ones that we want to recommend to move forward in april this body will have an opportunity to approve the next steps final slide please this final slide includes the enrollment projections for the oddison middle school i think this is a case where a picture truly is worth a thousand words i look forward to working with many many of you in the coming weeks and i imagine i'll be standing before you once again in april thank you thank you mr league mr lennard we're not the english parliament mr lennard thank you mr moderated john lennard precinct 17 having a little bit of trouble with this particular article ladies and gentlemen of town meeting on the previous two votes article two the school was named and the price was named and article three the school was named and the price appropriation was named and article four which we're talking about right now the school was named but it's not named in what i would call the nuts and bolts of the article in the article itself is calling for at any of the town's school buildings well we have seven elementary schools a middle school a high school and as far as i can read this it basically means that if anything comes up at any of those schools in the future this is the sum of money that we're talking about that we can any particular time turn around say the bishop needs this the down needs this etc ladies and gentlemen you gave us the approval in article four so we're doing this by appropriating more and more money what i would have liked to have seen is that the removal i know it's an amendment it's the moderator and i actually had the amendment made up but i lost it to remove it at any of the town's school building and we were talking about in the voted section that it is the thompson school i would have liked to have seen the thompson school included in place of at any of the town's school building i'm not following i'm reading the town meeting supports transfer funds by the finance committee from the town reserve fund of a temporary classroom space for thompson school i'm talking about i have a copy here of the finance committee you're talking about the recommended vote though it says to see if the to see if the town will vote or some of money etc etc at any you're reading the warrant john you got to read the recommended vote remember you have the recommended vote in front of you the recommended vote i'm going to read it for you it's in your finance committee report town meeting supports a transfer of funds by the finance committee from the town's reserve funds of a sum of money to fund temporary classroom space for the thompson school and for costs costs incidentally related there too we get the warrant that warns everybody back weeks ago and we got the unfortunately we got it like friday or saturday the fincom report it has the recommended vote that we're voting on today you're reading the warrant all right well i admit that maybe where i'm confused is i don't see that the thompson is up there in the warrant where it is in the stratum on the previous two votes mr chaplain's gonna take a second and show you the recommended vote of the fincom may i mr moderator take just take a shot at explaining to john our rationale okay adam chaplain town manager so mr loner when we filed this warrant article we wanted to provide maximum flexibility for the school enrollment task force to consider what its recommendations would be before we came to the final recommendation to to place two modules at thompson there was a lot of discussion about where a solution might lie in terms of temporary solutions for space so we worded the article generally so that we would have maximum flexibility and then the vote itself is what contains the reference to the thompson school for the placement of the modulars interesting is that clarify it john it clarifies it a little bit mr moderator okay well again i support mr herrington's school amendments i think uh if nothing else we should have a number of figure on this article in some manner shape of form as we did on the previous two articles thank you thank you sir um mr carman yeah you had you end up at one point no okay john deist thought you did john deist precinct 13 and a member of the finance committee uh i'd like to sort of comment to you about how we live our lives we do that in two ways there's a long-term planning for example at the end of this meeting i plan to drive home and go to bed but i don't plan precisely how i'm going to go home i might go uh one or two streets or three street different paths to go home a car may approach me and i'll have to stop or i might get a red light that short-term planning is very uncertain the attendance in these schools is very uncertain now i'm not saying that any of these graphs are inappropriate but you have to realize that all around those graphs all kinds of uncertainty that's exactly what the reserve fund is for to fund situations of uncertainty the situation we have right now with these modules is a certain situation that occurred almost completely independently of the long-term planning of the capital planning committee the capital planning committee projects and very in and in a very orderly fashion recommends funding for us and then we vote the money to do the things that generally speaking that the planning the capital planning committee has recommended to us i can't think of a time in the past 20 years or so when we didn't pretty much vote the capital plan as it was put forward to us but it's a plan that's based on long-term projections and they cannot handle uncertainties that's exactly what the reserve fund is for to handle the uncertainties that arise as a result of something like what just happened at the thompson school thank you very much thank you sir mr harris mr moderator name and precinct i'm sorry ej harris precinct five um mr moderator i feel like i don't have a lot of facts