 Okay, call on the meeting of the Arlington Finance Committee to order. Our first order of business today is the Water Bodies Committee, our annual visit. Apologize, when they redid this room, they didn't seem to want to have anybody to sit. So we don't have nearly enough chairs. And what we'd like to do then is whoever is going to present needs to sit here. So let me turn that over to you. Could you please tell us, we don't have anybody brand new, so you don't have to go what you are and such. But if you could tell people what you're doing, what your plans are, the finances, etc. Okay. Introduce ourselves first. Sure. I'm David White from the Conservation Commission, part of the Water Bodies Working Group that sort of reviews all the water body needs in Arlington. People here from other groups talk today about some of the water body needs. We have Chuck Geronni, Susan Chapnick, Brad Barber, and we really, Judy Wendler, talk about the water bodies. Okay. I'm Theresa D. Benedictus from Public Works. Okay. Okay. The stage is yours. Okay. So you have in front of you, I'll report what we did last year and what we're hoping to do in the coming year. Okay. We'll go sort of through this by water body. First water body is Arlington Reservoir. I've involved that water body for over 15 years and we've obviously water chest that's there for a long time. Last year was a very low water year, so we had a hard time harvesting close to the shore from the mechanical harvesting. But also we had, this year we also had volunteers for the Mr. Grubb-Water Association do hand harvesting on the shore as well. So that was also a help in that matter. We expect to continue to keep on doing this for a while. At some point the seed banks of this annual plant will be lower and will be less to harvest and less cost involved. I'm going to transfer now to the people from Non-Herox Park about the Hills Pond situation. Liz, could you take these for other people? Hi, I'm Ellen Reed and this is Judy Weinberg and we're here as representing the Friends of the Non-Herox Park. And we are here tonight to talk about Hills Pond. It's a two and a half acre man-made pond in the park. And for about the last 12 years the Friends of the Non-Herox Park have been paying for the water treatment to reduce the invasive water plants and the algae in the pond. This year we are, the Friends are paying for major restoration of the wetland or have paid for major restoration of the wetland. And we proudly own an aeration pump that we are going to have reinstalled into the pond. The aeration is to use literally to add air to the pond because it is a rain-fed pond in the hopes that this will make us less dependent on chemical treatment of the plants and algae in the pond. So we have come before the Water Bodies Committee for the first time this year requesting money because we have put so much of our own money into this pond in the last many years. So we have had a pump in the pond that was part of the original plan when the park was renovated many years ago. The pump that was there broke so we purchased a new pump and when we went to install it we realized that the electricity to the line was no longer working. So from the time the first pump broke to the time that we bought the new pump we found there was no electricity. We have been working trying to see how we can get that resolved. But the pump bed is still there so we are basically just upgrading and replacing an existing aeration system because they have to put all the lines in, the hose lines were not deep enough and they started floating to the top and the dogs started to chew on them. So we are replacing an old system that no longer was functioning and it has been sitting in Ellen's basement for five years so we are hoping to get that reinstalled. Most of the money will be used for chemical treatment of the pond. And the chemical treatment of the pond. The pump reinstallation is very, very minor in what we are requesting for this year. Any questions on the Hills Pond? So Chuck Tarani from the conservation commission also on the water bodies committee and I was asked to talk about Mill Brook and I think the update on that and just to back up a bit it's on our list we did an assessment of this area and it was considered very poor quality and has a rating of D with the EPA. So this year an application came into the CPA committee to look at the corridor along Mill Brook between Brattle and Grove Street and they are going to look at Wellington Park but they are also going to do some water quality assessments and look for illicit discharges during in that area and then all that information will come back to the conservation commission and they will make recommendations on what to do with how to improve the water quality and to take care of I guess the worst of the illicit discharges. It's just in the process of being discussed at the CPA committee and it looks favorable but it's not been approved yet so just an update on Mill Brook. Any questions? Any questions? Rick. What do you mean by illicit discharges? An illicit discharge or a hot spot would be some illegal discharges of water or brackish water or water with oil in it that's being illegally pumped into the stream. Usually that's basement pumps or it could be broken sewers, you know things like that and they'll spot these and sometimes they can scope the line and I don't know what the extent they are going to do. One day they told me that they had been doing this for several years and they have a lot of information already so we haven't been part of that information that they have but they'll be giving that to the conservation commission and the town and I guess with that information they'll be able to make some judgments and see what they need to fix. So. Okay thank you. Stephen just a question on the rating is it tested through our town or just? The D rating is statewide and it has a category, I don't know the category and what it takes to be in that category but it's low, I mean A would be. I'm just curious where the samples are, where it earns that rating is it just testing throughout Milbrook, I know it's a state rating but or is it particular? Let me ask Susan if you looked into this, you know where the sampling was done? The sampling is done by Myra, the Mystic River Watershed Association as well for EPA and they do it at different spots, they don't know exactly where they are. Milbrook mainly in Arlington is the problem and then if there we have two level D waterways in Arlington, Milbrook and Alewife Brook and of course Alewife has a lot of other kinds of effects from Cambridge and other places like that. But Milbrook, I don't have a map here but I believe it's mainly in Arlington are the issues. Yes it's in Arlington. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I'm just wondering, you know above Wellington Park, I can follow up later just curious. I know they test near Mystic Lakes, that's what I'm going to test here. And also in the test, the rating has to do with bacteria, that's really what they test for. They don't do other chemicals in this type of test. Okay. I'm sorry, what chemicals? Bacteria. Okay. It's bacterial contamination, so what he co-lives. Okay so that would mean a broken sewer line or a needle or a lead in a discharge. Anybody else? I have a question, do Alewife still come up, Milbrook? Oh, I've heard they come up to Cooke's Hollow? Up to Cooke's Hollow. It's not Cooke's Hollow because there's holes there. They come up to this point. Yeah. Do they? Cooke's Hollow. So that's the breeding area? Well. Because they can't get past it. Yeah probably also Meadowbrook Park next to the cemetery. Right. Okay. And further up in Mystic as well. There's a fish level in Mystic Lakes too. Right. Okay. I was just curious. I remember years past, you know, the kids scooping them out. They still come. Yes. Okay. That's good. Any other questions on Milbrook? Okay. Thank you. So I'm going to stay here because the next one is McClendon Park. This is a big one. I'm Susan Chappnick. I'm on the conservation commission and the water bodies working group. If you remember McClendon Park just for a recap, these are small detention ponds that were created by the town after capping the landfill over where McClendon Park is. And we created parks in the front and playing fields. And in the back are detention ponds which help with stormwater and also wildlife. There was a problem. We came to you last year requesting $10,000 to assess the brownish discoloration of the water, which we thought was iron flocculation. We did that assessment. We don't have the final report yet. We just talked to the contractor today and got the latest information. What they said is it is iron. The main contaminants of concern there are iron and manganese. It's not a human health risk, which is a good thing. But it might be an ecological risk, meaning that it's likely it's detrimental to the wildlife, to things that live in the pond, in the sediment, ducks, birds, et cetera. We don't know that, though. So the next step that was recommended is to do what we call an ecological risk assessment to evaluate what is the risk to the ecology, to the wildlife of this iron flocculation that's happening. We believe it's happening due to groundwater that was contaminated, that was under the landfill, seeping up into these detention ponds. So we're requesting another $10,000 to start that evaluation of the ecological risk assessment for this pond in order to improve the aesthetic and recreational and wildlife functions of the area. Is there anything more to add? Very cautionary. Well, the risk, we can do the risk assessment, and then what you're going to do or what you're hoping to do. And then more of a, if that comes out where there's no risk, then we would want it to look at trying to see why this is turning red and what we could do about that. But the first step, the only step to take right now is to the ecological risk assessment. So there may be other steps after this. This will lead into a