 Good evening and welcome to the Board of Selections meeting for Monday, March 10th at a 7 15 We did open earlier today with the budget and revenue task force Which we met across the hall with the the school committee and other financial officials and our state delegation I want to thank everybody for coming to that. I want to remind everyone that this meeting is Cablecast and it's also recorded by ACMI and other people here. So this meeting is being recorded and may be replayed later I Do I want to open with? Thinking about some people that we lost in the last couple weeks. It has been a tough couple weeks for some of the Described as the lines of activism and volunteerism in Arlington Harry McCabe Bill Armstrong and John Fitz Morris have all passed within the last couple weeks and they have all been stalwarts of for the town in supporting and volunteering and helping this make the community that we let know and love And so I'd like us all to take a moment of silence in the in their memory Thank you all very much Mr. Chairman if I may Each of these each of us could go on for quite a while I'm sure but I would just like to say a couple things about Harry McCabe former member of the Board of Selectman former town moderator in 1989 a young upstart by the name of Greeley Decided to run against Harry for Selectman and I squeaked by in that election But he came to my headquarters at night to congratulate me and wish me the best of luck I mean, I think that's a that's a kind of class He's got to be one of the longest serving town meeting members, but anyhow, just God rest their souls Thank you at least you beat him when I ran against him in section in a precinct 21. He beat me I Am gonna briefly take so we have a number of items on our agenda and one of the last items on the agenda was Is the community preservation Act? But we do have our state delegation here with us and they did ask to weigh in and so I'd like to invite both senator Donnelly and Representative garbly to come on up and and kind of give us a preview of the hearing that we're gonna have later tonight Thank You Jim and done members of our board. Thank you for taking us out of water and I'm here to Testify and support the community preservation Act. I know that over the last couple of years It's had strong support in the legislature last year. I know we increased at $25 million in that surplus account for it And I believe that we made a statement both the House and the Senate that we're going to commit to doing that on an ongoing Basis or at least to support this very very important goal I Think was 2012 we added fields To renovate the field. So, you know, you have the opportunity to open space affordable housing historic buildings There's just so many things you can do with that, you know community preservation act money having represented Lexington See how it could really work and how it's worked throughout the state. So you have strong support in the Senate and I'm what Sean speak for the House, but and I think that the Communities more and more communities have taken this and it's a form of local aid And I just don't see us reversing our support for this bill. So I strongly urge that this committee Support the community preservation act and let's make sure that we have a positive Thank you for joining us there. Thank you chairman done Just to or to agree to the sentiments of senator Donnelly and speak in strong support for the community preservation act This has been an issue that has been debated at length in the House representatives as the Senate as senator Donnelly Have spoke and the outcome of that debate has really been a fruitful Conversation and looking at some of the three many of the 351 cities and communities across the Commonwealth that adopted CPA and seeing the results That have come from that in each individual representatives communities They come back to the house and they really are able to show us what kind of an impact The state dollars have had in their community and it's had it's been an incredible Incredible impact as the senator stated it is a strong Commitment to many of the aspects of communities that we love Day-to-day life for all of our residents and it's a strong sense of local aid from the state Many members of the House and the Senate have spoken in strong support as the delegation here tonight has To to our speaker to our Senate president This is a strong commitment that the legislature is not going to back away from and we view it as a strong Commitment to local aid and we hope the board will take that local aid. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you both for joining us tonight Okay Next up we have the consent agenda Minutes of the meetings for February 24th request for contractor drain layer license for hydratec Request for one day all alcohol license for Gibbs school on March 29th Request for one day all alcohol license for also March 29th at Arlington Catholic High Is there anyone here for either of those events who wishes to speak? Move approval Mrs. Mohan just with the correction under the minutes for article 20 that the vote is Communicated with the chairman and Mrs. Krupp-Elka So yeah, just so with that adjustment to the minutes on page four of February 24th We have a motion we have a second Second second anyone for me either of those schools who want to talk Seeing none any further discussion all those in favor, please say aye. Aye opposed 5-0 Next up appointments trust fund commission Damon Barglow mr. Barglow come on come on up to the microphone Thank you very much for agreeing to serve in this position Could you share with us? We've got your resume could you share with us just a little bit about what motivates you to be excited about the trust commission and What you think the job will do for it. Yes, sir. Thanks. First of all for the appointment. I'm very appreciative of it I've been a resident of Arlington for about 14 years raising my kids here I've done quite a bit of volunteer work Most recently for the last six years. I've served for security analysts in Boston and really I'm finishing that up and was looking for a way to serve my local community and you know I love Arlington and it seemed very appropriate. I for the last 14 years. I've served Rather my corporations have served as corporate trustees for for many municipalities and I was also interested in actually being one on the other side as a trustee and Just something that I thought would be a way to give back to the community Kevin Just thank you very much You're kind of volunteer That's the light blood of this town and to bring this kind of expertise. Thank you very much move approval Thank you. Any further conversation questions all those in favor, please say aye Opposed 5-0. Thank you very much. Thank you Next up traffic rules orders for approval John F. McCacken Memorial We have a few weeks ago We referred the question memorial to the public memorials committee and they have come back with a positive recommendation for this memorial So you want Joe? Yeah, I just wanted to note that I know that since we did move to refer this there have been further conversations between the friends of Waldo Park and Mr. McCacken Mr. Riley as well as the public memorials committee so that Everybody is kind of on the same page because as you know a lot of work was just recently done at Waldo Park So I know that they're all working together to try to make sure that whatever is put in place here It's both consistent with the wishes of the bequest, but also consistent with the Desires of the neighborhood down there as well. I just want to make sure that was And I'll move