about this article and i hate that feeling so with your indulgence i'd like to take a little bit of a fishing expedition um the first question i had um about the proposed amendment is can the cpa money be lawfully used in the way the amendment proposes we as town meeting cannot direct the cpa how to spend the money the cpa can use the money for parks and recreations so in principle it could be used in the way it suggests even though we have no control over whether it would be is that correct at their prerogative to our we get to eventually get a thumbs up or down vote on it is that correct yep all right but we can't amend whatever the committee proposes is that do i have that right uh mr heim we can only up or down all right well that's why we have town council can you yeah i'd love to hear from a lawyer so the community preservation committee will be the one basically vetting proposals for use of cpa funds if um the the town meeting essentially votes to approve or not approve those monies the company doesn't approve it doesn't vote to approve it the money stays in the cpa fund all right um can anybody ballpark how much money we're talking about a little bit mr chapterling kind of something adam chapterling town manager so we've began uh negotiations or discussions with the modular provider for the stratton school project and asked if they could consider amending their contract to provide two additional modular classrooms for next year for the tomsen school and the range we've looked at is somewhere between 200 and 250 000 for two classrooms all right um how much is in the reserve fund ish again mr foster or no excuse me mr toasty has any answer one million dollars uh there's an extra 200 000 that is set aside for uh special education in the school so for general purposes one million dollars so we're using a fifth of it ish hopefully um can and this is only for one year that was the other thing is there's no time scale in this article do we anticipate this being like one year rent what we are discussing right now is only for the next school year is that correct and like yeah go ahead adam enrollment task force plans to give us a longer term proposal in the spring having chapterling town manager uh so we the the quote i mentioned would be based on a one-year lease we are going to get some additional quotes in terms of whether or not we might purchase these for future needs lease them on a longer term basis and see whether or not it makes it more cost competitive but ultimately one of the considerations that the task force will be looking at is permanent construction at the Thompson and that would make these modules not needed at that facility and mr moderator it would it be the committees that you might want to say would it be the committee's hope i apologize would it be the committee's hope to be able to report more fully on those questions at the regular town meeting in the spring all right um i think that's quite enough fish for now the book of revelation warns us of wars and rumors of wars i feel the municipal version is overrides and rumors of overrides i definitely feel the level of trepidation that i feel when i read the book of revelation but i think i'm going to end up supporting this um mr foske you had your hand up thank you mr moderator charles foske precinct eight and i'm vice chairman of the finance committee as well as chairman of the capital planning committee and i'd like to address the two opposed amendments to this article first of all i'm i'm concerned that the uh proposer of the amendments is confused about um the use of the reserve fund versus the use of an override stabilization fund when he raised the question of long term overrides or what's going to happen to our operating budget that's really governed by the override stabilization fund into which we vote money in the town when there's an override and we use that to stabilize the budget right now i think it's been six years since the last override and probably go seven or eight years before we have to look at another override this is a long term funding mechanism on the other hand the reserve fund the 1.2 million dollars that mr toasty just mentioned is voted by you every year at town meeting it's in it's uh i forget i forget the but here it is it's uh budget number 26 and we voted last year 1.2 million dollars and this is used as mr dice said for emergencies for problems for things that are not anticipated so last year as i recall uh we used a certain large amount of the reserve fund believe it or not for snow now this year we have a problem with our schools and it's a problem that you know as yogi bearer said predicting the making predictions is hard especially when they're about the future and the and the the school population has been growing faster than people anticipated so we have to address it but this article that's being proposed is going to address it out of the finance committee's reserve fund and what and the finance committee has the authority to spend up to all of that 1.2 million dollars without the vote of town meeting but what mr toasty said is we don't want to spend that money unless you support this program that's what we're looking for now i'd like to address the the second proposed amendment which is use of the cpa funds now some of you might remember that i opposed the cpa act when it was being voted by the town however just like i pointed out to you earlier that the citizens of the town voted by a large majority to to rebuild those schools 16 years ago the citizens of the town voted for the cpa act and as town meeting members we have to respect that so last year uh that the last annual town meeting the capital planning committee on page five reported on the community preservation act and i'll read it to you the current capital plan has segregated most such eligible expenditures that is cpa eligible expenditures