 Good evening, welcome to the Board of Selectments meeting for February 22nd and I see everybody and I share with you the wish that we could all be at the Bruins game this evening both to see them win and to see officer Michael Hogan who's being honored tonight at the Bruins game and we're very proud of him and all of our offices and police and fire as well. So tonight we're going to start with we have a proclamation for what's called White Ribbon Day and to explain a little bit about that as one of our ambassadors for White Ribbon Day Mr. Joe Curo. Thank you Mr. Chair. I'm very proud of this board that we do take this up each year. White Ribbon Day as you all know is part of the Men's Initiative for Jane Doe Inc. which is an organization which battles against the problem of the scourge of domestic violence. This was originally brought to my attention by Arlington resident Kim K. Holt and also former resident Craig Norberg-Bohm who was the executive director of the Men's Initiative and the intent of the program is to really raise awareness that domestic violence is not a women's issue strictly. It's an issue around which men also have to be ready to raise their voices and to combat. So we do you know try around the state to mark this day in a special way. This particular year I have to say it has special significance for me. March 3rd is my daughter's birthday and I think that all of us who have you know daughters, wives, mothers, sisters, friends we understand that we never want them to be the victims of such harm and so on behalf of them I'm really happy to join other ambassadors such as some familiar faces such as in Bedford, Arlington's own Chief Bobby Bonjono is the ambassador in Bedford I know. I'm happy to join with them and to offer the proclamation which you have before you. Thank you very much Joe and we have a very very special guest who will be receiving this proclamation. He is co-chair of the state effort, Sheriff Peter Catoosian and I'll introduce him to you in a moment. But first let me read this proclamation. Those of you who might be new to a Selectman's meeting should know that I do what are called public proclamations. These proclamations literally stem back from really England and pre-colonial days here when a board of Selectmen or any town city agency would meet and and pass in new laws the next day in the square the town crier would read the proclamation so there's a lot of where as is and now there for. Your part is to do the where as is and I'll take care of the now there for us. So when I pointed you I need you all nice and loud voice to say where as here we go. I meant in a loud voice I need you all here we go. The impacts of domestic violence reach many segments of our community regardless of gender identity age race ethnic origin sexual orientation or disability and the particularly pressing problem of violence against women sexual assault and domestic violence is recognized by both women and men in our community as a matter of deep concern and the town of Arlington our community safety and health and human services professionals and our residents have exercised leadership in raising awareness about domestic violence encouraging all of us to be upstanders supporting survivors and holding offenders accountable and the white ribbon campaign was started in Canada in 1991 to urge men to speak out in opposition to violence against women. The white ribbon campaign is spread to 60 countries and garnered five million signatures of support from concerned men. The white ribbon day pledge states from this day forward I promise to be a part of the solution in ending violence against women and all gender based violence. Don't lose my strength now the white ribbon campaign has been endorsed by public officials and leaders in law enforcement business education health care and athletics from throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a means of supporting a comprehensive approach to domestic violence. Now therefore be it resolved that the board of select men to hear by express support for efforts both local and beyond to combat the scourge of violence against women and be it further resolved that March 3rd 2016 is proclaimed as white ribbon day in the town of Arlington and that all residents are encouraged to pay fitting observance thereof and be it further and finally resolved that white ribbons along with a copy of the white ribbon day pledge will be available in the slackman's office during the week of white ribbon day for all municipal officials employees and members of the public who wish to express visible support signed by all of the members of this board of select men to receive this please welcome Sheriff Peter Couttusion Sheriff of Middlesex County. Thank you very much. Thank you to select men done select men for a select and burn for your support. This is a very special day and whereas by the way for those of you that are familiar with resolutions that's the best way you can do a resolution participation so I always commend you Mr. Chairman on the way you do that. I've been part of the white ribbon campaign for the nine years has been existence in a statewide form here in Massachusetts. I was involved in it. Some of you from the state House might remember me starting men uniting against domestic violence in the state House calling on men to stand up against domestic violence which was previously thought always to be a woman's problem and that is certainly not the case. For those that are unfamiliar the white ribbon day the proclamation says it all but one thing that it does not mention is that Massachusetts is the very first state in the country to have a statewide campaign for the white ribbon day in a world where there where no community is free from gender-based violence including Arlington the poor communities the more Tony communities in Middlesex County across this state and across this nation. I think it says something about our commitment here in Massachusetts to addressing this problem and changing the culture. I think it says something very special about Arlington as well because you have taken time to formally resolve to support the white ribbon campaign. I came to this issue as a prosecutor. I'll just tell you very briefly I know you've got a long evening before you. My co-chair is Thaddeus Miles a gentleman living in Lowell now working out of Boston. We came to the issue of domestic violence in two different very different roots. Thaddeus saw it in his own home. He saw it in his own family. He had to learn about it the hard way. I learned about it when I became a prosecutor in the Middlesex District Attorney's Office. I learned about it the way that you know no one should ever have to learn about it but I didn't ever have to see it in my own home. My mom and dad had a good relationship but I knew that there was something very wrong about this gender-based violence and so I became a leader in the state house and continued to lead as sheriff. As co-chair I'm committed not only to talking about the important role we have as men, as fathers, as sons, as brothers and friends, and also as mentors in ending violence against women but to be modeling what I believe is positive masculinity because a man's strength should never be shown through his character and his moral judgment never through the use of force and violence. And lastly through you Mr. Chairman and the Board of Selectment I'd like to invite all of you to join us for the statewide White Ribbon Day event on March 3rd at the state house on mark at 1 p.m. in the state house's Gardner Auditorium and once again to the Board of Selectment and to all the members of Arlington thank you very much for embracing White Ribbon Day and speaking out loudly and strongly that gender-based violence is never acceptable anywhere in this country, in this Commonwealth, in this country or in this world. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. And Sheriff just while we have you here his long-time friend of Arlington and he has his three children attend St. Agnes School but we have a pretty big event here in Arlington that you're the sponsor of this Wednesday sir. What's going on? We have we have chosen Arlington we're having our 39th basic training Academy graduation we have chosen your beautiful town hall here today we're really excited about it it's going to be a great day your chairman will be giving us greetings our keynote speaker is Chief Ryan and by the way you should be very proud of your Chief of Police he is a pretty amazing man I've seen him in in so many different venues and he is an incredible leader and you should be very proud that you have him here because I consider you lucky to have such a great Chief of Police we're graduating at about 40 or 45 recruits it's going to be a great day and we're really pleased to be enjoying such a great day right here in Arlington so thank you thank you Jess thank you thank you we'll see you on Wednesday thank you okay thank you all for your participation in that we really appreciate it next item is our what's called a consent agenda first we have reappointments to the Cyrus Dallin Art Museum the Board of Trustees Sarah Birx and Amy Taberner then we have appointments of new election workers Susan Bernhard 30 Eustis Street for a precinct 18 Anthony cellar 151 Mystic Street for precinct 1 Carol Curcio 7 Newport Street for precinct 21 Carol DeVito 42 Columbia Road for precinct 21 and Alice Runchetti of 33 Magnolia Street also for precinct 1 are any of those individuals in attendance here they don't have to be but I'm sure they were among the millions watching at home can I have a motion on the approval move approval is there a second second all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed next we have a public hearing for the CDBG grants and first we're going to have a performance update for program year 2015 and 2016 and a big welcome if you would please for our new director of planning and community development please welcome Jennifer rate thank you for the welcome again I'm Jennifer rate I'm the director of planning and community development and actually we are we have been going through a little bit of a staff transition as you know and Ted fields has been our economic development planner has actually been taking on the role of community development block grant administration and we'll be sharing the presentation this evening on both items for the agenda and I'm happy to answer any questions okay so Ted thank you Ted welcome nice to see you as always thank you very much mr. chairman on the board it is my pleasure to discuss with you the town's community development block grant program tonight as you well know the town has a long history of supporting the CDBG program it's entering its 41st year this year of helping needy residents by finding a range of projects from social service programs to road reconstructions ADA curb cuts and housing development projects so without further ado we have a number of sub recipients as we call them people who receive block grant funds from the community and they are here to talk about their programs and operations in 2015 2016 if you would be willing to receive their testimony of course so and I wonder do they also want to at the same time are they making requests for 26 yes they are with as you know this is that all right with the board yep we can certainly do both yes thank you Ted excellent so please problem who's up all right who would like to yes of course excellent good evening whereas thank you I do want to just talk about that white ribbon last year operation successory in a white ribbon night down at the manor and we had the male volunteers down there as well as the Allenton police and we had 16 young boy young clients kids that were part of it and they spent two hours that night talking about abuse that they have seen abuse that they have heard about we did a program that ran about two hours that night and all the young gentlemen left with white ribbons that they made for their families and for the other members of operation success so I do want to say that it was a very it was a real meaningful night for the for the kids from operation success last year was very successful we're going into our 19th year of volunteering down at monotony manner we are requesting this year our usual six thousand dollars to help run operation success last year we had a girls night boys night and we worked Monday through Thursday evenings from 7 to 8 30 providing a safe environment for all the young residents middle school through high school of to come down and do their homework and to receive tutoring to receive just you know a helping hand from all the volunteers we also this year we took them to a cultural event which it was wonderful because they don't really experience that we took 30 people into to see elf and it was amazing just to see their faces we provide backpacks for the students every year some are reading books every summer and just try to also have them give back to the community as well I'd like to also just introduce Peggy Regan the hot and soul also of operation success and so she can just give another preview or what we're asking for it's a lot of teamwork here with Janet and I but first of all I think she kind of covered everything we want to thank you for your continued support I can't believe it's been 19 years we've had a lot of kids coming through the door in and out and it's not really nice to see when they've achieved some success beyond middle school and high school and we do see that which is which is great but I just want to thank you for your support and for the volunteers that come and help us because we obviously couldn't run it four nights a week nine months a year without their help so publicly thank all those people and thank you we do have one request besides that with the CDBG and maybe we can talk to both of you but about six years ago seven years ago you helped us get computers and they're running fine we have some support of people that know how to take care of them but the CDBG does not cover printers like a laser printer that the kids have projects to do we really could use that help with that and I don't know how we don't know how to do that to get that down at operations success we have all these little printers that are breaking down all the time and I wish I was I hit the powerball or Peggy hit the powerball but we don't have that so if you could ever give us some input on how we could do that to acquire a laser printer down there that would be a big help to us down here and we'd really truly appreciate that and again thank you so much for always keeping us going with the CDBG thank you thank you very much thank you next we those of you who are reporting on last year and also making a request for this year Lisa you're last all the time what are you doing no no I'm kidding I'm kidding I'm kidding you I'm kidding you welcome maybe I still am last I just wanted to once again thank you this is obviously a program that we cannot do without your support and just want to remind everyone kind of what it is it's a three-part program we offer scholarships to our day camp we actually go down with our buses and pick them up and bring them to Fidelity house and then they have summer day camp minimum two weeks a day camp usually we try to at least get three weeks scholarship for them so that they get swimming lessons in the morning free swim in the afternoon and it really is a day camp experience and then we also pick them up during the school year bring them to Fidelity house they get free memberships scholarships to do any of the programs that really are geared towards them we actually pick them up twice a week Saturday mornings also I'm down there right and early trying to get them to come play basketball which is a little tougher at 8 30 but they do it and then we also do an onsite program so we try to meet as many kids needs as we can and try to get them come in the Fidelity house and being part of the community and seeing the world from a different perspective and meeting new kids and you know it's great program but obviously we need your help with it it did ask for 2,000 more than in the past whatever you guys can do helps us out but if it works out that'd be great too so what is the overall request laser is for 16,000 questions thank you very much thanks next mr. flood good evening everyone I think first I'd just like to acknowledge you know the great work that Lisa does a Fidelity house