approval we have a motion second Steve I just want to thank the public memorials committee. This was a really quick turnaround on this and You know The amount of money that's being given from mr. McCacken The town is pretty astounding. So I think it's fitting that the public memorials committee did such a great job We have a motion we have a second any further discussion and all those in favor, please say aye. Aye opposed Five zero. Thank you Next up presentation on the Arlington Cultural Commission, Adria arch Yeah, or Welcome Actually She is well, I'm I and Barbara Well, I and Barbara and Roley are here and Barbara and I are co-chairs Although Adria is of course a very active member of our commission who does a lot of great work And we're very appreciative of Adria, but she was never intending to come. She couldn't make it this evening So well, you know, I don't I think you've had this report ahead of time So I don't know how much detail you really want should I just go through the items on it? Yeah, I would say you definitely don't need it to read it to us because but thank you But yeah if you want to hit the high points the things you're most excited about in particular things You think that we should be telling other people about or things that you need our help in making happen better or more Okay Well, you know, I mean since we're a brand new committee and people weren't really quite sure what we were about and I think when we first Got started We we had to figure out what we were about so the first thing was to sit down and do a mission statement I will read the mission statement because I would like everybody to know what the mission of the Arlington Cultural Commission Soon to be renamed will be It is the mission the mission of the Arlington Cultural Commission is to serve as a vocal and visible advocate for arts and culture in Arlington and to Advise the board of selectmen regarding all matters of a cultural or artistic nature in town Okay, so then one of the first things that we were charged with is dealing with the bus depot mural and what happened there and some of the Miscommunications or lack of communications that had that happened or did not happen between with the artist and the community and the people Who participated in doing that mural? We're apparently Informed but not but the reports weren't clear and not Unconformed and unfortunately There was no chance to memorialize the mural or documented or anything before it was Removed cut through with the new right Right spot store that went in there so We got the parties together and convened a meeting to try to come up with some Recommendations of how to avoid this in the future and how to make the lines of communication perfectly clear So what we came up with was a public policy Document guidelines some recommendations these guidelines or recommendations of first of all a process for public art Which helps helps the artists and the the public or private Property owners think through what are the terms of this artwork? How should it be maintained who is responsible for maintaining what is the materials? What are the safety issues how long most importantly how long is it going to be up? Is it temporary? Is it permanent and how are we going to let you know that it's reached the end of its line? I mean the right spot had every right to move into that place. It was a private Kind of private building really owned by the MBTA. So Things happen private buildings have no different interests and even even public buildings things happen to them And so so lots of public art is not permanent. So the question is How do we communicate that to all parties which so I have here some you know public art Guidelines and it also comes with a an agreement and the reason this agreement is here is just so that the Own property owners and the artists have there's a document that says they each saw this they each had this Conversation about all of these terms and hear the and and to put their contact numbers down Also community partners if there are schools involved who made the mural Everybody contact information is here and informed of if anything needs to happen to the mural if the mural needs to be Taken down and it's not just murals sculptures whatever it is And it has some criteria for removal as well and this document I just want you to know is derived from the American friends of the Americans for the arts right I knew I was getting around Americans for the art So it's a standardized document which I've distilled into its smallest possible form Okay, so But anyway, it's you know, it's research and standardized in locations that have good robust public art programs So we are recommending that the board of select men adopt these guidelines and use the agreement when commissioning art on on public property or if any art is going to be done on public property We're also recommending through publicity that Artists use this with pot private property owners as well. It will go on file in town with our arts and culture liaison, which is the next item on here that we recommend that An article which is housed in the town to start with this would be a an unpaid intern For 10 hours a week to inventory public art to establish this kind of file Ultimately, we'd like to see this position grow be funded so that we can have a regular You know check-in on each help piece of public art the status the files updated So so that you know if something's up for five ten years and people pull out this file And of course it's totally out of date. Everybody's moved and you can't reach anybody or or there was some maintenance issue That wasn't dealt with years ago, and that's why Pieces and disappear, you know just to keep up with the the maintenance and what's in town But also to do a number of other things, you know help write grants for the town for Arts and arts and culture programs Coordinated publicity is this production promotion of collaborative events And so forth so that that's where the position would go as it as it would grow And we'd like we'd like permission to Advertise for that permission the unpaid intern for now through and if we're to come through the human resources department So we have a job description, which is attached here Although we think we might need to pull it back a little bit for the unpaid intern Do you want us to stop and talk about that a little bit? Do you want us to stop and talk about that position a little bit or do you want to keep going? My thought was That we would might consider sending that one to the town manager to take a look at is because Frankly the board of slept and can't manage a tent a part-time employee. We wouldn't we would be terrible at it Is it okay if we refer to that particular question to you to see what if there's Okay, Kevin, so I agree So I Stephanie so are you thinking we would actually make the appointment of this liaison or no, no, I think you know Happy to take that on So you Thank you Steve is there Currently someone volunteering in this role right now No, you know, we are You know collaborative volunteers, but it's more work than we can handle I actually have a question comment on the addendum a for the public art guidelines first off Just because you're gonna clarify tonight. I think under article 15 any confusion The different cultural commissions and committees where it appears in your proposed addendum a public art guidelines ACC will that become AC AC if the vote is successful? Yes, and I'm happy to amend that and Just for clarity sake and then in terms of and I've gone through this I guess I would through the chair Asked town council and