 Welcome, I am calling to order this meeting of the Arlington Select Board on Monday, July 18th, 2022. I am select board chair Leonard Diggins and I will now confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are here and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. John Hurd. Yes. Steve DeCorsi. Yes. Eric Helmuth. Yes. And Madam Vice Chair Mahon will not be with us tonight. Steph, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Sandy Pooler. Here. Doug Heim. Ashley Maher. Here. Great, thank you. Tonight's meeting of the Arlington Select Board is being conducted in a hybrid format consistent with chapter 107 of the Acts of 2022 signed into law on July 17th, 2022, which further extends the certain COVID-19 measures regarding remote participation. The Act includes an extension until March 23rd, 2023 of the remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's original March 12th, 2020. Executive orders are spending certain provisions of the open meeting law. The Governor's order, which is on the town's website and referenced with agenda materials for this meeting, allow public bodies to meet entirely remotely as long as there's reasonable access that allows the public to follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Before we begin, please note the following. First, this meeting is being conducted via Zoom. It is being recorded and is also being simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Second, persons wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. Persons participating by Zoom are reminded that you may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate, you are asked to provide your full name in the interest of developing the record of the meeting. Third, all participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment and those persons are not required to identify themselves. Both Zoom participants and persons watching on ACMI may follow the posted agenda materials also found on the town's website using the MoNova's agenda platform. And finally, each vote tonight will be taken via roll call. So I would like to start with the second item on the agenda which is the land acknowledgement. And I'd like to read the national acknowledgement that the select board supported last spring and town meeting approved through the resolution which is also contained on the town's website. We acknowledge that the town of Arlington is located on the ancestral lands of the Massachusetts tribe, the tribe of indigenous people from whom the colony province and the commonwealth have taken their names. We pay our respects to the ancestral bloodline of the Massachusetts tribe and their descendants who still inhabit historic Massachusetts tribes, territories today. I will now turn to item three on the agenda. As for approval, the Summer Soul Celebration on Thursday, August 4th, 2022 at the Regent Theater. And we have David Thomas. Yes, I'm here. Hello, everyone. How you doing? Hi. Hi, everyone. Hi. How are you doing? Good, thank you. Great. I want to tell us a bit about the Soul Celebration. Yes. The Celebration is a group of musicians, such as Tony Wilson, James Brown Jr., my band, Sun's Rain, and several longtime musicians that we used to play with Little Joe Cook at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge for many years. And I've been working with the Regent Theater for a bit to do a benefit. And this is to raise funds for Boston Children's Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital. They have a PCJ and a couple of veterans groups. And we've also reached out to Arlington Eats. We thought it would be a good thing to have several food trucks that have agreed to also donate to the charities with a portion of the proceeds. And we think that it's going to be a great event. Several of the musicians have already played at the Regent Theater and they've been very welcoming. And we think it'll bring people together from all walks of life. And it's a good cause to donate to those charities and bring friends and family together after this long, difficult time with COVID and people being apart. Thank you very much. This sounds like a good event. I'll turn to my colleagues, Mr. Heard. Well, first I'd like to move approval. And then second, I'm not sure if I missed this, but I'm not 100% sure what's being asked of us. I see it says some parking spaces, but we don't have a plan. Do we know which parking spaces we're talking about? Because there's a bus stop there, there's taxi stands there. Yeah, yes, sir. And I assume traffic will still go through. Yes, sir. I was working with Ashley and that Ashley, your manager from the Townslet Board. And I got her some photos late this afternoon about the request for the parking. And there will be five spots beyond the bus stop heading down towards the little gymnasium there. So there's the bus stop and then there's a queue. And I sent pictures to Ashley, but as I said, I didn't get it to her too late. So we were looking at five parking spots. And if we needed to have a police detail or a traffic detail there to keep things moving, we have no problem, we'd love to have that. Since we think there'll be a lot of families there coming for the food trucks and kids, that it's good to make sure everything is safe and insecure, that there's good traffic flow. People are aware of pedestrians going to and fro getting the food. And I hope you'll all, if approved, I hope you'll all come down and join us. All right, and I think that clarifies as the five parking spots beyond the MBTA bus stop on the regent side of Medford Street. And it will be good, it's in the application. I think all my colleagues will agree that it'll be good to have a detail there because there is some open outdoors seating across the street where if there's a food truck, I assume a lot of people will go and eat across the street. So it would be good to have a detail there. So I think that should definitely be part of the event. Other than that, sounds awesome. I'd love to come by. I'll look forward to it. I'll put it on my calendar. I think it will be really fun. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll second Mr. Herd's motion and just reiterate that I know you've said that you will have a police detail. I think just, I don't know how much coordination that has been with the police department to date. I spoke with Corey over at the police department. Okay, all right. So it sounds like we're covered there. So I'm happy to support this and wish you well on it. And just whatever coordination is needed ahead of time, I just encourage you to work through our office and work through the police department on that. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Ms. Mark. Just a question for our telemanager. Do you have any concerns about the plan as detailed out this evening? No, in that it seems like the layout. It wasn't clear whether the musicians are going to be playing in the theater. In the theater, yes. In the theater. I was going to check in tomorrow with our health director about what she thinks about the COVID exposure for an event like this. And well, I can report back because that would be my main concern. Thank you. Yeah, and if I'm not mistaken, I think that's a separate, you know, that can be a separate consideration from the parking spaces that we're going to be authorizing tonight. And a question for my colleagues who've made the second of the motion, which I certainly support. Do you intend that the police detail would be a condition of that motion? Yes. Thank you for that clarification. Well, I'm happy to support it. I mean, the music, I'm sure will be great. Food trucks will look very interesting. So let's hope we can get that parking in. And so on a motion by Mr. Hurd, you know, with the contingency, meaning of the police detail and a second by Mr. Corsi, Mr. Heim, Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Hellman. Yes. Mr. Deans. Yes. It's a four zero. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thomas. And hopefully. Thank you so much. Good luck. Looking forward to meeting you all and having you at the event. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. So moving on to this consent agenda. We have the minutes for the June 13th, 2022 meeting and June 27th, 2022 meeting. And we have reappointments, all terms to expire on June 30th, 2025. Conservation Commission, David Kaplan, Charles Tyron, Library Board of Trustees, Steven Quinlan, Open Space Committee, Brian Kelder, Wendy Richter, Park and Recreation Committee, Phillip Lasker. And number six, we have a request for a contractor drain layer license. Apologize Rose excavating incorporated. So what's that? Mr. DeCorsi. Move approval. Second. Okay. All set here. So on a motion by Mr. Corsi and a second by Mr. Heard, Mr. Heim. Mr. Heard. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. Mr. DeGans. Yes. Four zero vote. Thank you. Moving on to our first of three public hearings on street betterment. The first one is Reed Street Betterment. And I guess we have with us Katina Leodis. Hello, Katina. Hello. Hi. If you'll tell me how you want to be addressed, I'll be happy to address you that way. Mr. Mizz. Mizzes. First name is fine, but I'm not familiar with the process. I just was invited to be visible, but I'm just here about the repaving of Reed and Fezda streets. Great. So Mr. Heim, do you want to guide us a little bit through this process? Thank you, Mr. Chair. In short, the board can examine the application if the proponents, the abutters who live on these streets wish to say anything about why they believe they should qualify for a betterment. The board can then ask any questions about any concerns that the board has. And if any member of the public would like to express either any reservation about the betterment generally or in a butter opposes the betterment process, the board can hear from them after the board has an opportunity to ask questions to the proponent. Well, thank you. Because I read all the materials, and I didn't see any description of what's going to be done on any of the three. So that's why when I turn to you, Katina, I was expecting maybe a little explanation of what's going to happen. No, no, I'm no engineer. I'm a resident and a homeowner on the street who feels very strongly that the street should be repaved. It's filled with potholes. It's very difficult to drive down. Numerous people who've come down the street have had their vehicles damaged. And I'm no engineer. I don't know what the, I know that the contractor did put forward a pretty detail, but I should really defer to John Jesus, my neighbor who has been much more involved in sort of tracking the details of the project. Yeah, I can comment. Hold on a second. Well, I just said, generally when we have the betterment hearings, we rely, the contracts have to work with the town engineering department and spectral services. So that's our experts that, so they come to us for authorization to go through the process, whereby they work with them to make sure that the roads are done properly. Okay. Right, so I'm not sure what the requirements are for this meeting and what you exactly, what you want. I just assumed that that was all done. The contractor was selected. We went through the process. You know, it was a two year process. We met with, early on with engineering. They suggested that we go through the betterment process because it is a large amount of a butters on both streets. So we followed that betterment process. We got multiple bids. We selected the cheapest from a reputable contractor who provided the details of the town, all those bids were submitted to the town. The price was broken out by street because they had to be separated. We couldn't do a combined street, does the street. So originally the ballot went out as one ballot for both streets and then we had to redo it. So that took extra time. But from what I understand, both streets were approved. They got the required votes to go through the process with the prices in hand. So Reed Street and Thesa Street are separate. Katina represents Reed Street and I represent Thesa Street. But we started the process, you know, two years ago under both streets but we just had to do it separately. We went through the conservation board. They approved with requirements that they wanted us to adhere to. I spoke to the contractor about those and he said no problem. So, and also the contracts that he's been talking to the town engineering as well. So they should be in sync of what's going on. Basically what we're doing is we're repaving the road. It's gonna be, I think there's gonna be, it's gonna be grounded up and then that's gonna be the base and then there's gonna be a second layer and a third layer. Yeah, multiple layers. I think also the point that John makes that, you know, we did this once. We went door knocking, we talked to our neighbors. We heard some objections, we addressed those. And while, you know, while there are always gonna be some people who are not in favor, we certainly had, we met the threshold and the requirements of the town in terms of the numbers. And then we thought we were all set and then we discovered that in fact, we couldn't do it as two streets combined. We had to go back and do it all over again. There's two separate individual streets. And so we went back out and we knocked on doors and we listened to our neighbors. We talked to our neighbors and we once again came up with the required number of approvals. So, you know, we've kind of done this twice. Mr. Hearn, Mr. Heim. Mr. Chair, if I may try to be helpful. So just for an explanation for the butter applicants, the board is oftentimes supplied with a brief memorandum outlining the actual project itself. Sometimes there are accompanying pictures that might show the condition of the private way. To confirm with Ms. Mar very quickly, it sounds like engineering and ISD have approved the project. It may be that the current organization of ISD hasn't gone through one of these before, but it doesn't sound like, it sounds like ISD and engineering who would normally at least be involved into a review with respect to the layout and set the conditions are in agreement that the roads need to be redone have worked with the contractors to develop an appropriate scope. Thus, what's really before the board is whether or not this specific set of betterments are worthy of the town essentially financing these projects. And obviously the board can decide it doesn't have enough information, but there's no technical requirement that you're missing. So if you wanna hear from members of the public who might wanna say anything about it, you certainly can understand what members are saying. Usually they have a little bit more visual and written information than you have in this instance, but it sounds like all those boxes are checked. They just weren't put together in a memo for you guys. