 for attendees to continue populating here. Okay, why don't we get started? We have nearly 70 participants right now, and I would imagine that number will go up over the course of this session. My name is Adam Chaplain, I'm the town manager here in Arlington, and today is another in our series of virtual town forums to try to inform the public about our activities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also an opportunity to take questions and do our best to answer them for those participating. So we're gonna do about a half an hour talking about our public health response, our thoughts and plans around economic recovery, and we also wanna spend some time talking about a shared streets pilot initiative that we'd like to roll out sometime in the very near future. After that, I'll ask folks who are attending to please use the Q and A function to insert or enter questions, and then we'll, I'll moderate that Q and A session for as long as it takes up to a 330 to get through as many questions as we can. I've also received a few questions via email, and I will plan to include those as part of the Q and A session as well. So to start, I wanna just talk a little bit about how we see the next few weeks going. I think we've now very quickly shifted from our stay at home advisory mindset and are the mindset of keeping everyone safe to lots of curiosity and concern around reopening. There is certainly widespread economic hardship, widespread economic concern, and remaining public health concern. We all have really tremendous stress on us. I'm not saying that as a public official, I'm saying that as a human being, and I know we're all feeling it and we're all wondering what the path forward is. So I'm not gonna claim that we have all the answers today, but we're gonna do our best to talk about where we're at in considering how Arlington as a community can move forward. So I'll start by saying most of you have probably read the news or heard the governor's press conference is talking about reopening. And he's laid it out in what he views as four phases. And he's being assisted by a reopening advisory board that has people from many sectors, both public and private advising on how this should be approached. And he's set it out as four phases. Again, phase one being start, phase two being cautious, phase three being vigilant, and phase four being the new normal. And in conversations that I've had with representatives of the administration, as well as the governor himself, they're viewing this as a very slow reopening process that at times may be a halting process because as much as addressing the economic concerns is front of mind, I think the state as we feel here locally, we believe this needs to be done safely and based upon public health data and firm scientific data. So as I understand it, phase one will likely start sometime at the beginning of next week with a focus on May 18th. And at that point, the governor and his administration will announce a series of sectors or types of businesses that will be allowed to reopen, likely with still very severe restrictions on their opening and operation. Then for what would likely be a three to four week period, public health data will continue to be reviewed to determine whether or not moving to phase two would be appropriate. Phase two would then likely include a wider set of industry sectors that would be allowed to operate still under some form of restrictions. Again, the phase would likely take three to four weeks with health data being reviewed before moving to phase three and then phase four. So really all these phases looking the same in terms of some number of sectors being allowed to operate under restrictions and not achieving or moving to the next phase until public health and scientific data suggests that it's appropriate. And I think an important thing to mention is that the scientific data or the health data could suggest that the phases move backwards. So it's not necessarily a directly forward moving process depending on the course of the virus. So I don't necessarily know very much more than that. We're doing our best to get information from the state but I think they've laid out a solid framework for how we will be thinking about things and how we will be considering things over the next several weeks. The only additional thing I'll add is that I've heard directly from members of the governor's administration that even throughout these phases they will be urging all employers who have the possibility of doing this to keep workers who can work from home working from home. Because at the end of the day the more there are human interactions the more there is the chance for continued transmission of the virus. So that's the framework that we will be working with. I think you'll hear consideration around these phases in our thoughts from Christine Bargerona when she talks about a public health perspective. And then I think you'll also hear Jenny and Allie talk about this when they talk about this economic recovery point of view. So with that I'll wrap up my opening remarks here and I'll turn it over to Christine Bargerona who's the director of health and human services for the town and she's gonna give an update on our public health response to this pandemic. So thank you Christine. Okay, thank you Adam. So as Adam mentioned Christine Bargerona the health and human services director here in town. I've worked here in this department for nearly two decades so almost 20 years and through that time I've participated in a number of public health issues including a number of emergency planning initiatives related to pandemic preparedness and we had the H1N1 episode back in 2009, 2010 and through that the staff here in this department has been working really just to prepare for and practice in the event that we had another pandemic that hit and here we are in what we now know as our new normal, our COVID-19, what we do here in our department is we regularly receive information from the Department of Public Health as well as the CDC, specifically positive cases are referred to our office through the Department of Public Health. We work directly with those positive cases and we conduct what we call contact tracing which many people have heard as a new term that the state's been using. That's a concept that we've been using here in our department and across the state and across the country for public health, control of disease for many years for as long as I've been in public health. So what we do is we reach out to the case, the positive case and here in Arlington currently we have about 267 positive cases of COVID-19. We know that number is higher because a lot of people have not had access to testing and have been notified by their physician over the phone, have been diagnosed over the phone and that does not get included unfortunately in our numbers. So we currently have 267 cases that we have reached out to. We interview those cases, determine possibly where they may have come into contact with a positive case, where they may have gotten the virus from and then we determine who they've been in contact with, who they could have spread the virus to. And so we then start reaching out to those individuals, those are considered close contacts and we then put those people in quarantine and those people are in quarantine 14 days from there first exposure to the individual that is considered positive. So through that process, we've had hundreds of people across the community that we've put into quarantine. The positive case themselves, they're in isolation. So they're required to stay home and isolate within their home if there's a number of people in their immediate living arrangement they need to be within a specific area within their home in order to prevent the further spread. What we've seen over the course of the past few months is that this virus is incredibly easily transmissible. So this can be spread very easily from person to person. This is unlike any other type of virus that we have really seen here in this region in the number of years. So some areas that we specifically have been focused on in many people have been seeing this across the country, across the world, around the world, the senior living facilities. So we have three here in Arlington that we've been working with specifically. We have Sunrise Assisted Living, Park Ave Nursing Home, as well as Bright View. We've been working a lot with those facilities to make sure we can control as best we can and to prevent the further spread of the virus within those facilities because they're congregate living spaces. So to date, we've had over 100 cases from those three facilities. We've worked around the clock with our police fire, EMS, Armstrong Ambulance, to make sure that all resources are provided, again, prevent the continued spread within those facilities. We've worked with the state to get universal testing across those three facilities. And to date, I feel as if our efforts have really been helpful and have really helped to control the spread because once we know there's a case, we sort of develop these sort of concentric circles around that case and make sure that we prevent the further spread. You know, over the course of the past few weeks, we have developed some strong relationships with businesses in town, including AFC Urgent Care Arlington. They are doing, we just announced yesterday a partnership where they will be conducting testing of our residents. And we know that testing is an issue that will help us get back to our previous lives. If we know who has this virus, who we can test and isolate, we can try to, again, control and prevent the additional spread within our community. So testing is a big issue in a big area that we need to, as an entire nation, improve upon. So our relationship with the Urgent Care Center here in town will help us get closer to that. So we've established that relationship and we've been promoting that. We hope that we can continue to provide that level of service to the community. And also