I know this is just a draft and you know the first part of the document and how we go forward with it in terms of the bodies outlined in terms of the Only to public art it soon to be possibly AC AC board of selectmen and or pox in recreation department Do you feel that that's a marriage of stakeholders that can make that? Decision is it something where no this has to be a policy if we do adopt some form of a public art guideline No, is that something that the policy makers the board of selectmen have ultimate with input from various departments or no Is that something because it's publicly owned land and or school land that the town manager and superintendent? Who is the governing approving enforcing authority or do you want to think about that and and say it a future date? Yeah, I'd like to just sort of take your comments Obviously, this is a first time not the first time I guess probably before but you're reviewing this and take those comments and examine those issues and can report back to the board and to the And I stand behind this a hundred and fifty percent I just want to make sure that when we start incorporated and drafting it that whomever or It could be the superintendent in the town may it could be whatever with the advice from you know, only to public arts Looking at it with the legalese sort of eye if you could define actually who has responsibility policy makers or appointed town or school officials understood Joe well first of all, I just want to thank you for all the work You haven't been in existence for very long and you produce an awful lot a lot of work here And this is you know as comprehensive an annual report I think as we get from you know a lot of our commissions and committees have been around and doing this for quite a while So thank you, and there's a lot of good good work that's been done I did have the opportunity to attend the forum that you had Convened over at the senior center Six months ago, and it was very well attended brought together, you know, local business folks and and representatives of different cultural organizations, and that's exactly what I think we were hoping that we would see My question was very much what my colleague Ms. Mahan had about the Mechanism did I understand that you know? I know that there are some public art projects that are kind of being generated through Arlington public art Maybe with in collaboration with the Commission in those cases where they're strictly a private Endeavour you're just recommending to artists that they utilize these guidelines To protect the mutual interests of themselves Exactly, and then it'd be you know so that there can also be a record in the town too so that we can help Follow up in case some changes need to be made And if it helps town council kind of in his his analysis of this was your thought then that when there are initiatives that are either going to be on you know Property that's under the jurisdiction of the board of selectmen or Conversely under the jurisdiction of the parks and recreation department that at the time of approval if an approval was needed from our board or from that that that commission that we would Request that as a condition of approval that that participants utilize These guidelines and so I don't know is that kind of roughly what what you had in mind if that helps town council when you're looking at this It is helpful. We've had some preliminary discussions about this mat about the guidelines and the agreement There's obviously some Different ways in which you could structure the actual mechanism, you know reading this you could either make it more explicit in the agreement Kind of allow the agreement to have some flexibility Would you prefer to have each one of these things? Approve before a public art installation could go in or which is it going to be a process by which you know only a certain You know board is going to decide based on who the property owner is you could in theory Just to address Miss Pahon's question for a moment You couldn't theory have a process by which the board of selecting could weigh in on something even if it's You know not necessarily exclusively under the board of assignments jurisdiction There's a lot of different ways that you can construct it and we'll obviously talk about but it is helpful. Thank you, Mr. Cure. Thank you Kevin Well, I was going to make a motion Well, I was also going to be I was going to cut her off to talk about that particular position. Did you have a motion? Do you should we let her finish? Those were like those are sort of the the meaty parts, so the rest I'll just you know Rattle off very quickly for the record and just for anybody who's watching out there Just to know the outreach and relationship building part. That's the meeting that Joe referred to on October 3rd work We convened Cultural organizations and businesses involved in sort of the cultural sphere And we are planning another one of those meetings May 10th and hope to involve the Chamber of Commerce as well I'm sorry. May 8th. Thank you very much May 8th. That's a Thursday, right? Thursday May 8th another one and you're all invited to attend that as well I mean the town involvement is also crucial and the business community arts and cultural artists, you know Just to make it more regular as you know Arlington Alive was a big initiative that happened And we just sort of want to keep the momentum of having these conversations and collaborative opportunities regularly Throughout so you know to build community and to heart start pooling our resources and thinking strategically together The arts and culture website and calendar as you as you know One of the three priorities that came out of that Arlington Alive meeting, which was June 10th 2012 I won't go I won't repeat that what that meeting but the three priorities came out of that one of them was a leadership body Which is the cultural commission another one is a central communication mechanism or a website where? Why we don't know one can manage a website on their own we have many organizations have kind of started it We also have a website with a calendar on it But nobody can really you know keep up with that so without having a dedicated person in that position Keeping town a prize of public art projects just to when it when there is a public art project, which is in between and private property owner and and an artist we we just like to let you know what's happening even though I guess you don't have any jurisdiction unless you want to have a jurisdiction, but Just to just so you know what's happening in your town assistant establishment of a policy as it pertains to arts and culture. What is that? Yes, yes, yes Public art, I thought I thought we um, I thought I repeated myself, but no it refers to the initiatives that I used to like you Stephanie I got thrown off but these refer to the article the Warren articles that were put forward about the poet laureate and the street performances which we which of course are very excited about and want to put you know on paper in our report that we Would love to work with The board of selectmen in any way that might be needed in any way which might be helpful on Those initiatives in any future initiatives like that I should have done this when you were on number seven on keeping the board informed of public art projects Whatever vehicle you all deem appropriate. I know I would love any sort of Maybe it's just a word description. That's fine, too But if we could get any sort of black-and-white schematic or something of what's being proposed unless you think that's too cumbersome I was trying to think of