 Good evening. I'm calling to order the meeting of the Arlington Select Board from Monday, October 25th, 2021. This is Select Board Chair Steve D'Corsi. Permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Diane Mahan? Affirmative. John Hurd. Yes. Len Diggins. Yes. Eric Helmuth. Yes. Staff, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Adam Chapter Lane? Yes. Doug Heim? Yes. And Board Administrator Ashley Maher is participating remotely. Tonight's meeting of the Arlington Select Board is being conducted remotely consistent with an act signed into law on June 16th, 2021, that extends certain COVID-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency. The act includes an extension until April 1, 2022 of the remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. The governor's order, which is referenced with agenda materials on the town's website for this meeting, allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Before we begin, permit me to offer a few notes. First, this meeting is being conducted by Zoom, is being recorded, and is also being simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Students wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. Persons participating by Zoom are reminded that they may be visible to others, and that if you wish to participate, you are asked to provide your full name in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. Our participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment, and those persons are not required to identify themselves. Both Zoom participants and persons watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials also found on the town's website using the Novus agenda platform. Finally, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call. Before we begin with the item number two, agenda item number two, I would like to ask the board for a moment of silence for Jane Marie Hillier. Jane Marie Hillier served on the Board of Selecting from 1985 to 1991. She also was chair of the library trustees of Arlington, and she was a teacher for over 50 years. She served just away on October 16, 2021. So, with the board's indulgence, I'd like to ask for a moment of silence in Mrs. Hillier's memory. Thank you very much. Moving to item two, honoring Joseph A. Kuro. I believe Mr. Kuro is with us tonight. Good evening Mr. Kuro. Hello there. How are you? Nice to see you. Nice to see you all. I'm going to say a couple of words then turn it over to board members for a couple of words and then whatever you want to say to the public and to the board would love to hear from you. But it's great to finally have you back to honor you for your service to the board. It's a little late and coming, so I apologize. And we had hoped to do it in the chambers, but that's just not going to be possible. Mr. Kuro, as most of you know, served on the select board from 2012 to 2021. He was one of the rare members of the select board who also served on the school committee, serving from 2008 through 2012. He was a member of the Human Rights Commission from 2006 to 2008. He's been a town meeting member consecutively since 2003. So for every one of the committees that Joe served on, at one time or another, he served as chair. So he's had a giant impact on the town over the past 20 years. It was a fantastic colleague and still continues to do great work in the town of Arlington. I'm really pleased that we're finally able to honor you tonight, Joe. So what I'm going to do is ask members for comments and then turn it over to you and I'll start with Mr. Diggins. You started with me. Wow. So Mr. Kuro, let's see. Remember this? Do you see it? I sure do. Yeah, I was doing soundcheck and you took that pick and apparently when I decided to run for a town meeting, some people thought, well, where did this pick come from? And you had to tell them that you took it. So clearly you've had a big effect on me. But even before me, you and others planted the notion of me running for select board in my mind. It was just always a joy coming working the select board meetings for ACMI because you were there from the start, at least from when I started working the shows. And you're always such a warm and friendly person. And even when I began to have a sense of how you were going to vote, I was always interested in what you were going to say. Because I knew I was going to learn something and you had such a great way of phrasing things. I don't forget that it was a meeting back in 2017 towards the end of the year when you were reading the statement as to whether you were going to run again because no one really knew. And that was quite the letter. It held us in suspense until the last sentence. And that's another thing that's really great about the music. You're just a wonderful writer. You have a great way with words being and words and paragraphs. And so Joe, you know, I could go on, but if I do be then I won't be able to complain, you know, when the meeting goes until midnight. So I'm going to cut it short and let other people have a word but I will end by not only saying that I love you very much. And not only that, I like you. I like you a lot. But then I'll show you. So there you go. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Mr. Helmeth. Thank you. Hello, my friend. I probably don't remember this, but shortly after I moved to town, I wrote an email to you. You were on the school board at the time out of the blue. I was very concerned about something. And you wrote back quickly. You wrote back from the heart. A lengthy message that spoke exactly my concerns. It was honest. You didn't pretend like you had all the answers. And I never forgot that. And everything I know of your public service through both of those terms and other things has been consistent with that. You have always made time for people. You have always loved people of this town. You have always celebrated the accomplishments, particularly of artists and people working for peace justice and equity, and so many other things. And you have been an inspiration to me. In my public service and to so many and it showed us how it's done for that. I am grateful for our friendship. I am grateful. And I'm glad that we had a chance to make you sit here and listen to this tonight. Thank you, Mr. Helmeth. Mr. Hurd. Thank you and welcome back, Mr. Curl. I think we met, I can remember years and years back when you're first running for school committee, and we sat at the corner and we bonded over the fact that we're both jumbos. And I always enjoy it. I think we always had a little bit of pride that we're served together that that we had multiple jumbos and in. We had some good showing on the selected select board, so certainly in no offense to anyone else's schools, but it is missed to have some jumbo pride along there with me. But I think one of the things that really stands out to me is we, of course, in my first election were in the same cycle. And when you first found out that I was thinking about running, you immediately call me, we went, had coffee at Cafe Nero, and even then when you knew that we were going to be quote unquote opponents in the election, you offered advice to me, you always trying to help me. And I think that carried through when I first became on the board. I turned to Joe for advice because I knew that Joe had a lot of experience in town, both on the school committee and the select board, and he was always good person to look to for information. And I think at one point, when I first got on, I was trying to go to as many events as I could and I was talking to somebody in town, and they're like, Oh, it's good to see you out and about. Yeah, well, I'm trying to get out and be known. I'm not quite, I don't make it to as many events as Joe does. And whoever was turned to be said, huh, well no one expects you to go to as many events as Joe Carl. Because Joe Carl was at every town events. It could have been six nights a week, just because your immense commitment to the town and the town issues. And I always really respected that about you, Joe, and it's certainly big shoes to fill both on the board from as a member of the select board but also just in town, who can wear all the hats that you wore, whether it be leading the box parade or dressing up in full guard for the power veer to come by. I don't know if anybody on the select board so far has been able to step up and take on that role but we'll see maybe Mr. Helmeth will take that on. But you certainly miss on the board have a lot of respect for you and I hope you're doing well. Thanks. Thank you, John. Mr. Herd, this is mine. Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you for those remarks. Former colleague in Sicilia. Chow Seth. Sort of piggybacking on the comments my colleagues have made. It always impressed me. When you first got on not only were you at every town event. Far more than me. Not only energy and commitment you had to take on so many subcommittee assignments. Not only take them on but you always gave a full report. And that's pre COVID when you had to travel all across the Commonwealth. And you always brought brought back the salient points instead of, you know, it's usually stuff if you didn't know, and you got educated that way. Not only your participation, but the fact that you gathered the knowledge and could report back to us. I was definitely appreciative of that because I would feel a little bit guilty that I'm traditionally I've been the select board member that's kind of lower on the subcommittee assignments. And I'd like to say that if I could I would have the energy to do as much as you did but I don't think so. The other thing that I'm missing so much is hearing you talk about not only at the meetings but pre meeting and post about your, your beautiful family, the vacations you take. Who goes on the vacations, the sites you've experienced. So I would say that the first select board night was when you were chair. All that year, you would, whenever I saw you say, pardon me folks but I've written down some thoughts here that I'd like to share with you. I sat back and I truly enjoyed each and every one of them they were so heartfelt, so filled with emotion. And I literally honestly hung on every word, which sometimes that's hard. I definitely miss you. The select board team for the spelling bee is going to miss you. I think we know disrespect to the town manager or anyone else but you definitely brought us up a grade and got us to the finals and whatever successes we had. So we're going to miss that maybe we can still, you know, bring you in as the ringer. But all my love to you, to your wife, to your family. And I wish you nothing but God's blessings, good health, and look forward to see what you do in the future. Thank you Joe. Thank you so much Diane. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. And enjoy. I spoke at the beginning I just want to say a word or two on a personal note before I turn it over to you and that you know you and I met years ago when I was on the Sims Advisory Committee and you would come to the meetings before you did join the Sims Neighborhood Advisory Committee and like so many people in town you started because you were interested in something that was happening in your neighborhood. You got more and more involved and you came to those meetings and really brought something to the table at those meetings. You don't remember but you address the concerns and we all could see here someone who's going to do a lot of great things for the town. And sure enough, within a few years you were on the school committee during a very challenging time and then on the select board and I unfortunately we only got to serve together for two years that it was a great two years and to what the other members had said. You and I would talk and you're always so thoughtful about different issues and if a particular issue came up sometimes you'd say Steve, I think I'm going to have to write something tonight and we all were better for having you give the speeches, make the comments that were so important and one just aside before I turn it over to you is very early on I was told by Mr. Heard when we are at Town Hall for the National Anthem and don't stand so close to Mr. Heard during the National Anthem because you'll sound terrible next to him. Joe has such a great singing voice. We never really wanted to interfere with that. Mrs. Mahonda just doesn't share it that much. But anyway, it's great to see you here tonight and we still see you around town and as you can see all the members here. We so appreciate everything that you've done for the community and the floor is yours now. Thank you very much. This is, I know this will come as a surprise I'm practically struck speechless. You're all very kind. A couple of you mentioned the written remarks and I want to tell you that mercifully I have not written out remarks which that can go for better or for worse it can meander. I want to start by saying that I was moved by by the moment of silence for Mrs. Hillier. I don't know if I actually ever met her but I think that that serves as a real reminder when we are in the chamber or were in the chamber. And we look to the back of it and we see all of those photos of everyone who's come before us that that we're we're just building on on the accomplishments of of those who've served on the board before us and we all have a temporary period of time. To occupy the seat and do our little little part. I want to say, you know, I think, as you all know, I, I did have to leave two months early, rather abruptly, and I want to just say here, like, publicly I want to thank, you know, all of the folks who reached out to me they they were concerned that it might be health health issues that that had precipitated that but want to just to show you that it was another set of personal and professional considerations that I just had to focus on eagle eye and, and the time was it paid off in the end, being able to have that time so I thank you for your diligence and I am sorry for having hit the exits a little bit prematurely there. I had a very wonderful visit today from Dan Warren at the Department of Public Works, who knocked on my door with a big box and I'm going to see if you can see this, but he, he dropped off this this beautiful heirloom chair. With my name and the seal of the town of Arlington and my years of service on the board and I want to thank you all for that and I want to thank you know everyone who who facilitated that it's beautiful, and I want to tell you it's it's the most. It's probably the most ergonomic chair in the house and that's important to me because I've been working at home for over a year and a half now so it's great to have something I can put my arms on and I can remember the time in the board. I've known all of you for for for so long and in various ways I think honestly, Mrs mahan I think that Diane I think that you are probably the select one that I had the most engaged involvement with earliest on when you were coming up and and working with our neighborhood and and and listening to some of the concerns back back back during the Sims project Mr decorcy referenced and I feel I've known I've known Steve almost as long. You always great counsel to me, especially. When I was on the on the school committee and early years on on the select board, you know you were serving as a member of the finance committee, you and Mr done really went against the wisdom that Mr tossed he laid out a town meeting one saying that if you serve on the finance committee, you will never be elected to office ever and you guys prove that run. And that that council was always very, very important then and I was happy to be able to serve with you. As well, john you expressed that special bond that we that we that we have. I always appreciated your calm, cool and collected approach to things I mean really inserting some some levity into into our discussions. I just appreciate running into you and Costco with your boys and and the devotion to show to them. I have two regrets is as regards this this current board and it's that. Number one, Mr diggins even though we served almost a year. We never once sat in the select board chamber together. The picture you showed is just about the closest we had and I got a kick out of it when you told me that you. ACMI would test the sound levels against my laugh. And Eric. I feel like I've served with you. I've done so many initiatives together and your leadership on this on the CPA committee and with electronic voting and town meeting. I feel like this I'm so happy to see you occupying the space that I vacated there. So thank you. I'm remiss if I didn't, you know, give a shout out to the other four select board members with whom I served been done. And I have to especially thank him for for pinch hitting and coming in and filling in. When I did have to step down a little bit early, earlier in the year, close a row who did that twice at various times. And we burned with whom I was elected. And of course, probably the lowest moment of my time on the board was when we lost Kevin really. I will never forget that phone call. I also want to thank our staff, the select board staff Ashley and Lauren, Marion and Fran were there for most of the time. When Jean Berg was there and she's no longer with us anymore. And always the rock holding the whole operation together. Marie Kruppelka so thank you Marie. Love you. I have a feeling you had something to do with making sure this chair happens so like you you make so many other things happen. You're, you're a facilitator beyond, beyond approach. So thank you. I love you all. And then I have to thank all of the professional staff, Adam, you've always had like extraordinary teams. You always were extraordinary to work with. I appreciate it as as board chair that you made the time for weekly, weekly sit downs and are always so accessible and the people that you've pulled together on your media team have always been phenomenal and I think that's why Arlington is where we are today and why everyone's always trying to steal you away from us. That team includes our legal team. So, Doug, thank you. Your advice has been most most welcome. I think I had a year or two with Juliana and but it feels like you've been sitting there just forever and probably feels that way to you as well. This is just one part of the big, big machine and we have so many dedicated employees in this town of public safety public works libraries planning packs and rec human resources it etc, health and human services. That really keep the town going I've especially kept it going over the last difficult year, year and a half, almost almost two years, and we couldn't do anything without the support of our residents so at the risk of going a little bit too long I was sitting back. And I was thinking about the nine years that I was, I was on the board and trying to reflect back on what what did we accomplish and and he is taken very seriously as you all know, not a single thing that gets done is done by a single board member anything big and meaningful and lasting done by a single board member it's it's done as a team, working with the manager and and and his team. I think when I got on we, it was the tail end of the mass av card a project. I think Diane you're probably the last board member now will really felt that the scars of that early on, but we we we push that through to to its conclusion. During my time on the board we created a cultural district we created a parking benefit district. Parking demand management might my pet interest getting electronic or pay by phone meters and I was so happy to see, see that. Lots of safety improvements including the bricks going away and I've been walking to the center and I've seen that that's huge I remember Mr heard you talked about that a lot and we're finally seeing that go away. Other transportation improvements with the dedicated bus lane the safety improvements at the at Lake Street. Then the big really one of the biggest long ongoing initiatives around school enrollment and Mrs mahan and I served on the school enrollment task force and we supported our colleagues across the across mass av to to expand capacity at Hardy and Thompson to bring the Gibbs back online and to get that the Arlington high school on its way to being rebuilt and you know I walked the dog over to the hill with and I can 360 to the little park and I look down and I can just see see that whole project coming up and it's so so satisfying and knowing that also during the time my time on the board. I think especially due to Mr done's leadership but but a lot of other people pitched in as well. We got a we negotiated a deal that's better for for Arlington than than than we had ever had before and and and a brand new minute man high school. We advocated for the CPA Community Preservation Act that Mr helmet you're one of the reasons it's been so successful but it really has and pushing forward our affordable housing stock or open space and recreation. Historical preservation, all of that. We had a face of some really difficult debates we we adopted a trust act resolution. I don't know I mean it was the biggest hearing I ever saw in my time on the board I don't know Mr mahan maybe you'd seen larger on other issues but I have to say this is one of the. This is the biggest I ever saw my time on on on the board. We did that through created the Rainbow Commission, expand, you know, all working with Tom meeting and working with other stakeholders, we expanded protections for gender expression identity. And took a lot of other important steps around social justice, not without debate difficulty, hard discussion. I think the last remarks I gave at a select board meeting before I left was advocating for indigenous people's day so I'm so happy when a couple weeks ago to see Arlington really embracing that with so many other communities around the state. I could go on and on and on but that these were all team efforts and and with the, how many people I serve with seven, I think people like I serve with throughout that time. And I know that this will go on in the future and that that you all will be, you know, building some of those those foundations for future accomplishments of future boards. This was a very satisfying time for me. The, the bill, the opportunity to meet so many people in town who had so many different interests, different views was wonderful, and having the opportunity to work with you all wonderful so I'll just wish you all Godspeed and want to thank you very much for for bringing me back and giving me an opportunity to say a few words, more than a few words that ended out but thank you. Thank you so much Joe thank you for your friendship and thank you for your service to the town and as I said we you're still very active in the community and we'll see you around town. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you. Item three tonight, year end financial report, Sandy pooler deputy town manager, finance director, eat a Cody controller controller controller is a collegiate term. Good evening Mr puller. Good evening. Ladies and gentlemen. Just wait for one second till it appears. There we go. Thank you very much. I must say that's a tough act to follow, but we will try to do our best by talking about budget numbers. This is the second year in a row that we've been able to present an end of the year financial report to the board with a complete years worth of data. Overall, I think the numbers look good. On the revenue side, we kept our spending all within budget, and really did not have to bail out any of our departments. On the revenue side, our revenue came in on budget. I'll be at those budgets for lower than they had been in the past because of the effects of COVID-19 we had lowered some of our revenue estimates. I think we'd have a good balance budget. We've turned money back that became part of our free cash, both from our department spending less than they had been budgeted for, and from our revenue coming in more than we had budgeted for. I think you've been notified of the fact that we have certified our free cash this year. It's a little over $11 million, which is about in the range slightly less than the last couple of years. So that is a positive number for us. And I think is reflected in some of the numbers you're going to see tonight. So with that, I'm just going to go through a little bit of the details. I think all departments were pretty much on budget. There really isn't a lot to say about individual department spending. I think, Adam, if you would just scroll if you would just manager to the numbers that are on the year to day budget report. I think looking at those. Thank you. That's great. Looking at those. The text that goes along with it, but I think looking at the numbers is the easiest thing to see. So we had every department turn back dollars. I think significantly DPW turn back $223,000. We didn't need any supplement for their snow and ice budget. So that was a positive. So most of the reserve fund, which you'll see under other got returned back to the town and became part of pre cash. And we did carry over bargaining reserve so that we can settle the contracts that still are unsettled. There was about 1.2 1.3 million dollars that became part of our free cash because of department spending less than expected. On the other category, which are really some of our big funds. As you can see the third fourth one down reserve fund turn back almost $1.5 million. So that is a nice healthy number. The other thing else came in pretty much as expected a state assessments came in slightly higher. As they sometimes do at the end of the year as they adjust both our aid, some of our school aid and our charter aid, and some of our charter assessment so that's the reason for that. Our health insurance turn, turn back money in a healthy amount this year, not as big as some past years but still a healthy amount. The other insurance including our property insurance and our unemployment insurance did run over budget. They are voted by the finance committee together so health insurance help fill out other insurance. And we've made adjustments to the other insurance budget in the FY 22 budget so we don't expect to see deficits there going forward. Mr. Manager, if you could just the warrant articles all, they're all pretty small. We allow these dollars to carry over from year to year so there really was not that much. There's really not much to say there. I do want to focus on the revenue, a revenue turn back a total of $759,000. We had strong revenue in several areas are our taxes even though it looks like it came in below our revenue estimate that is very typical collecting 99% is a very good number for taxes so we thought good about that. Motor vehicle excise came in slightly above our estimates. And it's been a source of free cash, we did lower those estimates very significantly in FY 21 and we'll be bringing them back over the next couple of years, as we see the economy turning around. Fees were a good source of revenue, mostly because we started to get marijuana tax in there. I will say that going forward in FY 22, Ed and I discussed how to account for marijuana revenue and we're going to account for it, along with the hotel motel tax and the meals tax the Airbnb tax. And so you'll see that in a different place going forward, because I think it needs its own line and it really is a tax. It came in nicely including our interest, we had a little bit of shortfall in what's called a school account that's our Medicaid reimbursement. And that really is because the number of students who are in school getting those services was reduced and so our reimbursement was down for them. The tax and motel tax came in way above their budgets, but as you can see their budgets were significantly lower at $60,000 and $50,000 and they had been in previous years, and that they will be again going forward. Just go down to the next page on enterprise funds. The enterprise funds, the water and sewer fund had a very strong year, I think, partly because of drought so they sold more water and partly because more people were home and use more water for that reason. And thirdly, because the board has been doing a very good job of raising our rates in a timely manner so they coincide with the beginning of our, our fiscal year each year, so they're timely. AYCC had a small surplus COA transportation, because the senior center was closed down at a small deficit, although that was covered by its retained earnings or it's what version of what we call free cash. The rink, sort of amazingly enough, had a small surplus as to the recreation fund and I give Joe Connolly as I often do in these meetings, a lot of credit for managing both those budgets to keep them in the black in a very difficult year for both of us. And that will conclude my remarks this point. I know there's a lot of backup that is attached here, which I think some of you may go through on your own. I should either or I would be happy to answer any questions about any of our spending or revenue. And I would just conclude that I think our departments did a good job of staying within our budgets. Our revenue estimates were realistic in a way that gave us some surplus and our enterprise funds all ran in the black with one small exception. And so overall I think it's a good report. Anything that you would like to add to that. No, I think you've covered everything in enough detail. The only thing I could add is that another thing that contributed to our healthy free cash is the term back from the school department which was around $347,000, which is not included in this report. Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that concludes our. Thank you, Mr. Puller. Thank you, Miss Cody. I will now turn to the board for questions or comments. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Miss Cody and Mr. Puller before I get in I think I have two or three queries. I had mentioned this last year to the manager. After last year's report. And we had a conversation. Since we do have a very educated intelligent woman who works just as hard with Mr. Puller, and she is the comptroller for the select board. I had asked the manager. Perhaps only because a few people after last year's meeting asked if Miss Cody was Mr. Puller secretary. And I said going forward in the future to the town manager. Maybe, you know, under revenues we could hear from the comptroller who does report to the board. But that didn't happen. That's okay. So I would make the record. I would make a request that next year perhaps we allow Miss Cody to go through the report and then she can ask Mr. Puller at the end if he has any questions after she covers it all. So. And then Mr. Puller, feel free to have a conversation Mr. Chaplain about what we spoke about last year, but I won't beat that horse any longer. I'm assuming, and if the chair could nod his head, if the chair will have remarks or questions around cannabis funds. If you can elaborate a little bit in terms of. You've always been sort of following that and. Oh, yeah, as far as where it's broken out. Yeah, I will cover that when it comes to. Okay, thank you. So that's it. That saves you guys from one thing for me. The other thing is I'm pleased by my math. About 12 million in free cash. This year alone, as Mr. Puller cited the transfer. Turning back 1.5 million, as well as under expenses. The 1.2 million as well as. I think Mr. Puller referenced about a million or something from the state. And we do have the about 750,000 also put away for collective bargaining. I raise that because I cannot get involved in negotiations with any union or M schedule employee, except for the select board staff, the town manager, and to some extent, our comptroller. But I think it's no secret to the manager and my colleagues that I've been very frustrated, putting opera aside, because that's up next. I've been very frustrated and myself personally insulted and apologize to our town employees with all that money and arbitration going on and representations and am I feeling at least one big misrepresentation or perhaps it was misrepresentation. And I know the manager has reached out to the unions, which is not over opera funding, and I'll speak about that when we get to that agenda item. The only thing, as we all know what he knows for collective bargaining. I mean, for negotiations is collective bargaining issues that the app of money is a totally different candy. I would just say that of note, because to me that flies in the face of trying to do everything we can for our town employees we can't thank so much, and that maybe it except for when Mr. D'Corsi goes into the cannabis question. And I'm not going to apologize. I was going to say I apologize for my feciness but I'm not because it's groundhog day all over from last year. To my colleagues I did speak to the manager one on one, not in front of the camera, and a representation was made it didn't happen so that's why I'm now saying it on camera on cable. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Hurd. Thank you. Thank you to Mr. Puler and Ms. Cody for the presentation. I always do really enjoy when you do these presentations, even though you mentioned the finances aren't as sexy as some of the other things that we deal with. It's certainly something that we need to know and when the report is broken out like this it makes it very easy for some of the board members who weren't Mr. D'Corsi on the finance committee for that long amount of time to really understand where we are with our town finances, and I do appreciate that my only question was going to be was going to be who's direct to Ed Conley at the rank, but I think you covered. Thank you very much. You know, Joe Conley and Ed Burns, but I know it is good to see the numbers in front of us and you know I do appreciate that in the midst of COVID. We were able to last year we scale back some of our estimates to make sure that we're setting expectations with our spending and then it's good to see that some of the revenues have well exceeded our expectations which means we're maybe getting a little bit back to normal. We still have a long way to go, but it's this report shows positive signs both for the town, as far as finances and the residents as well as getting out of getting up. We're stuck in the muck with COVID but it looks like the end is near so do appreciate the presentation and keep up to good work. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, good job. And I'm just going to dive into a couple of curiosity questions and give me as short an answer as you want, and then maybe a longer discussion about earnings and investments. I see that the Mugar had 25K unspent and it's under warrant articles. You may have explained this to me or maybe it's before my time but what is Mugar and 25K and why is it under warrant articles? It's an amount of money that's set aside for the legal department to engage in any possible litigation around development on the so-called Mugar site, the site that is right along Route 2. Gotcha. Between that and the Thorn Dyke parks. Got it. All right, thanks. And also another curiosity question, blue bikes, why is that under warrant articles? It was voted as a separate article, not within any department's budget, but it was a separate item last year. It matched 80,000 some odd dollars that came from a grant and allowed us to buy and install blue bike stations around town. I got you. Well, I was here for that. I should remember. I guess I, for some reason I just felt that probably would fall under something else, but if it was an article in the warrant, then I understand that. Thank you for that explanation. On page three, you, you talk about earnings and investments and how the, the earnings that you got an investment was 170% well, 170, 177% more than expected. And you talked about strategies that you had put into place. Can explain just expand on that a little bit. I'm kind of curious. Well, I would, first of all, I'd like to give credit for our investments to our town treasurer collector, Phyllis Marshall. It is under her oversight and guidance that the town invests its money. So she has done a very good job of trying to find decent interest rates in a very low yield environment as we say a low interest rate environment. Her job is governed by the principle of safety, liquidity and yield. In other words, keep the town's money safe first. Make sure that it's liquid so that we have access to it when we need it. And then third, get a good yield or a good interest rate on it. It's been a challenge for her because interest rates are very low. And I think they have gone up and down. We have prepared a first quarter report, which we will present to the board at a later date. But we are, we do see that sometimes that interest earnings are not as have not been as high even recently as they have been in the last year. So, in some, Phyllis has done a good job of finding good CDs and money markets to put money into. We have also had a lot of money on hand because of when we have overrides and so forth, we sit on that money and earn interest on it, both for our debt exclusions and for our operating overrides. So, I do think going forward just so you know, those numbers will probably be not as high as you see here just because for a variety of reasons, all those things are going down. Gotcha. Thank you for that explanation. And then one final thing and I've been looking trying to find the PDF me from, I guess maybe it might have been much as six months ago. I think it was really interesting to us with requesting that we sign off on bond. I think it was for like $100,000 is a very short term. Do you remember that one is a small amount and very short term interest rates really low. I don't specifically remember the bond that bond. And that's small so that's not jogging my memory. All right. Then since it doesn't, it won't make sense to follow up anymore. I just need to find that paperwork maybe, maybe I dreamt it up. And if I do, then I'll call you and have a conversation. So, so thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Mr. Diggins before I turn to Mr. Hamlet, could I ask you for a motion to receive the year and report. I would be happy to do that. You know, okay, so I very much like to make a motion to receive the report. Great. Thank you. Mr. Hamlet. Thank you. I would very much like to second Mr. Diggins motion to receive the report. I have nothing to add to Mr. Mr. Diggins find comments other than to express my personal appreciation for the outstanding fiscal management of the town and I think it's been a tough time and I think that we have a lot of people to thank for that. It's, it's always difficult to have to make budget adjustments when we know that you know revenues are going to be tough. But you know my sense is that the town manager and leading his department heads and all the staff have really pulled together to ensure that the services to the town have not suffered. And that residents continue to get a really good value for the tax dollars and I encourage residents to look at reports like this to look at the transparency to look at the careful controls that we put on our budgets and that we stick to them that we keep our promises. Because I think that's one of the most important things that a government can do for its citizens. And this report is just a really good example of the exemplary work in that regard so thank you. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Yeah, and just I just have a couple of questions and one I'll start with the reference Mrs. behind me and I know Mr. Poole you mentioned that you Miss Cody are going to be separating out the fees from the marijuana sales but if you could just break that out as far as what where it is within the line item or what what percent of the totals for calendar year 21 within the fees there. So, on page two of the memo under revenue, where it says that we collected 135% of our revenue estimate. Because this area is running ahead of estimates because of a new $158,647 of revenue from the marijuana sales tax. So it is incorporated within the total of fee revenue in this report. And I are working to change the report so you will see it as a separate line in future reports. But in FY 21, it came to $158,000. Okay, great. And I just wanted to add. Go ahead. I just wanted to add that this is going to be presented just like on the tax recap because when we do the tax recap this type of revenue it is presented as an exercise so this will be grouped together with the meals and the room exercise. So this is going to be another type of exercise. Okay, and I think that will be helpful because it is we, we're going to have a second location in town at some point and there should be more revenue. And I think it does warrant having a separate line item so thank you for doing that. And then another question on the motor vehicle exercise you said that it's below what was collected while about budget has been below prior years and I'm just wondering. What are we seeing before the pandemic because I know car sales are are less there's less inventory and the way the motor vehicle excise tax works new cars pay the highest excise tax and then you have a falling scale so I don't know if you could tell us, you perhaps wish for thinking of things start turning around after the pandemic what we might expect to see that number grow to. So, in FY 21 we collected $4.3 million in motor vehicle excise in FY 20 previous year, it was just over 5 million 5 million 49,000 and FY 19 was 5,332,000 in FY 18 was 5,551,000. And at the time it was as low as it came in and FY 21 was back in FY 13 when we collected just over $4 million. So I do expect that we'll go back up. Okay, within those ranges, probably not right away we built in it in in our long range plan to build up again over the next couple of years. Thank you and you can see the effect there. Fewer newer cars fewer newer cars being bought it really has has an impact. So just in closing I want to thank both Mr pooler Miss Cody for their work on the year end report but also the work with the long range planning committee and and you can see here from this report. While things are are well run in terms of keeping an eye on expenses keeping an eye on revenue. Notwithstanding that we still have a number of challenges ahead for fiscal years 232425 which is the long range planning issue it's not in the past but it's, there's a relationship there and we appreciate the updates. So that's where we were here and then we look forward to the hearing from you as the year goes on as well. If I could Mr chair, I just wanted to make two quick remarks. One I appreciate Mrs. Mahan's remarks about the competence and abilities of our kind of comptroller Eda Cody, and she and I will put our heads together about how we make presentations in the future so thank you for that suggestion. I couldn't do any of this work without Eda's work she does a great job keeping our books together. And I think you'll look forward to hearing from her more in the future. I would also just say there are some remarks made about our collective bargaining. Since I'm the person, along with Karen Malay who does that collective bargaining. I just want to say I think there may be some personal differences of opinion about how we bargain. But I take a lot of pride in protecting the town's interests, offering fair contracts to our employees. I think that was ratified by the recent arbitration award, which affirms the town's position. And so I don't want anybody at home being under the impression that there's something wrong with our collective bargaining. This is my two cents that somebody does the bargaining I appreciate the ability to share my views. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you, Mr. Poole. All right so when I motion to receive by Mr. Diggins seconded by Mr. Helmuth, turning time. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Decorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Thank you for your time and your time in the meeting. Okay, thank you both for the presentation tonight. All right. So given the time we have the ARPA funding is the next item on the agenda. I'm going to ask the board, we noticed a hearing forever source for age 15. It's now eight 14. go to item number six, because it's related to number seven. It's only gonna take a minute or two. Then go to the hearing for ever source and then we'll go back to number four. If anybody, if that's okay with the board, okay. Great. All right, so we will now go to item number six, removal of double polls. I asked, or I put this on the agenda, back in November of 2020, it was either ever sourced or Verizon that was in, I believe it was ever sourced on that night. I raised the question about double polls and one in particular that troubled me was on Mass Ave, across the street from Elmhurst Street, because we'd approved a certain type of, we'd approved something called a hip guy. A double poll was installed and the double poll is still there. It was there on November 9th. It was there presently. So if I could ask Mr. Chapter Lane, perhaps to share the screen for a moment, not on the pictures, but on the items related to this agenda item. And I'd like to start with the statute and then the list. And again, I'll try to keep this under a couple of minutes, but it's more discussion point and something that I'd like to see us try to do going forward when we have requests from the utility companies. So what we're gonna see here is this, this is a statute that deals with double polls, Chapter 164, Section 34B. And what it says is it's a distribution, electric distribution company, telephone company installs a new poll. The removal of the existing poll from the site shall occur within 90 days. One of the problems, one of the major problems with this statute is there's no, if there's no compliance with the statute, there's no fine, there's no sanction or anything like that. We have talked to our legislative delegation. I know Mr. Chaplain has had discussions within MMA and it's the type of thing where I really think going forward, there needs to be some annual progress towards the goal of removing double polls. If you could put the next page up or the other attachment here. And for those of you writing statutes, if you have a directive, you usually wanna have a condition or sanction or fine, whatever it is, if there's no compliance, it doesn't happen there. The other screen was the DPU report, Mr. Chaplain. Okay, this is just a summary. So the utility companies, and it's mainly Verizon and Arlington, they maintain the polls, although Eversource, as you can see there is poll owner number two. This is a copy of the report that was filed with the state, with the DPU for the period May 1, 2020 through October 31, 2020. The highlighted part there in yellow basically says as of May 1, 2020, there was 145 double polls as of October 31, it was 148. So rather than decreasing the amount, we actually saw an increase. And there is detail on the subsequent pages and I will tell you of the 148 polls, double polls in the town of Arlington. There was only one on that list that was in potential compliance with chapter 164, section 34b, there's only one double poll that had been in existence for less than 90 days. It's one that goes back as far as 2004, I think on Marathon Street. And again, this is an issue where we get requests from Eversource and from Verizon. And I think we really need to start asking what are you doing to reduce this backlog because it's gone on too far. There's some streets where you see multiple polls. I missed a chapter, only if you could share a couple of pictures here that we have. Okay, this is Warren Street. This one's been on for years. That's a double poll blocking the sidewalk. There's absolutely no need for that type of pediment on the street there. There's couple others on Warren Street. That's the type of thing that people get upset about when they see a double poll and it's the type of thing that we expect to be removed. And you couldn't get by there, it's not accessible. There's another one, I think there's one or two more. Apologies, I can't scroll through them, I have to reshare. Okay, sorry about that. No, it's okay. All right, this is the corner of Adams Street in Mass Ave, across the street from Walgreens. It's an absolute disgrace. This poll, and I think there's another poll that shows what it looks like, step back. That's the type of thing where we really would like to see some cooperation from Verizon and have a, so there it is right there, okay? And it's been there a long time. You could argue it's an attractive nuisance in terms of people, children may be going up to it and it's dangerous, there's a lot of charred wood there. That's the type of thing that gets communities upset when you see double polls. So I raise this because I'd like the board to consider, and that's suggesting it tonight, but I think we use the October 2020 report, the report for the period ending May 31, 2021 is not available yet, but use that 148 polls as a baseline and anytime Verizon or Eversource, because they do have a role here, come in, ask them what they're doing for progress towards reducing that, and I'm not looking for full compliance with the statute, that's impossible at this point, but I am looking for progress. And I think as a board, we really should consider if we're not seeing progress, we table requests in certain instances until we either get a response or we see some progress. So I'm not looking for a vote from the board, I don't know if any other members wanna comment. If you do, if you wanna signal by hand, I wanted to raise this before the public hearing and again, I'm not suggesting that we hold up this request, but I think we make it known that we want some cooperation, we wanna work with the utilities, but these double polls, the number need to be reduced in time. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for putting this on, just a very brief sort of anecdotal history. When I first got on the board in 99, within my first term, not so much double polls as they weren't as commonplace as they are now, but the condition of existing ones and getting them replaced was discussed. And I remember initially, we did start denying requests as they came in, unless it was something that was really essential. And we did get some movement on that. Not all sites we identified were replaced, but action was done on that. Since that time, twice when I've been on the board, but I have unfortunately not been chair, the issue has come up. And then there's discussion with the utilities and we don't take the step of delaying the request because there's been made a good faith effort that there will be some movement on it. So I'm just saying that I think, I know I'm in favor of what the chair is proposing because I know everybody wants to get this issue addressed, but I think it's kind of maybe like the squeaky wheel because the only time I saw movement from the utilities companies, utility companies was when the then board and chair, which was not me, took a similar step. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Diggins. Yes, Mr. Diggins, chair, I mean, I support your position. I would be interested in finding out what our legislators could do about it because as you say, as you pointed out, I mean, there is no teeth in the legislation. I mean, these things don't happen by accident. I mean, I'm sure it happened a while ago, but it might be that there is an appetite for doing something more. Being my concern about me not granting me what they're asking for is that we may be cutting off our noses, spite our face. I mean, if indeed what they want to do is something that's going to benefit me and our residents, I mean, we don't want to stop them from doing that. I mean, and certainly as a pedestrian, I think we maybe could find some way, I mean, to put some pressure based on ADA compliance, I mean, so whereas the statute may not have any teeth behind it, there may be other statutes that we could use so we could still grant them what they want, but still come at them with some other ways, in some other legal way. And also in trying to get some legislation, I mean, it'll raise the profile of it and this kind of like, bad press can kind of go away swore it's getting people to comply. I mean, it may be that, I mean, ever source and other utilities feel that they're too big for that, but they may find out that's different. So that's it, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. And as far as I'm concerned, we're talking mainly Verizon, but we're also talking ever source as well as a second owner. Mr. Herd, I don't know if you have any comments. Yeah, so I just wanted to again, thank you for your efforts. I know you're often on the double poll issue and with all the issues that we face at this board in the town, sometimes it gets put on the back burner, but I know it is something that a lot of residents are concerned about and for good reason. So I appreciate you bringing this up and just like the statute with no T that I guess, if our board just lets it pass by two without any consequence, then there's really not going to be any movement as well. So I would be on board trying to figure out what we can do to incentivize the utilities to fix these issues because given the current rate, it just seems like we're gonna have more and more double polls as fewer are resolved and more are implemented as years pass. So I think it's about time to work with the utilities. Hopefully we can work with them to resolve this issue and not against them. But again, I appreciate the efforts and bringing this before us. Thank you, Mr. Herd, Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. I appreciate your leadership on this, Mr. Chair. And I also appreciate Mrs. Mahan's position of being able to remind us and tell us what happened in the past. It's really important to know. And I support your suggestions and trust that you will notify the board of an opportunity when you say I think there is a chance that we can ask the tough questions and even contemplate some kind of consequences. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. So that covers no vote is necessary on number six. I just, I needed to get that off my chest and talk about it and I appreciate the board's comments. Okay, let's go to item seven, which is a public hearing, ever source petition, Mass Ave and Lockland Ave, Jacqueline Duffy, Supervisor of Rights and Permits. This is a public hearing. So we will all offer public comment after the presentation as well. How are you tonight? Good evening, Ms. Duffy. How are you? Good, thank you. I had taken a couple of pitches from the video that you sent tonight and I will send them to Verizon for you. And I took pictures of the list and I already sent it to my email at work so I can send that to Verizon also. And I have sent it to the manager of Somerville Service Center so we can work with you to get rid of these double polls. That last poll was just crazy. I've never seen one like that before in my 40 years that I've worked here. But tonight I'm looking for an installation on Mass Ave at Lockland Avenue for 196 feet of conduit. And this is to supply power to a new building at 882-892 Mass Ave. Okay, thank you. And this is a new building going in diagonally across the street from Ellington High School. And I appreciate your comments, Ms. Duffy. And Mr. Hurd said, I mean, we wanna work with you and we wanna work with Verizon but it's just there's a level of frustration. And as you mentioned, when you see a picture like that on our main street, it's very frustrating. So I appreciate your comments. It is Verizon set, but we have to make sure that all the other utilities that were off before Verizon can remove the poll. Okay. So I will send everything to Verizon when I get off the Zoom call. Great, we appreciate that. All right, I will turn to the board, Mr. Hurd. Thank you. And thank you, Ms. Duffy for accepting our comments and offering to work with us on the issue. This is certainly not one of the requests that we've wanted to forestall because it's for one of our property owners. So I will move approval of the request. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. This is Mohan. I will definitely second that request as well as, excuse me, taking my remarks on the previous item. I will say in all the years, since I've been on the board, I've worked with Ms. Duffy and she's true to her word. And she'll also, if something comes back that it's hit a brick wall, she'll tell you that. So I take her words very seriously. And I can tell you over the years, I've contacted Ms. Duffy. Sometimes Joe Nolan, years ago, Tom May, for Arlington issues, whether they were the massive days outages, four or five, six days. And then they upgraded the infrastructure here in Arlington. And sometimes I've called her with someone in the house and there's an issue with electricity and they have a generator that's gonna last for oxygen and things like that. And she responds within the hour. So I wanna thank the chair and Ms. Duffy for that. But I still wanna, as long as the chair feels that there actually is an end in sight or movement on this, I'll wait to hear from him. So thank you very much. I think I seconded it. Yes, you did. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Does that memo from Mr. Shunard apply to this? Yeah, in terms of conditions or? Yes. Yeah, so I mean, what we can do is if it's okay with Mr. Herd, the approval will be subject to the conditions. Yes, because I mean, there are good conditions. You know, Mr. Shunard, he tells it like it is. And I mean, I read this, and I was just impressed with his thoroughness, as I was going through it, I was going, oh, I mean, the initial request was like, oh, man, I mean, I don't know what to make of this. We had an engineer that looked at it and one did and came up with, I thought, some really good conditions. So definitely with those conditions. So thank you. Okay, thank you, Mr. Diggins. Mr. Helmeth. No comments, happy to support the motion. Okay. This is a public hearing. So the public is welcome to comment on this request. Mr. Chapterling, I don't know if anybody has a hand up on this one. There are no hands raised right now, Mr. Chair. Okay, thank you. And I will support this as well. And my intent tonight wasn't to put this one off. As I said, I'd like to use that report as a baseline to see where we go in the future in terms of progress. Ms. Duffy, I really appreciate your comments and your willingness to look into this. So on a motion by Mr. Herd, seconded by Mrs. Mahan, Attorney Heim. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmeth. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes, thank you. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. An anonymous vote. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So now we will go back to agenda item number four, our funding presentation by Mr. Chapterling. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to be as efficient as possible with time. I'd like to do a series of things. One, I'd like to walk through updates that I've made to the proposed framework since we last spoke. Then I would like to share on the screen the proposed voted motions that I provided for the board's consideration tonight. And then actually in between those two, just make a couple of comments about some later breaking requests that have come into the board that I'd like to just provide a little bit of clarity on a path forward for. So with that, I will share a spreadsheet. Okay. Can everybody see those numbers or they have adequate size? I see a thumbs up. Okay. So I'll start right at the top. I made a series of reductions since we last spoke to the revenue loss slash general fund category in order to make some of the other changes that I'll detail in just a moment. Public health as well as equity and outreach remain the same as the last time the board viewed this plan. The next category in row nine, premium pay for town slash school essential workers that increased to $4 million. That's an approximate $750,000 increase from the last time this board reviewed this plan. Once again, trying to hear the thoughts, concerns and wishes of the boards board members as was expressed the last meeting. I do want to note I was able to speak to the presidents of both the police and fire unions, the patrol officers union and the fire union today specifically to inquire very briefly about their thoughts around ARPA and premium pay as well as to commit to them a desire to begin bargaining as soon as possible and as soon as these figures are endorsed by the board enabling me to move forward. Next, based on suggestions, feedback, and I guess prompting from several board members I've added a category of premium pay for private sector essential workers in the amount of $500,000 as you see reported here. I don't have tonight greater detail to offer in terms of what a program in that regard would look like but I did want to put that figure in again in response to what I've heard from several board members. I think it's, I guess it's a good thing that today the House of Representatives on Beacon Hill released their ARPA slash surplus bill which contained monies for both premium pay for what they were calling frontline state employees as well as premium pay for low wage private sector and essential workers. So we've been able to create a good parallel here. Next, behavioral health support has remained the same since the last time the board reviewed this plan. There's no further changes until we get down to food security. Once again, in an attempt to be responsive to feedback, questions and comments from board members what I added to the food security line was a $100,000 reserve in each of the first three years. And let me just scroll over in a $50,000 amount in the last year creating overall $350,000 reserve for food security. I did this really for two primary reasons. One, to be able to ensure there's adequate resources under this category to talk further with the applicants the two primary food security agencies in Arlington to ensure that we are adequately meeting their needs but also to set aside funds for a suggestion of a potential initiation of a community kitchen in Arlington, a project that would take more research and work but I wanted to make sure we did have resources allocated for that potential. Making to make all of this possible. I not only had to reduce, as I mentioned earlier the revenue loss category but I did modestly reduce the amounts that had been contained in the HVAC improvements as well as improvements to parks and open spaces. So there's been slight reductions in those two amounts. Everything else in the plan remains the same as the board had seen in the prior iteration. What I'd like to say before moving over to the vote is that I know the board has seen a request that was sent in last week by the Chamber of Commerce requesting direct support of their efforts focused on economic revitalization and recovery as a separate request for many assistance that might be granted under the small business and non-profit assistance program. It wasn't timely such that changes could be made to consider that request tonight. However, I communicated with the leadership of the Chamber of Commerce that I would be happy to engage in a conversation with them about finding a way to see if we could fulfill that request in a future iteration of this plan. And I think as you'll see in the proposed votes, there are enough categories for which more work needs to be done on such that I feel confident being able to come back to the board with recommendations to fulfill that after a discussion with the Chamber of Commerce. Additionally, I've received communication and I believe the board has received communication about the Arlington Housing Authority's interest in purchasing affordable condominium units and asking for that authorization tonight. My response to the Housing Authority board member that's reached out to me about that was simply to say that I think it is a very good idea but that I would be proposing tonight or asking tonight for the board to endorse the categories or endorse the allocation, excuse me, for the category of affordable housing but to await further analysis and then a programmatic recommendation for the expenditure of the affordable housing funds. I would presume there's a very strong likelihood that we would come back and recommend utilizing some portion of this funding to help the Housing Authority acquire units but I think it would be most responsible to do so as part of a comprehensive recommendation for the allocation of these affordable housing funds. So I thought it was important to acknowledge that and acknowledge how we're thinking about moving forward in that regard. Finally, before going to the vote, I will say I did have the opportunity to meet with our legislative delegation today virtually, Representative Garvely, Representative Rogers and Senator Friedman to share with them this framework and its current form and also to learn from them more about what the legislature is thinking in terms of their ARPA and surplus expenditures. I will be preparing some potential requests that our house delegation members will work together to file as potential amendments to the bill that was released by the house today and then work in collaboration with Senator Friedman's office as well, if any of those amendments are successful in the house. It does seem overall, I know I focused on premium pay a moment earlier, does seem overall like the house's package aligns quite nicely with how we've already thought about prioritizing these expenditures with money being made available for economic recovery, affordable housing, premium pay. So I think we will be in good position to be able to potentially leverage some of these funds that will be made available by the state. HVAC improvements, I left that off. They also are putting a significant amount of money towards HVAC improvements. With that, I'm gonna stop sharing and just switch documents for one moment. So what I've done here, let's see if I can scroll here. I've broken down a motion for the board's consideration to two categories. And just for those at home, what I'll say is the first category, the motion is suggesting or asking for the board to endorse the following expenditures by category and the implementation of programs recommended within each category, per memorandum provided to the board by relevant town departments. And what you'll see here is I've listed the public health category, which has been outlined by Director of Health and Human Services, Christine Barniorno, the premium pay for town and school essential workers, which they're not outlined by a memorandum. I think we've discussed that length and I would immediately begin working to bargain or sit with unions to figure out exactly how that will be rolled out by different employee groups, behavioral health support, two of the categories that have been outlined, again, be a memorandum from Director of Health and Human Services, Christine Barniorno, small business and nonprofit assistance, intended assistance, which have been spelled out in memorandum by Director of Planning and Community Development, Jenny Rae, and then administration and oversight, which will allow us not only to pay for outside auditing firms, but to hire either an employee or potentially a consultancy to help us with the management administration of these funds over the course of the next several years. Below that, for the second section, what I'm asking for is an endorsement of the following allocations by category, with the understanding that further endorsement will be sought following the development and presentation of programmatic details for each of the categories. So you'll see here the first category being revenue loss general fund. Really that money is just being set aside while we wait to see if we can have treasury make some changes that would be advantageous to us to allow us to gain that benefit. Next would be the equity and outreach funds for which a plan is currently being developed. Premium pay for private sector essential workers. As I mentioned earlier, the money's been set aside, but a plan for its potential distribution would still need to be developed. The behavioral health reserve, just as it's called, that's been set aside as a reserve for potential needs as they might identify themselves. So I will come back in the future for potential requests from that fund. Low income broadband support. We're still working to understand whether or not those funds could be expended in Arlington based on the federal rule, but setting those aside now would allow us to do that in the future. Providing food security. I think we have a clearer idea of what we would want to do with food security funds, especially for food link in Arlington eats, but I'd like a little more time to work through that with each of those agencies, but would like the boards endorsement of that total amount to be committed to food security, HVAC improvements and investment in parks and open spaces, very similarly, clear what we want to make those investments in, but we need more time to delineate and outline exactly what we want to expend those funds on. I think HVAC improvements will take us a little more time as we go through our building electrification study, investment in parks and open spaces, we might be able to come back as early as the next meeting with a plan that's being put together by Recreation Director, Joe Conley. Water sewer spending, $6.6 million of which 1.6 has already been endorsed by a board vote back in August. Probably similar to parks and open spaces, Mr. Rotemarker in public works would be able to very quickly put together his prioritized plan for those funds. Affordable housing in that total amount, though I think delineated quite specifically about where we are thinking about focusing them. It's likely that I would come back for endorsement in chunks for each of these amounts of money. I'd like to be able to, if the board does go to endorse it in its current form tonight, begin working immediately with the housing authority to hammer out and understanding an agreement for the funds to make repairs to monotony manner and then spend a little more time on coming forward with a proposal for affordable housing unit production and or the deepening of affordability of units in the pipeline. And then finally, the homelessness line, again, of which $50,000 was already endorsed by the board for a vote in August to be distributed to the Housing Corporation of Arlington for a homelessness prevention program that they're running. But the rest of these funds are actually actively working both internally and externally with a group of students from the Harvard Kennedy School and their graduate program to work on potential long range solutions to the homelessness problem in the challenge in Arlington. So with that, that is the entirety of what I wanted to share for the board tonight. And I'd be happy to answer any questions you have and would look forward to your consideration of these two categorized votes of endorsement. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Delane. So I'm gonna turn to the board but just last meeting we had run out of time. So I said that we would take public comment on this issue. What I would like to do is get initial comments from board members, then receive comments if there's anybody from the public that would like to speak and we'll try to bear in mind that we've got a bunch of things coming up on the agenda afterwards then return to board members after that. So I'm gonna start with the board, go to the public and the public can start raising their hand if they would like to get on the list here for speakers and I'll start with Mr. Helmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So would you suggest if a board member would be inclined to move approval on this, this would be a good time or would you suggest to do that in the second round of board comments? Well, it's up to you but you may want to hear from everybody beforehand. I mean, I think we will be coming back to board members after we hear from the public. So if you have particular comments on, but I leave it up to you but we will be coming back a second time to board members. Yeah, that sounds right to me as well. So yeah, thank you. And thank you, Mr. Towne Manager for your responsiveness to the board, to the community. I was grateful for the additional reserves for the food security area. I know you and I have talked about that at length and I appreciate the increase in premium pay as well and the addition of a category for private sector. That discussion I think has really, my reading of the statute and of the federal rule about that really is consistent with the spirit of that. And I think that we saw that reinforced today in the houses release, the state house release of their thoughts about premium pay which is that a lot of workers deserve that consideration including the workers that we've talked about but I think that the spirit of that is very clearly does emphasize the workers who have had to face COVID risky conditions and not have very high salaries. So I think that the care for those folks is evident in this plan and I'm happy to support that. I just had a quick question if you could, and I apologize if I just missed this, if you could give me an idea of what the equity and outreach category kinds of program or work that could be what that could look like. I know you said that you'll come back to us with something but this is just so I get a sense for what that could be. So Mr. Chair, through you to Mr. Helmuth. I do plan to work with Jill Harvey, our director of DEI to really outline that but the two main focuses that I think we can focus on or utilize those funds for would be to provide translation services not only for the documents and programmatic applications or whatever they might be for ARPA related programs but really for a broader set of documents and programs and offerings that the town offers in general. So that would be one. The second would be finding the right way to enhance the potential for staff community engagement capacity. I know that Jill has a lot of interest in finding the right ways to broaden her community engagement especially with communities of color and vulnerable populations in Arlington but Jill is one person and that's been matched up with expressions from really I would say many people in the community asking us to figure out if there was a way to fund a community engagement position in town. So I need to work through that a little more with Jill and make sure that we could put something together that's the right fit and is also eligible for the use of these funds but at least sitting here tonight I think it would be primarily focused on enhancing community engagement and providing translation services. Thank you, I'm glad I asked actually that both of those sound really good to me. I have to say as the board member who recently came off of a campaign season and the great thing about running for public office is that you do a lot of listening. And I heard a lot from a lot of community members about the town's commitment to equity and a real appetite and desire to do more and to do especially in the outreach department of really being proactive in making our town government accessible to people who don't feel like they naturally have a voice, don't feel that confidence to walk into town hall may not be so easy for them to do that because they're holding down two jobs and all of that. So I'm really interested in that category and I encourage you and Ms. Harvey who I think the world of to continue that line of work. I think that it's for me it's another reflection of our values that the ARPA budget is an opportunity. It is a reflection of our values and how we see our communities need. And there's a lot of need and a lot of opportunity but I really like what I'm seeing in this balanced view that takes into account rewarding our employees who've done really, really well and bravely under difficult circumstances making public infrastructure investments that are important and impossible but also taking care of the people in the community who are least advantaged. That's really important to me. I think that's really important to a majority of Arlington residents. So thanks for all of that both in this category and throughout the proposed budget. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I'm happy what I see too. And you know, as a person who didn't grow up with much money, I never resented rich people and I'm always fine with rich people making more money. I just wanted poor people to have enough. So they weren't poor. That's all and we can get there. And one of the things when doing some research about the pay for frontline workers, me low income workers, me a lot of places, in fact, hardly anyone's doing it because it's hard. It's like, how do you figure out who they are and any number of reasons for why it's just seemingly impossible to do it? But we really do poor people even more with this service by putting them in a position where they are suffering and then going, but it's so now hard to figure out who you are that we're not even gonna try. And so we've gotta try and we'll learn something in the process and so I put our effort to try and as I've told the town manager, I'm the sort of manager who doesn't like to just tell someone else to do something. It's like I like to get in there and try to help too. So to the extent you'll have my help, I'm willing to help out however I can, doing research, just tell me what you want, what may they do to help solve it, solving this problem or at least trying to solve the problem but finding out who they are in town and we may find out that we need more resources but you know what, I'm glad the state is helping out on this because I don't want this to turn into a battle made for who gets what. I mean, let's just try to give everyone more because everyone's been through a rough time and everyone could use some more assistance. I mean, for those who maybe get more assistance than they need, they can always donate that money to some worthy cause in town. So I'm pleased with what I see and that community kitchen could become a nice incubator space that I think the chain of commerce might even have a role in. So let's go forward. I mean, let's see what the state and the federal government helps out, provides more additional help and build on that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Mr. Hurd. Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you, Mr. Chaplain for the presentation. This is the third or fourth or fifth meeting that we've gone through the ARPA funds and I know there's been many iterations of the numbers that we've seen. I do want to thank Tom Manager for heating our, you know, one of the issues that I really talked about was premium pay in the last couple of meetings and the numbers go in the right direction and the four million is the amount that I suggested in the last meeting. So I do want to thank the Tom Manager for taking that into consideration and moving that number up. I know there's a lot of different opinions on the premium pay and it would be nice for us to just say, let's max out every employee in town, but there's more considerations. And I think the four million dollars is a good number to allow the Tom Manager to work with the unions to make sure everyone's fully compensated for what, for all the vast efforts that they put in during the pandemic, but particularly our first responders. We've talked about this in past meetings and shared stories about first responders that we've talked to and a lot of the sacrifices that they've had to make. And me, Ms. Mahan and Chair DeCorsi recently this past week attended the firefighters retirement party and had another opportunity to talk to many, many firefighters and there were a few officers there about really how hard the past year was on them. And I know, and these are a lot of these expenses that they'll recover aren't, it's not a bonus. It's really compensating them for expenses that they've had during the pandemic and really some incredibly scary experiences that they've had. So again, I do wanna thank all of our first responders for all the efforts that they have done during the pandemic and continue to do. And I hope we can, I'm confident we can come to a fair allocation of the premium pay. My one question left over from premium pay is we have a flat number here and I think Ms. Chaplin has a lot of work to do with the various unions and I know it includes school department workers. Now, are we gonna have an opportunity once the negotiations are underway and you come up with figures that look relatively final? Are we gonna have an opportunity to review the amount allocated to the individual workers to approve that as well? Or are we just approving the four million and you'll let us know where it was spent? I guess what I'm saying is are we gonna be have an opportunity to see the individual allocations and approve that? Ms. Chaplin. Yep, thank you Mr. Heard. So I'm open to discussing that with the board. I do think it could potentially make discussions more complex and more complicated to need to seek further board approval in the future. But if the board's preference is to have an approval over it, I would certainly assent to that request. At the very least, I would absolutely bring back to the board a presentation of how the figures broke down but I'm open to the board's preference or prerogative in that regard. Yeah, and I can hear from my colleagues and I can speak with you offline as well. I just, like I said, we just see one big number that encompasses the work of a lot of people and it would be good to at some point, and I don't wanna overcomplicate things. I definitely don't wanna delay our workers being paid but it would be good to, at least from my perspective to take a second look at what the actual breakdown will be once the negotiations are underway. Then I did have a question and I think you've touched on this for the premium pay for the private sector workers and I thank Mr. Diggins for bringing this up as well. And I think that's great. I think it is good to, when it was first raised last week and it was kind of in the midst of the premium pay discussion for our town workers, it seemed almost an impossible task to try to figure out how we could pay private sector workers but there's a lot of private sector workers who are in need who did a lot of work that helped keep our community going during the pandemic, particularly during the shutdown. So it would be interested to see what the parameters would be again, once they're figured out as to who will qualify. But I think that's certainly one category which I assume would have been one of the parameters anyways that we could have a pretty strict income level where there'll be a cutoff as far as income. And I think that will help kind of weed out the people that really needed this that were essential workers because I remember when the essential worker list came out and I was looking at it to see if I could stay home. I learned that there, I wasn't, I know how lawyers are essential workers for anybody but it was a broad list. So there's certainly, we wanna make sure that that particular category is going specifically to those most in need. And I know this is something that you would have taken into account anyways but I just wanted to say that and that's another category that I would like to have. You just come back to us and just let us know how the allocation is gonna be particularly before we start accepting applicants because then we'll know who we can contact for those funds. But otherwise, I know we've made some adjustments and one of the drawbacks of having a set amount of money is when we asked for more money in one category, it pulls from another category but this is a working progress. It will progress over a couple of years and I do think that the allocations to premium pay were necessary in this first year since it's a one-shot deal for premium pay so I do appreciate that. That's it. Thank you, Mr. Heard. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair and before my remarks which because of what's before us, little bit of the wind in my sails has been taken out so they'll be shorter in that aspect. I've done this a couple of times at the select board meeting and people have asked me if there was some message behind it and I did it again tonight during the chairman's presentation. I have my audio and video on this laptop. When screen share comes on, I have to turn to my right to look at what's being saved. I do have it printed out but I always look what's on the screen in case it changed and if you see my head tilt, it's just because there's some columns that I need to tilt my head a little bit to look at them. I'm not trying to send a message to cast any dispersion so I just wanted to make that clear. It's amazing what some people, which they're curious. Okay, trying to keep it sort of, I guess again, dovetail on Mr. Heard and my colleagues remarks starting with the private sector, essential employees. I totally agree it's not gonna be an easy task but it certainly isn't insurmountable. Part of the work that needs to be done is not only identifying the Allington residents and or when the manager last week said, I think he said consultants or contractors, the only one that I could think of that seemed justified that may not be Allington residents are the sanitation and cleaning crews. I see a town hall since day one coming out to do that. Beyond that in terms of, I would like to see in the manager said he'll be giving it to us in the future as my colleagues have said, sort of what the parameters of that are but I also like to see more importantly, when I grew up in monotony manner, I never knew it had that name. It was the bricks, the duplex and another word that I can't say at a select board meeting. But one of the things I knew going down there, a lot of families, a lot of individuals, head of households working two or three jobs and still not making a living wage, a decent living wage. You need to have, you need to approach them in a way that it's not something they have to worry about but I can tell you as somebody who's been in that position, in the family position, sometimes you're a little fearful to ask for help, especially if it's somebody or an agency that you've never had contact with. Sometimes you're fearful because you're, that you're gonna ask for help and you're gonna lose some other funding you're getting or you're gonna see your rent go up. I know when I lived in the duplex, there was a big fear of that and I hear it to some extent happens today. So I would say to our Health and Human Services Director or whoever else the manager tasked with this to get to the town workers or some of them with the homeless coalition through the Orange and Police Department through FoodLink, through anyone that has, is providing services to an Allington resident, maybe the person that picks them up in the council on aging or if you're disabled and gets you to work, that we enable or employ them or encourage them to speak to these constituent groups to say, listen, this is a real deal. It's money you're entitled for, nothing bad's gonna happen. And I know that's something that obviously is gonna be thought about but just someone who's lived it, lived the dream. I know what it is. I think there were several programs perhaps back when I was growing up. Sorry, members suggesting them to my parents and that's sort of from there. Regarding the state APRA funding and I believe the PFFM is at their conference today. I think it was Hiannis. Pretty much everybody around the state and I'm not trying to be like a Debbie Down or anything like that, but, and I know the legislative delegation's gonna say, oh, we could help work on that. Pretty much that money's designated for like STIU employees, correctional officers, court officers. I don't wanna not try to get some money but I would not really count on that till it's in the bank. So my question to the manager would be, are you committing at the very least 4 million, not with the caveat that, well, we're only gonna give you three because we anticipate and get a million from the state. Is it gonna be allocated? And then if we do get that money from APRA, we can look at how we can perhaps give more to essential workers. But honestly, I don't see how we get that. So if I can ask the manager that question. Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, through you, Ms. Mohan. This is Mohan. No, I think we understand it the same way. I don't have any thoughts that the state premium pay would become available to us. So my approach to this would be that the 4 million that's currently proposed in the framework would be entirely made available to the town and school employees, then that I wouldn't be counting on any state support for them. Okay. And then I guess the remainder of my remarks, again, dovetailing on Mr. Hertz, originally I was coming in because it was my understanding we were gonna vote on only four categories. So that would bring a total of five. And I was feeling very frustrated that I didn't see APRA on there for essential town workers and essential private sector workers. So I was really gonna bang the drum on that, but thankfully that is there. What I'm hearing is we're committed to the 4 million. The only way that number changes is if it goes up. Having said that, I recognize my role, my lane. And I think people recognize and respect that I'm gonna say for any employee, as we do with our town manager and schedule employee when we can't pair their positions to comparable communities like Brookline and Lexington, which also has a lot of business tax, they're either at the top or the top of what their peers are being paid. And I have the same dedication I have to that. I also have to town employees. And that's why I really wanted the 4.7 million because two people who I spoke in town government who I trust quoted a figure of it might be almost 5 million. So, and then somebody else told me it's about 4.7. So that's why I'm pushing for that. So I'll keep doing that. And yes, I was proud to have joined the chairman, Mr. Ducorsi, who also gave remarks and distributed the proclamation along with Mr. Heard. We had Representative Gobily representing the legislative delegation. But we did not have, and I did not know until I went into the Crown Plaza ballroom, less than a hundred people, more than socially distanced. Firefighter party, retirement party that's happened every year for, did someone say 46 or more, also had a representative from the PFFM district sets who told a very nice story about Chief Jefferson that really summarizes character. When I walked in and you have to understand this event, firefighter family, if you're an associated one, you get what this night is. This is a night that's a little bittersweet. This is a night that you're happy if the person's going out and still has their health and some don't. This is a night where the families come in and they talk about it at family events. They talk, I've gone to wakes where I've seen proclamations out from, and I remember saying, you deserve so much more. And they talk about, believe it or not, all town employees, spouses and families, know the top cat or dog is the town manager. So when every table came in and brought their families for retirement, I walked in, there's the town hall table reserved, nobody's there. Normally, previous town managers, I didn't serve with Don Marquis, so I don't know. I believe Brian Sullivan. I remember him not being invited initially, but he may have at the end. But one of the things that I was always impressed with, and it's known that if the town manager doesn't go, a designee or designees and his steed goes instead. Normally we have Mr. Chaptaling, Mr. Pooler, Mr. Feeney. I know he's on vacation last week, Ms. Molloy, usually Ms. Bonjourno. I think I saw Ms. Wright once because there was something germane. I don't expect all the department heads to go, but this is an event to show your respect and your support. And it is a labor event. And to Mr. Chaptaling and Mr. Pooler, who I'm gonna disagree on his remarks directed to me. And I'd be happy to have a conversation with him. I've already shared