into a funding category of quote unquote cpa you may remember we have bond cash other now we have bond cash other and cpa if cpa fund uh well we we make this segregation so that the cpa committee at the time we wrote this it hadn't yet been formed the cpa committee could decide on their own as an independent organization whether or not to fund those particular projects and we said if cpa funding is unavailable the capital planning committee remains committed to considering such projects in the capital plan in the future now when we segregated those projects into the cpa category that left some money in the capital budget in the long-term capital plan and what did we do with it let me tell you what we did with it it's funding the stratum you voted for tonight with the uh in in articles two and three the non-exempt expenses that you voted for tonight were freed up by the cpa vote of last year and this will be reflected in the five-year capital plan that you will see at the annual town meeting so what i'm trying to tell you is that first of all the use of the reserve fund that mr toasty has proposed is perfectly legitimate rational and in fact should be done and secondly it's both unreasonable from a governance viewpoint for us to demand that the cpa committee spend money on recreation and secondly even if we demanded it the money in the capital budget has already been put into the stratum school thank you thank you sir all right it's nine thirty we're going to take a short seven minute break we come back mr austere will have the floor please come in and take your seat we're going to get going again please come in let's go mr trembling you can take your coat off and stay a few minutes yes sit down have a seat take your coat off make something wrong mr austere has the floor please come in to be quiet that's better i feel comfortable now adam austere adam you're up you had your hand up right did you have your hand up yeah you're up now how you are mr moderator adam austere precinct three and i move to end debate and vote immediately on everything before us on all matters before the moment on all matters before us under the article okay we have a motion to terminate debate on all matters under the article it's been seconded all right soon as um we're ready we're going to take a vote to terminate debate all in favor of terminating debate press one for yes no for you do not want to terminate debate one for yes two for no two third vote required debate is terminated 173 and affirmative 15 and a negative it's terminated that brings us to the actual votes so we're going to proceed as follows first we're going to vote on mr harrington's shorter amendment that reads change the words town reserve fund to capital budget so first we're going to have a yes or no vote to amend to include that is that clear yes okay so soon as you're ready go ahead and vote one yes to amend to no you do not want to amend it want to amend to no you don't it is a negative vote 163 and a negative 27 the amendment loses that ends that we have now the longer of the two amendments from mr harrington um directing us directing the cpa money to be used in a certain way soon as we're ready we'll vote one yes you want to amend and add that to the recommended vote two no you do not go ahead and vote one yes to no that amendment also loses 166 in the negative 26 in the affirmative so that does not prevail either so now we have before us the recommended vote of the finance committee as presented without amendment so we're going to vote for that one yes to no and go ahead and vote one yes to no that passes 182 in the affirmative 11 in the negative it's an affirmative vote and i so declare at that ends article four we have now before us article five collective bargaining mr toasty do us just speak to this very briefly um this is the collective bargaining agreement uh between the town and local 680 um with this settlement uh the uh all of the town unions will have been settled through July 1 2018 it's all the same percentages 2% and these taken from funds that you appropriated uh into a wage reserve last year uh on this so the finance committee uh unanimously recommends favorable action thank you thank you very much mr toasty um ma'am evening linda hanson precinct seven i'm also the president of the arlington education association i rise to say that yes i will be voting to ratify this collective bargaining agreement this evening but i'm also here um at the front of the room to talk to you to just raise the question about the direction the town is taking in terms of contracting out the custodial jobs that belong to this union that come under this contract and transferring formally union jobs to private contractors maybe you saw some sign holders out there this evening um some of the jobs have already been switched over and others are in the process ma'am so i guess it comes under this contract but you're really not in school okay so that's something you have to bring up with the school committee how they hire who they hire who they don't hire well i guess i just felt it was relevant because it does come under this contract we're just funding the contracts as past we don't just this time meeting we don't determine hiring and firing and staffing priorities that's up to the manager in the school committee all right well although now it comes under the town facilities the combined facilities director right and then under the town manager adam is that right okay yes so you have to bring up your questions to the selectment and the manager okay i'm sorry that's not within what our purview anyone else we should speak to the article hearing none we have the force to recommend the vote of the finance committee for the union local 680 funding contract already so one for yes you agree to no as soon as we're ready take a vote on that and go ahead and vote one yes two no