as well as Peggy and Janet for what they do it for operation success pretty fortunate in this town to have many great groups of people that help a lot of kids throughout the community and even even outside the community which I think helps bring us all all together so just wanted to say that before I begin the you know I'm here to advocate for our job job jobs program and our scholarship program our jobs have jobs program is a jobs program for teens it's it's been a great program for a number of years and it allows some teens that may you know may not get that work experience outside of the club may have a tough time getting a job to provide them an opportunity to to work help build their resume experience what it's like to work with children to give back to their community and you know I think a big part of this jobs program is that it affords you know it affords quite a few families the opportunity to not worry so much about their their child knowing that they are working they're earning a paycheck and that helps I mean I can give you a number of stories of children that have helped pay their bills at home through this program and many of which you know low-income housing and and I'll tell you a couple of which have become you know gone on to become youth of the year which is the highest honor we have at our club so you know I'm asking again if we could you know if you could please consider the amount that we're requesting it's $5,000 which would help a number of teenagers help support themselves and also their families and hopefully you know provide them with a you know with with the tools necessary to you know to prosper in the future you know beyond high school and into their into their college and adult adult years so that's the jobs program any questions all right I'm new to this process and next our country blessings well it's it's you know it's it's an honor to be here with the community and all of you so next our scholarships program we you know have thousands of members at the club and every year with your you know generous generosity we're able to provide you know close to 70 families with scholarships that you know that provide kids with opportunities that they may not get anywhere else it could be a swim lesson could be taking part in a basketball camp it could be taking part in one of our three to five year old programs you know where we're trying to help our membership we're trying to help the kids give them a great experience and again make it easier on the parents I mean we all know that there's you know single single family households in the town we all know that there's parents you know both parents working and you know and you know we're just trying to help do our part as I know you are for for the community so you know again last year for a number of years you've given us great support and we appreciate that and this year I know you may see before you requesting $20,000 to continue all the great work that our great staff at the club is doing with the kids and obviously to you know to help the families which is that's why we do what we do so thank you for your time and your consideration I actually do have a question any questions from the rest of the board and I just want to be clear you said for job job jobs you're requesting five correct it says in our notes 10 but just wanted to be clear on that well the job oh you know that may be I know we've done it with the Arlington Recreation Fidelity House in the past that's the Boys and Girls Club that's that's what we're requesting okay perfect thank you very much I'll say thank you next I'm Julie Kramer co-founder of Foodlink and Deanne Dupont also co-founder and what we'll do is we'll give you a little bit of information about this year's grant well first we'll tell you about what what we do and then we'll tell you about this year's grant and then a little bit about what we do for Arlington and then what the grant is about so Foodlink what we do is we collect food from places like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and we redistributed that food to our organization serving people in need so we work with about 12 grocers and retailers of process food and then what we do is we we want high quality food so most of the food that we collect is produce dairy meats and bread and high quality prepared foods and we distribute that to organizations such as low income housing food pantries senior center shelters and places serving people in need this year with with over 80 volunteers now and when when we were here last year we were at 60 volunteers so with 80 volunteers we distribute 360 thousand pounds of food in a year and this is highly nutritious food over 50 percent of what we collect is in the fresh produce and dense protein arena approximate or over 70 percent of this food is provided to Arlington residents or programs that reside here in Arlington not only is our mission about food but it's also an environmental program as well so what we do is by connecting this food that would otherwise be going to waste and this is good nutritious food it goes to people in need rather than be thrown away and when you throw away food you're thrown away water energy people's time and all of this just gets tossed into the you know waste and so many resources are used to grow and transport this food so our impact for this year we had stated that we would at least touch at least a thousand people so it we believe we're touching at least we're making this food available to the facilities that we had put in our grant in excess of 1100 and we're meeting the quantity at that point we were counting boxes rather than pounds and we are meeting the goals even though one of the low-income housing facilities dropped out of our program so Julie is going to tell a little bit about what we do for Arlington so our impact in Arlington are two largest Arlington beneficiaries are the Arlington food pantry both locations and the residents of the Arlington housing authority facilities in addition to those places we provide healthy food year-round to eight other Arlington organizations see Arlington Boys and Girls Club which are snacks throughout the year and it's generally fresh fruit all the time and bagels and then there's often yogurt and other things Arlington eats which we help with the holiday weeks school breaks February April and then the seven weeks over the course of the summer where they provide food in school and then the backpack program for food to go home with the kids Arlington senior center where anybody can come in to the building and at the very front table there's always bread and fresh produce other places in the building as well but anybody can go in there and take fresh produce or bread home with them and that's five days a week Monday through Friday and often like today we went there four times and each time that we delivered and it's because we had different schedules of what we received every time we delivered it was empty from the time before and that was 40 to 80 pounds each delivery so there are days that it goes very quickly Arlington I'm sorry Elliott Community Services with the young adult vocational program we provide food to them as well as jobs for some of the youth there who bag the bread for us on Thursdays it goes to a pantry Jermaine Lawrence Thompson school gets year round for their snack program and wayside youth and family steps providing healthy food to our target population is a priority for us we also help other local nonprofits by providing desserts and pastries to them for celebrations meetings and events such as the Arlington Public Library Arlington Council on Aging Arlington Center for the Arts Schwab Mill Housing Corporation of Arlington and many others so this grant request is to help support our efforts of distribute distributing nutritious food directly to senior citizens the disabled and families in the low to moderate income range that or residents of of the facilities provided by the Arlington Housing Authority so this group of individuals often have a hard time accessing healthy and nutritious food either due to transportation lack of funds or the ability to just carry food particularly the disabled in the seniors and we it's particularly difficult in the winter months or in extreme heat so what we do is we actually deliver the food directly to where they live meaning the community room or the office at Monotomy Manor and we'll deliver at least once a week and in fact with Drake Village and Monotomy Manor we deliver three times a week directly to these citizens we don't deliver meat but we do deliver your fresh produce dairy milk and and bread our requests is for $10,000 which we will deliver a minimum of 60,000 pounds of food during the year during this upcoming fiscal year and this is to individuals or at the Arlington Housing Facilities and what this does is this works out to 17 cents a pound and I would not want to be in your shoes because there's so many wonderful organizations here tonight so yep so thank you thank you very much thank you very much thank yes sorry Dan yes please so could you tell me a little bit more about the $10,000 and what it actually goes for and how that what fraction that is of the total budget because I know you're mostly volunteer run so I mean our volunteer run so it's about 22% of the budget okay most of it we did a hiring operations director because we have over 30 collections of food in every week and about that many deliveries as well and trying to manage 80 volunteers with with just the two of us got to be and apply for grants and things like that got to we couldn't do it anymore so we so most of it's for the operations director then some of it's for van expenses and then a little bit for supplies and I think one and yeah technology so that would be what the costs are for you answered my question thank you very much you're welcome thank you thank you so they do excellent work my mother is a resident at at Q-Sig and one day while I'm in there after they had just delivered some food a lady left a shopping list for them my son is coming to visit would you please deliver and had listed like five or six items and I knew it didn't work that way so I went out and I bought this these items and I I brought them back I go in I go in a week later there's another list there so you're gonna have to change finally had a teller who did it next up next just ask the test only be brief the board does have a long agenda tonight so thank you good evening my name is Susan Stewart I'm here on behalf of Arlington eats we are the organization that's just almost two years old operating to provide food to students who usually get free and reduced price lunches during the school year we provide lunches for them when school is out and over the weekend school vacations we just came off a wonderful week of February vacation lunches down at Thompson where we served 230 lunches during the week and then also sent home food with the students and families every day we are incredibly grateful for our community partners food link food for free Arlington food pantry we partner with the boys and girls club all sorts of organizations working really well together I brought you some snacks because I know how hard it is to make important decisions and focus on the work when you're hungry and we provide snacks to the students in Arlington schools as well all the elementary schools and we are on track this year to distribute over 11,000 snacks during the school year anytime a student needs a snack there's always one available for them the grant that we received from you last year helped to fund a portion of our summer lunch program last year out of the Thompson school cafeteria we provided about 24 almost 2500 lunches and meals that went home from our pop-up pantry food that came from our community partners that was a wonderful success we served meals four days a week over seven weeks this summer we're going to be doing the same thing we hope that their numbers will be even greater we're working on our outreach in the community we have great social media presence and now lots of great contacts in all of the schools to help get the word out about the summer lunches our quest this year is for $6,000 which funds a portion of it the costs in our summer lunch program is in order to use the Thompson school cafeteria we pay a food service worker who's there three hours a day amazing fantastic meals flexible based on what comes in from deliveries or what's at hand just awesome meals that's our major expense and some groceries that we buy to go along with it so that will help pay for any funding that we get will help pay for our summer lunch program this summer any questions any questions no thank you very much thank you for your support for 27 years I've been asking people any samples and finally finally so double what she needs next please next okay that's it Ted okay anything we have final well just to state that there were a number of other requests that you have before you tonight including ones from the planning and community development department and we'll look forward to talking with you in more greater detail about those in the future soon we did learn today that we're going to receive one point one million thirty three thousand dollars roughly which is about fifty thousand dollars less than last year unfortunately most of you in the room know that community development block grant funds have declined over the years and I think we're back to FY 12 funding levels so unfortunately but thank God we get them the total requests are a million four hundred ninety five thousand so I'm right as of right now right and obviously we will be unable to fulfill all of those but we'll do our best what happens from here is we have a select men's subcommittee mr. Dunn mr. Dunn and Mr. Burn and so they will they will work with both Jennifer and with Ted and they will come back to this board with a recommendation and then the five members of this board along with our town manager actually will vote the final budget thank you all for being here tonight thank you both for your excellent work thank you and thanks to all of you for being here thanks so now we have new appointments and we do request if possible that the person be here but speaking of people being here I was remiss that I didn't mention up front Mrs. Mahan cannot be with us tonight she has a family engagement that's been planned for a while and she sends her regret she rarely misses a meeting but she's not able to be here with us tonight new appointments to the board of library trustees we have Amy Hampey Amy welcome nice to see you why do you want to do this I was so excited when I read about the board opening I love the library I've always been a huge fan of libraries my entire life and since the six years I lived in Arlington I think the first thing I did was go sign up for my library card so go with my son to a lot of the programming and just felt like it would be a great way to get involved in the community thank you so much for your willingness to serve any questions comments move approval is there a second second all those in favor please signify by saying I all those opposed thank you Amy so much thank you very much next is appointment to the Commission on Disabilities Lisa Molina who was unable to be with us here tonight but what we do in that case is if I may please have a motion for approval and Eliza will visit with us another evening so move so move second second for the discussion all those in favor please signify by saying I all those opposed and finally appointments of the Cyrus Dalen Art Museum Board of Trustees we have Anne Marie Delaney Denizio if I'm even close and Megan David and Marie yes as I in the ballpark at all yes yes pretty close thank you welcome thank you for your interest in serving tell us a little bit about yourself and your interest well I have been volunteer at the Dalen Museum since March of 2015 I am working on the Education Committee and so I am an associate trustee and I guess they like me here I graduated I recently I am a graduate in museum studies from Harvard Extension schools so I graduated in 2015 and I found with the Dalen Museum a good opportunity to be of use in the museum seating and I have strong ties with Farling turn as well thank you very much for the service you've provided and now the service you're willing to give appreciate that very much can I have a motion move approval is there second second discussion questions