how you could inform the board of selectmen of the mural that's going by Anthony's deli which I think you said had something to do with marathon and in a Greek Revival, I don't know if you don't have to but in the future if you want to just you define how you inform the board of selectmen a Bonus for me a benefit would be if possible if there is I'm not asking anyone to commission anything But yeah, you know, there's just something and sort of just a quick little sketch or maybe it's just words So I how would you like to receive that? Just if you could send it to the board to mrs. Corpelka and you know I'm not asking you that it doesn't have to be color or anything like that. Just whatever you have Just would be nice to see the visual if you have it. Yeah That's part of that's part of what this procedure does is it asks for a design quite far You know in the beginning up front in the process. That's one of the steps that needs to be taken. So yes, we do have that Do I keep going? Did you have anything? Oh, the last thing is just the name change which we're about to adjust anyway So I can table that. Well, yeah, we'll get to that when we get to the public hearing. So let's do that All right questions comments motions I can move receipt second I included under receipt is asking the town manager to look at the hire asking the town council to continue to work with the council on The agreement telepathy is a wonderful thing, isn't it? Did we have anything else in particular? We wanted to attach to that any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye opposed five zero. Thank you very much. I Kind of wanted to bring up the name change now, but because it's a hearing I'm going to keep it at the end. Sorry Next up Arlington high school. It says my name, but I'm not going to say anything Dr. Bodie I will say just a brief introduction that so Dr. Bodie and her traveling tour of architect and school committee members are Doing you did this is one of three public hearings. You're doing Your last week we did a presentation to the school committee Tonight for all of you and by the way, thank you very much for inviting us this evening We really appreciate this opportunity and we will be presenting this also Wednesday evening weather permitting To Parents in the community as well as well as as community members and hopefully we'll have some town meeting members attend as well Let me introduce be introduced to you. Laurie Cole's Who is the architect of this report and who is an architect? In fact, some of you may know Laurie from her work as being the architect of the Thompson elementary school Which we all it's an opportunity here to tell Laurie again How much we appreciate such a beautiful building that is was delivered on time and under budget? Thank you, Laurie As you know, we've been talking about for quite some time The many of the building issues at the high school and thinking about When are we when are we going to renovate the school? and and is this something that needs to be done sooner rather than later and last year we To begin this process the school department hire the engineering firm onsite insight to look at all the mechanical Electrical and infrastructure needs of the school and that report you've seen and those that are watching this evening all of the reports that The I'm mentioning are on the district website under Arlington High School facility documents in that report There were an outlining of all of the all of the physical issues of the building and What was particularly alarming in the report is that when you look at a 20 years? roll out of doing these kinds of repairs Virtually every repair needed to be done in the first year Coupled with that we went through a 10-year accreditation process last year through Niasque, which is the New England Association accreditation association for schools and colleges and they have put the high school on warning for facilities While at the same time lauding all of the good work that's going on in the school The high school has not been renovated since the late late 1970s and we've done repairs and I think that we've done a good job trying to fix the Deficits that they've come along and and and that's a credit to the town But the the school has gotten to the point where it really does need major renovation So we're here tonight To give you more information about the needs of the school so that you can you would be willing to Join with the school committee in voting to present a statement of interest to the Massachusetts school building authority Which will be due no later than April 11th our goal would be to submit this this request probably late late March and Delivered to all of you last week was a draft copy of the statement of interest as well as these reports So we're trying to stick to a time limit here, and I'm going to turn this over to Lori And let her talk about the programmatic issues at the high school Thank you Thank you for having us here tonight Earlier we tested shutting off part partial lights in this room, which helps with the slide So I don't know if that's okay with you for us. It just helps with the slides So This is what we're trying to outline here today Overview of the school the bulk of what I want to talk about is the programmatic space needs a little bit about safety and security A very little bit about facility condition because as Kathy mentioned there's another report on that and similarly about enrollment projections, which Diane is not with us tonight, but sort of speak for themselves So Everyone is familiar everyone's been to the high school Basically, we're looking at three different generations of a building the oldest being Fusco, which is to the left on your screen the bottom of your screen is Mass Ave Fusco is from the 1914 so it is on its 100th year as we speak and The complex here is the column house the 1930s and the back part is down 1960s and then various little bits here and there and as Kathy said real renovation work didn't happen until 70s so This diagram and you don't need to be able to read every little thing, but what we tried to do is establish What else is happening in the building? So it's a very large building. It's almost 400,000 square feet Which is one of the largest high schools in the Commonwealth But it has a lot of other uses including the school administration the preschool program town offices And the lab collaborative program and so they all take up parts of the building and With that we sort of established in conjunction with circulation, which I'll go into in a moment The high school itself only probably has a net program square feet of little over 200,000 in this large building These are rough numbers, but that's that's what we've come up with So in looking at sort of the programmatic space needs these are the different categories I won't read them. I'm going to try to do this presentation half the time I did it last week So I feel like I'm cutting out things. Let me know so the high school space use and so this is where all the Academic the shared use spaces the administrative support spaces what may be a little hard to see but if you look There's a lot of little asterisks and little dots on various rooms and I'll get to that in a moment We call them sort of the obstructed view rooms if you think back to the old garden So this is this is very telling that everything in blue is circulation. So we did a rough calculation And there's more than 5700 linear feet of corridors in the building there are 20 sets of stairs in the building It's a big building to say it's confusing is sort of an understatement I certainly crossed