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hyman, that was very helpful. So I know this is a hearing at some point we'll hear from. Would you like to entertain motions now or after a public comment? Is there a preference this time? I think that if Mr. Hurd wants to move now, he can move now, but you should open it up to the public at some point, so. Sure. So while we... Only do a public comment then. Okay. And I was gonna say, while I have your name correctly in mind, I was gonna take it, but let's do it. Okay, so let's hear from the public government if there are any. This is a hearing, so we're happy to hear from anyone who wants to comment on the restreet betterment. Hello, this is Mark Schuster, I'm the resident of Reach Street. My comment is half of Reach Street is in very good condition. So the portion of Reach Street that is closest to Summer Street is in very good condition. It's really the intersection of Reed and Fezda that has the potholes. In fact, the portion that's directly next to Summer Street is pretty much paved separately and in very good condition. For most residents of Reach Street, we travel directly to Summer Street because that's the main road that reaches the highway. And we do not need to travel through Fezda Street to reach Summer Street and other main roads. So that portion is in excellent condition and the rest of us are being subsidizing the costs to pave the rest of the neighborhood. Now I have a copy of the petition document that I obtained through a public records request. If you look at the document that says petition form, repair of private way petition form, on the first line it combines three streets together, Reed, Fezda and Dothman. Even though the ballots were counted separately, the bylaws require that the petition form itself consider each street separately without an HOA. So there's no HOA. Even if we repave it, there will still be potholes and an HOA would allow for ongoing fees to provide the maintenance of this road. There are no sidewalks on this street and if we are going to repave it, we should consider the addition of sidewalks and that's not really being considered here. This is also an excessive cost for many of the residents who are going out to pay $3,000 each to repave it when for many of us, the road is completely usable and in much better condition than some of the other private ways which are barely paved at all. The town itself is also in a butter, so I believe three lots and so the town itself, I do not believe is contributing to that $44,000 cost. So yeah, those are some of my comments concerning it. I also looked at the responses. It looks like at least three residents did not vote at all. So those are my concerns with the town moving forward in that it should only really consider the portion that needs the repairs instead of repaving the entire road and putting the cost on all of the residents of the road. All right, thank you. And we'll move on now to Mr. Rosenblum. I'm sorry, I think that's Ed Harman next. Thank you for your attention. Resident in a butter for Bethesda Street and the road is in dire straits, both closed as it and with all respect to my previous caller, a good chunk of Reed Street is at its end, even for, well, there's probably two or three houses that the road is, these are the paved, the rest of it is just patched and it is a bit of a slalom to get by there without running into a model. So this project is definitely in need of for both safety purposes, if an ambulance needs to get by or the fire department or fire trucks need to get through to any piece of either Reed or Bethesda, there's definitely an impairment. It's just, it's both a public hazard to drivers, it's a hazard to people walking on the road as if I could to my solicitors and even pedestrians who, a car might swerve out of the way to get into a model, it's just as easily is not a viable path through this area at all. Thank you. One thing I also would add to that, that there's been a few injuries that have been documented as well. A bicyclist cut stitches in their face when they hit a pothole on Reed Street and that wasn't towards the end of Reed Street, it was in the middle of Reed Street. Also a child was hurt on Bethesda Street before Halloween where the town did start to do some repairs after that but we had to prove that we were going through this process. So definitely second Michael's comments there, it is dangerous. Thank you. So didn't see the hand up here. I thought that was, oh okay, sorry about that. So, all right, thanks. Mr. Armin? I'm concerned that the, firstly the cost is difficult for some of us on the street and I don't feel that there's been enough justification that the work really needs to be done. All I've heard is, and I suppose, that I don't hear any kind of significant data that this is really required. Secondly, I see vehicles driving past here might have speeds that are already too high for the street given how narrow and windy it is. I tend to think that a few bumps help to slow down the traffic and I'd be interested to hear if we would have like other traffic calming measures if the street is improved. The street is narrow, no way you're gonna fit sidewalks on the street. There's plenty of people out walking, kids out walking down the street and I'm concerned about increasing the speed of traffic. Thank you so much, thank you. All right, thank you, Mr. Armin. So, it's hard. I believe this question's been asked before but I'll turn it, I'm just clarifying, we can't under the Betterment Act approve half a street, right? It has to be the entire street. Mr. Chairman? Yes. Mr. Herd, you can approve a portion of the street as long as the portion that we're talking about had two thirds of the portion vote or petition in favor of the Betterment. So, it is possible to reduce the scope of Betterment. The board hasn't traditionally done that a lot because it's oftentimes involves a revised cost estimate and then the abutters have to sort of circle the wagons. People may not ultimately wanna go forward with the project if all the cost is being borne by a small amount of people, but it is possible and it's been done mostly in instances where there was like one abutter at the end of a roadway as opposed to folks in the middle. Can I make one other point, just so it's clear for the public, the town is only in a butter under the bylaw when there's essentially a town property that is utilized extensively by the public or the town. So, if there's like a town playground or park and folks are always essentially parking or driving or doing, well, none of us say parking, driving or accessing the park in that specific place, then the town can be in a butter for the purposes of the petition and the assessment of costs. Otherwise, the town isn't considered in a butter. If it's one of these random parcels that the town took in tax title, those don't count. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hyde. Thank you. And just to clarify a few points that were brought up, I don't think we've ever, as part of the betterment process, put sidewalks in and the town can't put sidewalks on private ways because the owners own that property. So, I mean, generally when we have these applications, I feel like it's a happy time and we usually have just all butters in agreement. It's unfortunate when somebody feels that they have to pay for something that they don't want. But in this particular, I did a quick calculation. I think we have about 70, even without the responses, there's still about 75% of the street has voted in favor of this and agreed to it. And our job in this situation is not to make a determination whether or not there's an exigent need, but just to see if they've complied with the requirements to have the town finance this type of project. And here they have and they've done the work and I'm inclined to support this. So I will move approval of the betterment application and just to clarify, this is a specific hearing for Reed Street. So this is a move approval of the betterment application for Reed Street. Mr. Dacorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll second Mr. Hertz motion. And just for my own clarification, the scope of services for the project was the entirety of Reed Street. Is that correct? I don't know who can answer that for the neighbors. Well, I'm going to suggest that we go to Bettina because she has her hand up and maybe she can answer this question. Yes, it was for the full length of Reed Street. All right. So given that, and that's what I thought I heard earlier and even under a different analysis, I see one no vote on Reed Street. There are a few neighbors that didn't respond, but that is over the two thirds. And in my experience, where we've seen it less than the full street, it's been in recognition, like we're going to Velmerhurst Road in here later tonight. Well, part of Velmerhurst Road was paved by a project that was done on the corner of Mass Ave. And they asked to have another section paved recognizing that their butter had already paved a portion of it here where it applies to the whole street where the two third criteria or threshold was met. I'm inclined to support it as well. So anything else? Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, I often say this as a resident of a private way myself. I think no one disputes that the situation that private way residents and indeed the entire town are stuck with with private ways is necessarily fair. But it's the system we have and that we can't do anything about and that, you know, for better or for worse, we who live in private ways have to pay for the road surfacing. And I think our bylaw, you know, the supermajority provides a process to do that. I agree with my colleague, Mr. Herd, that at this point in our job is to make sure that the process has been followed and the proposal is in order. And it sounds to me like it is. So, you know, with sympathy to the people for whom this is not something they want, I will still have to be glad to support it as well. Thank you, Mr. Helmets. And Katina, are your hands still up? Do you want to say something? No, sorry. All right, no problem. So, yeah, I agree with everything that I've heard and for my colleagues on this, it is the nature of a private way, you know. And so, yeah. So, with a motion by Mr. Herd and a second by Mr. Corsi, Mr. Hahn. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Helmets. Yes. Mr. Dickens. Yes. It's a 4-0 vote. Thank you, Katina. And we'll move on to now hearing on Dezser Street. And we have John's, this is the resident here. I mean, I think if you want to say something, but I think we know what you're going to say, but if you want to say something more. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I don't think anything here needs to be repeated. We understand the benefits of having the roads prepared. I think we have everything in line of what we need to do to get the road done. So. All right. Thank you. So at this point, if we have any residents that want to speak to Dezser Street. Just a suggestion, you might instruct them to raise their hands in Zoom as a way of indicating that. Sure. So as my colleague just suggested, you want to raise your hand in Zoom. If you have any comments or anyone wants to comment on Dezser Street. I'm not seeing anyone. Seeing no hands in Zoom. All right. Move approval. Okay. Second. On a motion to approve by Mr. Helmets. Second. And second by Mr. Porsi. Any. Yeah. Second for the same reasons we just talked about. So on a motion to approve of the betterment by Mr. Helmets. And second by Mr. Porsi. Mr. Han. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Dacorsi. Yes. Mr. Helmets. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Four zero vote. Thank you. So moving on now to almost heard. I'm sorry. Almas Road Betterment. And we have Lori Bogdan as a resident. Yes. I'm here. I'm Lori Bogdan. Thank you for having me. Hi. So is there anything you want to say? About Almas Road. Yes. Sure. Similar situation. We are Almas Road doing half of our road. The other half was done a year or two ago. Our road also is in poor condition. We have worked very closely with the town engineers and chosen our contractor. We do have all of our required approvals from the butters. We feel that it is important at this time to pave our road for the safety of the cars, the cyclists, and emergency vehicles and pedestrians. We do hope that the process that we're going through and the way we're paving will help with traffic mitigation, keeping people safe, keeping traffic going slowly. And that is our situation. And we look forward to getting approval for our betterment process. Thank you, Ms. Bogdan. So, is it hurt? I guess my only question, and I think the proponent might be able to answer this best, is there some sort of prohibition cut through traffic that has been implemented? Because I feel like on Elmhurst Road, the condition of the road was always the prohibition to prevent people from avoiding Lake Street traffic and cutting down Mass Ave. Does that have any sort of do not enter in a certain period of time? Are you asking me or are you asking people on the sport? I don't know if Attorney Hyme knows every prohibition in Allington, but I'll give him the first shot. I'll defer to the actual residents of Elmhurst Road. They can speak that, but I have a relevant point to it. Yeah, go ahead. I can speak to that at the Mass Ave and Elmhurst Road. There is one sign that says do not enter if you're not a resident from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. We would very much appreciate having more signage that helps with mitigation of traffic. Yes, indeed, the road isn't that condition. It does not really stop cut through, I have to say, unfortunately, but the road has deteriorated a great deal in recent years. So we are in a situation where it is time to pave. And we are going to work towards any kind of signage that we can to help out with the cut through traffic. My concern is