all those in favor please signify by saying I all those opposed thank you very much and Megan hi I've been volunteering at the Cyrus Dalen Art Museum for a little over a year now dosing being tours also involved with our art venture family programs the summer suare fundraiser and most recently our sculpture workshop program for kids so I've been very involved and taken active part in discussions with the board so thank you also Megan for your service so far and your willingness to continue to serve more approval second approval second discussion no all those in favor please signify by saying I all those opposed thank you very much thank you thanks Jerry so licenses and permits we have a request for sidewalk fixture permit beer buyer development is it Tom thank you Tom Godfrey with bear briar development I'm here this evening to request a sidewalk permit license for the placement of three landscape planters in front of 1398 Mass Ave we've got a situation there where we've got a sidewalk that ranges from 9 to 15 feet in width and we've hired an engineering firm to design the placement of the three planters to make sure we maintain the ADA sidewalk width behind it and proper distance behind the curb so the cars park along the street and open doors there's no conflicts we think it's a reasonable request to tie in with the planters that we have in front of 1398 that the town placed as well as some landscaping in front of 1410 but provided a picture of a sample of what the planter would look like as well as an engineered plan showing exactly where we'd like to place the planters yes mr. Dunn so I was just I read the material and I just wasn't totally sure is it is the intent purely aesthetic or is there a functional no it's a I guess a beautification plan we've we've got that wide swath of sidewalk in front of massage envy yeah and it's right at the front entrance we feel it's a highly visible spot for cars coming into both buildings so we could catch their eyes when they come into the project there okay well I have to climb over it to get into the meathouse I know you will not help move approval second subject all conditions yeah subject to all conditions as I said forth but there are no objections that we have in front of us at this point further discussion anybody else here wish you to speak on this matter all those in favor please signify by saying aye all those opposed thank you and very well put together presentation and documentation here thank you okay our our favorite members of tack are with us tonight discussion and approval the Lake Street recommendations Jeff or Howard I'm not sure who's who's handling it Jeff Jeff is looking at Howard as in aren't you doing this thank you members of the board thank you about years ago we came before you with a report on Lake Street the request of the board of select men to look at improvements to improving traffic flow in safety along Lake Street quarter we presented a recommendation most notably for a signal at the bikeway crossing at Lake Street and while you were supportive of the signal agreed that further analysis should be done so we collected new data at the at the quarter in June for two weeks approximately 16 days two weeks before or at existing conditions we collected traffic counts attorney movement counts and intersections travel times looked at accidents delay of crossings and then two weeks with police officer control that simulated signal at the crossing coordinated with the Brooks the Brooks signal and we did that during during peak hours so we measured both the baseline and then with police officer control I just want to say it was the largest data collection effort that we've ever done in town the attack we had excellent support from Adam the time manager board of select men Arlington Police Department eels a back current tack members former tack members and a lot of residents who probably had a few dozen people that came out so it was a great collaborative comprehensive effort so that went very very well with me tonight Howard Muse several of the working group members Scott Smith is here Seth Federer spales here and also resident Allen Allen Linoff who's been here part of the working group for the year and a half we've been working on this so I just want to recognize them on this this project so just a summary of what we found Lake Street experiences about 1200 vehicles during the afternoon peak hour approximately 430 to 445 to 545 about 400 bikeway users in a peak hour with police officer control we found that the traffic volume throughput was increased between 1015% during the peak hour there are some higher increases for short periods of time when police officers were we're managing the signal we'd expect that I'm sorry help me understand that again 50% increase in throughput right so that's right 50% more more vehicles right northbound on Lake Street during the peak hour so it's about it's about in the 660 60 vehicle range so we experienced higher percentages for shorter periods with a coordinated you know computerized signal we think we'd get the higher you know higher type of throughputs at that intersection no that's fine the bikeway crossings itself so it was anywhere between when the bike bikes or pedestrians arrived between zero delay if they came when the police officers were waving folks across or up to 40 seconds delay if they came right at the point where they were stopped and the average was about 20 seconds delay per user kind of right right in the middle there vehicle travel times so without police officer control the times basically from root two to mass av about 1.2 miles where anywhere from 10 to 24 minutes was the longest without control then with control it was from 8 to 20 minutes so on average about 4 minutes faster with police officer control than without there's some variation there between days and weather conditions but about 4 minutes faster the vehicle queue lengths were actually about the same we had thought they might get shorter with police officer control although the behavior of the queues was different as it is today you kind of just go along it you know snail space with police officer control behave like a signal where you get progression of vehicles you move in platoons throughout the quarter so there's a little difference in how how the traffic moved in that progression we do have some updated crash information so in the last two years in 2014 and 2015 there were 14 crashes at the bikeway two of those were pedestrians pedestrian crashes the other 12 were vehicle crashes most of those being rear end collisions in that you know that stop and go condition where vehicles are trying so for 14 additional crashes in the last two years the prior accidents crash records were about one injury collision we average about one a year at the bikeway crossing with pedestrian or bicycle so we have two in the last two years so that's that's about the same average about one injury with pedestrian or bicycle year at that crossing so our analysis supports our original recommendation of a signal although because of the complexities of implementing a signal where we're still recommending that a design review committee be formed to evaluate the design details operations planning design development and also costs because there's a lot of details and decisions to be made and how the signal would actually operate at this location it may not have to operate you know 24 7 as a signal could operate as flash and the coordination with Brooks and so forth so we're we're still recommending our Rick you know as the board to consider a signal at this location but would like to suggest that the design review committee be formed with members of tack board of selectmen a representative DPW police department a back eels walk Arlington and a traffic professional traffic consultant as part of that design review committee questions comments yes Joe thank you thank you very much for all of this I mean I think this is just what we were looking for with this simulation I did have one question on some of the findings I see that you saw the increase in throughput northbound but as I'm looking at the table I also see a slight decrease in throughput going southbound and I was wondering if you could if you have any theories or I think northbound northbound is queued up and when when you're providing that simulation you're unleashing some of that and that capacity and get getting more more throughput you know southbound we you know we don't generally have that type of queuing that late late in demand in the southbound direction so southbound we're whatever it is southbound we're processing it on that day but north northbound you know we have a queue and if we can manage that better through simulation of a traffic so we can actually push more through so there's nothing more to push through on the southbound side of northbound we can we can get more vehicles through because of that that long delay in queue yeah I realize that we probably have other people to speak on this but I want to say that at first blush looking at this and I see a trade-off of you know saving a four-minute daily delay during rush hour for motorists versus a 20-second delay for bicyclists they are if they're commuting every single day I mean you basically you're looking at in the course of a week 20 minutes versus you know a minute and 40 second inconvenience on the face of it it looks like you've you've you know made a persuasive case here presented a persuasive case for the signalization yeah Howard Muse I'm chair of the tech I also participated in the study with Jeff and one of the things that we found interesting when we were doing the counts of people crossing the bike path is a lot of people stopped and asked us what we were doing and when we told them we were looking at the idea of putting a signal I was surprised at how many people indicated that they thought that that was a good idea even as they were being stopped by the police officers to cross the street now it's totally anecdotal we don't have survey data or anything like that but I did think it was interesting that a lot of people especially walkers seem to appreciate the idea of having a signal there so on the injury information so you talk about pedestrian you talk about vehicle what's it how does a bike counted a bike rider counted that or there no there were no crashes over the last two years with with a bicyclist that at the path itself crossing thank you actually I just I I've only become more convinced by the data and my personal experience and my observations that we should be going forward on this so I'm looking forward to having a conversation but it'll it'll take something new and big for me to change my mind I think at this point and am I right you pretty much every day around this route not this time of year I'm a I have become a fair weather bicyclist as as I've become wimpier in my old age I'm a dream I dream that I'm doing it yeah and so my experience I've relayed this before at this meeting but I'll do it again which is that my experience is that even when I'm trying to not interrupt the traffic flow you know there's a stop sign there and I come up and I come to the stop sign and I'm waiting for that light to change the cars will stop and they will wave at me to go and I'm like no you've got a green light go and they'll just sit there and they'll wave at me to go and I know just by being there I have stopped the traffic from flowing if we put a light there that's going to change that behavior and I think it because of all the indications are that it will be such an improvement for the travel is there that I think it's a good move the the only negative that I have heard that I mean this excellent work is always by tack is that if we speed it up more people are going to now use Lake Street than used to but I can't see saving four minutes is going to really get people to that there will be that much increase of traffic and did you did you find that in it when the police officer that was there was there a higher car count I wouldn't think it's people would have known about it yet right so well we did it over the period of a week in hopes of getting some indication of that but I think you're right that it wasn't long enough that was going to attract people from other other bottlenecks in the area one thing I would add is that this recently been an improvement of the route to route 16 interchange I don't know how many of you use that on a regular basis it's time of year yeah and although it's not complete because they're in the process of putting up the new signal heads and signal they added a third departure lane on route to and from what I've been able to see of it it's made a difference at that location and I suspect with the signal changes there might be some further improvement so potentially that would offset the fact that there's been an improvement on Lake Street I I don't know what the magnitude of the improvement is at that location but at least when I've been through there at in the evening peak hour I don't know about the morning it does seem to make things run better than they had been yeah you know just I will point out I was I think the sole vote to support this last time it was in front of us and I am also inclined to do it again but I look forward to conversation I do just want to point out the work that was done on this I know we ask a lot of tack you know you're basically every meeting and once again they've gone you know over and above so thank you both very much and all the neighbors and others have participated would anybody else like to speak on this matter yes Phil goff would you like to say my address Kevin my name is Phil goff 94 Grafton Street is the address in East Arlington I am the co-chair of East Arlington Livable Streets Coalition Yields Coalition has as Howard or Jeff had mentioned for those that aren't familiar with the acronym we are a group ostensibly a very informal group we don't have 501 C3 status we don't have paid membership but we have about 300 people or so on our email list and 450 500 Facebook friends as well we have heard here and there definitely there is a bit of a diversity of opinion about the late street signal from the various people who are connected to the Yields Coalition by email we also have an informal board of about 10 or 12 people and we meet monthly and occasionally we get new people in but of the 10 or 12 people who regularly come who we consider our advisory board there is a lot of concern and skepticism about this light and actually before before I get into that I do want to applaud the board selectmen and the town in general TPW town manager for pursuing this and this is clearly a big issue the backups on Lake Street I've been caught in them a few times as well in a car and my wife has on a number of occasions it's clearly a big issue and certainly the cut through traffic that's created through Calwood manor is a problem as well attack of course has done a great job Yields Coalition as Jeff had mentioned did sort of help with some of the counts and we are happy to do that because we think that this is an important issue to to study I wanted to just talk a little bit about some of the concerns that we have about what we think could be unintended consequences certainly there are great intentions behind the signal and it's very understandable at first blush that a lot of people perhaps that they were running into on the bike path would say yeah this is this is a great idea I think the the delays caused for bike commuters or walk commuters is pretty trivial I agree with I guess what selectman Kiro said to wait 20 seconds 30 seconds whatever it may be versus the cars is sort of a secondary issue again some of those on it unintended consequences I think first of all currently the four things I wanted to kind of point out currently as someone mentioned Dan maybe oh yes it was you that talked about your cars are very accustomed drivers are very accustomed to slowing down and stopping I agree they stop a little too quickly but it's very rare that you see your car pass through the Brooks intersection when they have a green and then the minimum path at more than maybe 10 or 15 miles an hour their sight line issues there's the curve there's a number of reasons but mostly it's because motorists they don't want to hit someone on foot and they don't want to hit certainly a child a cyclist etc so people are going slowly so that's kind of the current there have been