different area also. So there may be a need for more testing next year, but down different paths. So you want another $10,000 for another assessment. Right. What we did with the $10,000 we had already, and we'll have the report by the end of February, which we will make available, is they did a document review at DEP to see how the landfill was capped, because this was a long time ago and we didn't know what, if it was lined or things like that. Then they also, we actually did sampling and analysis of the pond with that $10,000. So we did sampling of water and sediments on the edge of the pond to get an idea of what's going on. And that's what we did so far to find out what are the contaminants of concern. And we ruled out some contaminants. Organic contaminants, volatile organic contaminants came back non-detected pretty much. So we ruled out some contaminants. And now we're focused on the ecological risk. We have to take more samples more towards the middle of the pond to evaluate that we need more of an area being tested and we also need it seasonally. Because in order to evaluate the risk to the ecosystem, it changes over seasons. Because, for example, in the summer you can have stratification of the water due to temperature gradients and you can get low oxygen levels, which affect the organisms. So we don't know what's happening, but this is pointing us in that direction. So we're asking for additional funds to assess that. So the first assessment led us into this assessment. And like I said, we can't look at the aesthetics that red, brownish color and say we can clean that up. Because if there's an ecological risk, then that gives us kind of a different path to go down. So it's just steps. As we find them and push them out of the way, then we can get on to the next one. So that's why we're here with this simple request instead of combining more than just one. And if you get your $10,000, when would you start the study? Spring, as soon as it's pretty much thaw. Because we did some preliminary outreach to an ecological risk assessor. And he explained that because of the seasonality, you want to get started. So you want to do it spring, summer, and fall testing. And is $10,000 enough to do what you feel like you need to do at this stage? It's enough to start. It might not be enough, frankly, to get to the end of that evaluation and a report, but it's enough to get us started on it. We wanted to kind of see as we started the testing. We don't have that other report yet. From the end of February, we just had a verbal. So we're asking for $10,000 to kind of get us going. But frankly, we may need more than that to finish the assessment. Could you make that report available to the finance committee? Sure, absolutely. Anything that, any reports you want distributed to the finance committee, just send them to Liz in the back. Okay. And she'll distribute them. Okay. Okay, are there any other questions? If you need additional funding, how would you go about... I'm pretty sure, when do you think you need it? How would you go about trying to get at it? Next summer, I think we would probably have the answers to most of those questions. And then depending on what it says, the CPA committee is probably would be a better source because the numbers might be a lot higher than $10,000. So it could be more of a study and there could be some wells that were needed to do some monitoring. So if we get into the aesthetics, we don't know which way the groundwater is moving, so they need the wells and then they could make a judgment on that. So there's multiple steps needed, but with this first step, we can, you know, continue to move forward and not lose any time and try to get some answers for you guys for next year. I think the first $10,000 that you gave us, I gave us some good feedback to know that there's... what people are looking out there has no human risk is probably very comforting to a lot of people that walk around the clinic. So that's good and then the ecological would be great because if we could get that out of the way and then when we look at the aesthetics, we could get more wildlife and more traffic down in that area and hopefully do some things that bring back in the bird population and the duck population. So again, if anyone hasn't seen it, it's reddish brown. It's like gelatin that's on all the water stems and on the sides of the bank. And it's probably on most of the ducks that are in there too. So it's not very pleasant. Brad? Would any of that funding we also used or the outcome of the study we used to, let's say, validate the source? I mean, it's just suspected that it's because it was capped that line or has there been... Right. We need more groundwater data. And in order to... this amount of money won't do that. We need to put in several groundwater wells. They punch wells in in certain places to kind of see if it's actually coming from the landfill. That would be another phase. We're trying to do a phased approach, but definitely that would be the next phase because before we could implement any kind of remedy, let's say, we do find a risk, we have to make sure that's the source because then you can't implement a remedy unless you know where it's coming from. So what they're talking about is they're doing sampling. So they're just going to take samples on the surface, on the water. Settlement. And then in the center of the pond. So it'll take a greater than half inch of iron floc over an area greater than 500 square feet to trigger a risk threshold. So they have to do that looking for an area greater than 500 feet with a half inch of iron floc and then it has to be in several seasons. So that's the study we're looking to do to assess the risk assessment. So I'm here essentially going to identify what the risks are, but the first study isn't going to identify and actually verify the source. No, no. About being capped and not lined, this is sort of new to me. Is that unusual? Is that how it's supposed to be? So you would need to know which way the waters, the groundwater is going. So everyone suspects it's coming from the capped landfill, but it might not be. And that's why when they punch in those wells, we'll know what direction that's heading. But we're not, that's not what this study's about. So we could be very surprised in other words. I mean, it could be coming from the swamp, you know, to the left, to the right, whichever way, which way that is. Just remember one time I was going by there and I saw a big piece of metal in there and several tires and I was told by the DPW that these things appear just because it was a landfill once. And they'll clean it out and come back and someone will spot something else. So there's a lot of metal in there. And the reason it wasn't lined, it was an old landfill. Landfills that are put in more recent tons have to be lined. So that they don't have, right. This doesn't have a real lining that would prevent the groundwater. Can we tell that for sure? That's what they checked in the DPW files for. They said it's an online line. Okay, so the current DPW, it's online. Okay, thank you. It's a DEP. It has a cap. So the cap is basically soil. That's what a cap is. Soil and grass, you know, plantins. And so hopefully, you know, it doesn't have a lot of things before it gets down. That doesn't mean that it works perfectly because then, you know, the ground would all be moving. Maybe. I don't remember. Yeah. Yeah, because otherwise you would just go down through the landfill and take over that stuff. Right, right, right, right. Right, sorry. Yes. Historical. It was actually two different landfills at that location. I've never referred to it as the one we all know about for years. But before that, when that was a celery farm, the front part heading towards Summer Street, the celery farm, but way in the back was landfill. It was an uncontrolled landfill. People just dump everything in anything. Cars, you name it. And that's where you now get all of a sudden pieces of metal come up all over. And then it turned into a... It was a marshland. Mm-hmm. And as a kid, when I got rubbed in that area, you call it the meadow. But it was always a marshland. And the watercolor you're referring to when it was the marshland, it was that color. Mm-hmm. That brownish-red. But the front of it was, when you looked at that land from Summer Street, you didn't look at it, you looked, it was down. It was very below street level. And that was the rolls of the celery farm. And the celery farm probably went out from Summer Street probably halfway into that land and it stopped. There was a buffer. And then from that point on, all the way up to Right Street, that was an uncontrolled landfill. So that's where you get it. Mm-hmm. Okay, Grant. Here's what I'm just trying to understand. Was the capping done as deficiently as not perspect per se? Oh, no, no. It was done correctly. It was done by the town of Arlington and that contractor for the town of Arlington. It was done correctly for the time. It was done by the town. The front pot. Only the pot was the town used as the moonlight if you were dumped. Correct. It's private, no. Yeah. And actually, if you go with the back part and you look at these detention ponds, it almost looks like two ponds when you face them. There's still some property back there that has lots of trash and debris in their yards that are right by the pond. I remember as a young... There was houses there. Yeah, there's lots of houses. There was cinderblock houses. There was a couple that people actually lived in. It's always interesting to get the history. It always is. The bad and the ugly. Are there any other questions on the cutting part? Are there any... Like are there any fish in the retention ponds or frogs or... There probably are. I haven't seen fish. I've seen frogs, ducks, and some nests there. Great blue herons. There must be fish. So there must be fish, because there's great blue herons. I think on the ecology, I didn't get that piece today when I spoke verbally to them, but the