paths with people who have been there a lot more than I have and they still need directions And I'm an architect and I was walking around with floor plans and I still was getting confused as to where we were So you know what what and this adds to sort of the bulk of the building is all this circulation and the Circulations for good reason you had to build on to the next addition and so on and and make connections But what happens on a given school day if you're a student and you're on the fifth floor of Fusco in your World world language class and you've got math next you're all but running to get to math Which is in the far end of downs and so you're going down one building and across another and back up And a lot of times what they're doing is actually cutting through the library Which doesn't make for a very good library space, but they're trying to get to their class so a little bit Touching base on a few photographs of classrooms So this is a typical general classroom, and I will point out what I did was look at In comparison to the MSBA the state funding mechanisms they have guidelines for educational spaces and only 33% of Arlington High School's general classrooms meet the minimum size Square-foot classroom requirements that MSBA has it's pretty low And then another example of a classroom with what we call the obstructed view and what you see happen in something like this oopsie is that the You know you have all kinds of floor space You're not really using because you got to cram the kids to one side or cram the kids to the other side So they can see and even when they're doing that the teacher says, you know you spend part of the day doing that To try to see what's going on Similarly this happens to be a science classroom Similarly science classrooms at MSBA for their guidelines are 1,440 square feet the average classroom and for science at the high school are 1,000 square feet and I'll layer on top of that MSBA guidelines assumes 23 students in that room We have 28 to 30 typically in the room. So again plus obstructed view You're really causing a very tight Situation which has an impact on how they are able to Do experiments and so on so there's a lot of specifics I won't get too much into but And then this is just an interesting shot. This is a literally a triangular shaped classroom Which the teacher does an excellent job in teaching in but again not ideal The next category is technology and other necessary features There is kind of a lump of a lot of different components that a You know 21st century school building would like to see and what you're looking at here is pretty outdated science equipment and This one I was telling this story and people couldn't really get the picture the last time This is a very creatively Jerry rigged overhead a ceiling projector and So ceiling projectors are what are commonly used now. You don't use TVs You don't you want a ceiling projector and because of either obstructed view the waffle construction Etc no not enough power and data a lot of classrooms don't have this this teacher happened to figure out figure out a way he's got the core draping over and down and wherever it goes and He built a little plywood Platform for it and he got it up there on the ceiling. So he was he was pretty happy with himself But it's pretty tricky. This one sort of speaks to itself basically a lot of power needs data needs and Wireless unfortunately again with the construction of the school. It's not easy to accommodate wireless technology Basically you almost have to have a wireless technology note in every room which just defeats the purpose and I think the last one here was the best example I could have just a picture of an AC unit Sort of tidied up for winter because I'm sure it's very cold, but again, you know a modern refurbished school building would have air conditioning in the library in the computer labs in the administration and in nowadays and a Lot of schools in the general classrooms as well because they're used throughout the calendar year So adjacency in size, this is a little more trickier to get your get your hand around but you know There's more than one size teach base and they and they offer different opportunities Depending on the size and so you have your general typical classroom where you have 20 plus kids there But you might want to be able to send four or five kids to what's called the small group room or a breakout space So they can do a project and this is very common and what we'd be looking for so this happens to be one of the typical classrooms Maybe it's hard to tell but it's very undersized This happens to be an example of a breakout space. Yes, they are in the stairwell. This is where they go So a teacher would say to kids, okay, you can't all be doing a project in this one room It's too small you five go that way you five go that way and come back in 20 minutes I'm sure the kids don't mind, but there are better solutions I did not want to get into looking at bathrooms. So we just have a picture of an out of the doorway to one of the toilet rooms There's not enough toilet rooms. They're not located in ideal spaces They're few and far between to get to and where they're located are actually Not an ideal spaces because they're at the very end of the quarter sometimes into stairwells So they're hard to supervise and they're hard to monitor and kids don't really want to use them So there's a lot of issues around You know placement of things in the building This happens to be a photo of one of the family and consumer science spaces But this is an example of this is a program. There's a few others in music where The space is so disparate throughout the building, you know, there are different floors It's hard for the teachers to communicate and work together And for the spaces to function as ideally as you'd like space needs This is a photo of the cafeteria at lunchtime and It speaks for itself as far as being crowded The other issue with the cafeteria is if you've been there has this very big central stair Which makes it hard to monitor and keep an eye on everything The next space. This is a shot of the library again columns Sort of not a very Welcoming space with all those sort of both of these kids cutting through is a very lot of circulation that happens in the space Again, just not an ideal and also square footage undersized. We've already talked about the sciences as being undersized and Just so you didn't think I made up that other photo with the kids sitting in the stairwells as a different kids Doing a different Simon in a different part of the school, but again You know, you think about space needs. It's not all about the big spaces Sometimes it's about the small spaces and incorporating the different ways that teachers teach and the different ways that students learn The next section safety and security This starts to get into again thinking about the size of this building and monitoring this building and keep an eye on everything You know those lengths of quarters are not all they don't all have adults right there What's being flagged here in most instances are stairwells and bathrooms? Those are usually the hot spots the thing about the stairwells is they're not all regularly used How could you possibly use 20 flights of stairs all the time? That in coupled with the fact that there's I got some good pictures here There's the bottom of and the top of stairwells that just don't have traffic. So you know can hang out there and Similarly, you know, there's a number of corridors that really don't have a lot of program spaces off them again because of the old You know