if you're in favor one if you're not two no it's an affirmative vote it's unanimous vote 182 to 0 so declare it that terminates article five that brings us to article six we have a recommended vote on article six of no action probably built the selectment and the fincom all in favor of no action please say yes opposed let's recommend a vote of no action i so declare it's unanimous and that closes article six brings us to article seven minimum regional technical school amendment to the district agreement who's going to speak to this first mr done seven oh seven's a no action too i'm sorry seven is no action but okay moderator article seven no action all in favor no action please say yes opposed it doesn't recommend to vote in no action it's so i i so declare it that brings us to article eight i'm sorry everybody mr done has arisen under eight clock thank you mr moderator i'm dan done member of the board of selectment when you talk about minute man it's often hard to choose where to start there's more than 40 years of history and it all matters to some degree i'm choosing to start with may of 2010 minute man was seeking funds for a physical feasibility study for new school and arlington was loathed to provide them without a new regional agreement this town meeting approved article 58 which approved the funds so long as minute man agreed to create a regional agreement task force and it specified certain terms that needed to be considered minute man agreed and the task force moved forward in 2010 and 2011 progress is made but the result was not agreeable to all towns a second group was created built on the work of the first and met through 2012 and 2013 the result was a proposal from the minute man school committee that went to all 16 towns in the spring of 2014 10 towns voted yes including arlington and lexington one voted no wayland and five didn't vote including boxborough lincoln and belmont that was spring of 2014 in the spring of 2015 this past year there were efforts to get the remaining six towns on board they all failed weyland and boxborough in particular were not satisfied that they would have the ability to withdraw from the district which they really wanted the stalemate persisted until october 28th of this past year weston hosted a meeting of the members of 16 boards of selectman and the selectman for boxborough vince amoroso proposed a framework where his town could both approve the proposed regional agreement and be certain that the town would be permitted to leave that framework is a part of the agreement that we're voting on tonight there are seven towns who are considering leaving the district each of those seven towns is having a stay or go vote at their special town meeting and also voting to approve this regional agreement our approval of the regional agreement is our consent to let them leave on on march 1st the votes will be done my personal estimation that four towns are likely to leave and three of them are going to have very interesting town meetings that proposal broke the log jam and for the next 50 days there were a flurry of meetings phone calls emails negotiations between the selectman from 16 towns the result is the proposed regional agreement we are voting on tonight so that's enough about the history let's talk about this proposal i want to clearly state that this vote does not ask for any appropriation further the vote tonight makes no commitment to the building project that minute man is going to propose for our consideration at the spring town meeting the building project is a separate issue they'll receive due consideration in the future what tonight's vote does do is pave the way for a better minute man in your board of selectments packet i meant to bring mine up and i forgot open it up and you can flip and you flip past the red line version and you slip past the final version and you'll get to three pages that are titled side by side comparison that comparison was provided by minute man if you look at that side by side comparison the second row i want to call out because it means that our linkedin is going to pay a smaller share of any future capital budget because of the change in the calculations whether it's the project that's current under proposal or future one you know decades in the future we're getting a better deal based on because of that second row the third row is perhaps the most important of them all that change means that our linkedin will finally get a proportional vote in the governance of minute man so will lexington and so will belmont the importance of this governance change cannot be overstated all of these highlights and some of the changes that didn't make that highlight real matter i don't have time to go through them all here i'm ready to answer any questions you may have and a minute man superintendent ed bullquillin is here to answer questions as well this agreement gives our linkedin more power to control our own participation within the region i understand that there's a substitute motion coming and i've provided a response to it which you can find on your chairs the only point i wish to make right now is that we're working on a deadline the selectmen from 16 towns built this agree with this framework to work fast and we all agreed to call special town meetings and resolve the regional agreement by march 1st the substitute motion would kill this deal this proposal deserves a clean vote a yes or a no the board of selectmen voted tonight it's it's a five zero support not four zero as is in the the we are up to five votes it has the support of the finance committee and the support of the capital planning committee we ask for your support for the motion as put forth by the selectmen also available is our school committee minimum representative sue sheffield if you have any questions of her mr. hainer mr mr moderator bill hainer precinct 2 the purpose