report we're getting at the end of February will have something about the ecology. So, it's a wildlife. I always get this mixed up. Is that well into Lexington? Yes. Into Lexington. That's where Brooke flows through the detention ponds and then out the other end into Lexington. I would say read to remember the row, but... Where does it end? It does. It ends up in, you know, it actually servles around. It's going to be pretty close to the reservoir. It goes down hill. It crosses over where Lowe and Summer come together. It's a wetlands by the LCA. Yeah, it's Merrow-Rowe. Merrow. And Merrow has the lowest rating in the state. So, it's not... It does cross over. And you look at it, it crosses under Summer Street and then it goes up through near Haskell Street to Lexington and then it flows over to Lowe Street. Maybe that's the source of the pollution for Merrow-Bro. Well, that's right. Merrow is worse. It comes into the Reds. Merrow is worse. Okay. Well, thank you very much. That's water, buddy. It's quite hot. I'm Brad Barber. I'm the co-chair of the Spipon Committee and we're part of Vision 2020. Since... We talked a little bit about Spipon in the last meeting here. And we had a very good 12 months since then. Three major events. One was this was our treatment for Sonar, which is our major... Is the major herbicide that we use. And then that should last for three years and we do spot treatments in between years. We've had a banner year for Engelman's Umbrella Sedge and that's a rare plant in Massachusetts and there was lots of it all around the pond because of the low water and the dry summer. And then the best news at least for myself is when I first started with Spipon, which was about eight, nine years ago, we had an acre and a half of Fragmites. Those are those tall reeds that you see all over, especially like around AOI station. And we had a very impressive stand with Spipon. There was about an acre and a half of it. And we had it growing in seven feet of water and up to 20 feet high in places. And the last treatment of that was last fall and just a few months ago. And I think we're going to declare victory mainly because we've run out of the water. We've also all our licenses for treating it was quite an exercise to get the licenses to do this. We had to pull a stack of paper about that. And those have finally run down. And I think there's no more Fragmites. I haven't seen any. Excellent timing. I don't know that I would have to look for. We won't really know how effective this fall's treatment was. Those are the three major items and I think the plan is to continue as we have before with Spipon. So these non-native species? Yes. There is a native Fragmites but what's happened is that's been taken over by a Fragmites that came in from Europe. It's related to the growing Fatch. It's a particularly aggressive grower and makes a monoculture. If you ever want one of my joys is the marsh that's in behind Cowan Manor off of Spipon Parkway. And that was just solid Fragmites. And I've walked through it and it wasn't a pleasant exercise. And now it's a marsh with hundreds of different varieties of plants. It's really, it's quite a transformation. Now how about the marsh over by Route 2 where the bike path passes underneath it to the left. So that's Fragmites. So all that is it should be gotten rid of it. It should be gotten rid of it too. It's getting the permits as an exercise. Actually treating it is quite easy to do. But it takes somebody it takes somebody leading the effort. That's really what it requires. Our questions by time. What was the origin of the Fragmites? That was done by we saw the problem and realized that I think the initial treatment was like $4,000 and we basically set up a at that time we had the Water Bodies Fund and we requested suggested that people send in donations to the Water Bodies Fund. And we actually it was I was surprised. We had people from all over Arlington send in donations. We had about 9 or 10,000 donations of private funds. So everything except for $280 was all donations towards this effort. And there were no public funds. 280 pups this past year to do the last treatment which spent about $3,100 and there was only 2,870 left in the account. Have you considered the effort in addressing the Fragmites in other parts of the town? Like for example, they're running a mock in McLennan and Al points out there are other areas in the town that are now suffering from Fragmites. It certainly could be done. You know, it's the spy pond committee is concentrating on spy pond. It really requires someone taking the lead. The actual treatment is easy to do. Getting the permits is a lot of work. Is this something that DPW can spearhead? I think we this was the first time this week here was more of like a quality of life issue. So I think we didn't see it from public works perspective as a bad thing per se. The treatments that we do on spy that if we don't do anything that pond is just going to die and nothing will live in it. Those are the type of issues that we take on in public works. So this was brought to us by a butters basically saying, hey, the pond is a mess and we can't even see the water because we're looking at these weeds that are out of control said, okay, fine, we've got a lot of donations and it was just kind of something that took on a life of its own. We got donations were pouring in, set up the account and we did a lot of work follow up working with the Vision 2020 committee to get the permits. It is a yeoman's task and if it weren't for all the butters doing a lot of work, I don't know that we have each person that you have to go on their property to treat. You have to get a sign off on every single person. For example, in the Clinton, the frag money problem there is in the park itself. So that would be something that we would take cons cons cubes on is this an issue, is this something we should worry about or is it just so it sounds like it's what you really need is sort of a friends of to focus on an area and do a lot of the legwork both to raise the money in the policies and all. Who actually does the what is it a sprain to kill? Yeah, it was done by the company that was called Aquatic Control Technology. The same company. The same company is what we're currently doing. It's a backpack sprayer and actually we had enough that they brought in they had a an airboat with a sprayer mounted on top attacking it from one side and they had a a tracked vehicle that could go over land also with a nozzle mounted. Okay. Let's just say let's take the marsh down through to the bike path. Yeah. So if somebody went gangbusters did the work raise the money and they sprayed that whole marsh what would what do you foresee would come up to take the place? It's a it would be basically grasses, and breath. They're cat tails. Yeah. Yeah, they would be cat tails. Cat tails is one of the more common ones. Yeah. But Brad didn't you spread out sea? Oh yeah, we did. So you would probably want to plant that too. So the base of the Fragmite is like, you know, a coconut husk root system and it takes a little while for that to break down. So it's a long process. I think the only thing I would add is that spy pond was extremely difficult. We had an attack from both areas because of that it's a danger. So they really had to be more careful. This place down by spy pond down by bike path it doesn't have any endangered species. It could be. Well, we didn't know there was an angle move stage until we tried to do the Fragmite. So there may be. Oh, yeah. When you find things that need to be protected. Are there any other questions on the spy pond? Question on the erosion, is that concentrated or is it sporadic around the pond? You're talking about the erosion where they're doing the CPA program the public land around spy pond part. Okay, that's weird. So that area is particularly eroded. Spy pond does especially along the southern edge which is all sand it wants to go into the pond. And erosion is an ongoing problem for all of the all of the butters. And I think the most serious section is the condominiums particularly the first one which is quite close to the pond. Other questions? Okay, thank you very much. Are you all set or do you want to come over on the budget? I'm bored. Do you have any other copies of the the budget? It seems to be a pile there of the budget. This is the project for the budget. To update everybody on the the project we're doing at the Mystic River waterfront area just kind of as a good news story that we are actively seeking funds from other sources to improve water bodies in Arlington. So the Arlington Conservation Commission and the town was awarded a natural resource damage assessment grant in the amount of $47,325 to do the project along the Mystic River where there was the oil spill if you remember back in 2013 a tanker went over and spilled almost 10,000 gallons on the roadway and into the river. What we're proposing, what we're doing there actually it's not a proposal anymore it's a real project which is great. We're creating a native river bank habitat. We're removing an old dilapidated non-working concrete outfall that's not even attached to the price anymore it's like falling into the river. We're going to remove that we're going to create a nice habitat and stabilize the bank we're also going to create an area of a path and seeding and signage for the public and plantings native plantings so that the public can understand that area and understand what happened there that the oil spill happened and that we're restoring it coupled with that DPW the town has agreed to put in a pretreatment of stormwater up river upland of that on pretty much the corner of Park Street and Coral around that area coupled with the new habitat that we're doing will actually improve water quality in that area because we'll get less silt and organics that run off from the highway oils and things like that actually coming into the river at that place so I just wanted to say we're going to start in the spring the