Armstrong Ambulance has been very helpful in assisting us with the specific locations, such as group homes and other pockets within our community that have a harder time accessing testing through the Urgent Care. So testing has been an issue that we've been really focused on over the past few weeks in order to help us better control the spread. So just a little bit about the staff in our office. We have a pretty robust team here, highly professional public health experts that have really dedicated their lives to the field and also just really dedicated the past few months to this effort to control the virus within our community. We were one of the first communities here in Massachusetts to have experienced a positive case. And I think it really set us up in a position to understand really what needed to be done early in the early stages. And I'm proud to say that the department really stepped up. So our team is daily looking at data trends, looking at experiences of other states, other countries and trying to determine what we can implement locally to again control the spread. And as I mentioned previously, this virus is so contagious and so easily transmitted person to person that anything we can do to prevent that further spread will help us down the line. We're continuously reviewing CDC and state guidance, information and best practices. Again, in order to help us get to the other side here. Our team participates in regular calls with our public health experts across the state. So we're on regular calls, just trying to understand what other communities are doing in order to again figure out best practices and how to best control the spread within our community. And also, we've got an amazing team of leaders within our own community within Arlington. So we have a daily check-in where exchange information. Again, what can we do better? What are we doing that needs to be adjusted? So our team includes the leaders across the major divisions across our community, including the police chief, fire chief, town manager and a number of other departments. And again, it's just to look at what we can do. We're constantly looking at what we can do to make this a better situation for everyone because that's really what our roles are. So I think I've covered the basics and I'm happy to answer any questions. I wanna thank everybody for joining us today because I think that hearing from you is incredibly important as we move forward and into the next stage. So I'm happy to answer any questions that anyone would have when it's that time. So thank you. Thank you, Christine. So next we're gonna hear from Jenny Rae who's the director of planning and community development and Allie Carter, who's the economic development coordinator. And again, they're gonna talk both about our work and our thoughts to date about economic recovery and also our plan for a shared streets initiative aimed at trying to open up more public real estate for people to be able to get outside and recreate safely as this situation moves forward. And before I turn it over to them, I do wanna say that I've been giving this a lot of thought and we've talked about this as a team. What we've all been through for the past few months has been very hard. The lockdown, the stay at home advisory, the closing of society as we know it has been very hard. But I think we're all acknowledging that the reopening of society is actually gonna be a much bigger challenge. So we're considering this or looking at this very seriously and understanding the challenge that we all face together. So with that, I will introduce Jenny Rae. Thank you, Adam. And thank you, Christine and to the whole team of first responders who've been working so diligently every day on this particular issue. We really appreciate all of the work that you do. And thanks to ACMI for letting us get this message out mostly on a weekly basis and even beyond that really appreciate your support. So what I'm gonna just talk about briefly is the Arlington Economic Development Recovery Task Force which the select board put into place a couple of weeks ago and the group actually started to meet this week for a couple of times and they will meet again next week and beyond to help with both the reopening effort as well as the longer term recovery. The task force itself includes representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services, the select board, Parks and Recreation Department, the town manager, the redevelopment board and the Department of Planning and Community Development. And we're working with business community representatives from across the community, all business districts and representatives also from the nonprofit community are very important cultural institutions who also inform our economic development activities day to day. These town officials and their boards and committees are the ones who establish, create and help to implement policies and regulations that are part of really can help drive and revise our town's economic recovery. It's really critical that we work together right now to figure out the right ways to reopen in these phases sector by sector and then I'll also think about the long-term health of the community. And of course, keeping health and safety and everything for people's public health and safety in mind. The role of business owners, nonprofit leaders, property owners, banking executives and others who are on the task force is to really provide the town with guidance in order to create the policies and procedures and the processes that we can do in Arlington to meet the real needs and address the concerns of health and safety as businesses are able to actually reopen which is driven of course by the state and the guidelines that we've received by the state but also informed by the work that we're doing with various regional entities that are helping to inform what we think are sort of emerging practices. The contributions of these members are also helping to inform of course our longer-term recovery as we begin to discuss the long-term stability of our business districts. Things may need to change and that includes thinking about things that are temporary interventions that we might make during the reopening that might end up becoming something longer term. And so what Allie's gonna talk about is some of the things that we've already instituted and established and then also talk about what she's been learning about those emerging practices and some of the feedback we've already received from the business community about what might work as we move into reopening. Thank you. So I'm Allie Carter. I'm the economic development coordinator for the town thanks to Adam and Christine, Jenny, ACMI and everyone who's joining us today. So I wanna just start off with a little overview of the COVID-19 business impacts in Arlington. Right away or very soon after things started to hit the ground it was in early March, we put out a survey to businesses to see how they were being impacted. Over 60% of the respondents to that survey reported having five or fewer employees. Over 80% rented the space they occupy and over 70% had no disaster recovery plan. So when I look at that, I see and not much of that was a surprise except that it just underscores the fact that we have a community with lots of small businesses that were vulnerable because they're on the hook for rent and they had no plan for dealing with this kind of situation. So since we took that survey we've been working every day to respond to this situation. So we have created a CDBG funded Arlington business COVID-19 relief program. It's a grant program for small businesses. That will be the application will be available soon. The health department created COVID-19 operations guidelines for restaurants. We've compiled a resource page on the town's website including an open business listing and a social media contest for a small business bingo to encourage people to shop and make purchases online or through takeout at our local businesses more. We've been holding these virtual forums for the public and also for business and nonprofit communities. I've been emailing critical updates to the business owners at least weekly, more often than that. We created the task force that Jenny was just speaking about and on Monday of this week we issued a second survey focused on recovery which we've been receiving some responses to and hopefully continue to get a good response to that. Before I talk about the emerging practices that communities are putting into place to respond to this and support of their businesses, I just want to preface it by saying that it really is uncharted territory. We're looking to countries and states that have already started reopening but it's all fairly recent. So there are no really tried and proven strategies but there are things that show promise. Adam mentioned this at the beginning but it's there's repeating that their recovery will be gradual, possibly occurring over the course of several months and that there will be possible stops and starts along the way. And there's been a lot of people studying this and studies have identified that the very types of businesses in our communities, these specialty retailers and independent restaurants, they're some of the most vulnerable. So we really need to do everything we can to support them as a town, as a community. So with that in mind, I will share some of these emerging practices that we're considering. One is relaxing signage regulations to allow business owners to communicate from within their stores a little more clearly with the public. We're also thinking about adopting a uniform messaging signage for businesses so that if it's curbside, it will say the same curbside pickup sign in every curbside business. Brookline has implemented something like that. So we're looking at a similar program. We're also looking at identifying purchases that the town could make that benefit the community such as neighborhood hand washing stations or hand sanitizing dispensers out in the public realm