very few crashes it sounds like there's been a couple for sure and there are lots of near misses that's currently in the future the concern we have is with the signal you know motorists will see that double green and they will simply drive through at speed which you know generally will be probably about 30 miles an hour so that that's one issue so there's a speed issue for cars there's also a speed issue for bicycles right now heaven forbid we know that most bikes probably do not actually come to a full stop and put their foot down it sounds like Dan does on a regular basis many probably roll through that stop sign and some go even a little bit faster but generally the bicyclists whether commuters or weekend people generally they're slowing down because they know to bomb through there's a high likelihood they're going to get hit by a car what will change with the signal is bikes will either come and slow to a stop if they have the red but the bigger concern is when there is a green light bicyclists basically are remaining at speed in either direction coming through on a green light at you know 15 plus mile an hour clip especially with on the AM commute to ale wife we know there's hundreds of people on foot and on bike who do that there's also hearty children and parents crossing we think that to some degree the design review committee of which eels coalition is very happy to be part of that we think some of that could be mitigated but that's sort of another unintended consequence that we have some concerns about third one is the the bottleneck that currently that path is obviously creating especially coupled with the with the signal at Brooks that bottleneck acts as a regulator and allows a certain amount of volume of cars to pass on their way to mass af without that bottleneck the regulator then becomes the mass have signal and a concern that a number of people especially live around the hearty school and such have is that as that queue instead of getting bottleneck at the path and Brooks moves up to the mass have signal as a bottleneck that many more people will actually come through the Brooks signal and take a right on Brooks and then cut through the neighborhood if they're heading in to Cambridge or to Medford other other points such as that and then the other that has come up before and we don't quite have all the data and that is just the potential induced traffic that may be created by a much shorter queue of cars on Lake Street that sometimes winds up we know the off ramp that many motorists who are now staying on route to route 16 which in theory what many should be doing because we know certainly a lot of these people coming through on Lake Street are not necessarily Arlington residents if they see all of a sudden that and they hear from their friends and others Lake Street all of a sudden flows pretty well we have that concern that there will actually be more traffic coming through on Lake Street it may actually move quicker for sure but it actually from a volume point of view might be quicker and it might be heavier and more of those people cutting through the neighborhood around the Hardy School upper Brooks so those those are the four unintended consequences that we're concerned about we're happy to talk more about those with our representative maybe it's me perhaps someone else on the design review committee we do think that that committee needs to take some of these concerns into account and use many of them to create evaluation criteria to kind of look at how this signal gets designed public safety really should be the number one criterion I think I suspect we would all agree with that not so much you know what is the maximum throughput what is the maximum saving of time for motorists coming through and I think that based on that a no-build option should potentially be considered by the review committee I know it's not your purview to sort of make those demands on the review committee now but just throwing it out there a no-build meaning tweaks perhaps to the Brooks signal combined with some new signage or perhaps traffic diversion etc. in Kelwood Manor and maybe some slight changes to the design of the Miniman path where it crosses Lake Street to create different deflections of bicyclists coming through as a potential I think that that needs to be looked at I think with looking at that in addition to of course looking at and evaluating some of the options of the signal hopefully will be a win-win for the town and for the neighborhood thanks so much thank you anybody else sir I'm Alan Lenova I live on Colonial Drive just off Lake Street I just wanted to mention a couple things in relation to the concerns about an intense quant unintended consequences which certainly are very valid regarding the issue of the speed along Lake Street as well as attracting additional traffic there in a sense we already have an experiment about that going on every winter when there's much less traffic on the on the bikeway so certainly during the the winter months the traffic goes much faster if we are seeing more traffic attracted it's clearly not having a big effect and likewise I don't think we're seeing consistently big problems with speed and of course what we're really trying to regulate with a traffic signal is the the rush hour flow where we're really talking about taking it from extremely slow to slow not making it fast also regarding the issue of cut through that was looked at in the study and the by counting the cars as they're coming down Lake Street the ones going in each direction you would expect if you're getting better flow down the main line there of Lake Street you'd have similarly increased proportional flow in each of the directions out of there the study showed that the it was actually a slight decrease in the flow out along Brook Street I don't know I wouldn't expect that would be a consistent effect but it certainly there wasn't any hint of increased cut through traffic I got motivated to participate in this working group while sitting for many many minutes on many days waiting in traffic it has been a quality of life issue from for me my members of my family and I've heard a lot about it from my neighbors so we have an existing problem now and currently what we really have is a very inefficient inefficient system where it's not just traffic going slowly through there there's a lot of green light cycle on Brooks Ave that is getting missed by people waiting at the at the bikeway either for traffic or for a concern that there may be traffic coming so while there are potentially some unintended consequences that could come out of this I think that the design committee could address all of that and whatever the situation having a very inefficient travel through that section that's not the best answer for any of the potential concerns thank you thank you yes Scott Scott Smith on the review committee on on both tack and aback I'll just briefly say when this was first roach three years ago I was extremely skeptical for many of the reasons that Phil mentioned I think I'm now in favor I think what's persuaded me was the success of the experiment I was part of that army of volunteers and the crash data that Jeff reported and but I hope that the design committee does look seriously at the concerns that Phil raised thank you okay board members anybody in motion Mr. Burn I will move approval on tax recommendation to form a design review committee and I do appreciate all all the commentary today and I do agree with you know several of the speakers that this committee will be a good venue to address some of the issues brought up by EALS so thank you very much just second second second Mr. Dunn sorry Mr. Dunn for a second actually I just want to clarify on the motion are we I don't know that we have exactly the specificity we need yet like based on the what's what they've really recommended yeah so like who would be the chair when we want them to return back like do we want to talk about any of those details or do want to see perhaps if I don't know if it's appropriate but perhaps the town manager would be the right person to to run that project so I absolutely support what you're trying to do so I guess I will say my gut tells me with the timeline and when the report back I'd like them to meet prior and have them kind of work that out I don't want to put a firm deadline on a committee that we're forming I do agree that I don't want it to go on forever but I think that you know they have to I think that the group will have to decide you know even what issues are in front of them sure there are more you know unintended consequences that will come along other than the four that were brought up tonight so I really don't want to kind of handcuff them off the bat in terms of a chairperson I would think that it for at least I would probably see it being the chair of tack or the or his designee I think that that is would make sense to and it would be aligned with a lot of the work that's been done before but I'm happy to entertain other ideas so I would suggest if I may thank you Mr. Chairman that if the board voted favorably on mr. Burns motion that I could work with tack and the named groups to put a roster together bring it back to the board for ratification and that that will designate who the chairman is and how the structure will work and we can move from there that works for me correct yep thank you I'm happy to support it I will note you know thank you Phil for all of your remarks I note that there actually is a difference to between December 2014 memo we received where eels wasn't actually named on the design review committee and the current recommendation does does have you and I think it's the recognition of all the work of course that you did in helping with the data collection and I'm cautiously optimistic that when a solution is found that we actually will cut down on some of the cut-through traffic that occurs right now I just wanted to note you know add on to what Mr. Linoff said currently some of the the GPS programs they're sensitive to to traffic delays will actually route people who are going northbound on Lake Street have them take a left turn into kelwin manor go around come back southbound and then cut into the neighborhood so it's all legal but the the cut-through traffic is happening now as a result of the delays despite all of the signage that we've put up around no right turn so I'm very happy with the direction we're going okay that's it okay all those in favor by the motion of I missed a burn and seconded by Mr. Dunn please say the five by saying aye aye all those opposed hey thank you all for your great work on this now we have a request for a statement of non-opposition to medical marijuana dispensary from the Massachusetts Patience Foundation Mr. Chairman yes we'll start with Mr. Chapter Lane yes thank you Mr. Chairman so just a brief introduction for the board when the Massachusetts Patient Foundation was last before the board in late 2015 there was a presentation about their group's qualifications and their interest in locating a medical marijuana dispensary in Arlington and at the end of that discussion the board authorized myself and Town Council to discuss what could be included in a community benefit agreement that would satisfy some of the concerns of the town of the Department of Health and Human Services of the police department and that the board voted for us to to pursue that Town Council and I did that we met with Attorney Romano and I'm forgetting your first name Joseph Joseph and we had a very good discussion and brought back a draft community benefit agreement that's before the board tonight it primarily includes the town receiving 3% of their revenue as a mitigation to be able to provide offset to the costs we think will incur in terms of regulating and policing the location of a dispensary so Town Council I felt that that was satisfactory based on the guidance we were given by the board so I will not speak for them but they are back here today asking for the board's either support or statement of non-opposition thank you thank you members of the board Mr. Chairman we're happy to be back here in front of you I know we had something of an extensive presentation a few months ago and so I won't belabor and sort of start all that over again unless the board wishes me to do so we're we're here with members of the Massachusetts patient Foundation Joseph Lakosh is here maybe just quickly can introduce other members of Valeria Romano Milks State Street in Boston yeah and a few people we have is our COO Daniel Cardin who has a medical services background Corey Cutler who's our field ops legal background we have Moshe Bleich who's a rabbi of the Wellesley Western Chabad Center and we have Eric Johnson who's part of the Lantel communication security team thank you so you know however the board wishes us to proceed if there's questions that I might be able to answer any way you know we're at the boards well I if I may just start with it would you tell us what's changed since you were here last so for example I believe you didn't have a place to grow at that time your activity in other cities or towns or so what's new since we saw you last absolutely so we now have a purchase agreement on a 28-acre former Bayer facility in Fitchburg for cultivation as well as an 18,000 square foot facility in Holyoke today we met with the leadership of Fitchburg and we were expecting a letter in the next week or so of non-opposition or support from them in Holyoke we've already received a letter of support for the cultivation there as well we've also submitted a draft setting profile to the town of Needham at the end of 60 days from that day of day of submission the town of Needham will meet and the board of second will interview all the different potential applicants in that town as well thank you any other questions comments from the board thank thank you no I just I do have a couple thank you thank you very much thank you all for the work on this you know I think you all know that I had some real grave concerns about this I'm happy that the town officials have you know worked with the foundation to try to address some of them I did have a couple questions which might be addressed to the town manager on this in the draft community benefit agreement that that's here but first of all correct me if I'm wrong we're not accepting the the host community agreement right now tonight with our vote if we go forward how we were simply voting non-opposition or or approval or as a contingent upon well so my understanding was that the board would like to see a satisfactory draft of a community benefit agreement okay before contemplating voting non-opposition of support but I also do not see the board to vote tonight as agreeing to the exact terms that are before you or language that's before you okay okay good thank you I was just curious because I did notice there is does seem to be kind of a mismatch between what's in this agreement and what the chief has represented to us the impact would potentially be on on his department and I didn't know if you had some more context you could give us on that there was a memo from the chief that was in our packets as well a mismatch in terms of the the financial impact on the department that he foresees so the part of the the challenge for town council and I imagine part of the challenge for the applicant is projecting exactly what their revenue will be and so the community benefit agreement speaks to three percent of gross revenue and the estimates that the applicant has put forth is that could result in anywhere between two hundred thousand or five hundred thousand dollars in revenue for the town based on what their sales actually are so you're absolutely correct annually yes so on the low end you're right that that would not satisfy what the police chief is requesting just try and speak louder and fortunately yeah do you want to take the seat right there in the front row so again on the low end it would not meet the chief's concerns in the high end it certainly would so I guess where where we where Doug and I came down was we felt that this was financially an agreement that did better than a number of other communities that have executed community benefit agreements and based on that and based on what the projections could result in felt like it was a fair agreement for the town and what's the thank you what's the mechanism for just verifying the revenues of