additions getting from one space in the next. There's a lot of circulation that happens One thing overall about the security in the buildings. There's 50 exterior doors and they are not tied to a security alarm system So they all can be shot and locked but should somebody stick a rock in them they can be kept Unlocked and you know people can return it off ours. This is this is the best picture. I could come up with to come up with Let's say an antiquated public address system No telephones in the classrooms These two things alone are security issues because you need to be able to communicate You need to be able that the adults need to be able to know what's going on other parts of the building and communicate with each other Well, and if anyone's ever been there when the bells ring, it's the most jarring thing again It's just antiquated and It's very loud The the science space is not to harp on them But they are also their own version of a safety issue and really the teacher has to make a decision Can I do this experiment? I mean they're using chemicals and so on is it too crowded in here? And so it's you know, they make the decision I'll just do the experiment up front and they don't get to do the hands-on because this is the size of the class and I can't accommodate that so You know it's just the sort of safety issue of that and one other safety issue I have to say it has to do with those cords which I know you have here as well But again with a room of 25 kids and stuff having cords and wires draping is an ideal I'm not going to go into this because I may be out of time but this is just a quick bulleted list and Just a word about the onsite insight report The the main purpose of such reports are for Maintenance planning So they help the facilities folks and the budget-minded folks. What do we have to do to maintain this building? It's it's not a report that responds to major issues. It's not a report that responds to educational needs It's not something that is going to I'll give an example in the report It says oh put a couple thousand dollars to investigate the water infiltration It doesn't solve the water infiltration and there's a lot of examples like that It doesn't universally solve all the accessibility needs and so it's a tool and it's a very good tool We come across them we've worked with them onsite insight over the years and they do something that serves its purpose But what they've offered and done is Not the same as what the MSBA state funding agency would support helping you do It would be something that would be separate and done by the town on its own The MSBA as a funding mechanism Wants to ensure that the money they're putting into a project is not only fixing the building But supporting the educational needs for the foreseeable future that that's what they're going to be looking for I'm just a quick. We sort of looked at some crowded spaces I'm not going to get too specific, but you can see enrollments are going up So for a crowded today it's only going to increase I'll paraphrase Diane and I'm going to pretend to be Diane, but these are kids. We know about you know, they exist You know so back when you're trying to figure out kindergarten. They don't quite exist yet They're not born, but once you start getting into the high school ages these kids exist So we're able to say unless they go somewhere else all of a sudden they're here And I don't know how I did but I'm done Fantastic actually I think you did 18 minutes, so No, Diane I Don't know if it's premature But first I'd like a motion to support and join with our colleagues in the school committee and school administration to submit the Statement of interest to the MSBA. I think by April 11th of this year I'll keep my remarks brief because I think we all have a common voice I know mr. Dunn and I when we've been out on the campaign trail There are some issues of commonality and this is certainly one of them Arlington high school One of the things I always talk about First I have a question and I understand this is just beginning the conversation. So this is not the defining document the defining plan Is it appropriate where it's mostly a Sports athletic use possibly in the future Would it be appropriate to include a possible physical structure field house What we now call the practice football field would that comply to be included with Requested MSBA for the high school and I'm also going to address this question under community preservation act or no Where it's just purely an athletic or right now in my mind So so we're at the we're like almost in the pre-step first step Okay, and so what our efforts right now were to support filling out the statement of interest When you fill out the statement of interest for the MSBA, it's just identifying your needs. It's not it's not claiming a solution It's not saying we're gonna do X Y and Z. It's saying here are all our educational needs. So that's where we're at and then So athletic week comes in there. Okay athletics come in there and how all all of that pans out So so after the statement of interest if I'm gonna just give you the next couple steps after this is submitted At some point if not this year and hopefully this year Arlington will be put in the queue as they say or brought in to start the process They call it invitation to be invited to start the process with the MSBA So in that step there You start their whole they have a very Detailed process of how to go through both the establishing of what's the needs. That's the feasibility study What's the possible solution costs and so on and then you start the design process and then you start the construction process So it is a long, you know step-by-step So rather very very beginning and just I know my colleagues will also speak to this But I always relay my personal experience. I went to Arlington high school Graduated in 1980 and I am literally walking the same halls the same stairways as a coach I also know which stairways out really use that much and you know, there's Different approach. It has to be taken to that as well as I hear from the student athletes and the students with Gilbert and Sullivan over in the Downs building. Why are we not using this space appropriately? Nothing makes sense We're in the Middlesex League and sad to say and I mean this honestly, I'll give you the list of every high school We've been to that we've competed in all sports I've yet to find a high school in worse disrepair than Arlington high school is So I want to plug my colleagues in the school committee and dr. Bodie and his coals and others for Starting this conversation starting this process. I think it's long overdue and I'm really Excited for at the possibility and I'll leave my remarks at that Thanks One Thank you very much for Thompson and I completely understand why The town is working with you again And I just have a couple questions Can you talk a little bit about what being put on warning? Means and go into that a little bit further or What that means is they've identified An a problem that they give you basically 10 years To solve and during that 10 years you have to do Reports along the on the way in terms of what you're doing What that would mean is if when they come back in 10 years and we have done nothing or very little to To rectify the problem then the high school could be put Another level or could not even get accreditation now this is these are all possibilities. I can't speak for me ask but it is something that It's important and I think that one of the things that struck them in being in the high school was this This this this this big disparity between the