first step is getting a lot of permits we have a public meeting tomorrow night is the first public meeting at the conservation commission where we're also presenting the notice of intent for this work I don't know if anybody had any questions about that how large an area of the river what are we talking about let's see it was about 500 500 linear feet the project is smaller it'll help about that much but the project is about I would say about it's 575 right along the waterway but then up from the bank we're also doing that little planting area where we're going to involve the community and doing needed plants and creating a little habitat area that people can sit at enjoy what's the river rate of these days that part of the river is it goes from a B plus to an A minus so it's not terrible I'm sure you have B plus B plus that of B plus further up towards the upper lake it's more of an A A minus but B plus is in terrible but it could use improvement is it swarming over I don't I mean if you fall in it's not a problem but it's not I mean you can kayak and stuff and if the kayak turns over and it comes back you're okay but as you know it's not swarming how about the upper mystic oh the upper mystic is up by Winchester right in the beach definitely that gets an A rating it's been cleaned up a lot so questions Alan general questions sort of a natural concern about the use of herbicides I was wondering if you could just comment for the public on the safety of the herbicides that are selected for the plant management okay we're using no herbicides on the mystic river restoration project I meant for the general oh in general okay not it's not exactly my area of expertise for example the chemical that's commonly used for fragmites is called glyphosate it's roundup there's been a lot of information in the past few years out of EPA and other studies that show that it may not be as safe as they kept saying it was for years I'm concerned about it I on the Arlington Conservation Commission put certain safeguards on the use of glyphosate so for example as Brad was talking about on spy pond when they had to do the backpack sprayers we put controls on that certain wind times they couldn't do it if it was too windy they had to do spot treatments whenever they could we did not allow aerial spraying anymore because it could be considered a human health hazard so I do think it's prudent to be concerned about these herbicides that we do have to use sometimes it's a balance between you know helping out the native plants and getting a good environment versus the human health effects of these chemicals it's definitely a balance any comments about reward and sonar? that's what we use on spy yeah the only thing I'll say would be great if we didn't have to use any of these but using them judiciously the companies that we use do have permits they are trained to use them in a certain way I'm always a big proponent on the Arlington Conservation Commission of trying to find any other way about chemicals which is one of the reasons why we want to try to get that aeration pump because we're hoping that will reduce the amount of chemicals they use there there they use chemicals for algae a lot too we think it might help with that but it's a balance I mean it's definitely a balance we close we post and close the pond areas where we treat for the amount of time and it's different for each chemical on how what is the half life you know when it dissipates so we're really careful about that we don't notify the butters of treatment it's a balance it's definitely a balance but it's something to definitely think of and I think what we're trying to do in the water bodies workgroup and the Arlington Conservation Commission is look at these over time and hopefully get the chemical treatments down we hand harvest and mechanical harvest at the reservoir we don't use chemical treatments there there are other ways of doing things if we can you know use them in certain areas so the details of the chemicals available on the website um yeah they have um just for people in the public oh for people want to look at it absolutely and the Arlington Conservation Commission when we approve chemicals they're in the order of conditions and any of the public can go up and look at it I mean there's a lot of details on the chemicals in the back of the order of conditions and how they have to be used and what are the risks there was also you can get it like Google the health and safety sheets they're called MSDS sheets yeah okay just a question I just do another follow up if you talk to people who've been on spypond for a while um historically there's been times when they've let the pond go and just not treated and um spypond has as many urban water bodies has a lot of nutrients in the sediment coming in um it wants to grow and uh the herbicides the most effective way in fact in many cases like for spypond probably the only effective way um you do you know you don't want to overuse it you want to keep up with the latest recommendations the state is of course concerned about this um so we just you know it's a management issue if you don't let it get out of control then you don't have to be too aggressive about it it's when it becomes a big serious problem that's when you have to start using the heavier doses okay any other questions okay thank you okay I'll do the budget okay I updated the spreadsheet from the last version last spring so and I added a few little features I know sometimes when I'm kind of direct people they're like well where I so I numbered the columns um as well as the pages and I made it bigger so I can sort of see what I got okay side one side two and numbered the columns um to orient ourselves so on side one the and then there's the three sections two the first one is the whole of the fun the second is the break out of the fragmites and section three is the two together and one thing you'll notice is that section three will be coming to an end because as we spoke of before we've spent down the fragmites account and manage the process so that's going to be trailing off but I figured I'd leave it for this year so you'd be expecting it and wonder what would happen but going to the first section on side one we're in currently FY 17 we had got uh $50,000 appropriation that went on top of our beginning balance of 38 we received $1,800 in donations then the budget that we are expecting to have this year is almost $50,000 that the 2316 500 and the 10 I'll give you a little more detail looking at the backside which has the budget but those are the line items for this year and everything coming to fruition we would finish up at $40,000 at this end of this fiscal year we're here to talk about FY 18 and how much money we think we need that number we have pegged at $55,000 and the details broken out here but I'll talk a little more about it so we're bumping it up and at the same time we're expecting our balance to be going down to $29,000 so I'll give you a little more detail about that so if you want to go on to side two we can in the FY 17 the one that we're in we have all the projects broken down we got $14,000 for sonar treatment which as it says will be spent in FY 19 so we have $14,000 for three years to do that project which we would do in a couple years time we had $15,000 for water chestnuts at the reservoir which has already been spent we are carrying $5,000 for analogy treatment should we need it at SPI and then we have water quality and testing at multiple locations coming to the $5,500 we have this the small 280 expense that closed out the Fragmites that I had mentioned before and the $10,000 that was used by the Conservation Commission to begin looking at MacLennan and that money is encumbered and will be spent so at this point spent about half of this fiscal years budget I'll be carrying the $14,000 into next year rolling it forward for SPI and then we never know are we going to have an algae treatment are we not going to have an algae treatment but that's where the budget is at this point looking into next fiscal year FY 18 there's our second request for $14,000 for SPI $10,000 for a reward treatment at SPI what we do is as we did in FY 16 we did the sonar treatment the next year after that you get an off year then the year after that you have a spot treatment of reward usually so that's where we would be this current year is the off year for the water treatment year so we need the $10,000 for that we're caring we talked quite a bit about the res and how are we feeling about the water chestnuts could we bring the number down and we ended up feeling we should keep it at $15,000 this coming year we are making headway but it's a tough issue to really beat those things back we're getting a lot of help from the Mystic River Watershed Association bringing a couple hundred volunteers in the spring over multiple days a couple hundred more they're corporate like community service days and they'll have 25 or 30 canoes out in their hand picking on the edges because when the harvester comes cuts the plant it gets the bulk of them the pods float to the sides and they're just going to start the process again so they can get any edges where the little floaties are and they can get into the shallow part over on the Lexington side that the harvester really can't get in one area it's just too shallow they can get in there and really help us make some headway so that is helping but we feel like it's not yet the time that we can jump and can start cutting that back to less and less so we decided we really needed to go for 15 again so that's where that is at I carry my algae treatment forward and then this next one folks talked about adding hills pond treatment for water quality testing so that number usually you see 6500 556500 we added another 5,000 for hills pond so that line item is 11.5 then the 10,000 we spoke of for McClennan's follow on work at the detention basin so that brings that number for next year's budget to 65.5 so as a result we had initially at this time last