of this motion is to establish a committee that will provide town meeting with critical financial and budgetary information to make an informed decision it would be expected that the proposed committee would determine answers to some of the following questions what is the number of district students that would make minute man tech financially solvent what is the average cost of an industry tuition and out of district tuition under the current agreement compared to under the proposed agreement what if anything will the new district agreement do to reduce the current overreliance on out-of-district students has a five-year projection been done on what the tuition cost will be in the new agreement goes into effect if not why as stated in the december 2015 meeting of the finance committee is currently estimated the island and share of the minute man rebuild is approximately two million dollars annually i'm not opposed to this agreement support this and adjourn the meeting to a date prior to march first and then decide on a motion and added information one of the minor thing i've not made a lot of friends in doing this okay i need to also let you know this is my wife's birthday and this is how we're spending it thank you thank you mr. hainer we'll have a second for mr. hainer's motion seconded okay mr. schlickman paul schlickman precinct nine i served as a member of the minute man school committee from 1997 to 2001 so i'm bookended on on the first and last articles is something that i've been involved with it for a very long time this is a reform urgently needed the the one thing i have to say is that the select men of the 16 towns really worked hard on this and i know that mr. dunn has been working tirelessly for more hours that he could count working with other towns to come up with a resolution of this and i think this town owes a debt of gratitude to the work that mr dunn has done with the remaining select men of the other 16 towns over the past few months these are vital reforms and the fact is is when i was on the committee i'd be sitting next to the representative from dover who had one child in the district enrolled not his child one enrolled child from the town of dover where we had about 140 we were a third of the district he was one one four hundredth of the district uh and we all had equal votes and to say that the governance of minute man was absolutely trivial to most of the towns in this district you could get 22 percent of the population in a two-thirds majority the governance was severely broken this agreement solves that issue and gives us a foundation where we can have a we reasonable governance structure that may be another large town might want to uh to join and the loss of some very small towns out of the district governance structure will probably streamline the governance of the district and make it more advantageous for both irlington and other large communities who are not yet members i urge you not to support the amendment because adjourning the meeting will also cause all the other votes that we've done to be delayed to be ratified the votes aren't final till after the meeting adjourns and then to uh uh approve this uh change of the regional agreement thank you thank you sir mr carman member of the finance committee fellow town meeting members so i was doing a calculation tonight now marks the seventh year i've stood in this spot and talked about this topic okay so i have to voice a little bit of frustration when i'm told that after seven years of discussing this without changing almost a sentence that we now need a study committee so quick recap for anybody hasn't been here the whole seven years for a long time minute man was a horribly governed school right we sent a third of the kids we had a one sixteenth of the vote it was way too expensive i mean it was horrible management it was just it was a mess but we couldn't do anything and why couldn't we do anything because you needed 10 out of 16 towns to pass the budget and the old administration of minute man would start in the order those who have to pay pay the least vote first and then they'd come here and say hey guess what do whatever you want we have the votes basically go screw okay so that went on for a while and my and my former finance committee colleague mr dan dunn used to stand up here when they would say that and say that's fine but eventually they're gonna want a new building and when they want a new building we are going to fight them to the death because they can't get past us at that point and so in 2010 they came before the town meeting with article 58 request for a feasibility study and this town meeting agreed to that feasibility study with arlington's demands and the demands were simple you will stabilize enrollment you will reform the spending in that school and you will give us a regional agreement where we're not sending a third of the kids paying a third of the cost but only have one sixteenth of the vote you'll actually treat arlington with respect and so we were lucky at that moment right because the bad management of minute man walked out the door and the good management of minute man which now is in this in the chair led by dr. wakulin took came on and dr. wakulin stabilized enrollment he got the school in a better financial position he brought down the per pupil spending but he didn't fix the regional agreement right because what happened was just sort of rolling forward again in 2014 we as dan said we put before you a draft regional agreement and we said look you know we said we want you to pass it i think i i stood here at the time and told you it's not going to get through all 16 schools but we need to move the goal line and we need to figure out who the people are that aren't going to be with us and so we took that vote you as a town meeting affirmatively voted for that and let me just check my