the share so you know that didn't just turn on them better now sorry about that you know I'm sorry I don't know that answer off hand I'm I'm assuming that we're gonna work through the DPH for verification of how much product is actually moved through the store okay but I should confirm that for you Mr. Kuro okay thank you also the I think it was in our packet or maybe it was in memo that the town council sent us it was stated that the board of health also had looked at this and looked at regulations around this and was there any report on available on on the board of health so the board of health is represented here tonight if you want oh they are yes oh okay okay great and just the the last thing I just wanted to ask was I noticed there was an article just I think two days ago about Brookline's experience and I did notice that as one of the conditions in Brookline that the dispensary was open to appointment only and I don't know if the mechanism for achieving a similar condition here if we were to choose to do that is through the agreement or if there's another mechanism by which we were able to put that type of a condition on and I recognize recognize town council is not available so I might be putting you at a disadvantage but yeah so I didn't I didn't read that story what's the benefit of appointment only I think they were they were concerned that there would be a lot of traffic going in and out it would be difficult to to control was my understanding was was one of the concerns was raised in was there was there a notice period for making an appointment or I don't that's all I read yeah I just know it was in the paper so I didn't research it further okay thank you Mr. Dunn yeah Mr. Chairman just first before I just want to point out so there's three empty seats up front if you want to come in and I noticed there's a woman who's stuck by the door you can pull up right in front of the front row right here if that's more convenient to you okay sorry Mr. Chairman so Adam tell me how this would work if we decided that we wanted to go forward is there would is this a would we need to come to a final agreement and sign the agreement before the taking our vote and I'm doing approval or non-approval or is the how does this work so my my understanding is really what what the applicant needs is for this statement of non-opposition or support to be able to get their DPH permit not any permit from the town but my understanding and I let them speak for themselves it's their common understanding is that this board's vote for non-opposition or support is tied to us signing a successful community benefit agreement so if we I mean I my my assumption is that they're not going to walk away from signing something that we're happy with because they would risk this board removing its support certainly so I definitely speak to that and in Holliston for instance as an example the the letter of support or non- opposition actually was amended to say this is contingent on successful you know execution of a community hosting or host community agreement so you can certainly write that language in it should solve the board's concern on that I think the template letter provided by the department is sort of a base to give to help with their concerns but there's no reason that a town shouldn't be able to make the amendment make that type of amendment on it so mr. Greeley then my next question I think again towards Adam so Adam I the earlier a few minutes ago I think you said that you didn't anticipate that we'd actually take a vote tonight did I misunderstand you I'm sorry I meant to say I was not anticipating the board will be voting on the community benefit agreement right simply just a statement of non-oppositioner okay mr. Greeley I move that we sign the statement of non-opposition with contingent upon approval with the mechanism attached to that condition of non- approval that we execute a future benefit agreement and I make that motion because I'm satisfied by the process the procedure I'm satisfied by the benefits we get that they account for what we need out of this I think that and I when we talked about this last time I expressed why I thought that it was important that Arlington be open to all establishments including a dispensary and so you got my motion okay so second yeah I will second that and I think I agree with Dan sediments and at the last meeting I was also pretty adamant about supporting this for several reasons one was the vote that was taken to actually approve medical Rana in Massachusetts and out of the town overwhelmingly voted to support it and to as I said I think there is a space for medical marijuana in the pain management spectrum when we look at opioids I I think that there is a place to kind of take away from prescribing opioids and inserting medical marijuana and that's something I certainly hope will happen moving forward I'm actually I saw I think last week Elizabeth Warren Commission is a study to actually look at that as well so I yeah I'm happy to support that motion by Dan Joe thank you very much I think you all know again I feel uncomfortable with this but I do appreciate the due diligence that's been exercised you know in light of and I recognize the vote as well that the community took so at this point I'm inclined to support signing a letter of non-opposition although Mr. Chair I would if we could hear from our Board of Health before we actually take the vote I would like to just hear what their process was and and where they came down on it if it's possible cause who's here from the Board of Health please Christine and Jim thank you Christine Bajarno Director of Health and Human Services I have here with me Inspector Fumie as you are aware the Board of Health will be promulgating regulations pull that pull the mic thank you I'm a little shorter than last speaker as you're aware the Board of Health will be promulgating regulations to address medical marijuana at the local level it will allow us to inspect and follow up on any complaints that come in also work directly with the facility to ensure that the regulations from the state level are enforced I'm not sure if you have any questions about the specifics of the regulations that we're putting in place I was just curious and what where the process stands I mean do you want an overview of what will be put in place by the Board of Health I think that'd be helpful yeah sure so generally speaking the regulations don't really go beyond what the state is requiring the state's regulations that are already in effect through the Department of Public Health are quite comprehensive and cover you know the full spectrum of issues our regulations essentially adopt those to a certain extent and allow a mechanism for local oversight and inspection such that we can respond to complaints and conduct inspections as necessary to ensure Arlington's public health and safety there are a few minor variations a few things that are covered in the Board of Health regulation that are specific to Arlington that would not be covered in the state's regulation which pertains directly to medical marijuana is ensuring that a medical marijuana facility in Arlington is operating solely for that purpose so it limits convenience co-buy so you wouldn't be able to also sell alcohol tobacco e-cigarettes lottery places it currently has a placeholder for placing restrictions on the hours of operation and I think it also has a requirement for the dispensary to hold an annual community meeting with this local butters or stakeholders and other people who may have an interest in that business to discuss any concerns and be able to provide feedback and that is something that would be done annually by the RMD the dispensary excuse me and I think the other you know at the core of the regulation as is the case with most other board of health regulations is just permitting and ensuring that that the people you know appropriate appropriately authorized people are engaged in the business that they're supposed to be engaged in so that would be permitting both the dispensary and the dispensary agents working within that dispensary so making sure it's the the right people doing the right things also okay thank you yep thank you both thank you is anybody else here wishing to speak on this matter okay then I am I'm going to support non-opposition but I don't want that to imply and I would like wording in there that that doesn't necessarily mean I would then support necessarily the host community agreement this is all new to us we don't know what's going to happen once they go through the redevelopment board for the permitting and etc and full disclosure I have been approached by another organization also interested in opening a medical marijuana dispensary in Arlington whether this board thinks we should have two or not I don't know I mean we what we've done on liquor stores and other things so anyhow I supported I do support this at the medical marijuana dispensaries but I think a lot of information has yet to come out in terms of experience of those and what this would look like for us so anyhow let's rhyme at this point any other thoughts comments okay so on the motion by Mr. Dunn and seconded by Mr. Burn all those in favor of signing the letter of non-opposition please indicate by saying aye aye all those opposed okay thank you and thanks for choosing Arlington was this a fun meeting for all of you did you want to come back it's like almost every Monday night thank you thank you our next item net metering letter to the legislature Ryan Katowski you've earned your time yeah I guess I know how to clear a room so good evening thanks for taking this up this evening I think as did you want to speak on this man oh we approved you God bless you thank you very much we were told you couldn't be here I'm sorry Marine huh Fran okay well we approved you Brian excuse me do you want to give a speech you don't have to wait but thank you for your willingness right it's on the Commission and disabilities have been appointed to correct yes I would if perhaps if I don't we want to do the net metering and then hear from her but I think we invite all appointees yes okay I'm happy to let her go first do you mind not at all and help it come on forward it's Lisa yes please come forward here to the mic there's millions watching at home but don't get nervous so yeah come right up to the microphone if you would so Liza or Lisa okay Lisa Molina and tonight we appointed you to the Commission on Disabilities and normally we ask why would you like to serve on the Commission on Disabilities Lisa a million reasons but mostly to advocate for hopefully for advancement for change Arlington has already made it's actually if you get closer to the mic it gets a little bit easier thank you Arlington has already made some very visible changes I've been living here I moved from Cambridge I've been here for nine years and I definitely have noticed the differences that have occurred and and I would just like to be able to contribute to the next next group of changes yes absolutely well thank you for coming to Arlington from Cambridge we appreciate that and thank you very much thank you very much for your willingness to serve on this Commission thank you that's it okay that's it actually give her a round of applause thank you very much I'm sorry I didn't call in you earlier thank you and Ryan thank you for your patience thanks a lot but so what I'm here to talk to you tonight is about a letter to send to the legislature to support the continuation of solar policies in Massachusetts as you know Arlington's been a long supporter has a long history of supporting clean energy whether that's renewable energy or energy efficiency we have a vibrant solar market in town if you go and count the permits on on the website there's something on the order of 400 solar power systems that have been permitted in town including about 700 kilowatts on six schools that went in over the summer the town has also has had great success more broadly as a as a green community and Massachusetts has fairly strong climate and energy policies were ranked in the top five solar states in the country what's happening right now is we're hitting up against limits related to net metering which is the ability to send power back into the grid if you have solar on your roof or elsewhere and the legislature is currently considering legislation to essentially update our solar policies in Massachusetts and we're asking the Board of Selectment to submit a letter to support lifting of what are called net metering caps so this is the percentage cap based on the peak load of a utility of how much solar they can interconnect with net metering and we're asking to retain fair value for the energy that gets exported on to the grid from those solar installations and we're also asking for in the letter for the state to start looking at essentially a successor policy to what's called the SREC2 program this is a the solar credits that that that can be sold from solar generation once the current target of 1600 megawatts of solar in Massachusetts is reached that program will end and we need to start thinking about a policy that's going to come afterwards so that's the essentially the contents of the letter and we're asking you to send that in so the legislature can hear from Arlington. Questions? Motion? Will approval? Second? Discussion? Mr. Dunn? I'm afraid I'm going to be a fly in the ointment on this one. I there are a lot of things in this letter that I agree with. I support that I think we should be supporting solar power I think the state legislature or the state energy policy should include solar power. I'm not convinced that there are certain elements of this in particular things like the full retail price that makes sense. One of the things that I think that when it was pointed out to me in an email I got this afternoon I was already had troubles with this email really put me over the edge was things like this full retail benefit tends to do things like it tends to support homeowners at the expense of renters because homeowners have the ability to you know do power much more than a renter does because what we're really talking about when we're talking about the full retail we're saying you know we're going to subsidize solar to some degree on the backs of other ratepayers or taxpayers something like that so well I think a more broadly written letter would probably have my support the actual specifics on this I'm unfortunately not going to sign on. Would you want to try to put together a new draft that you could support or? If the board or the proponent felt that something like that was in order I'm sure we could get to something that I would agree with but at the same time if the if we want you know I don't it's a resolution you know there's only so much that we can time and energy that's worth it. If I can just make a suggestion or just a respond to that so there there's a lot of debate on what the value of solar is issues of cost-shifting between solar customers and non-solar customers whether they're renters or not the the reality today is that the electricity electricity system does not fully compensate for all the values that solar brings so there are values that obviously accrue to the to the owner of the system but then there are also benefits that accrue to the system as a result of that solar power being on the system so currently the retail rate is the formula that's used I expect that over time that will evolve currently there is no there is no answer yet as to what that will be in Massachusetts and until that is settled and that will probably take some doing you know supporting the current policy in our view is what we should be doing so I am I I understand his argument and I am I'm unpersuaded I would like so for instance should we say that we should be figuring out what that retail price or what that price should be and we should be figuring it out but this question about like you know what should be the state energy policy is a little bit above my pay grade do I believe that we should be supporting green energy do I split we should be supporting solar yes the specific as right to the specific retail rates I do not have any certainty that's the right policy I told you I was going to find the ointment Mr. yeah yeah so tell me how to make me happy so I don't have to swat you know what you're saying would you Ryan are you okay if he attempts to rewrite or yes yeah I would be