year we had a number of 50,000 for FY 18 so we're bumping that up to 55,000 and then looking at what we're expecting for numbers at least at this point to be carrying from McClennan in coming years we've tentatively put in 60,000 in FY 19 and FY 20 not with any idea what possibly large number or numbers we could need at McClennan that's sort of off to the side and probably beyond what we would be doing just in this water bodies fund so that's where we are this fiscal year what got us to asking for 55 for the coming fiscal year and if anybody has any questions are there any questions on the budget Christine what you were saying at the very end depending on what's found at McClennan is it your expectation that money to address that would not come from future water bodies fund that's my expectation that this is sort of a management and treatment and studying of water bodies if we need to construct things have very large reports that we need tens of thousands that's beyond at least the initial concept of what this account was for certainly if you want to put $100,000 in this account we'd find a way to spend it but that's not been how we've been running this account in other words you don't build things correct in this one so that if you were building something kind of like is it capital is it slash would it fall into other thoughts of money at your discretion questions Alan in 2018 is a big zero for conservation commission is there an impact of that they said we said focus on the that's why they said put the 10 and not in the other bucket focus on one thing it could be that when at this time next year when we're looking into 19 oh I need $10,000 for MacLennan and another $5,000 for something else something like that something on that order okay grant the test water testing how coordinated is that effort is it the same type of tests performed on each water body or is it it's kind of what's needed per vision 2020 working group is heavily involved in what happens by sort of different groups with conservation commission we do testing as needed some years we don't have to do any and other years like if there's an algae bloom at spy we need to do something will you test the pool for Alan I think it's related to treatment needs related to the treatment needs of most water bodies what's needed the treatment of most water bodies and you have to do testing to get the information to do treatment what information do you get from the testing what the status of the water is basically I don't do testing they do they do dissolved oxygen they do temperature they do basic parameters phosphorus, nutrients basic parameters for the plants that they're going to be treating they have to know what the status of the water quality is before they do the treatment so and it's the same standard of test for each of you yes the only time that differs is for example like McClennan when we're doing a special project and we told the contractor what we wanted to test and actually talked back and forth with them about what they suggested about testing for example because we thought the flock was iron or something like that that's not a standard test for these water bodies usually it's nutrients, temperature pH bacteria bacteria there's a flow it goes from McClennan which you're testing I'll see a test for that I don't see any test performed from McClennan which is pretty serious that flows into the res and then that flows into Milbrook which of course then flows into Mystic Lake that's whole different I understand the testing from Milbrook is done by a different perhaps by my WRA rather than this project but I see there's a connection there you're sort of fixing something but not focusing on the big picture because one sort of might just be contributing to the other I'm just wondering if there's any focus on the whole ecosystem essentially so what you're getting is when the flow is going to like we described at Turboree's down in row and then eventually through to Milbrook by the res it's going through several wetlands and things are being flushed out in there and that's benefiting everyone and that's why the conservation commission exists because if we can get all our water to flow through wetlands and keep those working correctly it acts like a filter and that filter is seen on the other side of Milbrook and the other side of Recreation because I believe that spot where Herdfield is is pretty clean right there although it comes out of the wetlands that Monroe feeds into so that's the benefit of what's happening but we don't know what's entering into the wetlands or into Milbrook or into the reservoir outside of Arlington and we don't have any testing on that I mean it sounds like your question is can we clean up area A and get BC and D will benefit from that and it's true you will get some benefit but you have to kind of control what's going into that stream I don't hear a measurement so you believe it might be cleaner but are the results of these tests available perhaps yeah so I used to work at Oxford in the conservation office up there and they had a stream team and all the stream monitoring was on a website I'm sure Myra does it so you could actually just look at their website and when we get home tonight and just see what the levels are see what they're testing for and what the levels are and see where they're located and oh okay and they also have that for the Reds I'm not sure they're testing the Reds where do we get the results for that we have we have results for spyponder we have results for the res too we don't do we don't do water quality testing there because we're not adding a herbicide or anything to the res we're doing mechanical harvesting so that we're not treating the water there could be some some bloom there and we have to but and we keep money should we need to but a lot of times we have money in the budget just in case scenario your point is well taken about kind of a unified approach of looking at a watershed in total and that's what Mr. River Watershed Association does and that's why they're a great partner to the town of Arlington in this effort because we're just the town of Arlington I mean we can't look at the whole watershed area we don't have the funds and we don't have the jurisdiction so they're really a good partner in helping us do that they keep track of Alewife they're one of the opponents who helped the town of Cambridge clean up their CSOs they're providing sewer flows to make that cleaner there so we're trying to partner with them to get at these kinds of questions that you're asking one word I think I understand you had mentioned the oxygen levels being tested do we know that the oxygen levels that are on the reservoir that I don't know I'd have to look at an old report I know that we do have those levels for spike pond in the water routinely I don't remember about the reservoir I'd have to check that alright thanks so the water the waterways McQuinnon Park flows into Waxington and eventually ends up in the rest how's your working relationship with Waxington? Next I think we have good relations with the conservation commission and we could talk with them about those issues we've tried to get some money from them next to government for how we save the reservoir that's been a difficult process even though part of it's in Waxington they don't really work in that one of the things that falls into the res is coming from they don't want to do anything about it some do and some don't we've discussed it a couple of times so we've never achieved any money but it doesn't have to be money they could take all the whatever they're taking out the res the water chest and they could take those and center them for us so it doesn't have to be just a payment so there'd be other ways to help out we did send a letter to the select management and the town manager asking for them again to approach Waxington and ask for help so we do that once a year do they approach Waxington? they do I know Adam talked to Carl can we just dam up the reservoir and let it all back up for a minute? I think the Waxington side is the last side so we run out of money okay are there any other questions in any of the water bodies or the budgets for anybody here? in 19 or 20 there's this new line item spy permitting what's that? we'll need more permitting the permits that we get for treatment only last so long so we have to go back and get new permits it wasn't detailed it's just kind of buried in there it's becoming more expensive so it raises its own line if I may I just looked up my references but we did have a 2012 Arlington aquatic management program report to the conservation commission and that was for spy pond the reservoir and hills pond so it would have that data in there 2012 I don't know if we have a more recent pond but we thank you anybody else? any questions at all? that's the time to ask okay if we decide, I think Alan weren't we thinking of putting this budget into the report into the Fincom report at one point? yeah but okay if Alan wanted to talk to somebody about getting I assume this is an Excel spreadsheet yes okay, they'd go to you? yes any other questions? thank you all for coming we really appreciate your time and all the efforts you do for the town of Arlington okay we have two sets of minutes okay February 1st now what we're going to try to do is set that these out ahead electronically we did do that I'm sorry? we did do that and so we're going to do that from now on so please take a look at it and then so Peter do you think we could project this up on the screen for the audience? not today in the future? we should be able to do that in the future so we'll try to do that see if we can work out without being too complex and save some pain are there any corrections in the February 1st Liz left lots of space there for you to easier to read dick 2L is an old needle ah do you see that? catch anything else? okay anything else? do I have a motion? so moved moved and seconded to accept the minutes any further discussion? any further discussion? all