it with the manager. But I understand you're old and happy you are. But Mr. Chaptaling, Mr. Pooler and Ms. Molloy, they are the persons we designate for our labor relations. It's not negotiations. It's not to say we'd like to give you what you worth, but we have no money, 12 million in free cash. And to walk in there, part of the program that all the families know, and I'm saying this with sincere intent, not trying to take advantage of the situation. They know someone gets up from the state delegation, someone gets up from the select board, and the town manager as designee gets up. And if it's not the town manager, it's something usually written by Marx prepared by him. So that outright snub and sign of disrespect. And if someone tries to say to me, oh, we're concerned about COVID-19, I say to you, Mr. Chaptaling, this is an event that I consider in your contract that when you receive a request by any union or non-union, you need to respond to that. If you had done maybe the man-up thing to say, you know what, I'm ticked off at unions right now, so nobody's coming to find out that night that there's an empty table. And to say, oh, it's COVID-19, I've got asked two weeks ago by an East Arlington resident, town meeting member organized a L-life walkthrough on a Saturday morning. And she contacted you, I believe emailed, and requested that you come. And I remember one of the residents said, do you really think the manager will come? And I didn't say what I wanted to say, which is no way he's down in Denim. He's not committing four hours on a Saturday. What I said was, I can guarantee you, and this is how I feel about this fire event. Because if I had any whiff that this was gonna happen, I would have said these remarks beforehand to try to save the insult and embarrassment these families had to deal with. I don't know how many times we were asked. Where's the town manager? Where's the town department heads? The manager did not go to that gathering of 15, 16 people for the better part of an hour and a half up and down the L-wave, but he sent the health and human service director who also doesn't live in Allington but lives closer and it was appropriate for her to be there. So that total snub to totally blow off, I feel you all, not so much the firefighters themselves, they're embarrassed for their families. And that's what it was. I mean, I heard it all night long. I didn't fan any flames. What I said was, I had no idea they were all blown it off until I showed up and you see the empty town hall reserve tables and not even cast but the friendly ghost was there. So please take those remarks that I'm sincere about that. I was very upset that night. Very embarrassed. And if you're gonna say, oh, it's COVID-19, maybe you shouldn't be in municipal employment because you're a town manager, you're a department head. Rotemock is out all the time everywhere in the street. I try not to stop and talk to them too much. If you're that concerned and other department heads about COVID-19 and not even checking out to find out less than a hundred people, we were like 10, 12 feet apart at each table. Then maybe this isn't the career for you because I still do my job at 3000. So I'm very upset about that. And I know I haven't beaten the dead horse but I really wanted to get that across because I was just, if I could crawl into my chair all night, I would have done it because I was so embarrassed. So I hope I can get from the manager a commitment in the future that that will never happen again. And there will be at least some representation and congratulations on another thing that got snubbed by town hall. There was one employee who spouse came from the union. She also received the citizen of the year award and we know what the fire department's meant to her and her family and what they've done for her. And so you know her, she's like, I don't give it, you know what? It rolls off my back. But you know what? I think people do care and I didn't appreciate that slight either. Thank you. I don't know if the manager wants the same thing just. Yeah, I'm gonna do, I don't know if you want to say something Mr. Chapter-Liner. Well, Mr. DeCorsi, it's not, I mean, I would defer to you as it's not at all in the scope of the agenda item. Okay, now I'm gonna put this card because I- I don't know what- Excuse me just a second. No, let me tell you why, Mr. DeCorsi because twice you have cut me off this is attempting now a night of conversation with you a month ago and Friday night about the fact that these meetings were going well past 11 into midnight. And I pointed out when we had the mass in Appleton, I said, you know, I'm gonna say you can't talk about that because it's not on the agenda or it's, yeah, it's in there. It's kind of broad. And what you said to me is and you haven't done this with my other colleagues, you said, well, I don't like to cut any select member forward off. They have a right to say what they're going to say. I know that's your style but I leave it up to the individual member. So I would like that same person. Are you talking to me, Mrs. Mohan? Yes, I would like to do Mr. Chapter Lane's remarks to that. If he cares to respond, but I allowed you to talk, you know, you have the right, as I say to you, you have the right to talk on these issues. It's, you made your opinion felt if Mr. Chapter Lane wishes to respond or couldn't respond if he wants to talk offline to you about it, he can talk offline to you about it. I do think this is an opera discussion. I understand we heard your concerns and the fact that you're upset about this. I personally, I went to the event. I know there were reasons why people didn't go to the event. I'm going to respect their choices on that. And I think it's something, frankly, that is better talked about offline, perhaps between the two of you and in terms of what the issues were and what the considerations were, rather than have the board talk about it during the meeting tonight. Sorry, that's the way I feel about it, given where we are on this discussion. If Mr. Chapter Lane would like to talk, respond tonight, he can, if he doesn't want to, he doesn't have to on that point. But I think this is something that I think, to be honest with you, I mean, again, you expressed the concern. I was there with you the other night. I did go, but I'm not going to put them on the spot to say why you didn't go or what your consideration was. I know, but you have to respect them. The senior member on the board, I should be the same opportunity. I do, just because you want to give him the luxury of whatever, saying you don't have to respond, I say I want a response and I want a response from him. And whatever that response is, it is what it is. But I know a lot of town employees watch these meetings and if you want to declare the error or whatever, but I want a response to why the town manager and his department heads in town hall all snubbed that event that traditionally has gone to and a commitment that that won't happen again. Or if it is, at least give people a heads up. And again, I don't want to delay the meeting a long time here. This is an awkward discussion. It's not a discussion about what happened at the Firefighters Retirement Party. And I think, to be honest with you and it's my meeting to run in terms of what's within scope and what isn't, you made your point. I, and I think that's fine to make the point. I think this is something that if the manager wants to respond tonight, he can. He doesn't have to. That's fine, that's fine, that's fine. But when Mr. Heier brought up the Fire Department Party, he was not cut off, he was allowed to talk. And because it wasn't making people uncomfortable, sometimes you need to be uncomfortable to fix things and make it better. But we're going back and forth. I would like to hear from the manager. He can give me his best. He can respond, Mr. Heier. I'm going to cut you off right now for a second because I didn't cut you off either. Okay, I allowed you to speak. I allowed you to talk about the party. Frankly, it's not within the scope. I allowed you to go on. You asked the question. I'll turn to Mr. Chapter. If he wants the answer right now, he can answer right now. If he would prefer to reach out to you, I'll allow him to do that. I can't go back and forth on this issue right now. You made your point. I didn't cut you off when you were making your point when you spoke. So I don't think it's fair to say you didn't cut Mr. Heier off, and now you're cutting me off because I allowed you to finish. Okay, the last thing I said, I would like to hear from the manager and you may go back and forth. I'm going to turn to Mr. Chapter now. This is Mahan. Mr. Chapter Lane, if you would like to respond now, you can. I look to you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will respond briefly to the concerns raised by Mrs. Mahan. In terms of the firefighters retirement banquet, I made a very hard decision to not go based on concerns about COVID. I've made, I've unfortunately gone, I've not gone to a few things that would have otherwise been very important to me over the course of the past several months based on a decision that I've made that I'm not going to go to events like that until my two children are vaccinated. And I frankly respect everyone's decisions around COVID and I would expect the same of mine. I don't judge people for doing certain things and I don't judge people for not doing certain things. I think I've attended every firefighter retirement banquet since I started for the town as deputy town manager. It's an event I greatly enjoy attending and it was a really hard decision to not go last Friday. And I regret that it was a decision that had to be made and I wish I could have been there. I don't understand the accusation of a snub without letting anybody know that's not factual or accurate. But I do, it was a very painful heart decision for me because I care deeply about our firefighters, their families and the work they do for the town. In regard to the event, the Aleph Brooke, I believe you also suggested that I was unresponsive to that request, which is also not the case. I responded that on Saturday morning I was preoccupied bringing my children to their soccer games that I would be very happy to meet with the advocates around that issue and bring whichever members of the town's staff would be necessary to help them figure out the right ways to advocate for concerns being expressed about combined sewer overflows into the Aleph Brooke. So I think the accusations of lack of responsiveness are unfounded and I generally back to the firefighters banquet, it was a hard decision, but again, until my children are vaccinated, it's not nothing specific to the firefighters, any event like that, I won't be going to. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chaplain. I'm gonna move on, as I said, we're gonna take public comment on this. I will reserve comments until after we hear from the public. Mr. Chaplain, is there anybody who has their hand raised? Elizabeth Dre has her hand raised. Okay, good evening, Mr. Ray. Good evening, thank you, Elizabeth Dre. I will be very quick just to say how thrilled I am to have seen the equity outreach position and inclusive of translation services. It's been an issue that's been very close to my heart that I've been very vocal about in town over the last couple of years and I'm absolutely thrilled, really thrilled to see that there and I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ray. All right, is there anybody else who wishes to speak? Her hand's raised right now, Mr. DeCorsi. Okay, as I said, I will return to the board and I will go in the same order, Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. I'd like to move approval of the town manager's draft vote as written. And I just need to say that I think it is entirely within the scope of exemplary town manager performance to do exactly what our town manager has decided to do. And frankly, I don't think it is appropriate to second guess anyone's health decisions about COVID. I'm embarrassed that this happened tonight. I think it is poor use of the public's time and money and I'm glad that the town manager took the opportunity to explain, even though he shouldn't have had to, his personal decisions. We do not need to be talking about insults as if we are enemies and at each other's throats. We are all on the same team. We all value immensely the contributions that our public servants and our first responders make. And I hope that the citizens of Arlington understand that we have a town manager and a staff who are fair and value the contributions of everybody. And frankly, I don't think that brow-beating the town manager over a specific incident in the middle of a pandemic is appropriate to the dignity of this body and certainly not a good use of the public's time. So I'm not gonna spend any more time discussing that but I needed to say it. And on the positive side, as I said before, I think that the Arbor framework that we're voting on is a really fair representation of this community's values. It values our first responders, our teachers, but it values the less fortunate among us. It values our public health, our mental health, our infrastructure. There's so much more in ARPA than premium pay. And I think that that has gotten short shrift when we've gone a bit afield of that. So I encourage the public to look at the document, to reflect upon it, to think about how it reflects their values and to stay in touch with us about that because this is a work in progress. So again, I'm happy to move just toward the town manager's budget. I think I'm open to what my colleagues think but to Mr. Herd's suggestion, my preference would be to not ask in this vote for the town manager to come back to us for specific approvals on the premium pay. I think only because it could make it difficult to get that done in a timely manner. And I'm not sure speaking for myself that I want to be involved at that granular level. I think there comes a time where we need to let the town manager and the staff kind of do the good faith work that they do in the broad context of all the other negotiations they do with our workers. So personally, I'm comfortable just voting this as is but respectful of my colleagues' thoughts on that as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, thank you, Mr. Helmuth. I'm Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will second that motion and I guess with respect to what other to come back to the board. I mean, my understanding is that you, Mr. Chair, are in touch with the town manager regularly, me. So I think that you can stay on top of it. And if anything you feel should be brought to the board, you'll do so in a timely manner so that if we need to feedback, we need to make some adjustments, we can do so. So I'll trust you on that one. And it sure is an interesting board. And so that's all, thank you. Okay, just one point on that, Mr. Diggins. And I think if we vote the way we're doing it, we're basically authorizing the town manager to conduct things. So I'm not planning on, I'm not gonna call it intervening but I mean, in terms of, he came to me and said I wanna come back to the board absolutely. But I think what Mr. Hurd was saying, do we wanna have that additional step, Mr. Helmeth feels that probably best to have Mr. Chapter Lane do the best that it can. So I appreciate your comments, but I think depending on the vote tonight, I'm not going to step in and say, okay, I want more input on a particular issue absent Mr. Chapter Lane coming to me depending on how we vote tonight. So I just wanna be clear on that. Right, I understand it and I appreciate that. And so I'm going to stand by being, I mean, I'm going to be in agreement with some Mr. Helmeth being, I was thinking of kind of the relationship that I have with the chair where I kind of, I touch based on a lot of things on a regular basis. I mean, so this would be one where I would be touching base scene. And if I felt that something should be brought to the board, then it would be like two people that could determine whether or not something comes back to the board. It would be the town manager and myself, you're choosing not to do that. And that's fine. And so I will stick with, I will agree with Mr. Helmeth in really the interest of time and trust. So is that clear, Mr. Chair? Yeah, yeah, no. And I'm sorry, not that I'm not choosing to do it. I wanna follow what the board's preferences through what Mr. Helmeth expressed. And I think you're in agreement with Mr. Helmeth on that. And if there's a need, any member, if we need more clarification can ask for it. But I just didn't want it to be left open that this is gonna be some sort of discussion between Mr. Chapterland and I after we vote in terms of what a particular decision is gonna be. If we vote this, we're basically saying to him, okay, we're entrusting this to you. And if there's a need to come back, you come back to us. Right, Mr. Chair. Okay, we might be on the same page. Yes, we are. Thanks for the clarification. Okay, Mr. Heard. Sorry to complicate things. And I'm 100% fine with Eric's motion, Mr. Helmeth's motion. And like you said, we've had these discussions in Mr. Chapterland is in each situation adjusted the figure to what our recommendations were. So he is certainly shown that he's following the board's wishes on particularly premium pay. So I can just follow up with Mr. Chapterland and maybe have a request that not it come from this board, but maybe we can have a discussion once you figure out the parameters. I'll just give you my thoughts, just as one board member, as opposed to coming back up for any sort of approval and I'll trust your judgment as far as how the breakdown will go. So I'm certainly comfortable with that. And we have talked a lot about premium pay because of the original figures are opposed to us. That's just one figure that I had personally thought that was not given enough allocation. I don't want to detract from the many, many other categories that are going to receive the benefit of the ARPA funds. And I think we can do amazing things with the $36 million that's been allocated to us. And I think we have the right person administering it. And I look forward to where we are in four years after we make the investments that we need to in the town. So I'm happy to support the motion. Thank you, Mr. Heard. Mrs. Mahan. I bet you all will hope that my new bucket button would stay stuck, but it works. Sorry about that. I agree with what Mr. Heard and the chair and Mr. Diggins have spoken about. And I don't want to interject, slow down the process, make it more laborious than it needs to be. But what I would like is after, I would like the parameters and formula for our town workers and private sector workers, you know, what the formula is, what the definition of an essential worker is, whether public or private, is it someone who had no option of working at home at all, which a lot of people think that's what it is. You know, not somebody that, you know, came in one or two days a week and worked two or three days at home. So what I'd like is after everything's been discussed and agreed upon, and I'm not looking for like a 12 or three page, well, maybe three, but four page, I want, you know, this is the definition of essential workers we use for private or public. This is approximately what the funding we have with the formula, if it can be provided, it says not just if you came into work every day, if there's a salary cap. And you, if you were an essential worker who came in every day, but whatever the manager, the unions, Lloyd and or Mr. Pooley decides, I'd just like to know that. I don't need to know, you know, the exact number, you know, Jane Doe and John Doe got it. I just want to know ultimately descriptors, the formula descriptors of what was agreed upon that you applied to the formula, and that's it. So I'm not, you know, it probably could be on a page from me and I'll leave it to the chair, whether that's on an agenda item at a board meeting or whether it's something that town manager or somebody as does as me emails to all of us, because I'm not the one to say if something should be an agenda item, but I'm happy with, if I've encapsulated what it is I'm looking for, I'm not looking for anything more than a one max two page thing that says that. And if the manager misheard me, I did not say you were not responsive to the ally. I said you were. Ms. Bonjourna was there. And to my colleague, Mr. Helmuth, who took personal offense about me taking, I guess shots at the manager's help decisions. My point was that there are certain events that I expect the town manager to be there. And if he can't pick one person that every single department had shared that same concern, which I do respect, I would have expected at the very least a letter from the town manager to be read at the meeting. You know, he doesn't have to go into his family decision. So, you know, well, he has here publicly. So if people heard because he's very concerned justifiably so for his two young children as well as no other department had he contacted wanted to come to this event either. As a matter of respect, they're expecting to hear from the town manager. That was my point. This should have been a letter with remarks that the police, sorry, if I achieve our chief Jefferson who personally ran this event. So I'll leave it at that. And I'm happy to support. And I do want to thank the manager from starting off for a premium pay for public employees, town employees. When I saw the 1.267 million, I think was the initial number just to get a number on the table to have come up to the 4 million is a great improvement. And I am appreciative of it. And once again, people, please just respect. I fight this hard for all of our town employees in our residents as you all do. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think, thank you, Mrs. Mahan. And so just a couple of things. And again, this is from to your request and I'm sure the manager can put that together in terms of when he's completed what the parameters are. But to your specific point on essential workers and I'm gonna read again from the interim final rule and it says to ensure the premium pay is targeted to workers that faced or face heightened risks due to the character of their work. The interim final rule defines essential work as work involving regular in-person interactions or regular physical handling of items that were also handled by others. That's a definition that's in the rule. I think there's a rule definition in the statute. So that's because any amounts expended are subject to audit that I would imagine is gonna be the rule that's gonna be followed. See attorney Heim nodding his head on that point. So I mean, I think it is in the rule. There is some additional challenges when we do get to private pay because I think that has to be done through a grant that employers actually have to apply for. So it is tricky in terms of how the workers are identified but I appreciate that being separated out. Just a couple more comments. I mean, colleagues have covered mostly everything in here but on the housing authority, a question from Mr. Chaplain, we already have two requests from the housing authority. We may have a third and I'm wondering if it doesn't make sense to go back and maybe ask the housing authority to consolidate their requests just to make it a little easier in terms of what's being sought. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I like that idea. Yeah, I think going in, figuring out the proper audience either with the acting executive director or perhaps even with the housing authority board makes sense. I mean, I don't sit here tonight opposed to giving the housing authority more than what's spelled out on the framework tonight and then getting the board's endorsement of that at a future meeting, but I think you're right. I think having sort of a comprehensive discussion with the housing authority makes very good sense. Okay, and I appreciate your comments earlier on the Chamber of Commerce because that request has come in and I know you'll take a look at it and if there may be some areas of that request where there's already funds being allocated and it sounds like you're gonna get back to them and see what can be done there. So that sounds fine to me. So I will support the motion. Seems like we're on the same page on this one. So on a motion by Mr. Helmuth, seconded by Mr. Diggins. I'll turn to Attorney Hyde. Mr. Herb? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Helmuth? Yes. Mrs. Mahan? Yes. Mr. DeCorsi? Yes. It's unanimous vote. Okay, thank you. So it's 9.40 now. I think we could use a couple of minute break if members would, I know we've built a lot on our play, but I think maybe a five minute break is in order and what I'd like to do when we return I'm going a lot out of order tonight, but I had told the place advisory board study committee that I hope to get them on by 8.30. It's now 9.40. So when we come back, I'd like to go to that and then head back in the agenda and try to wrap things up by 11. So why don't we take a five minute break and then we will come back if it's okay with board members with item number 10. Okay, good. All right, thank you. Okay, I believe we are all back. So welcome back to the select board meeting. I'm now skipping to item 10, presentation and receipt, police advisory board study committee interim report, Susan Ryan-Vulmer co-chair, Laura Giddelson co-chair, both of the civilian police advisory board study committee and Carlos Morales member of the civilian police advisory board study committee and we're gonna receive the report. And they're also, I'm sure it will be mentioned during the report while we're waiting for them to come up. The study committee will be having a, the full study committee will be having a session on October 27th to seek the public's input. They'll also be having smaller focus groups on Tuesday, November 4th and Saturday, November 13th. The links to that are on the town's website. So the study committee had asked to present their interim report to us and to also let the public know about the upcoming forum. So I will now turn it over to the committee and Ms. Giddelson, are you gonna be making the presentation? Yes, thank you. Sure. Thank you for being here tonight and thank you for waiting. Thank you. Thank you for inviting us to give an update on our work. My name is Laura Giddelson and I am the co-chair of the civilian police advisory board study committee, which was created by the 2020 special town meeting. The charge of the study committee is straightforward. We have been asked to consider alternative ways for residents to file complaints about police interactions, to study whether Arlington would benefit from a police civilian review board and to study how recent changes to state law regarding public safety and policing might affect the town of Arlington. I am going to give you a brief summary of what we have learned to date and then I'm going to turn things over to study committee member Carlos Morales for an overview of the models of civilian oversight. The study committee has met 11 times since March 19th. We have heard from outside experts as well as our talented town staff in an effort to help us understand the issues related to our charge from town meeting. These experts have included Pittsfield police chief Michael Wynn, who is one of Governor Charlie Baker's three appointees to the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission known as the Post Commission, which was created as part of the state's new public safety law. Chief Wynn shared insights into the process of standing up the post commission and how that is likely to affect individual towns and cities. He also shared his experiences over many years of trying to build political support to get a civilian advisory board created in Pittsfield. We also heard from Brian Korr, who is the immediate past president of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. Brian is also the executive secretary for Cambridge's police review and advisory board. Brian shared that in his experience, the most effective oversight often looks like a partnership between police and community members. We learned from Brian that there are just over 200 civilian advisory boards in communities across the country and that most of them have been created in just the last 10 years in response, mostly in reaction to negative interactions between residents and police. Since the summer of 2020 and the murder of George Floyd, another 200 communities have been proactively working with Brian and the National Association to explore ways to bring civilian oversight to their communities. Many more like Arlington are studying the issue. Other experts who've shared information with us include Arlington Town Council, Doug Hyme, who presented on the ways that the state's new public safety law might affect Arlington. Sandy Poole and Karen Malloy presented on how advisory committees might affect collective bargaining with police unions. Police Chief Julie Flaherty has provided the study committee with complaint data for the last several years and presented to the committee about the work of APD's professional standards unit. In addition, she has been extremely generous in providing context for these data and in sharing her expertise in policing and public safety with us. Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Jill Harvey presented on the ways she has supported residents of Arlington who had experienced negative reactions with police but were afraid to bring their concerns to the department. Director Harvey also shared with the study committee her observation which is based on her experience working in Arlington and meeting twice a month with other municipal DEI professionals that Arlington is not unique in being home to people such as the residents she has worked with who have a lack of trust in police. This is a problem that exists in every city and town in the state. And Director Harvey was clear in stating that this is not a reflection on the professionalism of the police officers who work in Arlington or the leadership of Chief Julie Flaherty. If you have not yet, I encourage you to read her entire memo to the study committee, which is on our website. We have also engaged in our own study of civilian police advisory boards. We've learned that in addition to Pittsfield, Cambridge, Springfield and Boston also have permanent advisory boards like Arlington, the towns of Lexington, Newton and Brookline and the cities of Somerville and Lynn are studying whether civilian police advisory boards would be appropriate for their communities. In our research, we have learned that Lexington has had to confront the reality that some black police officers experience racism on the part of the town's mostly white population. Finally, we have studied in depth the various models of civilian advisory boards that most communities put in place. I'm going to turn things over now to Carlos Morales who will outline for you what these models look like. Thank you, good evening. As Ms. Gilson said, I will give you a brief overview of the model of civilian oversight. The first model that we'll cover today is the so-called investigative model. This type of board has the authority to investigate individual complaints filed by members of the public. It has the power to subpoena witnesses and documents and hold hearings in public, as well as in executive session. It operates independently of the local police department and sometimes even replaces the department's internal affairs unit. Many people, when they think of civilian oversight of police, they have in their head this type of board. But however, there are many other models that the community can implement. So as it was already mentioned, we heard from Ryan Kaur a nationally recognized expert on civilian oversight of police. Ryan explained to us that the investigative model sometimes is kind of like an adversarial approach to civilian oversight. And he has largely fallen out of favor in place with more proactive models of civilian oversight that build partnerships with law enforcement and help law enforcement build bridges with the wider part of the community. The next three models I will discuss fall into that proactive category. So the next model I wanna talk about is this auditor monitor focus model. This model evaluates the processes by which police misconduct complaints are submitted and it assesses the thoroughness and fairness of the investigative process used to address complaints. The key strength of this model includes being able to ensure fairness and consistency in disciplinary investigations and outcomes and making it much easier for the members of the public to understand the complaints process and to access the data that improves the transparency and enhances community police relations. For this model to work though, it is helpful for people appointed to the oversight board and committees to have some professional expertise in the areas of the committee that the areas of the committee is auditing and monitoring. The next model we have learned about is the review focus model. As it says suggests, this model reviews the quality of internal investigations, particularly those conducted by internal affairs units. Civilian boards that use the review model typically receive complaints from the community, assess the quality of already completed policing internal affairs investigations, advocate to the town and police officials for further review on investigation and hold public meetings to gather information and review and report on issues of public concern about local police activity or absence of police response. This model is typically far less independent than the other models that we talked about and the opportunities to ensure that actions are taken that will increase transparency and build trust between residents and police can be sometimes lost. The final model that we'll mention today is the hybrid model. And as it sounds, this model is hybrid in the sense that the community would peak and choose qualities of the investigative auditor or review models that are most appropriate to their own communities. The hybrid model is increasingly common about newer civilian oversight agencies for two reasons. First, the overall discussion on law enforcement reform and accountability has turned to us proactive, prevented efforts in the root causes of problems between residents and police, in addition to addressing individual instances of these conducts. Second, when the perspective of many community members are included in the process, the recommended actions end up balancing the needs of more stakeholders, which requires compromise in addition to creativity. And with this, I pass it back to Ms. Kilsen. Sorry, I muted myself. Thank you, Carlos. We are currently in the listening phase of our work, briefing the committees that were appointing authorities appearing here to you, holding a large open forum. That's the one on Wednesday that Mr. DeCorsi mentioned, and forum and smaller ones. We've invited residents of public housing, members of the faith and religious community, BIPOC residents, town employees, veterans, members of the immigrant community, members of the LGBTQIA plus community, students and parents of students from Arlington Public Schools and members of the Arlington Police Department to small group meetings to make sure that the committee receives input from the many different stakeholders who live and work in Arlington. Following these meetings, the committee will get down to the work of building recommendations for the town. We appreciate that town meeting has entrusted our committee with this difficult and important work. The town employees on our committee, town council Heim, DEI director Harvey and chief Larrity have been invaluable contributors to our work and we have appreciated their generosity in sharing their time and expertise with us. There is still much to be done, but I have been impressed by the seriousness and dedication that all of the committee members have brought to the task. We look forward to sharing more with you in the coming months. Great, thank you very much, Ms. Gibson and Mr. Morales. So I will now turn it to the board and it'll start with Mrs. Mahan. Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I'd like to move receipt. I wanna thank Ms. Giddelson, Mr. Morales and Ms. Ryan and Volmar for all the work that they put to date in their committing to continue with moving forward. Ms. Ryan Volmar did reach out to me and asked if we could meet for about an hour, which she was kind enough to let it go to about an hour and a half plus. And she asked very direct questions. Didn't hold any punches, but basic questions about what the committee should be, what I view it as maybe to go back and forth and put on the table what I think and then, and we had some commonality there in terms of the discussion we had. So you definitely have been doing a lot in the listening phase and we'll continue to do so. So thank you to everyone and please pass on my thanks to the rest of the committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Herd. I will second Mrs. Mahan's motion and just thank all the presenters and all the committee workers and all the town staff that supported the committee for all your work. It seems to be a work in progress and glad to hear that you receive public comment and certainly have thoughts on this issue, but since this is a town meeting creative committee and I'm a town meeting member, I'll address my thoughts at the more appropriate time. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Herd. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, I've been impressed by what you all have been doing and the way in which you all collaborate in and I suggest anyone who's interested to check out the webpage that they have, because all the recordings of their meetings are there and lots of other good materials. So yeah, this is what I really hope would come out of a study group, because regardless of whether you want something to happen or not, at least initially, a lot of things are worth studying and in the process, you learn a lot and if nothing else, you learn how to work together and not that the folks in this committee need to learn how to work together, but I think they are working together in such a wonderful way. And so I'm proud of what they're doing. If you don't mind, I have more short questions or you can give really brief answers to them, okay? I mean, they may be so detailed that you don't know the answer and that's fine. On page four, you say there's a list of items there and one, I think towards the bottom, is to reduce legal liability from officer misconduct. I think quite understand that. I mean, I would have thought that it would have been increased, I mean, so I'm sure you're right, but can you just explain what that means? I'm sorry, I don't actually have the report in front of me. Okay, that's fine. So I'm not, look, I can't see exactly where you're referencing, but if you, I'm happy to talk about it some other time. That's fine, that's fine. So there may be one that we don't need to refer to, but it is a detail. It was that in the six years being, hold on a second, the town's approximate, oh, okay, yeah, we have 60 police officers and in the six years from 2016 to 2021, there have been 18 citizens' complaints, which strikes me as pretty low, but do you know how that compares to other towns of our size? No, unfortunately, we don't have comparable data there. Okay, and one final question. Do you know if any of those 18 events involve repeated the same officer? I do not know. We don't have the details of the events. Fine, that's it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins, Mr. Helner. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much to the study committee. I have been impressed that how hard you are working, how hard you are listening and how much, how hard you're learning. I also enjoyed, like my colleague Ms. Mahata, enjoyed my sit down with Ms. Ryan Vollmar. I also enjoyed, he's not studying anything, but Sanjay Newton did a really great interview with ACMI a little while ago, and I enjoyed watching that. And I enjoyed learning. I've been learning along with I think the rest of us about all the different ways that this could look and all the pros and the cons. And I think I'm glad Mr. Hurd made his points that this is the committee of town meeting. And I think that we, I wanna respect that provocative as well. But I encourage you to keep doing that. I encourage the public to tune in on Wednesday evening at seven, I think, for your meeting, or wherever you're inviting the public to comment. It's one of the great things about Arlington government. We really do listen. Comments really are recorded, thought about, summarized and it makes a difference. So I encourage your residents to do that. And thanks, keep up the good work. I look forward to hearing how the second half of your year goes. Great. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. I also wanna echo to my colleague's comments and thank Ms. Ryan Vollmer. She met with me as well. And then we had a nice meeting in Arlington center and she asked a lot of questions and we had a very good discussion. So I really appreciate all the work you're doing, the reaching out. I had received a report through a council on aging meeting that I attended. And I really think it's great that you're reaching out to the various committees that to the extent that you have members. There was a presentation that the body services meeting. So it's great outreach that you're doing. And just as you said, on the 27th, you're looking for more public input and people can find the link to that on the town website and on your page as well as to your meeting. So thank you for the work you're doing and thank you for coming in tonight to give us an update. Thank you. Okay, with that, we have a motion to receive by Mrs. Mahan that was seconded by Mr. Herd, Attorney Heim. I know we did take a question on a committee that I'm on. We're having a little trouble hearing you, Mr. Heim. Mr. Herd? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Helman? Yes. Sorry. My connection is unstable folks, I apologize. Mrs. Mahan? Yes. Mr. D'Corsi? Yes. Jean-Annamesville? Great, thank you very much and thank you for waiting to come on, as I said. We'll try to get you on earlier next time. Okay, so now we really need a score sheet here. We're gonna go back to item number five, which is a proclamation for the Junior High West Autism Middle School Centennial Anniversary. I'll read the proclamation and the Board of So-and-Kind look for a vote of approval. Before I do that, Mr. Chapter, I don't think there's anybody on from the Odyssey. What would, what's the name involved with it, Mr. D'Corsi, I'll just turn it back. I think, is it, it might be Amy Duke, that was one of the individuals. We don't have the- I don't see that name. I don't think there is. No, I don't believe there is. Okay, all right. I'll read the proclamation. Whereas the Junior High West Autism Middle School was established as a school in 1921 to educate the children of Arlington. And whereas the Junior High West Autism community continues to provide a safe, challenging and nurturing school environment. Whereas the school has for 100 years had an integral role in the development of the town's most important resource, our children now therefore be it resolved that we, the members of the select board commend the Junior High West Autism community on its centennial anniversary and ask all residents to join with us and recognize its 100 years of service to the children of Arlington. I will turn to the board and I will start with a alumnus of the Autism Middle School, Mr. Heard. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Happy to move approval of the proclamation. Yes, I did attend seventh and eighth grade at Autism Middle School and had a great experience here, right? You know, I love all the teachers that I had there. Gonna give a special shout out to Mr. Greco. Everyone knows Mr. Greco and he was my math teacher in eighth grade at Autism. So it was always one of my favorites, but we really did have a lot of great memories there. Great teachers, great administrative staff and great cinnamon buns. That's what I remember about Autism Middle School. So happy to support this. Thank you, Mr. Heard. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to second this, you know. So what's the mascot to any of you? Wouldn't be otters, would it? You don't know. You don't know. Well, they didn't have it when we were there. I think it's a bulldog. Bulldog, okay. Five, five. So, well, a hundred more years. Go, Odyssey, go. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Mrs. Mahan. Has it been seconded? Did Mr. Diggins second it? Mr. Diggins did second it. Okay. Well, I went to junior high East. However, and I also went to Arlington High School, but one year of my junior high East was a combined program with the West. So there were all kinds of little rhymes that would go back and forth with that. So while I never had Mr. Greco as a middle school teacher, if I did, he wouldn't be my favorite. He still, him and his wife continue to be. So that's all I'll say, thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan, Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. I think all I'll say is who needs a mascot when you have great cinnamon buttons? I mean, priorities here, right? I'm glad to learn this little bit of Arlington history. I didn't know the school had been around that long. That's just terrific. And I'm glad that we had a chance to observe this. Great. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. And I am the second member of the board who went to the auto send out. They didn't have cinnamon buns when I went there, Mr. Herd. That was mostly some upgrades to the kitchen because we didn't enjoy that. But and I also had a great education there and they have a lot of memorable teachers. I don't want to select one at the expense of offending others, but I had a really good time. And I will say that watching tonight are also two, you and I were at the autism and it changed names. The junior high west, Mrs. Krapalka was a graduate of the junior high west and my mother's may be still up watching from home when she was a graduate as well. So there's a few of us happy to support this proclamation. So an emotion by Mr. Herd, seconded by Mr. Diggins, Attorney Heim. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. It's unanimous vote. Great. Thank you, Attorney Heim. So now moving, moving right along, we're to the consent agenda. Might be the latest that we've hit the consent agenda. Number eight, a request for a permit for Veterans Day Parade Thursday, November 11th, Jeffrey K. Chunglow, Director of Veterans Services. Number nine, request for contract for a drain layer license, large view plumbing and heating, Levi Pereira on the consent agenda, Attorney, Attorney, Mr. Helman. Thank you, move approval. Mrs. Mahan. Second. Mr. Herd. Happy to support, no comments. Mr. Diggins. Same here, happy to support, no comments. Okay. And I have no comments either. So an emotion by Mr. Helman, seconded by Mrs. Mahan, Attorney Heim. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. So unanimous vote. Okay. We are now to open forum, except in unusual circumstances, any matter presented for consideration of the board shall neither be acted upon nor a decision made the night of the presentation, in accordance with the policy under which the open forum was established. It should be noted that there is a three minute time limit to present a concern or a request. Mr. Chapter Lane, is there anybody who wishes to be heard on open forum? There does not appear to be. Okay. Thank you. We will move on. So we did number 10, number 11, item number 11, discussion, scope of work for organizational economic development plan, Allie Carter, Economic Development Coordinator. Good evening, Ms. Carter. Hello, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm fine. Thank you. In the interest of time, may I just go ahead? Okay. Absolutely. All right, thank you. I'm Allie Carter, Economic Development Coordinator for the town. Thank you as always for having me. This is really a report to you all as we transition from the pandemic phase of COVID-19 to the more endemic phase of COVID-19. And also I want to say from the outset that this is meant to be a preliminary conversation tonight just for the purpose of getting your feedback on these ideas. These ideas were generated and discussed by the Economic Development Recovery Task Force and all of the recommendations contained in the report were unanimously approved by them at their last meeting. So past several years, pandemic notwithstanding, there's been a lot of positive developments in town with regard to economic development. But with the last year and a half in mind, we wanted to think about more that can be done to attract and retain businesses in Arlington with the goal of encouraging strategic alignment of committees, maximizing budgetary and operational efficiencies and streamlining some of our permitting and licensing processes without compromising on the quality of businesses that come to downtown or public health and safety. While the local economy remains strong, commercial vacancies have increased due to the pandemic. So we had a 3% townwide commercial vacancy rate in February 2020 and it's 7% now. So it did more than double. It's thankfully it's not worse than that. And I did attach an appendix with detailed vacancy report. So with that in mind, as the pandemic continues to affect the small business community, the task force and myself, we wanted to continue to find new ways to remain competitive and keep our local businesses strong and resilient. So I wanted to just present some opportunities, three different ones with some recommendations. The first would be to streamline the economic development related committees in town. There are currently five, the task force, ATED, the Battle Road Scenic Byway, and then committees that do economic development related work, the ACAC and the Arlington Commission for Arts and Culture, excuse me, for my presumptive use of acronyms and the Arlington Cultural District Managing Partnership. So the recommendation is basically to reconstitute the ATED committee with representation from all these groups involved and to kind of the work of the task force was very pandemic responsive. So to sort of transition that group into the ATED committee combining the two with representation from the other committees. So the idea is that it would be an 11 member committee with four business representatives, one from each of the business districts on Mass Ave and someone from the an industrial business with Chamber of Commerce representative, Commission for Arts and Culture representative, Battle Road Scenic Byway representative and Arlington Cultural District. Oh, and one from the Redevelopment Board and perhaps two additional representatives from ATED or the task force with professional expertise that was relevant. So that was one thing. I'm just gonna breeze through all these and then maybe we can come around at the end for comments on all of them. Is that fair, Mr. Dacorsi? That's fine, yep. Thank you. Okay, second opportunity would be to expedite processes for conducting business outdoors. There's a lot of public support that's been documented for continuing parklets and other outdoor retail and restaurant activity. So I drafted a combined outdoor restaurant and retail permitting process that basically builds off the sidewalk permit application process that we've been using for years very successfully but incorporates the streamlined aspects of the temporary outdoor dining license that we made for the pandemic. So it would basically have one set of regulations that had two tracks within the process where if you're applying for an installation that's on a sidewalk or a private parking lot that can be reviewed and approved at the administrative, sorry, at the staff level, I lose my words at a certain time of night. And then if that, so that would be sort of one track that would have a $50 fee, which is the same fee that we charge for a sidewalk permit application. And a secondary track would be if you wanted an installation in a parking space something that had a parking impact that would be a higher fee, $250 to kind of reflect the additional review through DPW, maybe the fire department, and they would also have to come to the board for a hearing. So that is the long and short of that one. I do wanna say that that particular application process that I drafted has been reviewed by the select board office, by the staff, Ashley, the Department of Health and Human Services, inspectional services, the legal department, public works and the fire department, all reviewed and thought that what we drafted in this final version that's presented to you is sound. And then the final opportunity I thought I'd present would be to revise the policies, rules and regulations for alcohol licenses in restaurants. This is attached as Appendix C, there are really specific edits in there. Nothing that really, if we wanna dig into that tonight, I'm not sure at a later date, but the idea, most of the revisions are just, sorry, some of the revisions bring regulations up to date with other town regulations that have been updated since 2015, which is the last time these were revised, like the sign, there's some elements about signage in there that doesn't comply with our current zoning bylaw that was updated in 2019, but others are aimed toward lifting some requirements on restaurants that increase their costs and operational burdens and may unintentionally at this point as the restaurant industry has evolved, keep certain businesses from opening in town, including fast casual restaurants and breweries. So at this point, I'll just close it out and I'll look forward to hearing your feedback or questions, thank you. Okay, thank you, Ms. Carter. I see Ms. Raid has joined us as well. Good evening, Ms. Raid. Just a question before I turn it over to the board. So there are three different areas here where you've laid out the challenge and the recommendations. Are you looking for approval on the first tour or is this more of a receipt tonight and come back to us down the road? And I did have some discussion with Mr. Chapterline about this in advance. I just wanna make sure that we're clear what we're being asked to do tonight. It would be the latter. I would say the only thing if folks felt comfortable voting tonight would be on the outdoor retail and restaurant process. That's the most sort of fully vetted idea, but this was really just meant to be a discussion to hear some feedback and get some direction for you all from you all. Okay, thank you, Ms. Carter. I will turn to the board on Mr. Herd. Thank you. And thank you, Ms. Carter for the presentation. Being the board designee from ATED, have you, and I think I miss a lot the ATED meeting, but have you spoken to the ATED members yet about reconstituting the committee? So I've spoken with several folks, but not at the actual meeting. So I like to, that's important. And that's why I wouldn't recommend to vote on that tonight. There's a lot of redundant folks on the task force, yourself, Bob Boes and that committee. So this has been discussed for a while and some like draft versions of this have been circulated, but I think more in-depth conversation with ATED is due. Yep. And I know looking at the committees that are being streamlined, there's already members of ATED that are on ATAC and there's business owners that are on ATED. So I think it would be an easy transition, but it certainly is, like you said, something that's worth discussion at the next ATED meeting that's coming up to get their input as well. But I think it's certainly time to in the development task force has been amazing. Unfortunately, it seems like every time there's a meeting in conflicts with one of my work obligations. So I haven't been able to get there in the last couple, but I think that rolling that into ATED and would allow the task force goals to be taken up by ATED and I think that's worthwhile. So I certainly would support that once we have a discussion with the committee members. Then I'm happy to support a motion. I'm happy to make a motion on with the recommendations for the expedited outdoor dining process. I think that's been very beneficial to the businesses and the people in, we generally go off the recommendation of town staff for when these requests came before us prior to COVID. And I think we have very able staff that can handle these requests and make sure that there's compliance with all the health and safety requirements necessary to do outdoor dining. So I am happy to make the request, make the motion for that one particular item. Then on the third category, just so I'm clear, is one of the recommendations as far as food services relative to the two drinks without food requests? Okay. No. It specifically gets to wait staff having to provide the, to bring the alcohol to the table. Whereas if you're at a fast casual restaurant like a Shake Shack or a Tasty Burger or something like that, you sort of order it at the counter and bring it back to the table yourself. The other thing is about silverware being a requirement and that there's other reusable kind of products that people can use or compostable, but the silverware kind of takes away the opportunity for like a brewery to provide sort of like more casual fare or something that would get served in like a basket lined with wax paper or something like that. Those are the main points. Yeah. I'm sorry, I would be comfortable voting on that, but I think probably it's worth further discussion with some of the businesses. And I think my colleagues would want to have some further discussions as well, but I think whatever we could do to promote more businesses and God, if we can get a Shake Shack, that'd be beautiful, but I think my kids would certainly appreciate that. But like I said, for both our current businesses and attracting new businesses, whatever we can do to make common sense changes to promote new businesses in town, I would support. So thank you for the presentation. And I look forward to working further on this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. I'm afraid I must disagree with my colleague, Mr. Hurd. I'm really more of a Tasty Burger fan. So count, put me down for that. Sorry. Thank you, Ms. Carter. I think I'm really happy to see such thought and productivity being put into streamlining the outdoor dining and the parklets. I think, by the way, just as a side note, the work that you and your department have done for the parklets has been wonderful. And I was very happy to see the really beautiful ones that just got put in outside of favorite place to get tacos. And it's just really, really, really, really nice. And I think it's just a really great response to support the businesses, but it's also a new thing for the public to really just enhance our enjoyment. So I think that's great. And regarding the third and a happy, I'll second Mr. Hurd's motion, by the way. So I'll second the motion. And regarding the third point, yeah, I'm happy to contemplate that as well. I think I'm sure you'll do this, but I wanna make sure that our public health department weighs in fully on the changes to alcohol service and just to make sure that there aren't unintentional consequences that would diminish the protections against for good safe alcohol service. But that said, I think it's that we didn't, when those regulations were written, they probably didn't contemplate compostable tableware. And there's an environmental concern there too. I think that's fine. And it certainly didn't contemplate food trucks. So it's probably time to take another look at that. And think about what kind of economic development we can do while still maintaining good, sensible evidence driven public health approaches to alcohol service. So yeah, so thank you for the work. And I look forward to hearing more about it. Thank you. I do wanna note too that I've shared preliminary, I've shared drafts of this with APD as well, but I wanna have more conversations with them as well. Excellent, yes, good, yeah. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. When you do come back next, unless it's the two changes, items that Ms. Carter discussed with Mr. Hart for the policy rules and regulations of alcohol licenses for restaurants. If it's anything outside of that, if we could get like a red line highlight version that it shows, this is what you have for first offense, second offense, third offense, and then a little strikeout or brackets and then say, this is what would bring us up to date with current policies of the cities and towns, especially around the all alcohol and alcohol licenses. I just wanna make sure that if there are cases where the board perhaps did a little more stringent enforcement that we don't drop back down unless a majority all of the board works to do that. And I don't mean that in any negative way. Of course, yeah. I can absolutely circulate like a marked up version with track changes. And there's nothing about penalties that's proposed to change. But I think it's important that you can see every specific change. So I can share that. Absolutely. Thank you. And you know what? It helps all of us, you know, go into these businesses and when the owners are customers, you know, have a particular question and say, well, we went through everything and we updated it. And that's why that option's available or not available. And then I don't really expect an answer on this. And I don't know if it's appropriate for this committee to discuss. But I read within the past two, three months in the Boston Globe, it's on Wednesdays, they do their food sort of weekly informational piece. And there was one city or town that basically was working with longtime vacant storefront stores, especially around food services industry where they sort of did like a work bar or shared use. You know, like someone who said, geez, if I had a place that I could go cook this but I can only do it two, three days. So you may already be doing that. But I remember reading it and blanking on what city or town it was, but it looked really, it's something to look at. And then I don't expect an answer on this tonight unless for some reason, already seen the email. But I'm wondering, I don't know if it's from this rate. If you haven't, Beth Locke from the Chamber sent two suggestions around after-money funding for ideas that the Chamber had. I don't know that you or Ms. Cotter were in on that email. So I would ask that if I can ask the town manager if you all haven't received it, if the manager could forward it to you both. And my question would be, if one or both would be eligible to apply for a CDBG funding. I'm not saying, you know, just because they can apply means anybody necessarily gets it. I don't wanna make that suggestion, you know, or Adam may have already made that suggestion, Mr. Chaplin. But I remember thinking, I'm wondering if at least one of these could be considered by the committee, but I don't wanna put anything before the committee that doesn't have, you know, it doesn't qualify. And that's it, thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Mahana. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And Mr. Hurd made just the motion that I would have made. So I'm happy to support it. And Ms. Carter, you shouldn't apologize for saying AC, AC. You should apologize for not saying AC squared because that's what all the cool kids are saying. All right, just let you know. So just a couple of quick questions. So were there no vacant restaurants in February 2000? No, there were. The Papa Geno's has been vacant since November 2018. I'm sorry, go ahead please. No, that's the main one, but the rest that got listed in here closed since the pandemic began. Yeah, I was just looking at the appendix, I mean, and so it didn't indicate any restaurant vacancies in 2020, in February 2020. So I was just wondering if that meant there were none, I mean, or if that information just left out. Because part of what's that's leading to is, so we've had other economic downturns caused by things other than pandemics made. And so, I mean, how do the closures that we're seeing mean compared to other downturns? Hmm, that's an interesting question. So I will say that between February 2020 and now, I've just gotten much more detailed. I just always, every time I do these vacancy reports, try and drill down to another level of specificity. So that's partly just like me getting more in depth over time with how I collect the data. I don't think there's anything really that compares to this in terms of like, to the pandemic, in terms of like small business impacts in recent history. Like not the 2008 bubble, that was like a whole different thing. But I haven't researched that specifically much. So I'll look into that more. No, no, no, if you knew, because I mean, partly it was like, I'm thinking if they were similar in severity, although not caused me, there might be some lessons learned from how we handled those. So that's the only reason for bringing it up. So that's it, and I support Ms. behind the quest for the comparison, because I was wanting that to when I was reading it. So it'd be really helpful. And yeah, let's update that code and get us in harmony with other municipalities. It'll be easier for everybody. So great, thank you. Thanks, Len. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. And yeah, I wanna thank you, Ms. Carter for the presentation and for waiting so long to make it tonight. And I also support Mr. Herd's motion. Just a question on the appendix B where you have the streamline application. And one of the questions involves erecting a tent and then there's a reference to a building permit. And I will say, I had been contacted by, or in a discussion not really contacted that I had with a business owner that referenced going through inspectional services for the tent. I don't know if there's any way to even streamline that process further for the individuals who wanna put a tent up. I think we're gonna see more demand for that type of thing or as outdoor seating becomes more popular. And I don't know if that's a possibility because it does seem to that application process maybe needs to be updated given what's what some business owners would like to do. And I don't know if you've got any feedback on that as you were talking to people about outdoor seating. Yeah, no, I have, I can speak with Mike Champa about that it is tricky. We have to go with whatever building code allows but you know what I think we could do even if there's no regulatory wiggle room is that with the outdoor dining license process we made like design guidelines with illustrations that were really nicely done that Kelly Linema in our department put together as only she can. And I think we could put similar guidelines for like things you need to keep in mind if you're setting up a tent, ADA accessibility, things of that nature weighing it down so that it doesn't fly away in any amount of wind. So even if there's nothing we can do rule wise I think we can work on design supports that get the business owners from A to B or A to Z, I guess, more quickly. Right, okay, good. Thank you. And I do, I also want to comment on the park lot on Medford Street that to me looks like a huge upgrade in terms of what that seating looks like. So I think that's really great. And any opportunity there is to upgrade existing areas or change things as we go forward making it more welcoming for people to look at I certainly support that even if it's duplicating funds that have already spent if it's upgrading it then it's going to attract more people to an area I'm all for it. So I think that was a really a big improvement. So thank you for that. And I also agree with Mrs. Mohan and Mr. Diggins and Mr. Herd and I used to looking at red line versions of changes. So that would be helpful, but clearly 2015 that's a long time between revisions. So we look forward to hearing you on that. So I think that does, I didn't think we're prepared to vote on the motion for number two and one and three I think we'll look to hear from you again and then put you on a future agenda for that. Okay. So on a motion by Mr. Herd that was seconded by Mr. Helmeth, attorney Hyde. Mr. Herd. Sorry, Mr. Chair, if it's cleaner, I can move receipt I'll amend my motion to move receipt of one and three move approval of the recommendation. Perfect. That's great. Thank you for that. And then Mr. Helmeth just put thumbs up for the second. So why don't we do that? So it's approval of number two receipt of one and three. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmeth. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. So now let's vote. Great. Thank you so much. Okay. So this has been a night of skipping around on the agenda and given that we've made Mr. Amstutz wait for a while tonight and Mr. Diggins is going to be here no matter what. I'd like to move on to number 13 and then we'll go back to 12. Item 13 is a discussion and approval of a blue big station relocation for the railroad lot Daniel Amstutz senior transportation planner. Good evening, Mr. Amstutz. Good evening. Thank you for sticking with us and for your patience and go right ahead and describing what the approval you're looking for this evening. Thank you, yes. I'll try to keep this very quick. So I sent in with the materials to a memo describing the situation and then also some images and pictures which I think helps to describe it a bit. So essentially we have a blue bikes program in Arlington. We have six stations total right now and five of them are on street which means they're taking up some parking spaces on street mainly. We have one station that's off street that's at Magnolia field right off the bikeway. And what we're trying to do is to get more of the stations that we have off street during the winter they need to be picked up for and put into winter storage, the blue bike stations mainly so that they don't get hit by plows that are plowing snow. Generally the ridership does decline in the winter but having the stations open year round which is what getting the stations off street will help us do. We'll keep providing this transportation option to people year round. People still will bike in the winter and we'll use them. Most many other communities that are within the blue bikes system do have many stations that are operational year round. So essentially the two that we're talking about is one that is already approved through the Parks and Rec Commission and the Recreation Department which is at Linwood street. This is more of a four year information that that would be moved off street literally about 20 feet behind the sidewalk over at Scantle field. So that'll open up a couple of spaces on Linwood street and again provide that year round ability for that to function. And so there is already a sort of sidewalk that's sort of built behind the sidewalk that Public Works has done a couple of weeks ago and blue bike staff can move that there as soon as maybe weather gets better. The other one that I'm actually looking for approval for tonight is along of the railroad lot which is sort of the western most blue bike station that we have. And both of these stations, Linwood and railroad lot are the busiest stations that we have that are the most productive. And the idea with the one of the railroad lot is to move it on to some existing sidewalk so it doesn't require some existing infrastructure right now. And there's a wide sidewalk section, a brick sidewalk that's adjacent to the building at 631 to 644 Mass Ave. I believe that's the number. And so working with blue bike staff, they've confirmed that there's enough space for the station to kind of orient so that the bikes are, you pull them out towards the building. That'll still provide enough space. It's about 10 feet or 11 feet wide. So there'll be enough space for somebody to walk by. So provide ADA access there. There is sort of an alternative route if you kind of go around this small triangle of grass, which has some bike racks. So that would still be available, but the idea is to move it, the station on to the sidewalk so that it can operate year round. And I have contacted the businesses that are within that building, or at least as many as I know of, the Kodil Banker, the Goslin Law, the Susan Stamps Law Office. They also sent a letter to the property owner of that building. I haven't heard back from any of them. I don't know if any of them are here today, but generally speaking, I think the only impact would be on snow clearance, which the blue bike staff will do if the snow is six inches or higher. It's essentially, it's plowable that they are committed to shoveling out those stations, I think within 24 hours of the snow fall finishing up. So let me just see if I had anything else. This will save the town money because to put the stations into winter storage does cost us something. So save about $5,000 per year. As I mentioned, these are the most productive stations and we'll free up some parking spaces. So I think it's really a good benefit all around and we'll work on figuring out ways to get the other three stations that are on street, two off street locations as well so that they can also function year round. So I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you, Mr. Amstutz. I'll start with Mr. Helmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Amstutz. And as it happens, I had the privilege of attending a noon time webinar today about sustainable bike and bus infrastructure in the region and blue bikes were on the menu. We heard from blue bikes and I learned a couple of interesting tidbits. One of which is that they do find the people ride in the winter more than you'd think and that people are deterred more by precipitation than temperatures. And if municipalities are doing things like plowing, bikeways and things like that and shelving up the stations that they will use it. So I think that's great. I also learned that the blue bikes on a regional basis move nearly as much people as the MBTA silver line did last year. So that's pretty cool. That really got my attention that this is a viable way to move people in a sustainable way and a way that promotes health. So this is a good move. I appreciate the work to make them even better and more accessible to residents. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Mr. Deans. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So Dan, Mr. Amstutz, I'm sorry. You see, these meetings are longer than MPO meetings. Who would have thunk it? I could go on and on, but I'm not. I mean, good report, and I'm happy to second in Mr. Helmuth's motion. Did I? No, Sally, I'll take your second, Mr. Deans. Mr. Helmuth, if you want to make the motion. Yes, sorry about that. It's late, move approval. Great, thank you. And thank you, Mr. Deans and Mr. Hurd. Thank you. I'm happy to support this. I get the opportunity to walk by the Bluebike station in the center every day. And I'm actually amazed. There never seems to be any bikes on there. So clearly our Allington residents are using the Bluebikes and it's a huge asset to the town and the residents. And I'm happy to see, although it's not in our approval, the movement of the station at Scannell, we had a game there on Saturday. We had to park like three miles away from the field because parking is tough in that area. So I was happy to see the new fresh pad that was poured there. And I think in the center, in the real world lot, it will certainly be beneficial to the town to have those centrally located bikes there all year as well. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't know how Mr. Amstutz does everything that he does for so many of our town committees, select board sort of directives, clean energy, and you always do a very diligent job and pretty much give me nothing to really talk about because you provide all the information. So I definitely will support this and it's probably safe to say you're gonna find a place for those other two sites and what I look forward to see you in the future, hopefully earlier in the evening. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. And yeah, and I'll support the motion as well. Just one quick question, Ms. Dan, so that's at the railroad lot. Is there anything that needs to be done to prepare the area for the blue bike station or will just go on the existing sidewalk there? Not to my understanding. There is, I did ask for confirmation from the blue bike staff that these locations will work and they will, they did go out in the field and take a look at them. I had originally considered, I think before putting it in the lot itself, the sort of, there's another side of this sort of brick sidewalk that sort of faces towards the bikeway on the other side of this little grass triangle. And I noticed that there's a significant bump in the brick sidewalk, I think from a tree that was, a tree root perhaps that was taken out at some point. So this seemed to be fairly flat and as brick sidewalks go. So I didn't get anything from blue bike staff that said that we needed to do anything more. Okay, all right. And I'm glad to hear that. I mean, I support getting the station off of the lot and in the case of Linwood off of the street, I'm a little concerned about how close it is to the building and I'm wondering if you're not gonna get feedback once it's moved, but if there's nothing that you need to do to prepare the area and construct or anything, if there's a problem, it can be moved someone, I'm happy to go along with that on that basis, but that does feels a little close and I don't know if there's another alternative. I do want to second what Mr. Hurd said on Linwood, I think when you first came in before us, there was a hope to get some of the stations off the street and I think that's a perfect movement because cars want to park there, there's room and there's still plenty of room between the blue bike station and the little league field. So okay, with that, I will thank you for waiting next time, Mr. Chapter-line, Mr. Amstatz gets on early next time he comes in, so we'll put him on for an early presentation the next time he's before us. On a motion by Mr. Helmut, that was seconded by Mr. Diggins, Attorney Heim. Mr. Hurd? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Helmut? Yes. Mrs. Mohan? Yes, thank you. Mr. Jacorsi? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Amstatz. Thank you very much. Okay, so we will now go back to number 12, a discussion and vote, a letter in support of Bill Senate 868 or in House 1377, an act empowering cities and towns to impose a fee on certain real estate transactions to support affordable housing. Mr. Diggins? Thank you, Mr. Chair, for me. So for about the last year, so I've been working with the real estate transfer fee coalition headed by the folks in Somerville. But so it's a large number of municipalities being involved in this and initially when I started, Aaron Zirco was part of it and actually joined it because Pam Hallett didn't have a bandwidth and I figured it would be a good way for me to learn more about housing. And get connected with some of the people in the region who are working on it. It's a really good coalition. Senator, Senator Friedman knows the sponsor of it, Senator Comaferd, very well and so she strongly supports it. And so does Representative Garberley and Representative Rogers. So we all know how these letters work. And you have to do the work long before you send in the letter. And the coalition has really done the work. But the coalition also wants letters being and especially from entities such as Select Boards mean. And so I can't tell you the other Select Boards that are sending letters just because I can't remember them right now. But I think it would be good for us to be a part of that mean to show solidarity with the other Select Boards especially since we unanimously, even though Eric wasn't part of it, he would have unanimously supported the real estate transfer fee home rule petition. And so I don't think it's a stretch to ask this board to sign on for a letter such as this unless it's just a policy of the board not to do something like that. In which case that's fine with me. I just needed to make the attempt. And certainly if you are inclined to support it and you see any formatting or wording that you would like change, I'm happy to do that. This is my first one of these, Vida. And I think we have until Wednesday or so to safely get it in. So that's it. Any questions I'm happy to answer. Okay, great, Mr. Diggins. And before I turn it over to other members I just wanna add just one point. And what these two bills do is they create local options. So at that city of towns option they could create the real estate transfer fee. What we tried to do last year at town meeting is go through the home rule petition process where we're basically asking for the legislature's approval for Arlington to create the real estate transfer tax fee. I think the delegation I'm sure would say this way has a much greater chance of passing because it applies to any community that wants to accept it as at their option as opposed to the two or three communities that are looking to come in. And as it says in the draft letter that Mr. Diggins prepared, the three members of our delegation are co-sponsors on the House side of Representative Garberly and Representative Rogers are co-sponsors and Senator Friedman is a co-sponsor on the Senate side. So with that, I will turn to Mr. Helmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're right, Mr. Diggins. I would have wholeheartedly supported this. I certainly did in town meeting in that vote. Thank you for your work in the coalition. I didn't know you were doing this until I read the letter and that's outstanding. I wouldn't change award in the letter. I thought it was clear and perfectly argued and makes sense to me. So I am very happy to support it and I agree. I think that having this statewide opportunity for this and to give the municipalities the discretion that would still let municipalities make the best choice but to give them the opportunity makes a whole lot of sense. So thanks for the work and I move approval. Great. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. This is mine. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll second that and thanks to Mr. Diggins for not only taking the initiative but doing the background legwork to try to find the best possible vehicle or way to hopefully have the chair stated better success rate of getting this through. So thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Mahon. Mr. Hurd. Happy to support this. Thank you, Mr. Diggins for taking the time to draft the letter and my brevity is due to time, not enthusiasm for the cause. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hurd and thank you, Mr. Diggins. You had contacted me about this and put this together in a very short period of time and I think it makes good sense. Just a question for you as intended. Do you, are you looking for all of our signatures on this? Sometimes we'll do it the full board. Sometimes it will be a vote to authorize the chair to sign on behalf of the board. I'm happy either way. I mean, I don't know if it was suggested to you if it should be every member. I think it'll be fine. Me just with you signing it. So I mean, I guess they could, we could do all five, but I think it's our only to select board is gonna be plenty good. So if that's easier, let's just go with that, Eden. And I'll add a couple of other things. One is that there have been, I think about nine, at least nine communities that have done the home petition and none of them have gone through. Concord has done it multiple times, Eden. So it's getting hung up in the legislature. It's not really clear why. And the support will be meaningful because there are some other bills, and they're not as good with respect to what the real estate transfer fee can raise for affordable housing. So, and the governor may have his own ideas. And so the deal is that we just wanna get more support for real estate transfer fees because it may have to get included in something else. And so we wanna make it clear to folks that this has a lot of support. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Mr. Diggins. Mr. Helmuth, if it's all right with you, then based on what Mr. Diggins said, if you wouldn't mind amending your motion to authorize the chair to sign the letter on behalf of the board. Yeah, that's fine, Mr. Chair. And I think that your discretion, you could certainly mention that there's a vote, a positive vote if that's what happens, to indicate that it does represent all of us. Okay, good. Thank you. Okay, so only a motion by Mr. Helmuth and seconded by Mrs. Mahan, Attorney Hyde. Mr. Herd? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Helmuth? Yes. Mrs. Mahan? Yes. Mr. DeCorsi? Yes. It's unanimous vote. Okay, that does it for number 13. Correspondents received items 14 and 15. Item 14, change of pickup drop off location of Stratton school and item 15 safety issues on Elmhurst Road. Mrs. Mahan? Like to move receipt and on number 14, I guess have the chair and the select board office continue conversation with the town manager. The next steps and I guess the same motion will proceed and refer to the chair and the town manager on the Elmhurst Road. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chaplin, did you want to add anything to that or? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think Mrs. Mahan's recommendation for receipt and referral make very good sense. But on number 14, I just wanted to mention that I've been in communication with Dr. Homan about that matter. And as I think the board can see, basically they're trying to solve a conflict between parents dropping off parked cars and the bus that drops off and then brings students from Stratton school down to the Gibbs school. They're going to pilot some on street parking restrictions before coming to the board to request potential permanent parking restrictions. So I think tonight was really a heads up that they're working on solutions with the likelihood that they'll be back before the board to make a request in the near future. Okay, thank you. Mr. Herd? Second. Mr. Diggins? I, no comment, I approve. Okay, and then Mr. Helmuth? No comments, thank you. Great, and I support it as well as moved. So in a motion by Mrs. Mahan, seconded by Mr. Herd, Attorney Heim. Mr. Herd? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Helmuth? Yes. Mrs. Mahan? Yes. Mr. Degorsi? Yes. Okay, new business. Attorney Heim? No, no business. Mr. Chaplin? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With the board's indulgence, I learned today via conversation with Town Council that the town is going to be able to apply for a grant in relation to water sewer investments that we will likely get $48,000, which will help us pay down sewer related debt service. The applications due Friday and we learned today that as the water sewer commissioners, the board needs to vote affirmatively and sign on to that application. So I wanted to ask the board if we could possibly schedule a very quick meeting on Thursday, potentially in the morning to do five minutes on that matter, approve moving forward with a grant application and hopefully be done with it very quickly. Yeah, so, I mean, we're new business here, but I think Mr. Chaplin had raised that to me and given what's at stake here, we couldn't put it on for tonight, but it is a grant that we could have. I would need to notice a meeting tomorrow for Thursday and if the morning isn't good, we could do it a little later in the day. I know it gets tight as to when things are done, but how about if I do this? Why don't I notice a meeting on Thursday before I do it, I'll do it during the day. If there's any concerns that people have on particular times during the day, we'll try to address that. Okay, is Thursday out for anybody? Is that a problem? Okay, all right. So why don't we do that and we can do it through the board office in terms of getting the time that people are available. I think that probably makes the most sense. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chaplin. Anything else? That's all I have, thank you. Okay, Mr. Helmuth. No business. Mr. Diggins. Thanks to Mr. Heim. We're having a work primer and workshop on warrant articles. Maybe it's gonna be hosted by the civic engagement group. It's gonna be virtual, of course, being on Thursday, November 4th, 7 o'clock to 8.30 p.m. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins, Mr. Heard. I just do again wanna briefly thank former Chief Jefferson and Rob Dustin for a really incredible event on Friday for the six retiring firefighters and wish them all well in their well-deserved retirement. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Heard. Mrs. Mahon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the Thursday meeting, ideally for me early in the morning when John's still home, but if that doesn't work and it's truly a one agenda item, I'm really not available until like, see, she gets her meds at two. Like, three. Because if I do anything before her last medicines, you know what I'm talking about, Mr. Corsair, if I could do it at 1.32. So it's any way we can do it early morning, Thursday, or any time between after three. Yeah. Okay. And two quick new business. One, I was gonna begin discussions. I've had discussions with the town manager for the past two and a half plus years in Ms. Rowe. But now what I wanna do is talk to the chair tomorrow and then about a strategy from Ugar if it's something because it will be in the initial phases of possibly doing this to present as an option, if it could be covered by executive session, and then if we do take the step, then it would be on public. So I'm gonna have that conversation with the chair tomorrow and Mr. Chapter Lane, he's still taking my calls. And then the other thing I'd leave it up to the chair in terms of a report update on long range planning committee. I believe the full board received an email from Charlie Foskett as an individual, not representing the full FinCon a long range. If you didn't get it where he was talking about the impending override and puts out some suggestions just sort of as a matrix. If you didn't get it, just let the office know. And I know I CC them a copy of the letter. And that's it, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Mrs. Mahan. And so just briefly on the MuGar point, I did speak to the town manager, we've been speaking regularly about it. And I think there will be something, I can talk to you about that tomorrow as well, that we will put on a future agenda. And you're absolutely right, it's possible that it could be an executive session type item or depending on the nature of things. So we will address that. And the other thing I wanted to say was, just wanted to echo what Mr. Hurd said about the retirement dinner that we attended on Friday. So with that, we have an executive session item on now. So the executive session will be to conduct a strategy session in preparation for contract negotiations with non-union personnel, the town manager and or conduct contract negotiations with same, if I could have a motion for that and then we may address timing once we're in the session. Motion to go into executive session. Anybody care to make it? I'll make it, motion to go into executive session. And this time, let's just please, you know, adjourn out of that session. Okay, is there a second? Second. Okay, motion has been made by Mr. Diggins, seconded by Mr. Halmuth, attorney Hyde. Hurd? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Halmuth? Yes. Mrs. Mahan? Yes. Mr. Ducorsi? Yes. Okay, thank you so much. I'm sorry, Mr. Ducorsi, just to be clear, we will not return from executive session. Is that? That's correct. Understanding? Okay, that's correct. That will be it for the public portion of the meeting. We will be going into executive session and adjourning. Thank you everyone for staying with us and that concludes this, the public portion of the meeting tonight.