so that people can stay clean and take precautions, staying healthy while they're out. We're looking at amending traffic and parking policies in business districts. We should have a pay-by-phone parking service up and running soon. And even though the meters are free at the moment, we'd like to have that in place before we start charging people for parking again. And also repurposing public spaces to allow expanded seating and other types of uses for businesses and the public in order to maintain safe distancing. And Jenny, I think we'll explain that in more detail. Thank you, Allie. Jess, would you bring up the slides please? Allie is bringing those up. I'm going to talk a little bit about what we're calling a shared streets initiative but I just want to build off of what Allie already talked about with regard to encouraging, we are reopening during the warmer months, the warmest months of the year, the time that we in New England look forward to and that we know already based upon some warmer weather that we've had, there's already a lot of crowding that's been happening along the bikeway and we've also received a lot of feedback from residents about ideas for ways to encourage lower streets and shared streets across the community. What we wanted to do was engage a couple of different components together both from a design perspective, which is we've engaged neighbor ways design and also are trying to get the support of the Solomon Foundation to help us with the funding of the labor and materials in the long term. But in the short term, based upon what we have currently in town, being able to demonstrate through a pilot what a shared streets program might look like. And so what's on the screen right now is a potential for a pilot demonstration of what that might look like along Brookfavs, which is one possibility. This is in a preliminary conceptual design phase. We will be sharing it also with the select board. We've also shared information within the neighborhood so that residents in East Darlington can begin to understand what we're talking about and also ask a lot of questions about it and provide us with feedback. If it's not the right location then finding perhaps another location. So we've begun to explore some alternatives, including the one that is shown here, as well as also looking at sort of potential for broader connectivity throughout the community, which could include things like sort of gateways from one part of the community to the other that would enable people to be able to be in the street to encourage less crowding on sidewalks or in areas where there aren't even sidewalks at all. The idea here is focused on two things, space and speed. We want people to have the space to be able to be healthy outside but also to remain social distancing. That's critical as we move forward, particularly in the reopening effort. And in the phases of that reopening, we anticipate that people will wanna get outside a lot more. Having that space is really important, but if it's in a shared streetscape, it needs to be at slower and lower speed while also maintaining as much existing parking as possible and also local through traffic as well as emergency access. This is all done through what you see as sort of advisory signage and signs and cones and other sorts of barriers. If you go to the next slide, please, Jeff. This is an example of what they're using in Seattle, Washington. And actually there are a lot of other pilots that have been instituted across the country as well as now they're no longer pilots they're being permanently put in place until there is no longer some sort of emergency order requiring people to maintain social distancing. In order to maintain health, it means that people will need access to the outdoors, but of course we want it to be safe as it's happening. And so I think with that, I can talk a little bit more about it perhaps during the Q&A, but I will bring it back to Adam. To bring us into that next part of the program. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Jenny. Thank you, Allie. But we will get right into the Q&A. We have just about an hour to go through Q&A. So I think I'm gonna start with one that I received or I'll start with a few that I received via email before the start of the session. And the first one was in regards to the work that we did on the pedestrian push buttons on traffic signals throughout town along our main thoroughfares. We shut off the need to push those buttons so that we would reduce sort of a contact surface where people could potentially contaminate and then transmit the virus. But someone wrote to me asking that as people start to get back on the roads, if we should think about maybe reverting back to the prior cycles so that cars aren't waiting at red lights while the pedestrian cycle is running if there's no pedestrians there. Especially given that there's a chance that there's a low chance of transmission in these buttons. So I would respond to that question that we will certainly take that into consideration. I think we'll have to look at how things go over the next few weeks. And we will definitely give it consideration. It was never intended to be permanent. And when the time is right, we'll certainly be willing to give consideration to reverting it. So I'll take one more of the email questions and then go to the questions we have in the Q&A. Here's one for you, Ali, to at least advise where this person could go. This person's question is they have a full-time job, but that job doesn't cover all of their living expenses on a normal basis. And they supplement it with a part-time job. But because of the pandemic, they've lost that part-time job. Do you know if the loss of that part-time income makes them eligible for a pandemic unemployment assistance? Or who could answer that question for them? Yeah, I think it's possible. So we have a link on our website to the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program and they're very busy. They're fielding a lot of requests. But from what I've heard from many people is a very simple application process. And it only takes about 15 minutes. And you know by the end of it whether or not you've been approved. So I would just say that it doesn't hurt to try. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Ali. Yep. So now I'll go to the Q&A that we have here within the Zoom system. And I think this first one will go to Christine. What is being done to address false positives and false negative test results? Shouldn't that be a real concern? Sure, of course. So there's a lot of confusion around testing. So there are two types of tests that are offered in the market. So basically the first test is the nasal swab, which is the one that we rely on in public health to determine if someone is an active case. That's the test that we are offering through AFC Urgent Care Arlington. That is the test that physicians will offer. And that's the main test that we would recommend. The false positives, false negatives with that test are extremely rare. So when you get tested there's a swab that's inserted into your nasal passage. If you're positive, it shows up as a positive. If you're negative, it shows up as a negative. It's never 100%, but it's as close as we're going to, it's the closest we'll get to the true value. When we hear false positives and false negatives, we're really thinking about the antibody testing, which is a different type of test. That's a test that is not as sensitive as the previous test I mentioned. It's where a sample of blood is taken and it's run through an assay system where they're determining if you've had exposure, if you've been exposed to the virus in the past. That test has become somewhat controversial. And in fact, we're now in the public health department getting results for people that are testing positive for antibodies. And the new state recommendation on that is that they then go get the nasal test to determine if they're currently an active case. If they are unable to get the nasal test, we are then isolating those individuals for a set number of days. So those antibody tests are, they're difficult for us to use in public health to really have an understanding of when the person was exposed, if they're currently an active case. So the real true test is that nasal swab. That's what we're offering through our partnership with AFC Urgent Care. Happy to talk offline if people have more detailed questions about that. And there's a lot of information available online. But that's really where that, that's the, those are the two tests that are out there. Great, thank you, Christine. The next two are FYIs or guidance or advice. So I'll just, I'll share those. This is again for you, Christine, a suggestion that we should make mask usage mandatory on the Minuteman bikeway that there's, as Jenny mentioned, there's a lot of crowding and this person's observing that there's still lots of people not wearing masks. So I don't know if you wanna respond to that at all, but I think that's something we could certainly take under advice. Sure, I know that we, the governor's order does require, if you're outside and you're unable to socially distance that you're required to wear masks. So that's something we'll look into. I think it's a valid concern. It's something that we talk about regularly on our daily leadership team calls. And again, thank you for that input where we'll certainly take a look at that. Great, thank you, Christine. And then the next one, this is, I normally don't identify who's asking the questions, but for the purpose of making this message clear, this is Sushil Tuli from Leader Bank, letting us know that though banking is essential and the governor may include banks in phase one, leaders decided to keep most of their employees working from home until June 1st and start bringing them back to work slowly if required as employees in the community safety is priority number one for leaders. So good to hear from a local business and how they're thinking about the reopening. I think there's