those in favor please say aye opposed okay Liz then you can move ahead with Peter helping you to get this posted okay now Peter we'll have to do put the manager's spreadsheet attached to this that went out with the manager presented okay great okay now let's go to the February 8th any corrections? give you guys a couple minutes to catch up typo on the Harry Barber program should see this it's hard to spell the C but that is right moving cock are you sure? well at the top it's SC SC I'll I'll double check okay what was the other problem with kind of the top of the second page set this right through program strike the S of theses oh theses thank you couple lines below that there's Calander just to take a moment Calander some tickens all of it and the meetings just below that meetings plain one-in website carpins with a C another advantage of doing it electronically okay anything else? I'll spell check any others? do I have a motion? second okay all those in favor accepting advance is corrected we say aye opposed okay okay since we just heard the appropriation for water bodies and all the discussions the request this year is for an appropriation of 55,000 what is the below the committee? second okay Allen moved and seconded any discussion? I'm glad to see them sort of branching out beyond the big three I think that's that's a good step we'll see how this works okay any further discussion? okay all those in favor 55,000 under article 48 for the water bodies can we say aye? opposed okay okay so that takes care of article 48 Liz is working to get all the other committees and commissions you know I I'm just sort of playing with this you know you sell all the various committees and commissions that deal with water bodies all come in here and put together a reasonably comprehensive program over the years and I guess I'd like to see that for the arts you know you just sell sort of one group and maybe I've got to talk maybe to the moderator we could take one of these articles and sort of form something where they're all I mean that's what the Arlington culture and arts group is supposed to be a service and umbrella for all this but we've got them we've got the public arts we've got the alive program and a lot of others working so I'll talk to the moderator maybe we could use one of the articles to sort of force everything together I'll I'll play that out with the manager and see what he thinks okay budgets so we got nice new books I was just going to spend the first hour or two taking all these out my old budgets and throwing in the three of my new ones okay who wants to present a budget okay we did express to the deputy town manager thanking them for this type of book we got this year we thank them on behalf of the finance committee for our books to pass that on I'd like to start with the our own budget our finance committee budget and that's on page 21 and where our budget we're looking for ten thousand three hundred dollars and the only change is well we live as a secretary that's the change in the salary portion okay so are you recommending as printed ten thousand three hundred dollars ten thousand three hundred dollars as printed okay recommending as printed are there any questions pretty straightforward okay all those in favor of ten thousand three hundred dollars for the finance committee budget we say aye okay okay we'll go to the Board of Select page 23 actually page 25 okay again this note that the only changes here is salary increases and they're looking for a total of two hundred fifty two thousand seven hundred so I'm recommended as printed okay so overall increase of one point one nine percent now are all the contracts what are the contracts all do nobody know I think there's another year or no so they're at the end of fiscal 18 okay that sounds right okay so the the COLA's and the steps are all built in here now are there any interesting are there any changes okay so the accounting and printing is up by 15,000 right um did you want to do elections tonight yeah we want to do a elections okay how do you want to do it I'm going to select one election okay so on page 21 oh wait is page 25 a collection of all of these no okay then no big changes are there questions from the committee Alan I just want to point out this will be true in all the budgets with offsets that the offsets have been pulled out of salaries and put like below the bottom line now it's to be more compliant with some of the recommendations and it's more compliant with the FINGMA report thanks it's not going to deal with the waters that were offsets and the CPA offsets yeah because it always used to be so we're going from it's just a reformatic right so when we go on page 26 instead of bringing forward 230,000 on the far right it brings forth 259 right that makes it a lot easier to understand yeah excellent see we can have an event we're slowly harmonizing over there with numbers okay that's good questions, comments okay your recommendation is as printed yes do I have a motion wait a minute we want to add the special election in the fall to this don't we no that that comes on the this is on the selectments budget that's the election budget we're still on we're still on the selectments okay okay I'm sorry did I get a motion in a second did you make a motion I'll second it okay motion is made and seconded any further discussion on the selectments budget all those in favor can we say aye opposed favorable action unanimous to 1517 okay elections on the election budget as we know from the current budget we had we had six elections this past year and our next budget it looks like we're going to have one unless something changes so there would definitely be a decrease however they're asking for a change in the figure of 67,588 and when we spoke to Marie Marie would like to include the cost of a special town meeting should they there be one and that cost would be added to that figure it would be 5036 5036 right and that would bring that a new total of 72,624 72 624 72,624 an addition for a special town meeting in the fall 5036 okay and that includes the costable, the custodian postal expenses and printing and distribution of the warrant should there be a call for a special Italian just on a side note we're all familiar we had the special election here in this past that special election went for 11 days at the town hall and it brought in approximately 10,000 voters almost just about a third of the registered voters in the town took advantage of that special election should they have it again you're going to break it down I call it early voting I call it special elections they're going to tweak it even so you have two places to go because one of the problems in that election was you had two different ballots one for if you had Rodgers Rodgers so you had to make sure when they would pass them out wherever precinct you got the right ballot and that took a little time and then some tweaking some others it's one thing to go to a voting poll and have a list of names for that precinct but when you go to early election and you had 33,000 names in a book it became it was to say the least different and when you had lines going up down up and down mass there but they had almost 10,000 voters and the rules and the procedures were changing because it was brand new from daily they're going to work that out more than likely there's a possibility that there will be an early election for the next state election but that's unknown at this time nobody said democracy was either cheap or easy it was well received but it was an experience the work was phenomenal especially the register of voters Karen Foley in the clerks office in the sleckless office especially the sleckless office how we did it for 11 days something else something I'll never forget so anyway that figure is 72,624 okay is there for any further discussion or questions okay all those all those in favor of 72,624 can we say aye? aye opposed unanimous to 1517 accounting one before that is the printing of sorry if you notice that's on page 28 that's an increase of $15,000 and when we checked on the increase it's actually for two reasons one is the $5,000 for a school department elementary and secondary education audit and at $10,000 the cost of hiring outside audit to perform a fraud risk assessment so $10,000 for the fraud risk assessment assessment in $5,000 for elementary school fraud elementary and secondary school audit what is a broad risk assessment fraud fraud now I thought it might be it's interesting but they use fraud there's only one word versus three is there any particular why are we doing this it is coming out of the control office and I checked I remember I raised the question and you brought up two Allen the schools it says mandated but when I checked with town council and also the deputy town manager it's a procedural thing that happens periodically so it doesn't come under that something like there was newly mandated and you asked the question if it's mandated would the state have to pay for it but that's not the case it's actually just a word they could have called something else but it happens periodically I understand the $5,000 is mandated now will we be doing the fraud assessment every year or just I don't think so this is hiring an outside audit to perform a fraud risk assessment I'm assuming I'm assuming it's a one time for now because it came up for the next motorcycle could you double check that with him we don't have to hold up the vote how often does he anticipate doing that is that the old town system what kind of fraud are we talking about have you any idea I have no idea I did not talk to the farm troller I went to the town council on one question in the deputy town manager I don't know I mean usually if you're talking fraud you're talking cash so it could be I mean you could be talking recreation you could be talking obviously trash collector you could be talking anybody in the town parking meters anything that raises funds I guess so okay so if you could follow up on that okay