actually more going the other way. People going down Brooks Ave. There is no signage the other way. So there's no, so people can cut through from Lake Street to Mass Ave that way. Well, it's a separate issue anyways. And it's something that maybe we can look at at a future. It is very unfortunate. We do need signs. We would like to work with the town on that. We do have cut through from Lake Street. Do you live in the area? No, I live up in Heights. I used to live in that area, but I am familiar with the road. And I don't want to go down a rabbit hole that's not before us because we're not talking about it. Our plan that we've worked on with the town engineer is to have delineation signs on both ends because we are slightly changing the configuration of the road that we'll warrant having delineation signs which should help with traffic mitigation. Mr. Horsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll second, Mr. Hertz. Did you make a motion or? I'll move approval. Okay, I'll second the motion. Just a question from a spoke. I have a memory of you being before us last summer. Was that for a different part of the street or the road or did the work just not get done? And you're back before us again this year to do what was proposed a year ago? No, the thought that I think you're speaking about a road being partially paved. Yes. It partially was paved on the mass outside because as you discussed earlier, a small portion of the people on that side went through the veteran process and were approved for that. Our end of the road was not ready to pave, now we are. Okay, all right. I'm sorry, I had a memory of having a discussion about this a year ago and discussing the traffic concerns as well. But I see that the request here is from Elmhurst from Randolph Street to Brooks Ave and I'm happy to support it but I may be mistaken in terms of what that discussion was a year ago. You are not mistaken. I too was at that meeting along with other neighbors that live on our street. We did have that discussion and signage. It has not been completely resolved and we are hoping that it would be what the town did do a survey and they were working with us on that. Okay, thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you. So now if any residents would like to speak in the hearing part of this discussion, just raise your hand and use the raise hand and zoom. Okay, I'm not seeing any hands either. So I think we're all set here. All right, so on motion by Mr. Heard and second by Mr. Corsi. Mr. Heim. Mr. Heard. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. It's a 4-0 vote. All right, so thank you everybody. Yeah, good luck with your. Thank you. All right, so I will now move on to open forum. Except in unusual circumstances, any matter presented for consideration of the Board shall need to be acted upon nor decision made tonight of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which open forum was established. It should be noted that there is a three-minute time limit to present a concern or request. So once again, if you can raise your hands electronically and zoom, we will compile a list and we'll take that list in the order in which the hands are raised in and after maybe 10, 15 more seconds, we're going to take that will end the list. Nina, so if you want to talk, get your hands up. Please raise your hands now. And so the order in which I see them are that Culverhouse, Judith Garber, Rebecca Peterson, Elizabeth Dre, and that's going to be the list for tonight's open forum. So we'll start with that Culverhouse. Hello, Ms. Culverhouse. I can't hear you. You're still muted. Okay, got it. Great. Lynette Culverhouse, Draper Avenue. Thank you for hearing me tonight. So I'm disappointed at the proposed policy to not fly in Ibanism at Town Hall or other town or lamp posts. While I understand the fear that is surely driving this decision, I also know that the authoritarianism that is gripping our country feels itself on fear. The gradual descent into fascism in the US is clear and the normalization of events and decisions that are truly shocking to those outside this country is reminiscent of the normalization of fascism in Germany. I would like to think that here in Arlington, we could avoid falling into this trap that limits our freedom of expression and yields to fear mongering. Surely we here in our beloved town can hold the high watch and resist the temptation to fall prey to the outside forces that would limit all our freedoms. Please take the time to think deeply about the implications of removing Arlington's right to freely express the values they hold dear and to bring healing to our divided town. Town meeting clearly expressed their desire to publicly display the BLM banner and to show that we are a welcoming town for all. With this policy, we will no longer be free to fly the pride banner either. Please don't silence those who would actively seek to heal and unite. This is a moment for spiritual and moral introspection. I'd like to ask you to not vote to approve tonight and take whatever time it takes to expand the conversation in order to make a decision that is grounded in clarity, justice, and inclusion. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Culverhouse. So next we have Rebecca Peterson. Judith Garber, Masters of Zavenut, precinct four. Can you all hear me? Yes. Okay. Hello, select board. I'm speaking on the same matter as Ms. Culverhouse. I was very disappointed to see the new policy prohibiting any banner on the town hall building. It's in direct opposition to the resolution that town meeting passed last year. If the select board is concerned about banners getting too political, I would argue that Black Lives Matter in particular is a statement of human rights. It's not a political position. And as white pharmacist movements are growing in Massachusetts, it's more important now than ever that we assert that Black Lives Matter. So with this policy, it just seems like a step in the wrong direction, like the town is sort of cutting off our nose to spite our face. Rather than offend those who oppose Black Lives Matter, we won't take a stand on even the most basic civil rights issues. Summerville, for example, has had a BLM banner on their city hall since 2016. Unfortunately, it's still very relevant. So I guess my concern is, what is the town gonna do when, I hope this doesn't happen, God willing, but if there's another George Floyd or Breonna Taylor, things like this are happening really regularly and so what is the town gonna do? And this happens again, just shrug and say, well, we don't allow any banners, so too bad. So I mean, it seems like we could really think of a better policy. I know many people would be more than happy to help with this. I'd be more than happy to help with this. So I'm urging you to vote this down and try and think of a better way to do this. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Garber. I see what's going wrong with my calling out the names next. So I'm looking at the list of participants saying you're pulling people in beforehand, so I get it, sorry about that. So will you tell me who's next, please? Rebecca Peterson. Okay, thank you. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, Ms. Green. Okay, thank you. So I was unable to attend the public forum regarding the overnight parking band slash pilot program in June, so I'm not sure if this is the correct time or place to make comments about that. Sure you can. Okay, great, thank you. So I just wanted to express my support for continuing the overnight parking band in Arlington. I understand that a study is underway to, I guess, design the overnight parking pilot program, but in my opinion, getting rid of the parking band is a fast and easy way to degrade the quality of life in all of our neighborhoods. From my experience living in another town, just about 10 minutes from here, residents tend to treat public ways as their personal garages, and cars get parked on the street and literally never move for months and months at a time. I think removing the overnight parking band is a drastic change, and it will affect many things about Arlington, aesthetics, public safety, and quality of life. More cars parked all the time on the street will mean that the streets are difficult to navigate, and this will probably also result in higher car insurance rates. Additionally, I'm not sure if the, again, I missed the forum, but I don't believe the police have the manpower to monitor this situation with maybe hundreds of people requesting permits. I don't know that the police have the manpower to monitor this on a nightly basis. So in essence, that means that any new rules quickly become meaningless if they can't be enforced, essentially removing the ban without actually voting to remove the overnight parking ban. Lastly, I think it is also sort of contradictory to rules, or maybe rules is the wrong word, but recent efforts to reduce or remove parking spots from newly permitted developments in town, so you're pushing the problem of the developer who has a building and maybe doesn't have enough spots and wants to reduce them, now you're pushing that on to everyone in town. So if you're just saying, oh, well, this building doesn't have to have spots, but it's fine, everyone can park wherever they want overnight, I just, okay, thank you. So that's all I have to say. I just respectfully ask that you maintain the overnight parking ban in Arlington. Thank you. Thank you. Next. And the last speaker is Ms. Dre. Thank you. Good evening, good evening, Elizabeth Dre, town meeting member in precinct 10. I'd like to speak about the banner, about the policy. I'd like to provide a little history so that residents who are listening tonight understand my profound disappointment in the proposed banner and sign policy that is up for vote tonight. October 2018 was a difficult time for Arlington regarding how our town government dealt with systematic racism and racist individuals within our public institutions. And it will be no surprise to this board that I was not proud of how Arlington handled it. But on June 8th in 2020, we put up a Black Lives Matter banner on the Arlington town hall with town officials, the chief of police, all of our elected officials there. I brought my family to see it, and I was so excited. I felt a little bit of that pride returning it. And then the banner came down and the select board and the town manager over that last couple of years, three years, made false promises, sorry, two years, about what would happen to it and how the community would be involved in that decision-making process. Then town manager promised to work with the Human Rights Commission, the DEI coordinator and community stakeholders to develop a policy. But that outreach was never done. I have an email from Adam Chapter Lane who wrote that, quote, his recommendation will be to keep up the banner indefinitely, unquote. And I believed him until he specifically proposed that it come down and had no plan in place. So then in December 2020, special town meeting overwhelmingly passed a resolution asking the select board to return the Black Lives Matter banner to town hall. Our elected representatives spoke and the select board chose to ignore them. Then on January 4th, 2021, the select board discussed a memorandum written by then select member, Mr. Kuro and Mr. Dick Corsi, which recommended that the banner be hung on town hall from MLK Junior's birthday through the end of February, which is Black History Month. Two select board members developed four recommendations and presented them. Yet the rest of the select board at that time effectively ignored their work and then for over a year, ignored their promises. And the Black Lives Matter banner was never mentioned again by the select board members until residents of Arlington petitioned the select board earlier this year to put it on agenda. And you did. But then you deferred due to a pending legal case that has since been resolved. And then you had two of your members who had previously spoken that they don't support any banners on town meeting to develop a town meeting policy on town hall to develop such a policy, which unsurprisingly says no banners on town hall ever. And that's where we are tonight. Tonight you will vote on the policy to prevent any statement of Arlington values on our center of government, the town hall. No Black Lives Matter, no pride, no public expression, but we as a value as a town on important social and human rights issues. No public commitment as a town to uphold human rights. I'm finishing up, Lynn. And I feel like we're playing it safe at a time where our community members, those of us with uteruses, people of color, genderqueer and immigrant community members are having our human rights challenged and stripped from us daily. Arlington chief is speaking out and leading and this is not the time to be silent. Thank you. Time's up. Thank you. I just need to keep it equal here. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you. I think that's going to end. Open forum. So we'll now move on to item 10 on the agenda's discussion, upcoming authorized use limitation for Arlington high school properties. And so Mr. Dacorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Be prior to this discussion, I am going to recuse myself that this is going to be a discussion about Arlington high school and activity and use limitation, but one of the industrial parties, law has nothing to do with this matter as a client of mine. So for that reason, consistency, I'm going to step out for this portion of the agenda tonight. All right. Thank you, Mr. Dacorsi. Mr. Han. Mr. Chair, if I may, I just want to say a few brief introductory remarks then I'm going to turn it over to our special counsel for environmental matters, Tom Fiori of pretty clarity. The short version of this is there's no action being requested of this like for tonight. What we're trying to do is essentially prime the pump for what will later be an authorized use limitation that will seek approval from this board. Now, the high school property is technically listed as town property for the purposes of the deed. So you'll need to vote on it. We will take other measures to make sure the school committee understands and is comfortable with the limitations that are being placed on the site. None of this is dramatically new. None of this is a huge departure from the status quo of the high school fields for a long, long time, except for formalizing some agreements and making sure we're clear about what we can do and what we can't do without the services of what's called a license site professional. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Tom Fiori. He's been our environmental counsel since 2011. Is that right, Tom? Yes. And he is a specialist in something that is very, very technical. So I'm happy to turn it over to him to make sure that it's all gotten right. Thanks so much. Thank you. Hello, this is Jorge. Good evening. Doug pretty much said it all. You have all received my memo which gave a very high level summary of the site history. And when I say site, I'm using the term in the regulatory sense. It's everywhere where the contamination has ended up. And the contamination we're talking about relates to a former manufactured gas facility, a former saw blade chroming operation, and some of the DPW's historical operations. All sort of generally centered in around 51 Grove Street where the DPW yard is now, but also extending on to the Arlington High School property and some adjacent properties just almost tangentially to 51 Grove and Arlington High School. The process that we've been engaged in with the industrial parties since 2001, since the settlement has been one where the industrial parties have taken the lead in doing the major work that's necessary to address this historical contamination. And the major work was completed in 2007. And since then, and that major work consisted of relocating utilities into clean corridors so that to the extent they need to be worked on in the future, they're in an area that in and of itself does not present an unacceptable risk to workers. Consolidating and capping the contaminated material under either an engineered barrier or direct contact barrier which basically renders the material that would otherwise pose an unacceptable risk is isolated and there's no exposure pathway to use semi-technical parlance as long as the barriers are maintained as long as they're inspected periodically, things of that nature. And since 2007, the town and the industrial parties have been maintaining these barriers and also monitoring groundwater. So what we're going to be coming back to you with hopefully and if I have to guess I'd say this fall is a formalization of what we've been doing since 2007. The AUL, the activity news limitation is a notice. It goes on, it's recorded at the registry and basically it sets out here are the conditions that exist at the site, here are activities that are consistent with maintaining a condition of no significant risk, here are activities that are inconsistent with maintaining a condition of no significant risk. So it's out there to the public, out there to anybody who has any need to know what the conditions of the property are. The AUL also includes the monitoring and maintenance requirements going forward which will be handled by the industrial parties going forward. But once this AUL is recorded and the grant of easement that goes with it, and I'll give you a little historical background on that in a second, but once those documents are executed and the AUL is recorded, then the final report, if you will, relating to the investigation and remediation of the portion of the site relating to Arlington High School can be filed with DEP and that work will be done subject to the ongoing monitoring and maintenance requirements that are reflected in the AUL. Now the reason we have a grant of easement accompanying the AUL is because the industrial parties need to lock in their right to come onto the property to do what they need to do going forward. So they, as part of the settlement back in 2001, there was language in the agreement that said not only, do all the parties agree that the way to approach this contamination will be through measures that will be supported by an AUL, but there will also be a grant of an easement to allow the industrial parties going forward to continue their obligations. The only other thing I'll point out is the process we're talking about with regard to the Arlington High School portion of the property was followed four years ago with regard to the DPW property. There's an AUL on the DPW property. There's a grant of easement relating to the DPW property as well because the industrial parties have ongoing obligations there. So with that, I'm happy to dive into the weeds on what an AUL is or the regulatory process or whatever you feel would be helpful at this point recognizing that in hopefully a couple months we'll be coming back to you with the actual document that we'll be requesting the board execute. So great, thank you. You know what, Mr. Helmets first. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your patience this evening and for your very helpful and detailed memo. Learned some interesting history I didn't know before. What kind, if you're able to say now, I know that the AUL is in draft form, but can you give us an example or two of the kind of activities that would be inconsistent with preserving a state of no significant risk? Residential use, industrial use, agricultural use, nothing that is happening now on the Arlington High School property will be prohibited or be viewed as being inconsistent with the AUL as long as the monitoring and maintenance requirements are maintained. And thank you. And what kind of enforcement, who does the enforcement, what are the enforcement options in powers for, you know, for moving forward the terms of the AUL? Well, as the town certainly has its rights under the settlement agreement to enforce the obligations of the industrial parties. But ultimately, and ultimately the DEP has enforcement power. Thank you, that's all. Thank you. I'll move receipt of the memo. Second. And thank you for all the work. It's very detailed. I won't have you get into the weeds on AULs tonight. Maybe we'll have a follow-up conversation at some point the next few months as we come into the fall. But again, I've heard about this. I've known about this issue for years, I think, since I was young, but it's good to see that we're moving in the right direction and all the work that's been done to get us to this point. So again, thank you for your work. I would just say, as an attorney, Mr. Chair, and knowing how attorneys bill, if we have attorneys here on the Arlington dime, we should probably take them first on the agenda next time. But that being said, we are happy to have you here joining us at our meeting, so thank you. I'll keep that in mind. Thank you for that suggestion. And I really don't have any questions. This was laid out very nicely. You know, we have a little more time than I thought we would, so I can't resist. So what's the UST? UST is an underground storage tank. OK, great. So that explains that. So I'm a government person. And I'm just impressed with what we do to mitigate the environmental damage. And the number of steps and the number of details that the amount of tail work that it takes to really take care of a situation like that. And I like seeing this laid out. So good job. And thank you for coming to us early. You've given us a first pass at it so that we're more prepared when you come back later on. So thank you. And I know Mr. Hyde, did you want to say something? OK, I know that Mr. Hyde said that we didn't really need to take any action on this. But we do have a motion to receive. And a second on that motion by Mr. Hearn. And a second by Mr. Hollman. So Mr. Hyde, yeah. Before I take the vote, may I make a quick comment, Mr. Chair? I just want to note that one legal department's been very impressed and grateful for Attorney Fury's representation in this manner. This is obviously very technical stuff and involves a whole cabinet full of legal documents and plans and technical data. The other thing that I just want to stress, and Mr. Fury can correct me if I'm making any incorrect statements here. But the thing for the public to know is that there is no significant risk under mass DEPs, very strict guidelines. One of the benefits of living in a wonderful state like the Commonwealth is that we have strict guidelines for what's safe and what's not safe. And the whole point of this is that the site is safe as long as we do what we're supposed to be doing. And that's part of what the legal team led by Mr. Fury is trying to make sure that we consistently do. One other thing, perhaps anticipating a question that the public may have, the ongoing construction at the high school is all being done is being overseen by a licensed professional working for the town who has all the documents that have been filed with the DEP regarding site conditions who had to come up with a plan called a release abatement measure plan which recognized those conditions and spelled out how the construction could proceed without running a foul of the remediation that has already been done and how to the extent those barriers needed to be adjusted or opened up even temporarily, how a condition of no significant risk would be maintained during those temporary periods. And that was also, I might have added the same process that's being followed at the DPW yard with regard to conditions that over there. Thank you, Tom. Not quite as complex as depressing a sense for oddity, but kind of that. So on that, Mr. Hyde, you know? Mr. Herg? Yes. Mr. Helmuth? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. So three-zero vote. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll go get Mr. DeCorsi. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Good night. Take care. Can I say a name and address, please? So I meant to say this at the beginning of the meeting. If around nine, it's just after anyone wants to take a break, just let me know and I'll take the same five, 10 minute break for everyone's necessary, right? Otherwise, I'll probably just barrel through because that's just what I tend to do. So, okay. So item number 11, update on double polls. So I turn to Mr. Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I'll try to keep this brief. As the board knows that there has been various times in the past year and a half that we've had discussions about the number of double polls in Arlington and our desire to see them reduced as quickly as possible and what I provided as an attachment, so an attachment to our agenda this evening is the most recent report that Verizon submitted to the Department of Public Utilities outlining for the period from November 1, 2021 to April 30, 2022, the number of double polls that are still in the town. At the beginning of the time period, there was 113 double polls. They are now reporting that there are 86. And so when I first brought this issue up before the board or at least during my time on the board, there was about 148 double polls in town. So on paper, this looks like a good thing. I will say I question the list a little bit because behind the summary that's included with the agenda is a detailed list of all the double poll locations. And just looking at Mass Ave, there are two double polls listed on the report. If you were to drive from Lexington to the Cambridge border on Mass Ave, you'd find six double polls on Mass Ave. And so that was a spot check, including the one at the corner of Mass Ave in Adams that has been a constant problem, frankly, and the safety hazard. So earlier this year, Mr. Chapter Lane had talked about putting the list up on the town website and asking people to add locations that may have double polls that aren't on the list. Unfortunately, he was not able to do that prior to his leaving coordinate. I've had a brief discussion with Mr. Poole and I think we're gonna talk about it again later this week. So I would ask Mr. Poole if he could coordinate the schedule here to provide that for residents to give us feedback. The second thing that we were going to attempt to do is to bring all the parties together who have fixtures on the polls because it's Verizon's obligation to maintain the polls, but there are other companies that use the polls and Verizon's position earlier this year was that they are in compliance. They're just waiting for the other companies to remove their materials so they can put a new poll up. It sounds to me like there's a communication issue there that I think we need to get involved with. So that's another item that, we voted this a request of Mr. Chapter Lane to coordinate the parties. I think that motion is still live. I will follow up with Mr. Poole on that as well. So I think while there's some good news here, I think there's some problematic polls that I mentioned, there's one on Warren Street that is particularly problematic as well. So I'd like to see this continue and see the communication better. And I just thought the public and the board would be interested to see where Verizon is. Every six months they file a report with the DPU and my intent as long as I'm on the board is to compile that and present where we are. Thank you, Mr. Corsi. Mr. Herrick. Move or see. And then again, I think we can do this every time, but thank Mr. Corsi for your continued leadership on this issue. It is something that when you get elected to public office, you have envisioned the things that you're gonna talk about with residents and double polls come up a lot. That's never what you thought when you pull papers for the job, but it is important and there are safety issues a few of them on mass average. I think we've highlighted those specific polls and it's a little disappointing that the most egregious polls haven't been taken out. But again, the numbers look good. I haven't spot checked the numbers. So when I looked at it, I said, oh, we're moving in the right direction. I think we're getting their attention, but more efforts need to be, or efforts need to continue to be pressed on this to remove more of the double polls and make sure that they don't add more double polls. So let's keep them honest and make sure that they're giving us the right information but keep moving in the right direction. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Corsi. I'll just do some quick math and according to those calculations in your stated intention to do this as long as you're on the board. If there's 86 polls left and we go to 18 a year, that's about five years. So we look forward to your continued serving with you. I will say for as long as, yeah, not until they're done. I'm not promising that. Well, the talent would benefit if you did stay on the job that long, Mr. Corsi. Thank you. So we're not seeing them adding any, is that the deal? Is that explaining? Well, they're removing more than they're adding. They only added one in this last time period. Yeah, because I didn't see any added in 21, you know? So that's what we are hoping for. Well, in removing the backlog because in theory, they're supposed to remove the double poll 90 days after the double poll goes up. And so that's, we're trying to keep them going forward within the 90 day period and reduce the backlog that's been generated over the years. So yeah, I noticed that there's one that's been there since 2004, you know? And it probably was before 2004. This order from the Department of Public Utilities came out at the end of 2003. And what they did is they basically used 2004 as a starting point. So when you see 2004, it probably has been there prior to them. Yeah, so then do you know what the criteria is for removing a double poll? Like what's, what determines whether they remove a double poll? They're supposed to remove a double poll as once a new poll goes in, you have 90 days because there's equipment on the wires and you have to coordinate with the various utilities and cable companies. And so they're not supposed to, after 90 days, once you put a new poll in, you should be removing the old poll. Yeah, yeah. So there's no criteria for keeping it other than you haven't done the switch. Okay, I was with you right up until me. So of the backlog, how do they prioritize removing the backlog? I don't know. They don't, based on condition of the poll. And they might, that's not clear, but this Adam Street poll is an extreme poll and it's an embarrassment that it's, they earn it's unsafe. Yeah, yeah, okay. And so, thank you. So I look forward to reporting. So, motion to receipt by Mr. Hurd and a second by Mr. Helmuth. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. So four is your vote. Thank you. Moving on item 12, we have a discussion of a letter of support for open space and, for an open space and recreation plan. And so, I think probably Mr. Heim will give us a little introduction first. I mean, and then we'll bring on. And let me just add that I really appreciate Adam the letter that you wrote on relatively short notice. So, good job and appreciate the efforts. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to very briefly summarize, the open space committee has done a tremendous amount of work in conjunction with some, with a variety of departments and a whole host of other committees to develop this open space and recreation plan that gets submitted to the executive office of energy environmental affairs for its essential approval. We've been operating under one open space and recreation plan for five years. This is essentially an update from my reading of these materials. It well reflects building off of the successes of previous plans as well as looking forward to the future to forward all the goals that I set forth in the letter. I'm not the expert. Mr. Royer is, so I will hand it over to her. But if there's anything that the board obviously wants to change the letter, highlight, alter, it's your letter. But I hope it reflects the board's overall thinking and approach to the excellent work of the committee. Thank you. Thank you, Simon, and Ms. Royer. Yes, thank you. Thank you for having me come tonight and thank you for reviewing the open space recreation plan and for all of the support that you've given for many years. This is, I think, our fifth report that we've done and we've always gotten great support and especially want to call out Eric and this Community Preservation Act committee because they several years ago provided funds that we were able to hire consultants to help us work on this project. It's as you can tell by looking at the document online, it's a huge project. And so we really benefited by having the funding to be able to do that and working a lot with the planning and community development department as well. I don't really have a whole lot to say. I just appreciate you taking the time to do this and to prepare a letter that we can submit. We've actually, we did submit the draft, the same draft plan that you saw. We submitted that to the state office. It's the Division of Conservation Services within ELEA and we've already received back from them conditional approval. We do have some things we have to change and there's definitely some more editing that we need to do and some board smithing and so forth. And I'm very happy to receive any specific comments that any of you may have about specific issues and topics that are addressed in the document. It's a huge document and nothing's gonna be, not everything's gonna be perfect, but we would do appreciate any board smithing or specific comments that any of you may have and I'm happy to take those offline during the week. I've been away on vacation. So sorry, I wasn't available last week. But I'm happy to answer any specific questions you have if I can and otherwise just thank you all for your continued support for this project. Thank you. So I'll turn to my colleagues. Mr. Hurd. Happy to approve this board issuing a letter of support of the open space and recreation plan that we received. Thank Ms. Leroyer and everyone that worked on this for the amount of work that goes into a document like this is just unbelievable. I would never dare word smith the experts, but I would just say, I mean, I've been in Arlington for a long time and I've been in other towns and I think Arlington devotes so much of its resources to maintaining and improving their open spaces, their parks, their playing fields. And we don't, we're not swimming in open spaces, but the spaces that we do have for residents we really take care of. The new res is amazing. It's been, we've had a great partnership with the Community Preservation Committee since we've instituted, since we passed the CPA years back and it's just Arlington continues to impress with open space and recreation. And I think with this plan, it will continue that. So I look forward to what we'll see in the next 10 years. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Congratulations, Ms. Leroyer. That referring to the CPA sponsored appropriation, I'd say that was money really well spent. This is an outstanding report and plan. It is, it's just full of useful information that helps the community. I think appreciate its open spaces and really articulates the values that residents have consistently held and more recently upheld, I think in the excellent outreach that you did. I'm very impressed with the extensive scope and quality of the public feedback. You know, a thousand people providing comments on open space plan is just amazing. And, you know, it's very thoughtful. I think that it gives, you know, ultimately as you explained to us back in my CPA days, you know, this is a required plan in order to qualify for ongoing grants and certainly checks those boxes. But I think it does more than that and, you know, prevent really outlines a vision, a shared vision that we all have with the community for these precious open spaces. So thank you for that work. And I'm also happy to support the letter. And I take it that was a second. That indeed was a second. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And yeah, thank you, Ms. LaRoy, for all the work that you've done on this plan, but many others over the years too. And I was, it's nice to see you at the opening of the reservoir beach that day we bumped into each other. I think this is very thorough. I appreciate the addition of the CSO references and ill wife Perkuch is very topical. And I do know that there are references to the MuGar property. I know this is a, you have to be careful on this because of the appeals. The only comment I would make and it would probably pass the time that anything can happen. And I don't necessarily think it's necessary, but the 12 acres beyond what's being proposed for development, the zoning board of appeals had very strong language in their decision about the need for conservation restriction, the need to preserve that additional 12 acres. And let's put aside the opposition that many of us have to the proposed development. I think there is certainly consensus in town on that 12 acres. And you have references in the goals to protect property and to monitor real estate transactions. But I wonder if there's a way, if there is time to incorporate it. It was finding 99 in the ZVA decision about the need for a firm conservation restriction being consistent with the goals that you would have as an open space committee. And I do note that the seriousness of the ZVA took the last open space plan. And in finding 96, they actually referenced the last open space and recreation plan for the town. So that's my only comment on that. That additional area seems consistent with the need for conservation purposes and that there's enough language in there recognizing it could be several years on the appeals for the proposed development. Yes, and we recognize the difficulty of the timing of the whole appeal process and the whole zoning review process itself. And I'd be happy to talk to you offline if that's appropriate to get some proper wording. We tried to be very kind of, may probably too vague about it because we just weren't sure what we could say. But if you can help us articulate that better, I think that we would really want to have a much more strict definition of what our goals are in terms of the conservation of that property to the extent that we can, given the legal situation. So I'm happy to talk to you, Mr. DeCorsiette. During the week or sometime. I'm sorry, I missed your call because I was away, right? No problem. Yeah, I'd be happy to talk to you this week about that. Thank you. Okay, no, and if there are any other, even if they seem like small things for any comments or changes or edits, this is not, I have a lot of small edits that are still going to be incorporated. We want to do this as soon as possible, but I certainly want to get anybody's input on the Muvar issue and anything else that might have jumped out at you. And there's definitely time this week or even to next week to make any final edits. So I'll be in touch with you. Well, thank you, Ms. LaRoy. I think you answered my question about when you liked those comments. And so this is really, it's a really good plan. I mean, it's very well written. And I'm looking forward to reading it all. I've only read it at this point, the sections eight and nine, but I had a glimpse at seven, and that was compelling in and of itself. What I really like is how you refer to plans that we currently have, in particular, Connect Arlington is a, transportation, I won't call myself an expert, me, but it's the thing that I perhaps know best. And the way to integrate youth into the plan that there are some action elements where youth can be much more involved, being in open spaces. And so I can see some hooks into the young Arlington collaborative. So, yeah, the goals, there were four goals and objectives to be, but the actions underneath them were really very well laid out and defined. So I'm good job, very good job. And as I said to me and I do now, I was going to anyways me read the whole thing, but now I'm gonna try and get it done this week so that if I do have comments, I can get them to you. So thank you very much. So. Absolutely. Thank you very much for your support and I'll look forward to getting the letter, I guess, eventually after you approve it. Yes. So, Ms. Howard? If I may, I'd just like to express my personal support for Mr. DeCorsi's suggestion on the articulating, you know, an appropriate priority for those 12 acres of new property. That's a great idea. All right, so on a motion by Mr. Herd and a second by Mr. Helmets to approve the letter of support for open space and recreation plan, Mr. Hyde. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmets. Yes. For zero vote. Thank you. And so, if you all don't mind, I would like to pull the discussion with Town Clerk up a couple of that. Okay, so if Mr. Brazil is ready, we can take her now. And so that will be item 15 out of order and authorizing the police details for the state primary. So Town Clerk. Hey, everyone. Hi, Mr. Brazil, how you doing? I'm doing well. Good, good. So wanna tell us what you want us to authorize? Yes, in the past under state law, the police chief was responsible for organizing the police detail. And so I would always just let police chief know the dates and times and locations that we needed. And the new law requires a vote of the select court to accomplish the exact same thing. So here I am. Gotcha. So Mr. Herd, move approval. Second. Yeah. Mr. Hyde? Oh, no, no. All right, so I'm fine with that. So when you go fast, I kind of lose them. So on a motion by Mr. Herd and second by Mr. Helmes. Mr. Hyde. I'll make one note that I assume the board will be okay with. I accidentally wrote the polls are open on September 6th between seven and eight a.m., seven and eight p.m. So everybody doesn't have to rush in there for one hour. And thank you to Ms. Brazil for her memo and us getting a chance to talk about it. I should also note that the reason this language is a little bit more wordy is because under our town manager act, the town manager essentially directs police in personnel to the police chief. That's why our vote is a little wordier than it might be in some other towns. With that, Mr. Herd. I would say it would save us some money on details if it was from seven to eight a.m. Correct. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Helmes. Yes. Mr. Dickens. Yes. Mr. Hernandez, it's a four zero vote. All right, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, thank you. So we'll go back up now to item number 13, discussion update on overnight permit parking violation. So I continue to go through the comments and we've had more comments added. And I have had a conversation with the chair of TAC and there'll be a meeting with TAC in August to bounce ideas off of them in respect to how to go about doing the pilot. And I was hoping to have that conversation with them in the past meeting, but it wasn't on the agenda partly because they had a different notion of what the request was. And that was to try to, whether we should do it or not. And so they were like, well, I mean, that'd be a big study. And they were reluctant to take that on. And also they had a packed agenda, but we are on the agenda. And if Mr. Corsi wants to join me to bounce ideas off of them, of course, you're welcome to do so. And I have started reviewing parking policies of neighboring towns being just to see how they handle the permitting process of it. And I've had initial conversations with Mr. Puller, town manager, who has offered any assistance that we want in terms of exploring the pilot and whatever may come up. That's my update. And Mr. Corsi and I will, I think we at least once, we've had a brief conversation. But I certainly have the some ideas about how we'll move forward. And I'll just say that I think we should just really focus on the what are the principles behind us wanting to do the pilot and let that then guide us as to what kind of pilot we do. I know it seems a little circular, but I guess what I'm getting at is like, think metrics, folks, you know, because I'm having a hard time coming up with metrics, you know, and that's partly what I'm gonna be going to bouncing off of TAC, you know, and so, but I think the inability to come up with metrics should not tell us that we don't do the pilot. It tells us that we contemplate change, you know, and if there's a rationale behind the pilot, that rationale may bear on the fact that we change things and then we determine how we move forward with change means. But as I said, think metrics and how you measure it and how if you were to, when we do the pilot mean what would convince you that we saw some difference, you know, so that's it. So I'll turn this of course if you want to say something. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, you and I had spoken about receiving input from TAC and I've done some other types of research that I think you and I can talk about before we come back to the board, but I appreciate you reaching out to TAC and for your leadership on this issue. Thank you, yeah, so that takes care of that issue. We will, well actually, does anyone want? Seems like it's a good hands, so I'll look forward to what you guys report back. Thank you. Thank you. And next update from the Transportation Advisory Committee. So I am working with the chair and APD, our other police department, mainly through Officer Trotto, to see how we can streamline the responses to letters, especially those that involve speeding, you know, and so we're working on that, you know, and I don't want to say anything more right now until I get some more feedback from Officer Trotto, but I think it'll work better for everyone. It'll take some of the load off attack, I mean, and I think also get a faster response being to people who send us letters because it means depending on when the letter comes to us, we will determine when it can get even on tax agenda, and then it has to, it's in tax queue, you know, and so there may be a way to just kind of go, well, someone can deal with this much faster, you know, and then I think what's really in account upon us is to have a way of responding, a protocol process for responding back to the person who has written to us, me and Ann, you'll see that actually in the correspondence received, I mean, we have three letters actually from TAC, and Ann, they came to the select board's office, me and Ann, I asked Miss Meyer to put it on the agenda so that we could see it, you know, and read it, and I think they're good, they're very well done, you know, they were built copper torrents, so you first unlock at these, and Ann, I think he did a really good job, now I think we'll figure out how to get them, you know, to the people who initially sent us the letters, it's not gonna be hard, we can just find it, but just make that part of the process a kind of closest to loop respect to the person sending us the letter, TAC looking at it, giving me a response, I mean, and then responding back, and then figure out a way to make it such that we can easily search if we are asked again about it, so that's it pretty much for my report from TAC, that kind of teased a little bit the letters made out in the correspondence received, and we can touch on that later on, and so any questions, comments, concerns? Yes, Mr. Kerr? Just to thank you for that, I'm really grateful for your leadership, Miss Mr. Chair, I think that I was really, in my year, plus a couple of months on the board, I think I have heard more from the general public about traffic safety than any other issue, you know, I mean, it's, and that was kind of a surprise to me, but it just shows how important I think that is to people, and even just people and friends and neighbors talking to me, so I think that we're all aware that TAC does a, works incredibly difficult, and they volunteer with considerable skills, and we're fortunate to have them, but I'm glad that you're thinking of ways to triage and prioritize things, particularly for safety and also to get responses to the public, so this is all really good news, I'm glad for the update. Well, thank you, welcome, and I'll try to make the updates, I mean, regular, I mean, they attack me once a month, but it'll depend on the agenda, and certainly I can chop back on how much I talk, you know, so, all righty, you know, so we'll move on now to item 16, draft a discussion and potential approval, the draft joint letter from the Arlington Boards and Commissions regarding Alewife-Brook upper mystic combined sewer overflow, long-term control plan, and so Mr. Hyde had put this on agenda, and at the time, he didn't realize that Vice Chairman Hyde wasn't going to be here. I have reached out to Vice Chairman Hyde to find out if she wanted anything on the agenda post bonnet. I haven't heard back, you know, but I'm suggesting that we at least have a preliminary discussion, you know, so that at least we can kind of air things out a little bit and maybe do tentative approvals, just in case if things have to move faster than we think, but Mr. Hyde can lay out what the probability of that is, you know, and maybe we'll just wait until Ms. Mahan returns, meaning before we vote, but so I'll turn it over now to Mr. Hyde. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. The board has been talking about this issue a little bit here and there for a little while. The actual overall posture of this is a little complicated and hard to explain succinctly, but I'll take some shortcuts. The MWRI Cambridge and Somerville all discharged a certain amount of what's called combined sewer outfall or overflow, CSOs into the LWI of Brooke. They're in the middle, I'm sorry, not in the middle, the very beginning stages of what's called the variance process under mass department of environmental protection, water quality regulations, and a larger NIPDs permit that's administered by the EPA. The stage that they're at now is developing a scope of work for what will be the long-term control plan that will be subject to more formal hearings later on, administered by MassDEP and the EPA. This letter is essentially aimed at reinforcing what a lot of our local Arlington advocacy organizations ranging from Save the LWI of Brooke to Mr. River Watershed Association and some of our town officials have been saying at these initial meetings. I will say that the MWRA, Cambridge and Somerville have all made these meetings public. They have been responsive to both advocates and the EPA's call to continue to make them public such that early feedback is received rather than developing a scope of work, developing a long-term control plan and then getting a lot of feedback on it at a stage where it's kind of like the train has already left the station and it's hard to change directions. That being said, there's been a lot of things that some advocates have been disappointed with so far, some long-term frustrations about the condition of the LWI of Brooke. Overall, we all know that the MWRA in particular, as well as Cambridge and Somerville, have invested a huge amount of money in trying to clean up the greater watersheds of the Boston area. The greatest success being in Boston Harbor, which is part of why the MWRA was formed. But a lot of the feedback from Arlington has been that the LWI Brooke has not been remedied sufficiently and that there would like to be a more aggressive development of alternatives to mitigating and controlling those CSOs. Some people have articulated as closing the CSOs, other people have said it differently. What I've tried to outline here is essentially support for what the EPA has already been responsive to, which is continued commitment to public meetings at early stages. And again, the good news is that MWRA, Somerville and Cambridge have all done that. Commitment to revised modeling, this is probably one of the most important things that I've heard in these meetings when I've attended them, which is that the MWRA and to a lesser extent municipal neighbors have been sort of advancing modeling data that talks about the average year based on this very long look backward. But the issue that we're facing in more recent years may be fewer CSO events, but with much higher volumes because of the intensity of severe storms and the frequency of severe storms. It's kind of weird, it's like fewer overall discharges, but the discharges that are coming are huge. So that's another focus. Another piece is trying to reinforce that Arlington is committing resources through its DPW primarily, but also through its environmental planner and conservation commission and planning efforts to reduce other sources of pollution into the OWIP brook. It's not just CSOs that pollute the OWIP brook. It's also other types of runoff, but we've been doing a lot of those things. I don't wanna overemphasize this point, but it was sort of suggested at the most recent public meeting that Arlington doesn't have a seat at the table because Arlington A isn't subject to the regulatory authority, which is true. We're not the variance holder or the Nifty's permit holder with respect to these discharges, but also that we're not paying for them. But the reality is that Arlington is doing what it can to devote significant financial resources to trying to improve the water quality of the OWIP brook. I'm trying to highlight just a few of those things and then a few other things that, if we're once going to do what we can, about things that, again, the EPA has largely been responsive to already and that the select board, if the conservation commission would like to join this letter, they don't have to. The ARB, they don't have to, but if they'd like to join this letter, could sort of be one, I wanna call it a pre-comment letter because we're not yet to the hearing phase. We're early on in the process, but early on in the process, it may be the best opportunity that we have to say, please commit the financial resources to addressing problems in the OWIP brook. I don't wanna, by the way, take credit for the excellent work of other town officials and advocacy organizations or the Environmental Protection Agency who has been terrific in this process. I just wanna, the purpose of this was to try to re-emphasize things that are going in a positive direction without the board necessarily having to all be hyper-informed of the nuances and intricacies of NIPD's permitting. Sorry, that was a little longer than I had hoped, but I hope that's clear. By the way, I'm sorry, there's a few typos in it. I apologize. I'll definitely clean those up. This is meant to be a sort of preliminary discussion just so we can sort of get going. So I'll just ask a quick question. So when would be the ideal time to get this letter? Mr. Chair, there's no specific deadline other than that in December, the scope of work for these long-term control plans is due to a revised form to the EPA. So I think we wanna try to get in sooner rather than later to keep sort of asserting Arlington's position on this while the MWRI, Cambridge and Somerville are all talking and tweaking what they think they can do, what they think they can't do, how much it'll cost. We want them to develop alternatives and to sort of cost out what can be done. So I think you wanna do this as soon as reasonably possible without rushing unnecessarily. Well, I asked that question because I thought it might influence the motion that anyone that might make so. And I'll sit back and ask Mr. Helmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Heim for the excellent memo and the excellent summary thereof. I would like to move that we approve the letter. It's always ideal to do this with the full five members although I think my understanding of Ms. Mahan's position is that I think she'd support everything that's on it. She's been a really effective advocate. And my reasoning is just I think that if, because Arlington is an opportunity, if we get out in front of this and do this as quickly as we can, if we feel confident that knowing how slowly government can work sometimes at the federal level, having this in early out the gate might be an advantage. So that would be my question. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Mr. Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll second Mr. Helmuth's motion and thank Attorney Heim for the work that he did on the letter and the tone of the letter which I think is really captures concern, recognizing the work that's been done but also the need for change here to change with circumstances that we've found that a wife broke the past couple of years. The other thing I would say, I appreciate, I think it's appropriate for the Conservation Commission to be asked to sign. I'm not sure on this issue it seems to me that Select Board and Conservation Commission might be the two appropriate boards to sign not to exclude the Redevelopment Board but it feels more executive in Conservation Commission. And just a comment, I don't think it's maybe for us to think down the road. I do think the continued need for federal funding is also something that's gonna be necessary because as we've said before, our neighbors in Cambridge and Sullivan I think realizes a problem here but that the cost of the solution is probably beyond there their means but certainly something that we should be continue to reach out to our federal delegation and as a region. Thank you. I'm happy to support it. Thank you, Attorney Heim for his work on this. I think it really encapsulates a number of discussions that we've had and I think I'm sure the board is all in agreement as to what our position is here and I think this is a good step in the right direction. So I have a question for Mr. Heim. So can we vote to approve this but then wait until Mrs. Mahan has a look and then if she wants to change something I guess it would probably be appropriate to come back to the board unless it's minor. I'm trying to get a range of like me how we can include her in the process and what kind of flexibility we can give without coming back to the next meeting in case there's a desire to really move forward because our next meeting is in August 22nd. I think if the board votes to authorize the chair to transmit this letter with any additional comments by Mrs. Mahan that should cover it and then we'll have to see whether the conservation commission substantially agrees with this and wants to sign on and they may have some feedback that's worthy of coming back to the board or they may just say great we'll sign on to it too. So I guess I would look for a motion that says move approval to authorize the chair to transmit a letter of initial comment with the conservation commission subject to any additional comments that Mrs. Mahan may add to it. Yes. I'll be happy to amend my motion there too. Great thank you. Just a second. Thank you. So thanks and so I was at the last meeting and I think I had a conversation with you regarding what I think it might have been the representative from Somerville who said that I think I can have input when they put up some money. I got where he was coming from on that because because essentially what he was saying was that the right this format I mean is where we get to make the input and that Cambridge and Somerville mean then have I guess other discussions with MWRA and EPA or whatever other entities mean in that we weren't going to be included in those. And we still aren't going to be as far as I understand correct Mr. Heim. That's correct Mr. Chair. And I don't think that I hope the tone of this doesn't reflect a sort of snappy sort of like comeback as much as to say we are investing resources. If you'd like to know more about those resources and what we're trying to do, we'd be happy to contribute that to this overall discussion. Yeah and I hear you except that it does kind of reference that me and so I mean I'm fine. I'm not going to say change anything me but yeah. Mr. Chair now is the time. If you'd like to make any amendments to it that's well within your right. I don't think about it but I see the point that you're trying to make me know. So I'm not proud about words with you Mr. Chair. You can, I'd be receptive to that if you want to take a vote and you would like to maybe tweak it with me if your colleagues are okay with that. I'd be happy to revisit that specific few sentences with you sir. Yeah it's just, I'll think about it because I'm not hung up on my words either. So we'll maybe have a little quick. You phrased that motion so well. So on the motion to prove the letter meaning for transmission to the conservation commission with potential input meaning from Mrs. Mahan you know by Mr. Helmuth and second by Mr. Corsi, Mr. Harman. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mr. Diggins. So we move now to discussion and vote town hall banner policy. And so forced it, I guess it was January. Mr. Herd and I volunteered to take on the task of updating in the town hall banner policy and select board and look. So I sent it to Mr. Herd. Things come up like articles in the warrant. Like the warrant comes up and then our attention has to focus on that and then we have town meeting and here we are meeting. So just kind of want to wrap this up kind of, you know as much as this issue will get wrapped up in one meeting, you know. So there are two versions here, which is substantially the same. Just it's just that the where the note comes in, the note regarding the primary purpose of the update in one version is at the very top and another version. It's not highlighted as a note. It just kind of says the other, the primary purpose of the update. But with respect to the meat of it, you know, essentially it is saying that there will be no banners on town hall. And any banners on things such as the light poles made out of the request in through the committee or commission, you know, in that we essentially approved that request. So that's what I have to say on it. You know, I'll turn to my colleague, Mr. Herd, meaning then we'll go to Mr. Heim for some legal updates. Yes, I would just add that thanks to the chair, the sense of my participation was that the chair came up with the new language, sent it to me, and I said it looks good. So, but we had a conversation, we had initial conversations about what the language would be and where our heads were. And we're in, I think unanimous between the two of us, agreement as to what the policy would be. And I think it's correctly reflected here. And, you know, we had, this was referenced earlier in the meeting, but part of the reason we had put this off back, way back when, when I think initially Mr. DeCorsi and Mr. Cairo were undertaken this was the Supreme Court decision, which I'm sure Attorney Heim will talk about, has now been resolved that in essence says that if we put up one statement, we can't regulate what other statements that people request to be put on town hall. And the ramifications of such a decision by the Supreme Court could be very dramatic unless we instituted a policy like this. So I think this is, this isn't as much as people are gonna say this is specific to one banner, one issue, this is just that we've, as recently as our last town, town day committee meeting have had to have a discussion and change a policy regarding town day, where we said that, you know, likely by the time we get to town day, we'll have a policy in place that won't allow for one of the sponsors to put a banner on town hall. And they were disappointed, but understood the rationale for it. So I mean, it's not for one banner, it's not for just political banners, it's for all banners, it's, and I mean, we've had, there was a town meeting vote, but we've also heard from many, many residents, and I think the general scope that I hear from residents is that they just don't want to hang banners on town hall. And there was never really a firm policy that I know of or that was enforced regarding this. So I think this is the direction that we should be going in. And again, I thank the chair for his leadership and work on this. Thank you, sir. So like I said, I'll go to Mr. Hyde next, if you want to say something, but. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the only, I guess, pieces that I would want folks to understand is that what we're really talking about are two sort of concepts under First Amendment law. Whether or not town hall should be a limited public forum in which private speech is expressed. In other words, if you're gonna have people apply to put a certain flag or banner or message on town hall, there have to be content neutral regulations that govern what that is, because you can't allow speech that you like and disallow speech that you don't like. The only exception to that is the so-called government speech doctrine. Now, the short-lived case, which is what we were sort of waiting on, ultimately held that the city of Boston wasn't really engaging in government speech when they were using the flag poles outside city hall to put up different flags and then they refused to put up a Christian flag, which was what started this suit. There are certain circumstances in which government speech would still be allowed and the Supreme Court decision does talk about that, but that wasn't the case of what was happening with respect to the city of Boston's flag poles, which is part of what we had previously based our policies upon. The other thing I guess I wanna emphasize is that this doesn't affect traditional public forums. People can gather on street corners, they can gather on the steps of town hall, engage in political expression and conduct that's contemplated by the First Amendment. The real question about town hall and banners and the light poles is whether or not we're creating a limited public forum by allowing speech under content neutral. We don't have to know what it says in order to know whether it's approved or not. Finally, with respect to the sort of designation of committees and commissions to put activities and events before you for approval, I do wanna make clear that you're vesting some ability for those committees and commissions to make certain judgments about how they're going to decide what they're gonna basically say goes on those light poles as an activity or event. So there may be some further thought that needs to be had within those specific committees and commissions about how they will evaluate an application by the Arlington International Film Festival or Arlington Arts and Culture Commission activity or event. So what you've crafted is a policy that's very sort of devolution, if you will, that allows other government bodies in Arlington to make a decision about what is an activity or an event that they'd like to promote. And your role will really be in making sure that these very content neutral for criteria are applied evenly to whatever comes to party. If you have any questions, this is a very complicated area of the law. I wanna make it clear that there's no absolute perfect answer to these questions. There never has been and there never will be. But if you have any questions, I'm happy to try to be as best service as I can. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for your work and our colleagues and Mr. Heim for your remarks. A couple of questions. So, does the policy that's presented here is recommended that we vote on? In your mind, just to be clear, is that government speech or a limited public forum for the light poles? Well, the policy that you've put, I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. Yes, please, please, please. Let me pull it up. The policy that you've put for tonight's discussion essentially says that Town Hall is not gonna be used as a limited public forum. So that's. That takes it off the table. That's off the table. Yeah. Banners on light poles have to come with a request and efficiently recognize town commission, town board committee or commission to promote an activity or sponsored by that board, committee and commission for a specific limited period of time. So a committee and commission could sponsor lots of different things and that might be government speech in some contexts or in other contexts, it might be that they have a facially neutral set of things that they want to do like the art contests that we had in previous years where the audience and commission on culture had a sort of specific activity for a limited period of time and they had a criteria for selecting winners that was not based on the substantive content of those submissions. So you do have some latitude and flexibility but you are giving some discretion to, and I don't mean this in a pejorative way, subordinate or inferior bodies. Okay, thank you. So as a follow up to that, under Sherlock or any other relevant presidents and decisions, are you comfortable that the policies in regards to the light poles would preserve the town's power to disallow messages that we wanted to disallow? I think that it's in the application, Mr. Helman. Mr. Helman, I'm sorry, thank you. Yeah, please. I think it's in the application. So if you have an art contest or you have some activity by a board or commission that essentially creates, that uses the light poles as a limited public forum, then you can't disallow things, the committee or commission in response to that activity can't disallow things based on disagreement. Just to be clear, I mean, again, there's no perfect solution to all these problems. If they're going to engage in government speech, it's limited to an activity or an event, as described by this policy. So, and for a specific and limited period of time. So one thing that strikes that comes to mind is that, for example, for Black History Month, I recall the banners up and down, Massachusetts Avenue highlighting different important figures in American history. And certainly a town border body could sponsor an event for Black History Month that would essentially put those banners up and they might just design them themselves. And if they build a record, that might be sufficient for government speech, which is not the same as someone saying, Arlington Commission on Arts and Culture, I want to have an event entitled, an ode to the Confederate South. And I'd like to celebrate Confederate War generals and stuff like that. Well, first of all, that's not something that's likely to be sponsored by an Arlington Committee or Commission. But second of all, to the extent that they're asking the government to engage in speech, we do have some ability to build a record that says yes or no, this is not consistent with this border body's work commission. Again, it's a little easier if committees and commissions keep things strictly limited to, here's an activity in our event, we're creating a sort of limited public forum, we want to have an art contest, that's what we're using it for, we want to promote Arlington Arts and Artists, we want people to put up banners, but you might get a banner that is presenting something that you might have to make sure that there's reasonable rules, if you will, for that specific solicitation. Thank you, tangential of that in the best sense of it being kind of relevant. So can we, I mean, I think if you're comfortable with this, but I think kind of a related thing is that, if saying that this has to come through sort of a pipeline of an official town board commission committee body, that if we then say that we would not entertain suggestions from private citizens who want to go outside of that process that we're still within the bounds of current legal precedent. Yes, so I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. President, this is a good question. So if you wanted to, if the interpretation of this and maybe a tweaking of it is that it has to essentially be something that is voted upon to be approved by a committee or commission. I think that's sort of already kind of contemplated. We can't control everything. I mean, for all you know, somebody writes a letter and says, I want to have, you know, banners promoting an activity about something