gonna be a theme of testing here, Christine. So we'll give Jenny and Ali a question in a second here. Christine, could you repeat the name of the firm and so who have we partnered with for testing? Where is it located and what will the criteria be for obtaining tests? So the agency within Arlington that's offering the test is AFC Urgent Care Arlington. They're located in the Heights, I believe it's 1398 Mass Ave. And if someone is a patient of the Beth Israel Leahy system, they can contact their primary care physician. So the testing, although it's still a little difficult to obtain, it is slowly opening. So some of those hospitals within that system are able to do testing if you're a patient of that system. So again, you're urged to contact your primary care physician if unable to access the test through there, you can use the AFC Urgent Care. So trying to just make it available as much as possible. Great, thank you, Christine. I'll know another email that I received earlier today from a resident expressing a lot of concern about the shared streets initiative in terms of safety, priority and whether or not it is what we should be doing in these times. So I don't know if Ali or Jenny, would you like to talk about the conversations and work that we have had with the Arlington Police Department about the initiatives? That's my signal. I'd be glad to. So we have been talking with the Arlington Police Department as well as the Department of Public Works about this as well as how to brainstorming what areas of town we might potentially explore doing this pilot program and then perhaps something that could be instituted in multiple areas. So when we looked at this particular pilot that we shared on the screen, it was because of the adjacency to the bikeway, the demographics in the neighborhood and the key recreational needs that we see emerging and that will continue to emerge as the warmer months continue. The police department and the Department of Public Works are on board with helping us to move this initiative forward and of course in a way that is very consistent with public safety but also enabling the ability for people to get outdoors and be healthy while social distancing. The key thing I wanna emphasize is it's meant to follow a quick build sort of model. And by that it means it's flexible, it's adaptable, it's reversible and ultimately it's removable based upon feedback that we're getting and also based upon evaluating its success in the implementation. So if it's not working or if it's deemed unsafe or perhaps even unwise, then we will change course, of course, that's the intention. However, if we evaluate it and determine it to be successful, then I think we'll identify ways to either continue that initiative in that location, of course continuing to identify other areas where we can institute some pilots to spread that opportunity throughout the community and also potentially identify a broader scope and the network but we are working actively with other departments on this as well as feedback from residents in the community who are actively engaged in talking about shared streets initiatives and working to promote them in other areas of greater Boston. So we are trying to work together, we do recognize that there could be some concerns as we move it forward but it's meant to be adaptable and that's what we're aiming for right now. Thank you, Jenny. Ali, maybe you can take this one. The question is, when will the parking rules and I'm assuming by parking rules, this questioner means parking meters be reactivated? I know we talked a little bit about this earlier today, maybe you can share in that regard. Sure, I think right now we're thinking at least until June 1st, there will be no parking meter collections. We just wanna give everyone a fair chance and have as few hurdles as possible between patronizing the businesses in a safe way and not. And I think we're trying to get this pay by phone system where you can use this and not have to touch any public infrastructure if possible prior to that. So yeah, June 1st is the date we're working with and as with everything else, we'll continue to evaluate it given the situation on the ground with the virus and the state of businesses being reopened. Great, thanks, Ali. Well, I received an email and I also saw a question from a different resident asking about the election scheduled for June 6th. So I'll quickly run through those and give my answers while we have an opportunity. Have postcards offering mail and voting been mailed? So a good question. I spoke with the assistant town clerk yesterday and her expectation was they would either be put in the mail late yesterday or definitely today. So I've not spoken to her today to confirm that but my understanding is that they would be mailed they would be mailed by today. Can a photo of the postcard be posted on the town's social media and website so people can know what to look for? Yes, we can do that. I'll make sure that we get a copy, get it to the public information officer and we can get that posted. And what else will the town do to promote the mail and voting option? And so we will continue to do as much social media and web campaigning as we can in terms of letting people know about the election and the mail and voting option. We'll be looking at using the town's variable message boards those the big electronic sign boards that we currently have one up on Mass Ave near the Cambridge line and one up with Lexington line. We'll be using the big marquee sign in front of town hall and then we'll also be looking at putting notices up throughout town at the housing authority buildings and other locations in town. So we're going to be doing our best to get the word out in that regard. And then finally, will in-person voters and observers of the voting be required to wear masks? So poll workers definitely. And Christine, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we are going to strongly urge voters and observers to wear masks, but I'm not sure that we're fully able to require them but correct me if I'm wrong on that. I believe under the governor's order we will be able to require that. So that's a quick rundown of elections related questions. But to stick with masks, how does a resident report a business whose employees are not wearing masks? So that's a simple call to the board of health. You can also email or anonymously call, you can email bohattown.arlington.ma.us or call 781-316-3170. We're happy to go out there and have a conversation and provide the masks if they don't have access to them and make sure that they're in compliance with the governor's order. Great, thank you. Maybe this is a team effort between Christine and Ali, we'll see here. Is it possible to allow for open houses for properties that are vacant while obviously still enforcing social distancing guidelines? This is a conversation that comes up another one quite regularly between us on the leadership team. We are in the process of reevaluating the prohibition on open houses and we hope to have something coming out quite soon with some specific guidelines and guidance on how to safely have open houses. So thank you for that question. It is definitely on the top of our agenda. So we hope to have something coming soon. Great, thank you. Jenny, I'm gonna combine two questions together about the shared streets initiative. And actually, if Jeff could bring back up the map slide, the first question is regarding the map on the first slide, can you explain what the symbology means? What are the arrows and colors mean? And then the second question is, how will the street flow be enforced? Folks don't seem to be too concerned about distancing on the bikeway and this still involves people in their judgment. I'll start with enforcement, which will be to a very small extent, it will include the Arlington Police Department. We are still working on those details about what that might look like. And then I'm gonna talk about this map. So the blue, well, the arrows on the map are actually one way for the direction of the street. So that's what that is indicating is which way the street traffic, the vehicular traffic is moving. The blue on the map is the phase one demonstration project that I was mentioning, which is along Brooks Avenue and then partially onto Barnum Street. The red sort of rectangles are what we call a gateway treatment if you, well, I'll just hold it there for a second. And then the orange on the map is the alternative phase one or phase two potentially demonstration project in the event that we wanted to explore an alternative to Brooks Avenue or perhaps explore combining the two together at Herbert Road, I'm sorry. And so that one would extend all the way to Lafayette Street. So that's what that orange line is indicating. For the gateway treatments or those four rectangles that you see, one of them is at the intersection of Brooks and Lake. Another one, for example, is on Herbert and Egerton. If you couldn't just click to the next slide, this is basically an example of a, this is a very easy, straightforward gateway treatment but it is essentially an indicator to people either driving or on their bicycle or walking or skating, et cetera, what is happening on that street so that they essentially slow down and understand what is required either that local access is happening only but deliveries are okay in this particular case. Maybe we'll also indicate that emergency access is available, parking is limited to people who are on the street, local parking only but essentially some advisory signage. We don't have a slide in this presentation but if you tune in on Monday night for the select board meeting where we're gonna show a more expansive version of this slide deck, it includes some more exciting gateway treatments that might be a little bit more welcoming and could include public art, could include things that are, again, just indicators that something is going to change when you reach that portion of the street. I hope that helps. Great, thank you, Jenny. So