did they say anything about the mandate um yes it doesn't appear I'm sorry it doesn't appear that they got it it's just the word that they use but it's it happens periodically questions do I have a motion so moved okay moved and seconded any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed okay unanimous and the printing of town reports there's no change there it's for $3,500 and I'll move as printed any questions wow I wonder how they were able to get it so cheap last year I think there was an agreement reached for the printing okay I think we can select we can thank the Selectors Office for that okay any further discussion do I have a a motion that's been made to second it for favorable action all those in favor please say aye aye opposed unanimous $2,517 any others David page 64 the town clerk in the town clerk's portion there is as of the past month there is a vacancy in the town clerk's office and that's currently being handled through human resources as well as the town clerk to fill the full time vacancy position and I guess they're in the process of doing interviews now and I don't know if you saw me Florence McGee who's been there a long time has decided to let it go so she's been here as long as I've been she won't come back and it's undecided at this point whether that little pot time section will be filled or not they are considering it yeah it's still I guess a couple of things they have to but my understanding is the person that has left they're still in the process of figuring out that paying benefit package so and then they're also in the process of hiring a new full time they don't know at what pay scale at this point that new person would be coming in at and then again the little pot time I think it's 20 hours a week that's something that Florence worked so not even that it was less than 10 hours but so the figure would be 277,277,326 that your recommendation? yes do I have a motion? so moved second any other questions? okay all those in favor please say aye posed okay David and the last one I have is the Board of Registration and again that it's just salary adjustments for a total of $68,866 so I'm recommending it as presented so that's the step changes from last year no changes questions? motion? second okay any further discussion? all those in favor please say aye posed unanimous any others David? I'll defer to Peter if he's ready with legal and not I'm not sure page 59 for legal legal expenses he's got those predicted flat line no change on page 60 he also has in hand $25,000 from special town meeting appropriation for UGAR legal work he expects to apply also this although he says the town is facing some signs of all exposures he doesn't expect them he expects to win the town not to be assessed very much however in this case in this case the limitation on legal expenses $100,000 so a lot of money but it's not a billion dollars now the $25,000 for UGAR's other expenses, legal expenses was that at special town meeting last year or was that a transfer from the reserve fund? I didn't check but he said it wasn't I did do a special I thought it was special town meeting I think so too so that'll stay with the warrant article that'll stay with the warrant article in the budgets in the back another $25,000 requested the trouble is there's no warrant in the budgets in the back of what? in the budgets in the back here $245,000 that's poet-oriented UGAR legal expenses $243,000 $243,000 it shows $25,000 for fiscal $17,000 and a request for another $25,000 but I don't remember a warrant article please correct me if I'm wrong in the annual town meeting for $25,000 or for anything which means either he puts it in special or it's got to go with this budget well based on our conversation today he's not counting on that do you think I have that right David? is there any idea? I don't think he's counting on based on our conversations this morning with him okay so he's not requesting an additional $25,000 for this year right we've come out with some previous conversations is there, if they are I just, like David said the only thing I'm going on is the budget book $243,000 it looks like a warrant article they can still get it into the special I'll double check on that okay if you could like I said he puts it in special because it was not mistaken it's not in the annual okay are there let me go on now that was just the legal expenses now on the salary page the assistant claims coordinator the part time position at the bottom of the list that person moved farther away it doesn't want to commute anymore and they've hired to replace them step five so her salary will be $25,629 instead of the number that's there $29,981 so $25,629 yes so if you carry that if you carry that forward the wage $80 the wage is smaller the bottom line will be smaller by a amount of $4,250 which makes the bottom line $4,884 $5,85 $4,884 $5,85 so you have a budget estimate when head retires you have any budgets going to go way down okay so you're recommending $4,884,585 and Alan you could correct going down any questions? Do I have a motion? so moved moved and seconded any further discussion? okay all those in favor please say aye aye opposed? unanimous $2,517 Peter? we can do some health and human services we can do some health and human services if you want let's do it we've got 33 more minutes so we could do the veterans budget which is on page $164 so with the veterans I just want to remind folks that a lot of the age of the veterans gets reimbursed from the state so housing assistance gets reimbursed at 75% and housing assistance at 100% so we get money every month but you just have to remember that it doesn't match up just what we submit to be reimbursed doesn't automatically come back the next month with the exact match up but eventually it will all match up so other than that there were no changes to the budget so you've met the Director of Veterans Services before and he's doing a really good job and really doing a lot of outreach to make sure that everybody who's entitled knows that they are getting what they are entitled to have so I would just recommend as printed the budget of $443,200 okay is that your motion? yes second? now any questions? a couple of times we've had to do transfers does he feel reasonably confident that he will not need any transfers this fiscal year? that's what we met with Christine yes that's what she believes that is good that was really growing you can see on the amount we spent $433 in fiscal 2015 so it's I think it's largely depending on the economy right questions? timing okay motions have been made and the second did for $443,200 all those in favor we say aye aye posed okay okay then we'll have to go to the reserve the ones at the back oh the enterprise? yes so we do council on aging transportation it's on page 202 really 203 okay page 203 203 so John and I went through this to make sure we knew talked to Christine so we knew what things meant and just to explain I asked under the training line item what they're trained in now the main van driver passed away and now has been replaced with four on-call drivers so that when they're needed somebody is available and so the training involves all the drivers have to be trained in CPR they have to be trained in how to actually get people the senior citizens on and off the van and make sure they're all buckled and everything so there's the training that goes into that see what else there was I think that on those the expenses the rest are fairly self-explanatory and then on the page 204 the line item 4261 the dart fees or the dial ride taxis and those are the tickets that you buy in advance to take the taxi and then line item 480 gives the donations and grants she feels that is a good number and then the last line item 4972 the transfer from retained earnings is the council on aging surplus now they are going to probably have fewer CDBG funds available coming fiscal year so do you have your fund balance or retained earnings at the end of fiscal 16? I forgot to ask for that again no I don't that'll affect your salary okay do you want to wait until I have that okay should be an email and have a chance okay okay so I don't know if you have any other questions on that on the council on aging budget the transportation budget I need I have a question this doesn't matter of interest is the training because of the new people in previous years or is that just a new way of doing the books no I think they get trained every year there are new people but there are the four drivers now so they have to get trained but in previous years I think there was the main driver and then sometimes there was an on-call driver so whoever had to be trained was trained I'm just asking about the actuals they probably don't give benefits right so I mean this year isn't over yet so that was her best estimate for 2017 I don't know I'm not sure what else you're asking there is no actual expense at the end of 16 right well I don't remember why do you need the training because it had already been done because he drove that van for many years he probably felt you have to update your training like every what two years for CPR could have been under expenses how's the numbers are the numbers using the van transportation system up down the same the impression I got is that she doesn't think the van is terribly useful and probably going to phase it out over time and use taxes what she said was a lot of people like to drive and there's no parking or a very little parking so that's an issue but they do use it for the medical transportation so they can if you're a senior citizen you can be transferred within the contiguous towns through the van and like John was saying you can use the transportation to get to the senior center but for whatever reason people get driven or drive themselves and then the taxis are just when you're a senior citizen you can use the taxis at a lower rate but you have to buy the tickets at a time I'm sure today the taxis can be desperate to get any business they can questions