happy to work on my doing that then would you take this and I mean I'm not sure that that he would be satisfied with what I because what I would say would be far more general and related to our past support of green energy and stuff and and the green community work in the in the goals that we've adopted as a part of a town like all though what I would be looking for what I would propose would probably be more of an echoing of some of the green community work that we've already approved so I don't know if that goes far enough for it's it's not quite the same thing I understand Lee what the letter does say specifically if you want to support full retail rates for small systems it doesn't specify what the what the compensation rate would be for other systems so it's it's it's somewhat vague but I think it's also generally accepted that those are the kinds of systems for which it would make sense to to retain full retail rate compensation okay so let me see what Joe and Steve are okay because I'm willing to sign it as is but I want to thank you very much I'm more excited as is but I'm also willing to wait to see if there's a way to to come to some some agreement on here I've heard you know the cost-shifting argument between homeowners and renters also and I understand that but I also understand you know that hundreds of our LinkedIn residents made costly capital investments in solar systems especially through our solarized mass push and part of the financing that they were banking on was predicated on the system that's in place now for the net metering so if that is to change you know we're essentially undoing that financing and the way I look at this is that you know a lot of you know hundreds of our LinkedIn homeowners thousands across the state have made these types of capital investments and the net effect of this is that the utilities are presumably going to avoid some very costly capital investments on on their own whether or not you full retail rate or not I don't know but I'm satisfied that when I look at this that right now we're looking at hundreds of our LinkedIn households that that based based their investments on a particular system and don't want to see the rug ripped out from under them on and just just to be fair depending on where the legislators land whether grandfathering is included or not I'm not sure so I would expect that grandfathering would be allowed for customers or who already have it but in Nevada they just voted to deny grandfathering when they gutted their net metering policies. I'm on the same page with you and Joe and I do understand where Dan's coming from but I when I think about the Green Communities Act I think it's a really great program but I think now it's time to kind of move beyond that and I think these are the steps we should take to move beyond it so okay thank you and and to my favorite flying this is having just me sign it but I don't know if that matters to you or not okay I can count to three I'll be able to sleep well tonight so on the motion by Mr. Burn seconded by Mr. Currow all those in favor of empowering the chairman to sign this letter please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed okay thank you so three-to-one thank you Dan I'm gonna hand this to you because I have to take a break so just keep going with the meeting you want out well I'm worried about them out there quick five minute break five five minute break apologies it's been a long night already but sir thank you Mr. Chairman so this is an agenda item in relation to a program being offered by the Baker administration and also included in the board's goals that were adopted for both the board and the town manager in August of last year this is a pretty simple yet exciting program where the governor the Patrick excuse me the Patrick administration the Baker administration has said we want to give an opportunity for communities who are doing a good job to get credit for doing a good job so they say if you as a city of town want to commit to a best practice they will then in turn give you assistance or resources to be able to achieve that best practice and then once you have signed on to this community compact you'll get extra points on various state grants grant applications so what I put before the board for endorsement tonight and if the board endorses it I'll enter into the community compact system tomorrow and then after getting approved the lieutenant governor will come out and we can have a ceremony and sign our community compact is for the town to complete and adopt a complete streets policy that's something the board has already favorably acted upon in terms of concept but we haven't got over the final hurdle of actually approving a complete streets policy and secondly having a performing an IT system vulnerability assessment that's something that we could cooperate with mass IT on it was a suggestion by the municipal liaison at mass IT and when suggested that David Goody loved the idea so by putting both of those in I think it shows a little bit of a you know a diverse interest in some best practices we can pursue it gets us on to the growing list of communities that have joined the community compact cabinet community compact program and I know specifically on complete streets by making it a community community compact commitment having it actually completing it then you get extra points specifically on the complete streets grant program which I know will be applying for so happy to answer any questions the board might have questions Mr. Byrne no questions but I just want to say that I'm very happy we're moving forward with this I'm actually when it was being created I was I joined in on few meetings with some mayors and other selected from around the state and I helping to form the community compact and I think it is a really good initiative by the administration so thank you very much for acting on this so your motion is to move approval second second discussion all those in favor please by saying aye thank you Adam thank you vote sponsorship of unconscious bias and stereotypes Mary Harrison should we anybody here from the vision 2020 diversity task force you want to speak for Mary or do you want to mic over to you so so I can answer your questions although unexpectedly so I'm sorry your name is sir I'm David Landscove okay and and you're asking the board to to to become a sponsor of unconscious by it bias a presentation followed by Q&A on April 7th and then also with the Arlington Center for the Arts stereotypes the conscious look at race faith genuine orientation a photography exhibit at the Arlington Center for the Arts which will be at the Gibbs Gallery from March 7th through April 15th that's correct okay so good by me motion Mr. Kuro I'll move that we spot we sponsor okay sir second second discussion yeah yes I'll just say I mean I think this is this is very consistent with the values this board is has espoused through the years and it's kind of a no-brainer I mean if we look at we're in good company the Arlington Council on aging the police department and many other members of the faith community and and our town government and not profit so I'm proud to join with them as well okay all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed okay thank you very much sir I feel diverse you take your time thank you next vote to adopt the suburban coalition resolution regarding the foundation budget review Commission tingling with excitement mr. Paul Schlichtman chair of the Arlington School Committee Paul well thank you members of the Board of Selectment do you have a copy of the resolution itself it has where as is I don't think it made the novice but let me yeah I don't think I do thank you I don't think you already thank you oh is it on the desk yeah number 15 on the desk so the suburban coalition has asked school committees select Board of Selectment or City Councils and finance committees to adopt this resolution pertaining to the full funding of the foundation budget review Commission's recommendations bottom line is basically throughout the century and we're now six 17 years into it we're approaching fiscal 17 the foundation budget has been under inflated it has not kept cost up with the cost envisioned in that reform plus there are new things we have to pay for such as technology so the way that the state funding formula works is they calculate a foundation budget calculate the ability to pay for me municipality and then the state kicks in the rest so if you underestimate the cost of providing the education the municipality still has to contribute but what happens is the state contribution every year is reduced due to the underinflation of the actual cost so the suburban coalition put together this resolution with four whereas is in a therefore be it resolved basically the therefore be it resolved would be that the Arlington Board of Selectment calls on the Massachusetts legislature and the governor of Massachusetts to fully fund and adopt the recommendations of the foundation budget review Commission in the immediate future the bottom line is here in Arlington our enrollment has gone up in this fiscal year 1.58 percent the foundation budget went up slightly more than that 1.72 percent our required contribution under the formulas is increased 5.52 percent but our chapter 78 has gone up 1% a 1% increase with a 1.5 percent increase in population and nothing to adjust for the increased cost in fact the way they calculated the foundation budget this year talk about underinflated even inflated they deflated it by point two two percent so the foundation budget is less this year than it is the previous fiscal year it's unconscionable when the foundation budget review Commission says historically for the past 16 years we've been under inflating the budget for the governor to come in subsequently and instead of looking to keep up or make make up for the progress that the Commission advocated for they actually deflated the foundation budget it's inexcusable and the school committee adopted this unanimously we hope you would adopt it too. Mr. Chapter Lin. Thank you Mr. Schlickman. So I think it's important to mention the MMA is fully supportive of the foundation budget review Commission's findings and recommendations the only thing I'll say I'm surprised by is the language requesting full funding and adoption immediately with the price tag being probably somewhere between four and five hundred million dollars which is nothing short of a total impossibility in one fiscal year the MMA's advocacy has been for a phase in approach over four years so a 25 25 25 25 so I'm not suggesting the board not support this but I think it's important to put out there that even even that's a very difficult financial pill for the state to swallow so expecting full implementation in one year is probably a pretty large leap to expect. I agree I don't expect full implementation but when you're at this point where they're actually deflating the thing actually there is action is needed. It is the equal and opposite reaction. I agree. Mr. Kirov. I move that we approve the resolution as presented to us. Okay. I think it's very important. I mean we know as we've sat in long range planning committee meetings and we've tried to look out over the coming years and we try to square the increases in enrollment and some of the needs of the schools that have lagged as we've tried to meet some of those new challenges and we continually look to the state to help fill that gap and I think that when we see some of this you know I think I used the word mismatch earlier tonight but again this is a mismatch between our needs. I know from my time on the school committee I mean continually we were looking to the state to really look at adequacy of the foundation budget and still not meeting it and I think it's important that communities do come together and show that their governing boards are working together on this and recognize it as a matter of public policy of great urgency for their communities. Was there a second? Second. Second for the discussion? Yeah you know I'm gonna support this. I do question whether or not it would make sense to send a you know a more detailed letter you know that actually says why this is important Arlington as opposed to just signing on to a resolution but I'll support this either way. You have the reaction to that Paul? I mean we'd be happy to help you with a letter if you so desire if the board would like to send a letter in addition but we would like to report back to the suburban coalition or have you do so that the Board of Selection has joined us in terms of adopting the resolution. Mr. Dunn? Towards Steve's concern one thing we're probably due to have a budget and revenue task force before town meeting and it's probably later than we'd like but at the same time it is the chance for us to talk about this type of thing in person with our delegation so I mean I totally agree that that that's at least a venue for us to make a more nuanced Arlington specific case. Thank you. All right all those further discussion all those in favor of the motion by Mr. Currow seconded by Mr. Byrne please signify by saying aye. Aye all those opposed. Thank you Paul. I would also be remiss in not thanking the Board of Selection for their hospitality in September October November when we were unable to meet at the high school due to the malfunction elevator while we waited to get the parts from the curator of the elevator museum you were very gracious and letting us use the chambers it was very comfortable we enjoyed it. The five of us who got the nice chairs really like the chairs. We have an extra chair tonight. Were you in my were you in this chair? Yes. What's this fifth of scotch? No problem. Thank you Paul. Paul you might want to stick around for just one more item we're about to talk about Minuteman it might be interesting to you. And so the Minuteman building project assessment task force Mr. Dunn. So middle of next week we're going to know whether or not we have a new regional agreement. We will either have 16 yeses or we won't and if last I counted it was there were nine yeses and there are a bunch of towns voting tonight and tomorrow. So we're going to know pretty quick. But so say the question say it comes back as no. Our path forward is clear. We don't want to build a building. We don't want to pay for it. It's not fair. Say the 16 towns say yes. Then Minuteman is going to be coming forward with a building proposal and we have to decide whether or not that building proposal is something that we want to support. And as I mentioned in our last meeting we don't really have a mechanism for deciding whether or not a building project is of this type is good because ordinarily it's either coming from the school department which case there's an advocate and the permanent town building committee and the finance committee that's evaluating it or it's coming from the town manager. And again the town manager is the advocate and we have a group evaluating it. We don't really have that structure for Minuteman. So I've been talking about that for a bit and I got some advice some good advice from several people in town in particular Charlie Foskett weighed in with something that made sense. There's been a group of Minuteman people that have been sort of like a Minuteman kitchen cabinet that's very immersed in the Minuteman issues and his suggestion was we'd formalize that group and add a couple more. So the proposed members and so I will also say I think we should discuss this today and collect feedback from the board. I also want to see if we get any other feedback from the finance committee or the capital planning committee or the school committee and then take a vote two weeks from now because at that point we will also know whether or not we have a regional agreement or not in which case the skull could even be moot. Proposed membership. Me, Joe, Al Tosti, Steve DeCorsi who is the finance committee member who deals with the Minuteman budget. Charlie Foskett is of course the vice chair of Fincom and the capital planning committee chair. Sue Schaeffler who's the Minuteman school committee member. We have a new member of the Minuteman our designee to the Minuteman school building committee, Noah Fkaba, who I don't know if he's actually been formally appointed yet but I know that that's in process so. Yeah I'm still trying to get my hands on his resume but we can. Okay but it's a you know there there's