question for Christine. Do you think your department will be able to contact trace people who aren't official cases in the state reporting system? Fortunately, those are not cases that are entered into the system so what is currently happening is a physician will receive word from, a physician will get a call from their patient. They will say, based on your symptoms, based on the information you've presented you're likely a case and you're advised to stay home for a set number of days and unfortunately that just does not make its way into the state system unless they go for test and because of the lack of testing nationwide what we're saying is that it's just becoming almost impossible for people to access those tests especially if the doctor just says stay home. So we unfortunately don't have that ability. We have asked physicians in town and because there's just no mandate, no requirement it just becomes difficult for them to get that information to us. So the answer to that question is unfortunately no. Thank you, Christine. Maybe for Jenny or Allie. Can you speak to business marketing? How do you envision communication between being managed between the town and the chamber or other business district entities and also what are the missions or outcomes assigned to the task force, the economic recovery task force? Sure, so the communication, I've been in touch with Beth Locke, the director of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce very regularly and members of the leadership team talk every day about communication and what are the important messages to get out to the public, to the business owners, to different segments of the community. So the role of the business owners on the leader, the task force, excuse me, and that includes the Beth Locke, the director of the chamber and also several people who just happen to be chamber members as well. The role of this task force is to have the business owners direct input and guiding what we do so that the policies and procedures that we create in response to this situation actually work for them and meet real genuine needs. So their input isn't valuable. We've had two general group meetings. We will have sort of industry specific focus groups as well and we'll take that feedback and share it with the select board and other regulatory boards in town to work on implementing those policies. And so we intend it to be an ongoing conversation. It's gonna be a journey that we're on together for several months. I don't know if you have anything to add to that, Jenny. We lost your audio, Jenny. The only thing that I would add is the earlier point that you made about the signage, consistent signage, and we're looking to, for example, Brookline and other ways to sort of ensure that there's consistent communication across the business community about the types of things that are being offered in that business or at that business and how to access them while maintaining social distancing, which I think is kind of the other side of that communications question. Great, thank you both. Christine, this question here is we are wondering if there's a plan for senior housing buildings in terms of cleaning, sanitizing, testing, et cetera. I know you're in regular contact with the management of the Arlington Housing Authority. Do you wanna talk about that? Sure, so prior to even our first positive case of COVID in town, we had been in communication with the leadership over at the housing authority as well as the Mill Street Building, the federal Mill Street Building. And they have a very strong process for regular and routine cleaning of high touch surfaces with registered EPA disinfectant solutions, making sure that the common areas are empty so that people aren't congregating. They've taken the furniture out of those areas and signage everywhere. We were providing masks to those residents before even the CDC was suggesting that masks be provided or be used in public. We took these five buildings in our community as really highly sensitive areas and worked really hard in the early days to make sure that we prevented as much interaction between the residents in order to prevent the transmission of the virus. So yes, they do routine cleaning as far as routine testing at those facilities. Individuals from those buildings can obtain a test. We haven't made a plan at this point to do universal testing in all those units. There are, I believe, almost 750 residents among all of those buildings and it would be nearly impossible for us to access 750 tests with agencies that could go out and provide that testing. So if someone is symptomatic or a close contact of someone who is a positive, we would urge them to go obtain a test either through their physician or through AFC urgent care here in town. Otherwise, at this point, there is just no plan to access testing for those buildings specifically. Great, thank you, Christine. Question about, is there a timetable to opening the library for checking out books, not lingering to read or staying in the library? I can say we're continuing to talk about that. We've been talking for the past several months and we'll continue to work with the library director to figure out what she believes in consultation with her colleagues in other communities is the safest way to do that. So I don't have a timetable to share today, but it is on directly confirming on the radar for a decision to be made sometime in the upcoming weeks. So that's the most clear I can be on that today. Because another one for you, Christine. What is the town doing to ensure that contractors, at least those hired by the town, are wearing face masks? Several of them are on the street and not wearing masks. So the governor's order requires masks be worn when social distancing is impossible. So we have received complaints in regards to various populations, different groups of workers that are not wearing masks. When we look at the situation, oftentimes those are people working outside that are not within close contact of others. So yes, I mean, we're definitely out there. We're getting the complaints and we're working with our police department to make sure that they have a stash of masks if they come across a group of individuals that are within close contact and they are working on an emergency scene that they're provided those masks. But it is a requirement statewide. So we do provide that guidance and information when we come across those issues. Great, thank you. So another question I wanted to ask you, Christine. So there's a series of questions here both in the Q and A and the email. One, your thoughts on providing testing to all Arlington residents like Summerville and Cambridge are doing. And be related but unrelated. Have you heard anything about the availability of the regular flu vaccine and whether or not COVID will negatively affect people's ability to get the flu shot? So I'll start with testing. So testing is, again, it's one of those pinch points in our response. So because of the lack of the nasal swabs, which is something that I'm sure everybody has heard about, we have a lack of availability of tests and that's across our entire country. As a result, our state has actually set specific areas, groups of people that can obtain a test. It's not in any community, not even Cambridge or Summerville where it may appear as if it's universal testing of any resident. It is not. There are groups of individuals that are eligible. So every day the state is opening up those groups. So it sounds as if it may be universal testing. But again, if you're not symptomatic, you have not been in contact with someone that's symptomatic. If you don't fall into specific working groups, so if you're not a first responder, a grocery store worker, an essential employee, if you've been in your home, not out in the community, have no symptoms, you are likely not going to be given the test. And the reason for that is because we really need to reserve those for people that have been out, have been working, have been exposed. I think that I'm hopeful that over the next month or so that that will be something we can offer all across our state, universal testing. But again, it's that the sticking point is the lack of swabs and being able to use those swabs on people that we assume could be positive. So I don't know if that answers the question. So when we say, we've partnered with AFC to make it easier for people to access the test, again, they're going to screen people to make sure they fit within those categories that the state allows us to test. Again, it's the same system that Somerville's using, the same system that Cambridge is using. They're being screened in those areas as well. And so then shifting gears to flu, we usually start our flu process right about now. We've already had conversations, we've already put in our orders through both the State Department of Public Health for vaccine for our school children, our younger population, which is where we find the spread is within a community is usually in the younger population. So we've put in our request for that vaccine. We have not heard how many we're getting. We're hopeful that we get the same amount as we've gotten in the past. We've also put our orders in through private purchase for our senior population. And then we always rely on CVS and Walgreens and physicians to have access to vaccine as well to hit the 18-year-old to 59-year-olds. So we're hopeful that the system continues to provide what we've had in the past. There's a lot of conversation about vaccine availability and having enough supplies in order to administer the vaccines, including syringes and all of the supplies that go into it. We have actually been purchasing that. We've been trying to purchase that vaccine, equipment supply. And so we're just hopeful that we're able to offer what we've had in the past. But again, vaccines start in August. We would urge people to start thinking about them at that time. September, October, flu usually peaks in Massachusetts closer to March, April. This is always