education that was going on and the quality of facilities to support the education and I think that our teachers have done a great job To overcome a lot of these deficits But at the same time, I think our student our children deserve a better building than this Moving forward would I don't know if this might be Do you think do you see you know lab the preschool the administrative offices being part of your plans? I think that again, that's part of working with the MSBA in the feasibility study So clearly the town has a need for these spaces. So if they're not on this site, where would they be and so You know whether that becomes a little subset to the overall study It may be that you know, we were just talking about the preschool And in fact there's a component of high school education where they in fact are engaging with the preschool So so there's some, you know purposeful Adjacency is happening But it's it's it's not up for us to know right now. What will be I will tell you But I do know MSBA won't help pay for town offices I can almost go or Kathy's office for that matter So I do know that so so whether that means that there's a way to Rearrange things that they're in a location that basically down the road. Maybe you renovate separate or something. That's again But we it's it's a need and we have to definitely identify it and be able to solve it when all is said We did look at will be the preschool to Thompson project and if you know that it wasn't wasn't feasible didn't happen The lab program I think it's important for you to understand why the lab program is in the high school We are part of a collaborative and the arrangement the collaborative was why we were able to reduce the cost of out of district Special education costs is that each district in the collaborative houses? One of the programs maybe sometimes more than one we have a lab program at the high school and one at the middle school in fact that so All the other districts do the same thing and and as and that's part of the original agreement So with the lab program move It might be very difficult to move it because I'm not sure where else in the district We would because we do have that commitment to do that Thank you, and the only thing is that when we were on our tour not very long ago You brought up rocks indoors and in one of the back doors There was a rock being pried open and people were coming in and out So, you know the safety is a huge component of this and it is very necessary to address. Thank you Joe Thank you very much. Thank you for your work I hadn't actually intended to ask what the preschool what you you actually touched on something as I recalled MSBA was not had not been willing to fund the preschool portion. Was that correct at Thompson? But it sounds like possibly we have a hook where this is part of the high school educational program I was just gonna say I don't recall we never we never got to the point to ask them whether or not they would It was it was something that the committee the Building committee decided to pull from the project because we were worried they wouldn't and just financial costs of the project We never got to the project funding with preschool, but the we had a budget Thompson Yeah, and the preschool took it way over that budget the second issue was MSBA did talk to us about the site Square footage that they really did have an issue with they thought that this was going to take up to greater percentage of the site Thank you, and I hadn't actually intended but Steve actually reminded me Thank you for all this material. I spent a lot of time going going through it I've always known about the issue with so many entrances and egresses here My jaw dropped when I saw all of these red dots of unsupervisable areas though in the high school I think in this time of heightened awareness of school security I think that's something we all have to be concerned about my jaw are also dropped when I realized reading it that We have three different fire alarm systems there that aren't don't intercommunicate So if there is an emergency within the school the other parts of the school have no way of knowing that automatically, which is really a big problem I just It just feeds some of what we all saw when we took the tours some of the other safety issues in the school You know including the science rooms and gas shutoffs not in the room where it's This this has to be Addressed so I'm very happy to be Supporting it. I did have one question on the process going forward. I noticed in the SOI That it does say that if based on the SOI review process a facility rises the level of need and urgency And is invited into the eligibility period the district will need to provide a detailed educational plan Not only for the high school, but for the entire District what does that consist of is that essentially something like what you've done in this report blown out to the entire district or something more extensive less extensive How does that impact the the the schedule on the timeline going forward? Well, the the educational plan is something that we would be not easily to take some time to put it all together But they're looking really to take a look at our all of our vertical alignments. How does some of the programs in the high school? How do we support them through a vertical process? They'd want to they'd want to know for sure How does the preschool relate to our early childhood program? That was going to become an issue, but they but they they're their need for the is much more at a a Summary level than it is any kind of deep analysis What they would want to know so for instance, you know What are the programs that you have at the high school? Do you need that might explain what they are how they work all of that as Kathy's talking about If for instance, which is likely The building currently is constraining the ability for them to do other types of teaching So they're going to put in and say well we we need these following types of spaces again Written narrative sort of an educational speak as opposed to architect speak that says this is why we need this and what We're going to teach and how we're going to teach and so on so it's sort of a it supports The need for the physical based on the education, but as I understand it We have to do that for every facility in the district according to this Yes, and no it would be for example more like let's take science for example It's a good example because that's really where one of our glaring needs is you know We want to be able to they might want to understand what our educational program is in our in our k8 and then what is it that is an impediment in the high school for continuing that level of depth and rigor and Experimentation for example, and Laurie did mention one of the issues is that when you have say 20 628 students in a classroom, and you've got fixed counters to do an experiment You see high school students around this you understand that so easy to bump into each other that there is a curtailment of The types of experiments that can be done Because of safety issues, so these are the kinds of things that they're going to want to know But they also want to know how that program that's being curtailed how that is is sort of the part of a More vertical of progression in science Thank you Kevin thank you Dr. Bode thank you look forward to working with you again looks like we will be for a while yet to come And congratulations to you and your staff and all the teachers for doing such an excellent job And what's clearly a difficult environment for them to do so so Laurie thank you for the excellent work at