notes for one second i'll tell you exactly which vote it was it was to do article 21 of the 2014 town meeting so you took that vote okay and so we talked about it some more we talked about it some more and then last year we had a building we had building recommendations that came before you and if you look at last year's minute man vote which was on all of your seats there's a slide called the building project and it goes on and on for one two three four five six slides explaining the building it talks about the five options we can have it talks about how if we get this done by next year we get 40 reimbursement and if we don't our reimbursement rate will lapse and we'll go to 31 percent but we also said at that time that we had a problem and our problem again even with the deadline of june 30 2016 to keep msp reimbursement at 40 percent is we didn't have a new regional agreement because that's dan said the 2014 agreement failed in five communities so the whole the whole circle it all came full circle right because up until 2011 when dan came on to the board of selectmen he used to stand here and give the finance committee's opposition to minute man then that became my task for several years but now we had to punch it over the goal line and so dan went back to minute man and he said okay i'm gonna broker this deal i have the weight of the school committee i have the weight of the finance committee we've gotten affirmative town meeting votes we have everything lined up you guys are gonna play ball with arlington you're gonna work on this we're not going with the school and so we bust our hump it was in the newspaper it was on local cable access everybody knew this was going on and we finally got we finally got our regional agreement that works that has everything from 2014 with little a few changes okay and so we bring it back to this town meetings right so now we're in the seventh year doing this we have 10 or 11 articles we've put before you and lo and behold we need a study committee a study committee for for what if there was a problem with this article if there was a problem with this article the time to say something was anywhere between seven years ago and about a month ago that was the time to talk about it the time to talk about it is not tonight it is not from now to march 1st and so i urge you to support this action and look i know some people will probably get up after me and say this is a very expensive school it is we don't know how to pay for it right now that's true but i will close with what i've said every time i have stood up here which is we live in a 21st century global economy we're education of all sorts whether it's education at arlington high that will prepare you for college you know is necessary or if it's vocational education to create the next generation of plumbers or carpenters or electricians that that is all critically necessary right and frankly i don't think there's a heck of a lot of difference because if you've ever received a bill from your doctor and your electrician on the same day i don't think you feel there's much difference but we have to remember the the jobs and why this is critically important why we have to pay for this and why we have to be you know behind this is the jobs from 40 years ago where we could pass a child through the arlington school system or 50 years ago and pass them through the arlington school system and kind of give them an okay education and send them off to wall tam to a protected union job at rathion where they could you know do all things and and make a look great wage and and support from me those days are gone and so we have to educate our children the best we can to provide them with the skills of the current economy so they can succeed so again i ask you to support this and i ask you to defeat the substitute thank you thank you um miss lecourt annie lecourt precinct 15 move the question on all matters before us here we have a motion to terminate the debate on all matters before us all in favor of terminating debate we'll press one when we get the green light if you don't want to terminate the debate you'll press two it was seconded okay press one to terminate the debate two to keep talking about it debate is terminated 168 affirmative 17 and the negative that terminates the debate on article eight we have now before us the recommend excuse me mr. heiners substitute motion which would supplant the recommended vote of the board of selectments so all in favor of mr. heiners substitute motion please vote yes by pressing one vote no by pressing two that's a negative vote 161 and the negative 23 in the affirmative mr. heiners substitute fails we now have before us the recommended vote of the board of select this is an up or down vote one yes to amend the accept the recommended amendment to the district and two to not accept it so one for yes you want to amend the district commit agreement to you do not it's an affirmative vote 178 and affirmative five and then negative arlington has voted to amend the written amendment school district is toasty ladies and gentlemen i i do want to make one comment uh there's been a lot of people that worked on that last article uh charlie foskett did yeoman's work uh in getting this put together and getting it to the uh sort of 10 to six and dan dunn has worked countless hours dan do you still have a job okay yeah he still has his job but he almost lost it with that and i'd like to thank him very much i move to take article one from the table all in favor article one is on the tape off the table i move that the this town meeting be dissolved all in favor dissolve the special town meeting of january 2016 please say yes all opposed town meeting is dissolved please return your clickers this is our only night if you're bringing home we're in big trouble there's bins on every single door please return your clickers