time to be vaccinated, but this will be an interesting season. And I think it's important for, we have definitely taken this as an issue that we've been working hard on now, but we're hopeful that there will be adequate supply. Thank you, Christine. So back to the shared streets initiative, question that given that Brooks Ave is a busy overflow parking street for Alewife, has any consideration been given to where these displaced cars will park? Parking by Alewife uses in East Arlington is already an issue for local residents. I don't know if you wanna try to answer that, Jenny. I did see that question in the Q and A box. I think the best I can answer for now is that we will, again, it is meant to be something that's flexible and adaptable. So we're gonna allow existing parking to remain. That's part of the intention. So that would mean that the type of parking that's mentioned in the question would actually still be there. And at any time of day that this individual may be thinking it would occur. I do think though that as we reopen, people in their old commuting patterns, that's gonna take time to go back to the way it was perhaps in the before. And so we will be attentive to that, but also we'll shift and reconsider and reverse things if we need to, if they're not accommodating both, the flexibility that we're looking for in terms of people being able to be outside, but also the need to be able to park and not to have overflow parking move to someplace else, which might then cross the problem in another part of the neighborhood. We're not looking to do that. So we will be as attentive as possible and be able to adapt if needed. Because it is a quick build. It's not meant to be permanent. It's meant to be a pilot to test if this is something that can help people to socially distance, be outside and enjoy and be able to recreate. Great, thank you, Jenny. And I'll just piggyback on that. I'm getting a few emails and comments in the Q and A suggesting we either look at a different street or take a different angle on this. And that's all fair, but I want to reiterate what you just said, Jenny. This is a one week pilot for us to study it, analyze and see how it works. So I don't think anybody should be concerned that a decision has been made and Brooks Ave will forever never be the same. So this is a one week pilot. We're trying it out and idea, see how it works and see where it goes from there. I'm gonna take this next one here. It says, hi, I saw a post online that people living abroad will not be able to vote. Something about not being able to request the ballot and then return it in time. I'm not clear. Can you clarify, please? Thank you. So that is not true. What is the case is that local elections, unlike state and federal elections, you cannot vote electronically or email your ballot, email to you and email the ballot back that's been confirmed with the Secretary of State's office. For local elections, you need to fill out a paper ballot. And I had checked with the assistant town clerk, I think all the way back to Tuesday this week and all overseas ballots that had been requested in writing have been sent out. So though there was some back and forth online about that that I also heard of, it was not true. So thank you for that clarification. Allie, maybe you can take your best shot at this one. Do you have an idea of when restaurants will reopen with new spacing requirements? No. I mean, I think we're all waiting to hear what the governor is going to say in the next few days about what types of businesses will be able to reopen in on what schedule. But even though we don't know for certain, we plan. And when we talk part of what we're talking about shared streets, we're talking about this one pilot, but another possibility that we need to consider is opening up space that would otherwise be used for something else, maybe on the sidewalk or maybe in parking spaces for outdoor restaurant seating. As someone mentioned earlier, we're in New England and we need to make the most of the time that we have to be outside comfortably for restaurants and potentially other businesses to increase their capacity. Because we know that when they do reopen it will be at a significant decreased capacity. So that's just one of the things we're considering to help meet that need whenever it should arise. Great, thank you, Ellie. Go ahead, Jenny. Just to briefly expand on that, the idea of the, we already allow outdoor cafe seating in Arlington and there's a whole permitting process for that right now. So if businesses are interested in doing that, of course that's something that we always consider when it comes to our department and many other departments that review those permits and then eventually go to the select board. What we're looking at is other ways that we can expand outdoor seating, which might mean that if you don't have enough sidewalk space, which frankly there are a number of businesses that operate or restaurants that operate in locations that don't have enough sidewalk area for that kind of seating, we need to look at other opportunities which could include existing parking spaces or other locations where there might be plasma seating or other sort of expanded space that we might be able to again create temporarily and the emphasis is on temporarily so that we can eventually accommodate more patrons coming back to our business community and particularly our restaurant. And the other part to that is also curbside, which we believe will be part of the reopening process is allowing for more curbside pickup, vending outdoors perhaps, as well as potentially things like the farmer's market maybe turning into more of a street market. These are all things that we can explore as a community and of course, with the guidance of our Health and Human Services and Board of Health, but I think that those are all the types of things that are under consideration potentially. And then also in the related to that is the rules and regulations that currently bind that process might need to be relaxed and reconsidered in order to accommodate as much available space as possible to make it happen. Great, thank you, Jenny. Thank you, Allie. So another one back to the two of you, what are the indications from local businesses about their viability as we start to open up? How many businesses have indicated serious problems? I think it's safe to say that almost all of them are having serious problems. I've been in touch with many, many business owners over the past few weeks and many people who represent and speak with business owners be they banking in the banking industry or from the Chamber of Commerce. And people are really having a rough, rough time. Not every business will survive this if they were having a hard time before this. This might be the thing that is the end. And it's heartbreaking to hear those stories from people but that's the reality. The customers aren't there. People are sort of waiting on things they might have had planned and putting them off until they feel more safe doing it. There's also a lot of folks who are kind of working twice as hard to make half as much. And so they've been applying for the CARES Act support and any source of support that they have but they're struggling. And the only way you can truly support them is if you have expendable income at this time that you make purchases, be they gift certificates or takeout or whatever you can do, that's really the bottom line for ways to support local businesses. Thank you, Elliot, very helpful. So we have another question. How has the health emergency affected renovation of the senior center and the high school construction? So I'll take a shot of that and Christine, you can follow up if I miss anything. In general terms, what I'll say is that so both of these construction projects have to now follow the more stringent construction protocols that the governor has put in place. So that has in effect slowed down both of the projects to some degree. We learned from Consigli, the construction manager from at the high school at our, excuse me, high school building committee meeting on Tuesday night that with all of their planning and protocols in place for COVID as well as concern about supply chains and how those will impact those down the road, we will be losing a little bit of time on the high school construction or at least what we're planning to expect to. It's not an absolute, but we're planning to expect to lose a little bit of time. And the same really goes for the senior center. We took a little while, Jenny and Christine, I think it was a long while, but a little while to consider whether or not we wanted to move forward with the senior center project in light of concerns about COVID-19. But we did come to terms with the low bidder for the project and a contractual agreement that we think best protects the town against the liabilities, the financial liabilities associated with performing a construction project during this time. So that will be moving forward, but also with some expectation that there may be some financial considerations and schedule considerations around COVID-19. So long story short, they're both moving forward with likely some minor schedule impacts around the pandemic. That is all assuming that we stay on a positive trajectory with all of this. Should things have a second resurgence or downturn, that answer may change. Another question that maybe all of you can take a shot at, how can small businesses better enforce asking customers to wear masks? What do we do when a customer tells us that they'll take their business elsewhere where they don't have to wear masks? How do we balance keeping customers and still trying to maintain a healthy business? It also seems like everyone is 10 times quicker to call out a smaller business than they say and then they would be a stop and shop. Anybody have any advice? You want me to, I can certainly take a step at that. So here in Arlington, we follow the governor's order and every establishment should be requiring masks