controversial. I don't know. And a board or committee says, yeah, we want to do that and they vote to do it. But again, what's good about that is from a government speech perspective, you've got a record. What Boston did not have at all was a record. And alternatively, if committees and commissions want to say, we really mean, you know, activities. You know, we don't really mean just general, you know, events. We want it to be there's a date that this is gonna happen. Like again, I keep bringing up our international film festival. I don't know why. It's just stuck in my head. But that's an example of something that, that if, you know, the audience commission on arts and culture wants to be oriented towards making choices about what cultural events they're gonna support, or not support, but advertise, they can do that more as a limited public forum than as government speech. Okay, thank you. And I just have some more. I'm just gonna go for it. This is an important discussion. Is there anything, the exclusion of banners from Town Hall, which I'm gonna comment on separately because I would still like to be able to do them just myself. But would this current policy, if voted, preclude using the colored lights in Town Hall in a pride configuration or, you know, in the other configuration that might be understood, commonly understood to be a statement? And I should have, I'm springing this on you so. So I know that that might be a complicated question. It's okay if you say you're not sure. So your policy says displays of banners informational or otherwise. So it's talking very specifically about a kind of sign. It's not talking about lights. I do owe a duty of sort of candor to the board. If you're using lights to convey a certain, I personally don't feel like displaying rainbow colors is, or the pride flag is political from my personal point of view. But as a lawyer, I will say that somebody is going to interpret that as political or could interpret that as political. It's not a bright line. We don't get to say certain things are political and certain things aren't under the law even if we feel like they might be from a moral or ethical standpoint. I think the question is not as a political but is it a banner? Sure. So I guess the candor that I'm trying to express to you is that there's obviously a limited configuration of things you can do with lights. The board has to decide whether or not it wants town hall to this policy to extend to illuminations. If you want to illuminate town hall in blue and yellow in support of the people of Ukraine, are you open to somebody saying, well, I want this other light scheme in support of Russia and Russian interests? I'm just saying that the same questions are going to come up no matter what you do with respect to any type of display that's meant to convey a message. That's the piece that I'm trying to be candid with the board about. Thank you. I very much appreciate that. And thank you to my colleagues for your patience. I'll just say for myself, first of all, I appreciate the work that went into this. I completely respect points of view of my colleagues even if they're different than mine. I want to hear what my other colleague, Mr. Korsi and Mr. Vendiggans have to say before I decide for sure how I would vote on this. I would like to find a way to preserve our ability to use town hall for banners as government speech, as approved by this body. Realizing that that is complicated. So I'm not sure how that would affect my vote on this, but I feel like I've said plenty now and I want to hear from other folks. And I'll also say that we don't have to vote on it tonight so we can have a discussion if we want to wait and that's fine too. I saw Mr. Poole over at the end on the screen. So I'm going to do what no lawyer should do and say something before he's talked to his lawyer about it. But I will anyway. It'd be my interpretation as manager if this were to pass that I would not see it as applying to lights and I would see lights as being indicative of government speech. There are certain events, Pride Month being one of them, Black History Month that have been declared months. Now I don't know who has made those declarations and what the line is between whether just a bunch of people have come around and said, okay, this is Black History Month or whether in fact the state or the federal government has made those determinations. But I don't think it's inconsistent with the town's ability to make statements about those things because I think those are recognized, governmentally recognized events. My reading of this would be that this does not apply to lights but it's a question that I asked Doug about 25 minutes ago and we did not have a chance to discuss it so I think it's a very good question. And whether there are other things like Ukraine, well, is that a recognized issue? I guess the extent to which our federal government has taken a stand in support of the Ukrainians. I would say that would be consistent with federal government speech and consistent with what the town could say. You're gonna slice salami on this forever. And there's no, there's Doug said, there are no court lines in the First Amendment on these things but that's how I would interpret it as manager. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, and I appreciate you bringing this before us. I mean, as I've said, when we've had the discussions going back to 2021 earlier this year, this is a very complicated issue in terms of the government speech doctrine and when we choose to engage in government speech and we just heard from Mr. Pooler and there may be, as we think about this in terms of who makes the decision to turn the lights on and whether it's with the approval of the board and there are some communities across the country that now do have light policies and it is difficult, you're slicing the onion and I just, I think as we've talked about this and I think part of the discussion is if we choose to engage in government speech where are we gonna do it and how are we gonna do it? And I think what you've said here and what's come out of comments from several of our colleagues, you Mr. Diggins, Mr. Herd, Mrs. Mahan is, is that the facade of town hall is not a place that you wanna have a banner up for speech and if you don't have standards, you're not controlling the speech that's on town hall and then there were questions, well, if we did wanna engage in government speech, is there a place in town that we would wanna do it other than town hall and then that raises the issue of the light? So the short-lived decision came out in May 2nd and I understand what you're doing here. For me personally, I'd like a little time to digest this in terms of the overall, what standards are we gonna apply for lighting? Would we use a different place in town and to engage in government speech? If we engaged in government speech, how would we do that and what standards would we have? I totally understand what you're doing with the facade here and I think over time that there may be a consensus developed on that based on the short-lived decision, based on just the difficulties that we have in terms of developing standards and controlling the message. I'm just not at a point where just seeing this and understanding these other concerns where I'm ready to vote on this to the exclusion of other things because I think it goes beyond just adding a few words here and so that's where I am right now on this. I appreciate bringing it up but I need a little time to think. I wanna talk to attorney I am about a few concerns that I have just in different context in the overall government speech context. Great, the point is to get this thing back in front of us so that we can wrap it up to the extent that this kind of issue gets wrapped up, at least make a quantum move on it. And so for me, the lights mean is a gap and so I feel that we would need to address lights being separately, it can be under this policy but then there'd be another paragraph or whatever to address lights specifically and you could probably guess where I'm going with the lights and so it would be like, I wouldn't have any display of lights that are conveying any kind of message. If I were to do something with lights it would probably be the town colors and that would be it. Maybe some kind of pattern with them. Maybe red, white, blue on a July 4th Veterans Day, Memorial Day, just to just kind of neutralize the lights on town hall. As Mr. The Course said, it'd be part of the discussions where I'm not trying to stop people from either us as a board or entities in town being from taking positions in unimportant matters. As I said, we can do that on light poles, we can maybe find these places in town, across streets, whatever. With the understanding that we may be in positions depending on policy or the nature of the speech where we will have to have the messages up there that the community at large don't, doesn't like. But as one person would send an email that would probably, that would be a learning experience. And so I'm not afraid of that. It would be something we'd have to just deal with as a community, you know? So, there's probably nothing else that I would say that I haven't said repeatedly. So I'm just going to leave it at that, you know? And so we've had preliminary discussion. And I think we probably, if there were gonna be a motion to be the table, so later, but even though that's necessary, so we'll, to be continued, you know? All right, okay, you know, so. So, we will move on to correspondence received, you know? So we have 618, Disguards to the Use of Healing Balloons at Town Day by Mr. Grant Cook. And 19 is concerns regarding 40B project located at 1021, 1025, Massachusetts Avenue, Patricia Baron Warden. And third, safety concerns in the Dallas School area, Peter Fuller. And last, we have recommendations from the Transportation Advisory Commission. So, take a motion. Over. Second. And what I will, I'm going to, I'm going to suggest that we send 20 to TAC. And then I'll have a conversation with the chair. So I'll contact Ms. Meyer about that before the letter goes out. And as I pointed out in my, in my update from TAC, these are the 21 recommendations, and we'll figure out, we'll get those to the parties that are, that we're responding to in the recommendations. And for 18, I kind of refer to an issue around Town Day. And so we'll send that to the Town Day Committee. Yeah, I mean, I think the Town Day Committee already addressed this and the chair, if you haven't already, it's going to respond to Mr. Cook. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, and so, so I mean, essentially, we, you know, it's, it's something that we will deal with me in the next Town Day, you know, and, and as far as this current Town Day being as Mr. Cook said, it's more about encouraging people not to use them. And so, so if anyone, you know, applies for it, we'll have a gentle little conversation. So, so, so with that, any other comments? So, so we have a motion by Mr. Helmets and second by Mr. Herd, you know, and Mr. Heim. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. DeCoursey. Yes. Mr. Helmets. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. It's a four-zero vote. Thank you. And that's to go to the business. Mr. Meier. No, no business. Mr. Heim. No, no business. And before I go to Mr. Poehler, I just want to say welcome to your first likeport meeting. Caught me a little bit off guard because I thought you weren't going to be here until August meeting. So, so I had a little something kind of prepared for that. Nothing spectacular, but just a little more of an introduction with some explanation to our fellow residents who meet about the position and the extent of it. But we'll save that in four for August. But delighted to have you here in your sand colored suit, Mr. Poehler. So, any words? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm delighted to be here. And I look forward to many other meetings with you all and working with you. I'm glad to be wearing a summer suit. They're hard to find. But given the weather and the climate issues that are affecting us, it seems appropriate. So, thank you. Welcome. So, I have no new business. This is of course he? No new business. Mr. Heard? No new business. Good to see you in the chair, Mr. Poehler. No new business. And so, I guess I have one piece of new business. And I thought actually someone else was going to cover it last month. Maybe you can help me out with this, Mr. Poehler. Apparently, Ms. Warren-Journal has received an award, a heroin award for her work meet on the pandemic meet. And it seems like it's a big deal. You know, it's certainly, you know, can you, I haven't pulled up the press release. We can, but are you able to expand on it a little bit now or? Certainly, Mr. Chair. Christine Brun-Journal, our director of health and human services was recognized as one of the heroines of the Commonwealth. She was sponsored in this recognition by Senator Cindy Freeman. Right. And there are, or she wasn't the only one in the state who received this recognition, but it is a special call out to her for the work that she did in the town around the COVID pandemic, around making sure that we were safe there, that in addition with her work to making sure that people were getting fed in town, she was certainly involved in that. And there was one other item issued that if I'd known you were going to ask me, I would have remembered. I'm sorry. But there was the third that got special recognition. It is in the press release. It is on the town website. And I would just add Arlington, I think has been way ahead of many other communities in its health work. And that is really because of Christine. We are very lucky to have her. I know personally working with her on a daily basis, she's always full of good information and an unwavering commitment to protect public health. So a well-deserved honor for her. Yes. And I think she has more work ahead. So it's good that we do have someone like her. I mean, I'm still with us, seeing and leading some, hopefully in the right direction. So with that, take the motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. Second. So I motion to adjourn by Mr. Corsi and second by Mr. Helmuth. Mr. Herd. We almost made it. Almost made it. Almost made it. So, so, this is the high. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mr. Deyons. Yes. It's four zero vote.