a little bit of paper there but it's still done. Superintendent Cathy Bodie or her designee and Minuteman superman Bequillin or his designee. Oh and then I also put a little bit of a draft charge. Arlington holds the education of our children is one of most important obligations and priorities. That commitment includes providing high quality vocational education to the students who choose it. As with all town priorities, vocational education must be considered within the constraints of our town's ability and willingness to pay. Towards that end the task force should consider the proposed Minuteman building project and recommend what actions should be taken. These considerations should include the capital plan, Arlington's public schools, all potential revenue sources and any other area the task force finds to be useful and relevant. The task force should research and deliberate with appropriate haste such that it can educate, inform and make recommendations to the relevant committees and boards in preparation for the special town meeting on April 27, 2016. The task force would be disbanded at the conclusion of the regular town meeting of 2016. The only and if I missed you just saying this excuse me but they should we have someone from the permanent town building committee on. That is an interesting question. I saw these and it's a good so they're just so knowledgeable about buildings. Yeah, I would say I want to talk in particular with Charlie and see and I guess Adam and see what they think about whether or not that's like adding whether that's like adding good things or whether it's just duplicating what's already there. It's a really good idea. I think we should I'm comfortable could already be there by the way. So yeah, yeah, Mr. Thank you very much. And you know, thank you every time you bring this up. But I think this is a really good idea. The one person that came to my mind when looking at the list just basically do his resume and I know that Adam kind of have to sign off and it would be Sandy. I think he has some expertise in you know, school building and you know, everything that goes into it from the municipal side. So that that came to mind and I know that would be probably a conversation with Adam, but just want to throw it out there. Mr. Carol. Thank you. And this did come up at the Long Range Planning Committee. And I think that's where the idea was first voted. What a couple people on the spot. I mean, the one other person who comes to mind here is sitting right in front of us. Mr. Schlichman, the chair of the school committee was also a previous Minuteman School Committee member. And, you know, very familiar with the issues there. And I think we felt when we discussed this that it is important that the Arlington public schools have one or two seats at the table in this because we have to start, we do, but we don't always talk about it this way. We have to make clear that the Minuteman education, it's part of our overall educational approach to our students. And if decisions are going to be made about building that has curriculum implications, that has considerations have to be made here at the local level as well. If certain programs are not offered at Minuteman, we have students who require those services. How is our local school district going to respond to them? What are the different options and scenarios? I would recommend, as we think about this, if Mr. Schlichman were to be willing, go forward, that we consider him as one of the members as well on this task force. So I will follow up with the chairman of the school committee, chairman of the finance committee, chairman of the planning committee and talk to Adam, take this feedback into consideration. I heard some good ideas, but I didn't hear any table thumping musts. And so I guess I've moved then that we table this and to consider it again in two weeks. Second to second. Okay. All those in favor, please stand in five by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. And Dan, thank you for your unbelievable work on this. One article 18 by law amendment expanding equal protection to see if the town will vote to amend title two article nine of the town by laws to promote equality by amending the Allington human rights commissions stated purpose to include additional and more comprehensive protected classes of persons and further to authorize the commission to take action within the scope of its powers to find therein to protect and promote equality for such additional and more comprehensive protected classes of persons or take any action related there too. Please. Hi, I'm Mel Goldscipe with the Arlington human rights commission. We're very excited about this proposed by law change. The group that we're interested specifically in protecting with this by law change are transgender and gender non conforming people. The current Massachusetts state law is incomplete in providing protected protections to this group. They passed protections in 2011 regarding education and housing and lending, those sorts of things but they left out public accommodations which is everywhere from hospitals to restaurants. It's basically anywhere you go between home and work or school. So that's a lot of places where people are discriminated against and we want to close that gap. We're hoping that there will be a state law passed this session but it's not looking great. So I think Arlington really needs to step in and provide those missing protections but also that even when the state law passes which will definitely happen in the next three to four years. I just I think we're moving there. It's still important for Arlington to show that we care about all of our citizens and we already specify a lot of at risk groups in our by law and it shows that we care about those groups and so this one is missing and we need to add it. Yes. Mr. John? I'm persuaded absolutely with something we should do I'm happy to move approval. Obviously I want to hear it if anyone else wishes to speak but I can't imagine voting. Second. Recommend favorable action. Sure. Would anybody else like to speak on this matter? I think we are quite unified on this. All those in favor of the motion by Mr. Dunn, seconded by Mr. Currow, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Thanks for the excellent work. Thank you so much. And thanks for your patience all of you. I know. But let's keep moving. So Article 19 by law amendment Arlington Human Rights Commission Executive Director to see if the town will vote to amend title two article nine of the town bylaws to modify and clarify the position of Executive Director to the commission including the conditions and process of appointment or take any action related there too. And article 20 is also tied into this. So I don't know if you'd like to speak to both with just article 19. Good evening. This is William Logan from the Human Rights Commission. Basically what we have proposed is in front of you. The main change is that we're trying to get it from saying we shall have a Executive Director to we may because we presently don't have a need for an Executive Director but the current bylaw requires us to have one. So as you remember from last year's town meeting, one was trying to be opposed on us even though we didn't need it. Also we're asking that if we do have a Executive Director that the town manager appoints it with consultation by the commission. And then in the second proposed language, we're asking that the Executive Director shall be an employee of the town and report to the commission since they'll be working for us. We'd like them to report to us. So those are the proposed changes. Thank you, Mr. Logan. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Dunn. Yeah, actually I have a good question and a comment. So I'll start first with a question. So tell me what is the what's the thought behind taking the Selecman out of the approval process? Well, so I almost called you your honor. I've never answered to that before. You only have to do that with me, don't you? Well, the commission, we felt that the person should be working for us because the commission eventually might actually have to investigate town employees and that would be a conflict of interest. And we just felt that would be better to have a relationship with us. While the Selecman do appoint people to the commission, there's more independent places in there such as the town manager and the moderator. So we just felt it was kind of a conflict of interest. So we just thought it would be better to have a town manager appoint. So the thought that is sticking with the Selecman part of the conversation first, one of the things that I was thinking about is that in some ways when by getting the Selecman involved in the appointment, it makes us more invested in who the person is. And I'm particularly thinking like in the situation where everything is boring, everything is boring and it doesn't matter who did the appointment and what's going on. What I'm particularly concerned about is that sometimes Arlington Human Rights Commission gets involved in emotional and controversial issues, which I think it does well, but at the same time they can be tricky. And one of the things, if we are appointing or confirming the appointment of an executive director, you've got us invested in the person and in the organization. And so for instance, if someone, one can imagine a scenario where the Human Rights Commission does something controversial and the Selecman could at times say something along the lines of, well, you know, we have absolutely nothing to do with them. We appoint only four people. I can't be held responsible for what those crazy people are doing. On the other hand, you could have a board of Selecman that says, well, yeah, I voted for that guy. I approved him. And it really, it serves an interesting purpose in that it allows us to your leadership. And so I'm really wondering whether or not that's something you'd necessarily want to be giving up. Well, I think, at least in my opinion, that perhaps you could keep that in there, but with consultation of us presently. The consultation, I think, is that one I'm not concerned about at all. I am a little bit, I have hesitancy about taking us out of the equation. My second one is we got a memo from Town Council who said that basically it didn't make sense legally for this town employee to report to anyone except for the town manager. And so he didn't think, he was of the opinion that it wasn't going to fly with the town manager act, as in like a bylaw where this town employee reports to someone who wasn't the town manager would be in conflict with the town manager act. I'm inclined to take his advice. Well, in other towns, I mean cities, excuse me, Somerville, for example, they can file complaints against town employees, a civilian can't, or other employees. So basically having them report to the town manager would be a conflict of interest. So that is why we took that into consideration. Currently, we don't do that. The town is immune from this. But in other places that they have that, and that's why we suggested that. I think unfortunately for us to do that, I'm not totally sure it's a good idea, but even if we wanted to, we'd have to do it through a home rule petition to change the town manager act. We can't do it on the bylaw level. So I think what I'm coming to, my current thoughts are that I agree with you, with the consultation, agree with you with the May. I'm not sold on the Board of Selectmen part, but I'm curious what other members of the public think. Because I'm definitely, I'm still tossing and turning on that one. And the reporting to the town manager, that one I just don't, I'm inclined to take the advice of town council who said we'd need to do it through a different method. Thank you for your patience. Thank you very much. First of all, I want to say thank you for bringing this forward. I think you remember this was a subject of a proposed bylaw change last year, a town meeting which unfortunately became unnecessarily complicated. So I think that the commission committed to go back and take a look at it and come back to us with recommendations and you've done that. You've followed through on your commitment and I appreciate that. I have the same concern with Dan as far as the town manager act, the conflict there. And I'm not sure that we really get around that. I know you can always be colored by the, your views can always be colored by who is sitting in the room. And I think that with this manager right now, working consultation with the commission would be in good hands if there were complaints filed against town employees. But I recognize why you sought to do that. I actually, I'm agnostic on the question of whether or not the board of selection should be part of that or not. Although I do see the argument that it could actually be a benefit I think to the commission to have the board invested in that way. So that might be worth some more thought and conversation on your part. I'm somewhat agnostic on that. From my perspective, I don't feel a need to do that, but I could see where it can be helpful to the commission. I think I am kind of aligned with where Joe is going. I really, I don't feel terribly strongly. I wouldn't mind hearing from a few others if there are people willing to have a few more arguments for it. But if not, I would be happy to support Joe's, you know, where Joe is going. Mr. Chapter Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The only points I would make, you know, this being a potentially paid employee of the town, I think it would be the only, if it was to go in the way that the town council is currently awarded it, but then we added in some kind of board ratification or approval, I think it would be the only one. Employees or hires that the board then has to ratify. So it would create, in that regard, it would create a unique situation. Deputy Treasurer would be a similar situation, but that's actually not under the manager's jurisdiction. That's a statutory requirement. So I'm not saying that in opposition, but just pointing out that I don't know that it happens. I could look a little closer, but I don't know that it happens anywhere else. And just to back up what both as town council mentioned, it creates not only the legal problem with the manager act, but even then just sort of a practical problem of if the town manager appoints, but then the person doesn't report to, there's sort of an accountability problem there. So I would have no, I mean, I think it's quite obvious to me that this person would be appointed to serve the commission if we chose to fill the position, but it might seem a little funny if they are hired by one person, but that's another. But we, again, we couldn't talk through that more. Anybody else here wishing to speak on this matter? Where would we like to go gentlemen? Mr. Currow. Well, I'm persuaded in particular by the fact that it would just be such a unique approval process. So I move favorable action, but would that change that the executive director would actually report to the town manager? But and not having the board of selection involved. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Fly. I'm good. I used my fly card earlier. Mr. Logan, are you okay on this? Yes, that's what the part with the consultation with the commission, yes. Yes, thank you. I'll say I. I. Thank you again. Okay. Article, which one am I on? Article 21. Oh, the Allianton Commit. 20. 