regardless of size. I think posting on the door is adequate and just asking someone to put, place a mask on, you can even have some available for either sale or for free if someone says that they don't have one. I don't see a customer being able to say, I'll take my business elsewhere where I don't have to wear a mask because it's required. I just, I think the majority of our community, the majority of the public will comply and if not, I think that that would be okay for them to take their business elsewhere because they'll get the same reaction from whichever other establishment they go to. Allie, Jenny, anything to add to that? It's really hard. I think it's too bad. I think many times when people get online, they forget that like behind a business is like a human being and the bottom line is you're doing your best to protect your own health and the health of everyone else in your store and your employees. So as much as it's stressful and difficult to deal with a confrontation, there's a lot of support behind you in terms of regulations from the state. So just know that I would say and keep in mind that you're doing the best thing to keep yourself healthy, everyone in your store healthy and the person who may be yelling at you. Go ahead, Jenny. Yeah, I would just add, this was the third time saying it, but I do think that that consistent signage helps a lot. If you can look at and you can say, well, these are the rules. This is what I need you to follow in order to enter my store and to be able to patronize my store. I think that that message is really important and to have that consistency. So it's not one business pitting itself against another in the community, but to be able to communicate clearly, we want to bring you back in. We want you to shop here, but we want you to do it safely for you and for us. And could you please follow that rule? I mean, I think there are many other examples of times where a business owner might have to remind a patron to do something differently than what they're doing. And they redirect them if they need to. It's not comfortable to do that at any time, but it does happen. And I think that this is an instance where in order to be more vigilant and protect your business, I think it's okay to be doing that rather than to fall into this pitting one business against another or feeling threatened by a patron who claims that they will bring their business elsewhere. I think it's important for them to stand up for what they think is important right now. Great, thank you all. Questions about what about changes in the construction costs to the town, the high school in particular. So just to keep the thread about the construction projects. So right now there's, try to be as brief as possible. The senior center is basically a design bid project. So we have bids in hand. Those, so that bid is firm. There can be change orders. And we know there will be a change order related to the actual COVID-19 protocol costs. So where we know about that, but the actual construction is pretty well known in the design bid form. For the high school, we're doing construction manager at risk. So you basically, you're continuing to design as you build and you hire a construction manager who then goes out to the market to get the best prices available. So right now at our latest round of cost estimate, we're actually slightly under budget. Now that was after we had to make a lot of very difficult value engineering decisions at the end of last year. But right now we're in a fairly good position. And again, Consigli is not telling us that they expect any major financial impacts, but I think there is more to be seen as that moves forward. All right, so we have about just under 20 minutes with about 10 questions left. So let's see how good we can do to get through these. Christine, what are you hearing about whether or not the spread of the virus will slow in the warmer months? There's definitely a lot of conversation about different theories. We're not, from the science community, from the public health community, we're not expecting that. In fact, as businesses reopen, as things start opening up, we expect that there'll be another, we're expecting more cases. So we don't expect it to slow because of weather. I think that that is something that, this is, again, this is a novel virus. This is new. We're still all learning all across the world what this is looking like. And it's not, it's seemingly not slowing as a result of warmer months. Okay, thank you, Christine. Let's go down here. Has any consideration been given to opening Broadway Plaza to additional dining by closing off part of the road? I have received that suggestion. I've heard it a couple of times. And yeah, anything, that's a big area. So it would take careful consideration to think about that, but we're looking at all sorts of options to allow more use of the public space that's currently being underutilized. Great, thank you, Alice. Oh, go ahead, Jenny. Yeah, just very briefly to add to that. I mean, we've also had a suggestion about Medford Street. I think what we're going to do is we're gonna take a look at all the business districts and understand how we can best maximize the space while also allowing restaurants to explore other ways that they can continue to serve patrons once that gets that reopening phase. Once we reenter that reopening phase, I think that that's the time to really consider those other areas, which could be Broadway Plaza, Medford Street. It could be a lot of other locations. So we're gonna be looking at that district by district. Great, thank you, Jenny. All right, we have a question from, oh, from State Rep Dave Rogers. Thank you for joining us today, Rep. Says, first off, I wanna publicly thank all of you for your service at such an extraordinary time. He then goes on to say, I've heard of some crowding on the Minuteman Trail. Is there enough signage or other approaches to remind people of distancing? As warmer months come, is there a thought of any additional measures to ensure safe recreation? So I guess I'll say a few things, and then Christine, obviously feel free to fill in any gaps I leave. We've been talking nearly every day about whether or not we should be closing the bike path. And to date, we have decided that the balance of people being able to get outdoors and trying to safely recreate is a better, is a stronger good than the negative of potential distancing issues on the path. And there's also challenges of enforcing it. There's also challenges of not wanting to entirely shut it because it's an important commuting by way for people who are still going to work to be able to get to work. I would also say, I don't know if the latest round of signs has been put up yet, but we have put pretty significant signage up along the bike path and we have plans to do more. So we'll continue to do that. And we will continue to look at it. I guess to some degree, if the Safe Streets initiative works out well and we're able to open up more outdoor recreation, passive recreation space for people, maybe we could take a tighter look at the bikeway or maybe we will be loosening up demand on the bikeway by doing that. So I think in the next several weeks as weather warms and we try some of these new things we'll have more opportunity to consider this. Christine, anything that I, all right. Thank you. Where can we find masks for construction workers? Home Depot and Amazon seem to always be out of stock. Any sense of how to answer that for a resident, Christine? So I definitely feel the pain. I think as I mentioned that we have a supply issue with testing kits, we also have a supply issue with PPE masks that tends to be one. There are a lot of online companies. I know that WB Mason is one that we've been able to purchase from. A lot of the cloth masks are acceptable. Also for construction, I know some construction require N95. So for example, like asbestos removal and whatnot, I think there definitely are alternatives out there, but online seems to be a good resource. It's hard. I think everybody's looking for masks, but the cloth fabric mask, the double cloth can be protective for that industry as well. Thank you. Well just to add that our local hardware stores are selling them. They tend to run out pretty quickly, but it's another option to try. Thank you, Valley. So Christine, residents saying they called urgent care yesterday for a screening appointment was on hold for over 30 minutes and gave up not wanting to clog the line for those needing urgent care. Any sense, do we have a sense of their capacity that we can address? Sure. So yesterday was our first day. We announced it yesterday afternoon. Of course, they're going to be likely receiving a lot of calls the first day. If someone is unable to get through and desperately needs to be tested, you can certainly feel free to contact your primary care physician. If you're symptomatic, you're a contact of a case, you work in an essential physician. Give it a day. I think if you're not, if you don't feel as if you're in need, your need is that great. I think give it a day. If you're sick, stay home, but give them time because I think that it was the first day. It was released at five o'clock. You likely called probably close to that release and there were likely hundreds of calls going in. We do expect based on data from other communities. So Summerville is testing about 120 a day. We do expect that they'll be able to catch up over time, I think, where it's the first day. There's just the draw is so great. So they likely had a number of calls all at the same time. So I apologize for that. But hopefully over time, it'll ease up. Thank you, Christine. And I'll acknowledge that my two children have run into this room. So I'm not sure what will happen on the screen or to my volume in the next few minutes. So question, maybe Ali, you can take this. Will the town be providing unified signage to businesses free of charge? And if so, do we have any sense of what the estimated cost of doing this? So we've given signage