okay are you recommending as printed yes and I will last pristine about the fund balances for this okay and just the trend in the van is there a second to that second okay any further discussion all those in favor please say aye opposed unanimous okay we can do the next one the KYCC so if you look at that budget the line item for administrative fees that $25,000 is actually because they're buying a new EHR system I'm sure a new EHR medical records electronic health records system this one can do more it can do it faster I'm sorry I'm on the KYCC budget on the next page what I'm talking about is 5230 administrative fees administrative spell wrong in the case that was confusing you so is this a one shot deal yes what else do we want to talk about on the fee page let's see it's the nurse under salary and wages there's been an increase in nursing hours and that person the person who will work on the EHR has become a full time person let's see and then on page 210 okay is that the medical records card alright so if you look at it must be the billing the billing the the psychiatric nurse that's a significant increase in salary right right and that person has the carry of the mood yes they brought her up to full time they wanted to see that's right alright so under the there will be one of the grants they got is gone now and they're getting less in the CDBG money but the gifts and donations she's was confident in that number the insurance reimbursements will go up most likely because of better coding for the new EHR she was saying that they're getting very good at doing the billing and things like that know how to do that better well because of the system because it's more like that and they have the psychiatrist that they have now does the same thing as the other one but you know he oversees the work but the psych nurse they have actually does more work and is allowed by law to make a lot of the descriptions to describe the meds so that's Kathy Carey Dr. Carey's daughter so she's she is taking out a bigger work one so I don't know if do they have any other questions about the staffing or anything donations online the 2016 actuals $12,000 budgeted to $68,000 they're now expecting $90,000 do you know how this year's donations are going? I don't know but did you know that right did you go to the AYCC to have the gala they do a gala each year you know AYCC does it got to be quite successful I think do you want to know what the numbers are? is $90,000 realistic? yes that question was that a realistic number she said yes now if you want I can go back and ask her specifically where it's coming from but the gala has been very successful the donations that come from from people who aren't attending the gala as long as you think it's realistic there's a big discrepancy between $12,000 and $90,000 correct you seem very confident but if you want I will ask her but we talked about it but I can ask again specifically is it coming from just the gala other questions here maybe this is an improper question but who did you talk to about this question? Christine other questions those were state grants they've lost no it used to be some local I don't think it was a state grant it was a local organization local medical organization and that's the one they gave other questions so do you want me to wait and get more answers from her before we about this security field I wonder if she can back up and isn't going to affect the bottom line okay so you're recommending as printed 630 revenue, 630 expenses so moved second second okay any other further discussion so if you can report back on those next week that would be great yeah I'd like to know what those other grants are more specifically the ones they lost all those in favor of the 630 on the enterprise fund do we say aye? aye opposed unanimous 215-17 okay we still had some questions on the other other health and service budgets so I don't want to present those because they're those are your budgets for today okay anybody else have a 15 minute budget okay again Monday I guess we don't meet on Mondays of February so if you look at our calendar so there will be no meeting next Monday because it's President's Day I still think we call it Washington State okay so on Wednesday the February 22nd the Army to public arts is back and we can have more questions on that we will have budgets on Wednesday we need budgets guys okay that would be great you should have the rest of the comments okay that would be good any others and I believe that the planning budget in some way would like it to be okay that sounds good uh how's the water and sewer budget going coming along we have warrant articles we can tell you about the amounts for the water yeah the amounts for the water okay let's go to articles 41 and 42 and 43 41 I'm sorry 32 42 and 43 this is the warrant okay 42 is for sewer they're appropriating a total of 900,000 100,000 will be cash from the enterprise fund 800,000 will borrow MWRA funds now will the $100,000 cash be in the budget okay so the only thing we're doing in this article is the 800,000 well the yeah the wording says how the appropriation shall be raised so that's why it will be raised by 100 from enterprise fund which is in the budget and 800,000 from the MWRA the wording of it that has been refused is to how to say it but they're going to be borrowing 800,000 okay so we're borrowing 800,000 on whether that 100,000 should be appropriated the budget versus this warrant article yeah it's in the budget okay so the only thing we're worrying about now is the 800,000 in this article okay now you can come back and we can modify it if that's not how we want it but let's deal with the 800,000 that's how we usually do it every year it's in the budget but again it's the wording that will be appropriated okay so they request 800,000 borrowing from the MWRA this is these interest free loans we borrow the money from them and then pay them back over a period of time so without interest any particular things they're doing with this money well they do what about they try and do a mile a year and they do it basically as where the detection devices seem to most leakage okay so any questions well do you have an idea how much what part of the town they've done detection on leak detection what fraction of the town has been done I did last year I'll do this year find out this year any questions on the 800,000 dollar loan okay do I have a motion second all those in favor please say aye aye okay article 43 and in the same wording that's the one of the things they're looking for to borrow 1,100,000 with 100,000 coming from the enterprise fund for a total of appropriation of 1.2 million same question if you could just confirm it so right now we'll just put 1,000,000 borrowed on water mains and I assume they do the same thing they're doing a certain number of yeah the answer will likely be it's all over where they concentrate the effort because it depends on where the major leak leaks are but I could find the concentration that they plant I assume it also matters if they have to be tearing up the road for some other reason yeah there's the accidental ones the ones that they can't plant that come up too they can find a proportion of that too if it matters okay any questions motion second all those in favor please say aye aye opposed anything else anybody else have anything else I just want to get out 10 minutes early don't you okay if there's no other business before the committee remember there's no meeting next Monday we'll meet again next Wednesday if anybody want to get up to date on the on the old plaque okay I went back to the place where we bought it after I took and got some information of when O'Neill died and so forth and they traced it back and they have they're not sure if they have the original drawing of the plaque but the plaque had to be in my my which I remember so the place where I got it is at Oak Grove Divini and now it's so I won't know for about another week if they have it because they merge two companies and each one takes care of their own they don't know so Divini is on vacation when it comes back he'll call me and let me know oh that's great I hadn't even thought about that yet okay thank you does anybody check with the people here I assume Fred would have you know Fred knows about it and I assume he would have checked all the closets and such well because there was paintings here too there was paintings in one they were donated from the icons or something so there is a room on that end of the building downstairs that used to be a storage half the size of this room but it's a good area what I'll do is maybe and you would also suggest that maybe the kitchen on the other side this wall here down there is a kitchen here is a storage supply room on the other side of that wall but there is a storage room downstairs off the guy room but what I'll do is if somebody knows who I am when I come in this building I'll ask because it might have been put just away I'm just assuming that the chief would have searched the place thoroughly because he knows the problem he does oh yeah he knows the problem but he knows he's going to have to pay for it or somebody is going to have to pay for it besides us and I'll ask so I'm assuming he did all that like I say I'll clean the house I'll check one day can't hurt there's a court case with the contractor there's a court case with the contractor I don't know if anyone left I really don't care who paid for it I think it was it was terrible that a plaque like that could have been taken down and that just lost of course they lost half the infrastructure for the salt and pepper bridge going over the Charles rivers over the Charles rivers okay is there any other business before the committee I did verify that those amounts are in the budget under rehab water and sewies oh the 100,000 okay so I guess you don't have to worry about it they can ask me again they'll go back just to make sure it's not another 100 they're looking for okay any other questions meeting adjourned