20. Excuse me. Human Rights Commission chairperson. See if the town will vote to amend Article 2, Title 2, Chapter Article 9 of the town bylaw Section 3E1 Adoption of Rules and Regulations to Read. The commission shall elect a chairperson or two co-chairpersons among its members at the first meeting of every year, or take any action related there too. Hi, Mel Goldsipe again. Can I just interject one thing I forgot to say before the last one, since I don't know people might be watching. Millions. Millions. The Arlington Human Rights Commission is a community and there's a link to that on our website. We also have a commission opening and there's information about that on our website as well. So if you're interested, please look into both of those things. Okay, thank you. And then about this matter at hand, there's we've had two openings for a really long time. One, it has recently been filled and one will be filled shortly, but it became a lot of work during those two openings that the chair was just filling it, was basically doing the work of three people. But even when we have a full commission, it's still a lot of work for one person and we would like to have the option that if it becomes two burdensome from one person that we could split the work among two. Move approval. Further discussion? Yeah, Joe. I think it's a no-brainer. We have other committees and commissions that I think we're about to hear from one in a few moments. Do the same. Okay. All those in favor, please say them five by saying I. All those opposed. Thank you very much. And Christine has done a great job for us taking on all that extra work. I just wanted to say that. Do you want to give a speech, Christine? Yeah. She loves the mic, I know. Okay. So now 21. Arlington commission on arts and culture membership to see if the town will vote to amend title II article 8 of the town bylaws to increase the number of members of the Arlington commission on arts and culture from seven to nine or take any action related there too. Welcome. Hello. I'm Stephanie Marlin Costa. Co-chairs of Arlington commission on arts and culture. Do you ask us questions or do we . Probably see both of the above Barbara, but if you would like to say anything first or what I mean I will say it's unusual for commissions want to go from seven to nine and it's because you have that great an interest I assume. Well, we hope we will fill the nine seats. We know we have a need for it and we do have somebody I think at least one person interested. Go ahead. I guess I'll just say since we're in public we're speaking in front of an audience that we're working on two very substantial projects for the town this year. One is the cultural district designation from the MCC. The other one is a cultural plan that we hope to be embarking on soon. These are really big projects and they are part of our charge. Our bylaw says we should come up with a long-term cultural plan for the town so we're working on that but it's been a lot of work with research and networking with other committees and it seems that we attend a lot of other meetings other than our own and we have been writing letters and doing a lot of work and it just really qualified people on the commission who are serving in multiple capacities and run their own businesses and things and so it would help if we had more able hands to take part and also when someone can't make a meeting or two people can't make a meeting we feel a little thin. I've been on other committees that are beefier and it just it would just help to be a little bit more filled out I suppose. So we'll move approval. Is there a second? Second. Discussion? I'm happy to go in favor. I also wonder if there's something interesting to do with the language to just make it optional about going to nine. We have some committees that have functions that have a floating number and we can like list it as a maximum nine so any language, so I'm perfectly happy to say shall be that. I think I think I'd send that to town council and say hey town council do you want to what can you draft given what we've written as our war medical. So up to nine. Yes. Okay. Yep. Further discussion on Mr. chapter lane. Thank you Mr. Chairman. One point that I know town council and I had discussed and we didn't achieve clarity before preparation for the agenda was in addition to that. So I think we had a discussion with town manager. One of those six has to be a member of vision 2020's culture and recreation task group. And then the seventh member is appointed by the school committee. So I didn't know if you had any thoughts on how you would want those two additional members appointed. Well we first of all I wasn't sure if the vision 2020 involvement was continuous or just in the initial discussion by school committee. All right. So the two would be added to it. Two added to the sorry. Thank you. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Mr. chaplain's point I think it would better just leave it open ended and leave it to your discretion to try to I know you'll try to find that type of representation, especially with the changes we made to vision 2020 last year where the task groups aren't actually written right yet. So I don't want to get into this funky area. But I will just throw in a pitch that you know Stephanie and Barbara worked very hard that the initiative they're they're heading up on the cultural district involves a big public engagement process March 30th. I know it's going to be the big public meeting for the cultural district initiative. So very happy to try to help give them extra hands going forward. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love Joe for your involvement on that as well. And thanks to everybody. Thank you. All right. So on the motion by Mr. Kiro seconded by Mr. Bern. All those in favor please say the five by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. So you two are veterans. So you know what will happen now is the our town council will draw up the final wording and will it go up with town council or will you do that? We'll do that. We will do that. Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks. We'll watch the video. We sell them outside this article 25 demolition by neglect of historic buildings. The sponsor of this has asked us to has asked to withdraw this so a motion of no action is approved. So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor please say the five by saying aye. Aye. And the last one authorizing community choice aggregation to see if the town will authorize a board of selection to commence a community choice aggregation program and in contract for electric supply as authorized by master general law 164 section 134 and emissions from the generation of electricity for our residents and businesses by pursuing an increased amount of class one designated renewable energy then is required by the Massachusetts renewable portfolio standard or to take any other action relative there to inserted by our excellent town manager Mr. chapter late. So the the proponents who worked with why did you hesitate on the excellent part that I said I wasn't sure if you were just I wasn't sure where you were headed with the I wasn't sure if it was a request to speak or what was happening. So this article was filed by me as town manager at the request of the energy working group at the front sustainable Arlington wanting to give the community opportunity to consider whether or not they wanted to pursue aggregation. So with this the board's already heard a presentation on this in January but a quick run down as provided in town council's memo would be really this kicks off with a vote by town meeting to authorize the community to move forward to sign on with a broker issue an RFP for an aggregator or a broker or we could utilize the MAPC RFP that we were part of and sign on with a broker. So there is a broker identified through an MAPC competitive or collective procurement that we were part of it's good energy. My intention would not be to sign on until town meeting deliberated and voted favorably that would need to go be done cooperatively with the DOER department of energy resources and then approved by both myself and the board of select before submitting that to the DPU. We would do a public hearing here locally DPU would do a public hearing on it. If they approved it we would then be able to issue an RFP for competitive suppliers we could if satisfied select and then notify everybody in the community who's eligible which is just about everybody of their inclusion in this aggregation plan and then residents would have 30 days to opt out if they chose to. So I think there's been a lot of dialogue about whether or not the town should be involved in this and I think it's a valid question because there's no town financial benefit the town government does not receive money from the town so we wouldn't be buying energy through this but it is a means that's allowed via state statute and it's a means that a number of other communities have utilized really on two fronts to a save ratepayers money by getting a more competitive supply and B which is definitely the main thrust of what mother's out front is trying to do is buy a larger portion of renewable energy than you would otherwise but I would also understand if the town decides that this isn't the business that we want the town to be in and that there are other avenues by which a resident could pursue this. So with that I know the town council has put forward a recommended vote of the board but happy to answer any questions that the board might have about it. I'll move favorable action on that sort of approval. I'm going to do it for one main reason. We've debated this a couple times and one I really like that it is a choice. I think that's very important we're not forcing anyone anything down anyone's throat here but two I think when we say earlier we were looking at what's the proper state energy policy and I think bringing that down to the municipal level we have to see I think there are really limited options that towns can take on in the to reduce greenhouse gases as a community and I think this is one of the main ones moving forward so I think it's an important endeavor so I'm happy to support it. Is there a second? Discussion? I will say that I got some feedback this week that there's concern about the first point about the saving money that there wasn't enough of that actually happening and I definitely didn't have the facts available at my fingertips so I don't know if we can encourage others up front to do to demonstrate some of the examples of the other towns and the experience that they've actually had in terms of their rates to demonstrate prove the point one way or another. That's an absolutely necessary thing. The snapshots I've seen is you lock in for 6, 12, 18 months under this plan and you could save for 6 months, 12 months and then the market shifts and you're not saving so there's definitely risk involved. So seeing how somebody who's been in this for a little while performed against the market for the full duration of an aggregation is probably worth looking at too. I don't know if we can it seems like before town meeting that would be an important piece of the plan. Did you want to say? I'm looking forward to hearing the testimony. I think at our last presentation on this I'm very favorably disposed towards it. I went to a follow-up information session and I'll just repeat what I equate it to is sitting here as a board member how frustrated I feel when we have these cable TV negotiations every 10 years we have to renew the contracts and we can't impact rates and we can't impact the choices that the consumers have. All we can talk about is basically are they going to be allowed to do business in town and is there a share of funds off of that contract and where does it go? This actually does allow us to do something with the utilities that will give the consumers a concrete advantage and if they don't want it they certainly can choose otherwise. Thank you. Anybody wish to speak on this matter? I'm going to take the contrary view and ask that you pass on this. Not necessarily because I disagree with the benefits or anything like that but I think it's unnecessary and I think some of the information that's been put out there is really important. One is that you need aggregation to get the lower rates and the environmental benefits. In fact neither of those is true. There's quite a few competitive electricity suppliers out there that people can choose from now. It's not simply a matter of staying with ever source or going to the aggregator. The interesting thing I found in looking into this a little bit more is that the broker and I think in every case they use con-ed solutions for their provider. Any of us who are on ever source right now can go to con-ed solutions to their website and get the same product that is being offered to cities and towns through the CCA. So you don't have to have this program. The town doesn't have to get involved and use all the staff time and involvement to get these benefits. Some papers to the town manager. In one case for example if I somewhere to go to the website they could get a renewable portion of 21 percent of their electricity. The opponents were talking on the order of 15 to 16 percent so it's actually better what you could do on your own and the price would be comparable to what people in Dedum are paying through their CCA. NATO has a CCA they are about 19 percent renewable. Now the interesting thing there and I think this is something you should pay very close attention to is that their CCA is now charging more than ever source. And so if you go to the town website they tell you how to opt out of the program that they sign the people up for. I don't think your board wants to be in that position a year from now. So it's not, in most cases I think the average cost is better but it's not always the case and that's a risk. The other thing you have to keep in mind is that when you switch the rate you're switching to a fixed rate and it seemed to me that actually the summer rates that ever source charges may be less than what the aggregators are charging, what this program is charging. So all over the course of the year you might save money if most of your electricity demand is in the summer. If you go away for the winter you could actually be paying more even though if on average the price is lower. Perhaps hasn't been fully explored is just the level of effort of town staff. The MAPC pointed out that it does take some effort on the staff's part. They're going to have to monitor the broker. They're going to have to deal with the public and they'll have to renew and sign the contracts. That's another thing to consider. So I guess for those reasons I would suggest that this probably isn't something the town needs to get involved with and if anything the proponents should be looking at more at public information and alerting citizens to what their options are and leaving the town out of it. So if I could I'd just like to leave these. Anybody else wish to speak on this matter? Any response to that Adam or any thoughts? No I think Mr. Loretty touched on some of the other feedback that I have heard. Concern basically not to speak for him but just a question of whether or not the town should be involved. But I think town meeting will have that opportunity. You know the board is able to make a choice in what it wants to recommend and then town meeting will have the opportunity to deliberate on whether or not it is appropriate for the town. So I think they're very fair points but I don't know that I feel like that it means that it's not worthy of consideration. So do I have a motion? Yes. It was an excellent motion. It changed my life Steve. So recommending favorable action and appreciate the points Mr. Loretty makes but the argument of let's put it in front of town meeting have a comprehensive discussion there makes sense to me. So all those in favor of the recommended favorable action please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Correspondence received. Motion to accept. To bronze and to place in the frame inside this office or anything like that. Just receive. I think I'll just bask in the glow. All in favor of receipt please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? New business. Marie Crepelka. Anything happening Tuesday that you want to talk about? I'm going to wait for you to say aye. I expect to see you all at the summer talking one. I'll set. Mr. Chapter Lane. One brief piece of new business this Thursday at the American Legion Hall on Mass App will be the annual police award ceremony. The sons of Italy. The year I decide to announce it they changed the location. The sons of Italy. I would have shown up at the wrong place. Sending you a message. The sons of Italy. It's a great event every year. Great stories of some of the wonderful and very sometimes dangerous work that our police officers do. I hope some of the board members can attend. I look forward to attending. Thank you Mr. Buren. No new business actually. I have a couple meetings tomorrow but I'll hit on them next time. Thank you Mr. Buren. Thank you Mr. Buren. Mr. Grierly nothing. Motion to adjourn. Next meeting of the board of select will be on March 7th. Second to adjourning. All those in favor please stand by by saying aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Good night all. Thank you for your patience.