templates for just sort of, for lack of a better word, motivational signage, like the same signage that's out in the streets. We gave that to business owners for free if they wanted to have them printed professionally. Of course, there'd be a cost for that that's up to them. I think it will likely be the same if we do a uniform signage campaign. So, but we can provide the artwork for you free of charge. We have a great person on our staff, Kelly Linema, who's been doing wonderful design for us. Great, thank you, Ali. Let's see, just a few questions left here. Many opponents of streets for social distancing projects such as the Shared Streets Open Streets Program that has been discussed have characterized these sorts of interventions as unnecessary or even risky because they're primarily aimed at recreational uses. Can you speak to how the widespread adoption of this sort of program can be helpful for meeting the transportation needs of folks who are now displaced from transit and either don't have access to a car or don't have parking for one at both ends of their journey, particularly as our business closures and state home advisory are relaxed in the coming months? That's a big question. I think I'll just emphasize again that the idea right now in this pilot is really, it's a one-week pilot and the emphasis is on getting space and lowering speeds. And so it's about alleviating the crowding that we've been seeing in certain locations where people are currently utilizing them for passive recreation or even active recreation along the bikeway. And that if we did create more of a network, which I think is what this person might be getting at in their questions, then they're absolutely right that this could become a great alternative and a slow street to allow people to more safely bike as well as recreate. But biking to and from perhaps their work would be another option. There's nothing more that I could say in terms of just the possibilities of this other than to say that there's no greater value than being outdoors. And people want to go outside and we want to be able to create the ability for them to safely be outside, socially distanced and also in the safety in terms of not interfacing with high-speed traffic in particular. So we're trying to carve off opportunities that might exist. This is just the first one with this pilot but there might be many others and eventually potentially to create perhaps a network where people could do what this person is suggesting. I think that that would be a wonderful opportunity that could come from this but we're really in a pilot phase to figure out what would be the right thing in Arlington. Christine, do you want to take 30 seconds to plug the Arlington COVID-19 Relief Fund? Thank you. Of course. So we have actually developed a Relief Fund here through Health and Human Services Charitable Corp as our partner, our 501c3 partner a nonprofit organization and what the goal, our goal is to raise enough funds to provide relief to residents in need as well as small businesses and employees of those small businesses in order to continue to support people that are both working in those businesses as well as our residents in need. So you can make a tax-seductable contribution to that fund. There are links from our email that goes out daily as well as our town website. You can find the link from our town website which is arlingtonma.gov slash COVID-19 and we urge you to look at the list of people who have donated and join them as community partners and helping our neighbors in need. So thank you for that opportunity, Adam. Always happy to plug that. Thank you. Well, maybe I just missed you saying this. We're up over $75,000 collected today. Yes, yes. That's wonderful. Yeah, it really shows the tremendous support that this community shows to itself really. So thank you. All right, so we have three more questions. The idea of slow streets seems interesting. I'm on the other side of the bike path from Herbert Road. I'm worried that our area is going to revert to being overcrowded with alewife commuters once people start going back to work. Whether or not Herbert ends up being designated as a slow street. Could we please get the same parking restrictions on this side of the bike path too? There are a few no commuter parking signs in the area which are flaunted by commuters who park directly under them and head to alewife. I think I can say we can certainly take a look at that. We can talk with the Arlington Police Department traffic unit and see what we can do to approve them. Christine, another testing question. Nope, I just missed the wrong question. Well, this was a question from someone who works and I believe owns a salon. So personal care, not essential, might be allowed by the governor soon. What do you think is the trajectory for how people like this might be able to get tested to be able to both protect themselves and their clients going forward? So the testing opens up the different categories of people that are allowed to be tested. It opens up daily, weekly. My guess is that if and when businesses are starting to reopen, if we see cases happening, if we see cases popping up in those groups of people, the state will likely open that up as a group that will be allowed to be tested. So I think time will tell in that area. But if anyone has close contact with a positive case, they would automatically be allowed to go for testing right now. So if this is someone that feels as if they're currently at risk, they would be eligible. But until they open and we start seeing cases, I think, as a category that wouldn't be on the list just yet. Thank you, Christine. And so last question we have here right now is how is the town government doing financially? Very good question and very potentially long answer, but I'll do my best to answer it briefly now. So I'll break it up into FY20 and FY21. FY20 is the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30th. FY21 begins on July 1st of this year and runs until June 30th of next year. So for FY20, we are doing okay. Our local receipts, basically our non-property tax related revenues that we collect locally are tracking okay. We've lost hotel motel and some meals taxes for obvious reasons. But overall, we look to be able to still meet and maybe even exceed our budgets in collections. We are not expecting any state aid cuts in this current fiscal year. I've heard from the governor now several times that their intention is to, I think it is, where it's limp to the end of FY20 without cutting local aid. It's just too close to the end of the year for them to want to do that. So overall, I think, well, and from an expense point of view in FY20, we are very strictly accountant for any expenditures we're making related to the COVID-19 response. There's been already some state funding that has come to support those expenditures. We are tracking the expenditures for FEMA reimbursements. That's the Federal Emergency Management Agency that will reimburse up to 75% of eligible expenses. And there's also expected to be another large influx of CARES Act money to cities and towns related to COVID-19 response expenses. So in FY20, we're doing okay. FY21 and beyond is a much different story. The state is looking at anywhere between a four to six billion with a B dollar revenue shortfall next year, approaching up to 25% of their annual revenue. And that will significantly impact state aid. There's a couple of variables. One big variable being we don't really know how the economic recovery is going to go or when it will kick in. And also whether or not existing CARES Act money from the federal government might be allowed to be used to backfill revenue shortfalls or if there will be another stimulus bill that will allow states to use it to backfill revenue shortfalls. Right now CARES Act money cannot be used in that manner, but I know our state government and state governments around the country are advocating with Congress to make a change to allow for CARES Act money to do that. So there's a lot of unknowns, but we are planning to expect a pretty significant state aid cut. We're also expecting some reductions or yeah, reductions in how much we collect locally. So we are planning and we're actually meeting with our long range planning committee tomorrow to look at various scenarios for state aid cuts and then look at various expense related scenarios with our main goal being maintaining as much as possible all of the commitments of the override plan that was put into place last year. So I would say again, FY20 we're doing okay. FY21 and beyond, there's a lot of uncertainty, but we are putting our best planning efforts forward to keep the towns finances and thereby its operations as stable as possible. So with that, I don't see any other questions right now. We're at 328. So I think I will say thank you very much to our panelists. Thank you Christine for all your work and for being here with us today. Same to you, Jenny and Ellie. You're doing great work reaching out to the community. I'm trying to keep us on a forward path. So thank you very much for that. Thank you for your answers today. I said a question has come in. Just to thank you much better than the briefings from our president. Well, that's, I'll take that as a compliment. So thank you to ACMI for broadcasting this. Thank you to Joe enrollment our public information officer for really keeping us all in tracking and making sure that we're organized in our presentations here as we do these virtual town forums. And thank you to all of you for tuning in today. At one point we had over a hundred attendees. So I feel like we've had some really good engagement here and we've had a nice wide array of questions that we've been able to address. So again, thank you to all of you. We will likely be back sometime in the upcoming weeks with another virtual town forum. I'm not sure if it'll be next week or sometime beyond that, but please stay tuned. And we look forward to the continued engagement. Everybody stay safe and well. Thank you.