Thompson and excellent presentation tonight and If you had a guess Are we looking at a rebuild or rehab? Well Does MSBA still have that if it's if it the cost of rehab is up to 60% of a new school you'd have to build a new school I don't know that they have a formula I think what what will happen is that? Will work through in the feasibility study phase all the different possible scenarios and some of them are just going to Get brought up and thrown out right so all kinds of scenarios of what could happen Ultimately they will look for us to come down to three a three-three. It's nice round number. You know, let's study three Get pricing on three different scenarios and be able to then say which one's the best one So now in generic form a lot of times unless one is thrown out automatically for some reason three The three usually are all renovation renovation addition all new construction. That's the generic form So like I said, you may have a condition where one of those is now possible So so for instance at Thompson, you know, just renovation wasn't going to work So it was hard to just say we're going to just renovate the building So it ended up being I think two versions of renovation addition and one of new or whatever the scenario was so You'll go through all of that and really start to see and what you're sort of hinting at is it does happen Again, not to say it's going to happen here. I don't have a crystal ball, but it can't happen because Renovations or renovation additions can take longer, which means more escalation and time frame Sometimes the costs start to be very similar to new again. That's all I'm just saying not necessarily in this example But in general that that can happen. I think that's what you're sort of hinting at so, you know, the decision the decision Money always is a heavy player in deciding which is the best approach, but you're also going to be comparing What's the end result? Am I meeting the educational needs? Am I making all the improvements I need to make? You know those pluses and minuses will be part of that decision because say that say the dollars are very close And you want to be able to really be sure that you're making the right decision for a lot of other reasons, too So Kathy, did you want to say anything on that or? Yes, there's gonna be a lot of variables in this And I think boys captured it very well Arlington has a unique sort of unique sort of because we're sort of a very we don't have much land One of the things they often look for is can you put the new school somewhere else could makes it easy That's a problem in this town's and it's also the location of this. This is where the high school is So there's gonna be a lot of issues But one that is going to be how do we do this with all the children in the school? Because we don't really have a place to put them and there will be options and it may come into play in terms of Which option we choose because it could be a renovation addition so that you build a bigger space so you can move More in there have some importables or you have there's gonna be a lot of this is gonna be a very complex project to do Laurie was the architect on the renovation of Cambridge, Wringel Latin, which is a comparable size school But not anywhere near as complex Yeah, yeah, so so they they fortunately had a building to be able to put the ninth grade in somewhere else because again It was a similar situation in the fact that heart heart of the community You're gonna just up and move it someplace and there wasn't someplace to up and move it to so really We've worked on the project for over 20 years with various iterations of working on their field house and and so on No, no, no, it's just that we did the field house first and then the War Memorial and and and then CRLS but but There really wasn't any serious thought that we're just this is just gonna disappear and we're gonna start over from scratch It's different vintage different ages You know, so it's looking at the specifics of what the interior spaces are like. What's the what's the construction of the building? and so on so a Lot of variables So Just to be another pain in the neck I Would imagine we're gonna have to look at a debt exclusion You know no matter what funding comes through here best guess What year would that be? From today, so let's assume we get it in by April 11th. I know that's way the preliminary start I'm just ballpark. I understand It's no easier than the first Accept us we have to go to it depends on how long the feasibility study is I mean right complexity this may put it out I think the earliest it would be a 16 16 You're not Variables of time in this that we can't I understand that you can't control right of course I think what you get started. Maybe you start to see the end result, but we gotta get on a path first I one of the notes I was gonna make totally to your point was Belmont has put submitted a statement of interest for their high school 11 years in a row So there really is a lot of like you just don't know how how that's gonna go. Okay, okay I had three other things. I wanted to say but before I did Paul Shlickman from the school committee. Did you have anything you really wanted to say or you just here in support or do you want to His thumbs up says Paul. Thank you He knows what our agenda looks like. Thank you Paul. I Get the question and I've sat aside it for myself But at the same time I would like to hear and I think dr. Bode Maybe it's the right person answer He's going to the MSBA. I don't want us to feel like that. We did it just because that's what we always do I want going to the MSBA is the right choice because Can you can you walk us through why the MSBA is the right choice as opposed to try to do a smaller renovation on our Own or some other solution? Well, you read the on-site insight report Let's say we didn't even deal with any of these programmatic issues. We're looking at in the 30 millions and that's today's dollars They do have a pair of program, but that is going to the MSBA in any event Does Ellington want to fund that and and frankly if you they may even question whether they should do that because If the building you know what they're going to ask us How long are you expecting to use this building if you're going to be putting all this money into it? And does it really meet your needs? So I think that The I'm going to let Laurie talk a little bit about the cost of this project because I think having the on-site insight report Out there may have given people sort of a false idea of what potentially this would cost and I think we have to be realistic And I think that one of the things will be realistic But I also know that Ellington will do a very good job of making sure we do it the least amount of money that we can possibly do and get A good product in fact Thompson is a good example that I don't know of any other elementary school built at that size at that price So again many compliments to the firm, but you might want to talk about the expectations on cost So just to pick up where Kathy left off I mean in in thinking about this it's sort of You know to do something small again, I think it's the distinction of whether MSBA would support you and Then therefore we all on the town's time and then you have to look at what the end result is and if you're satisfied with that I mean, we're looking at a building that's been here for a hundred years school buildings last a long time It has been worked on since the 70s So it's been a long time and you want to keep this facility up and running with another 50 plus years, so We know that takes funds to do that and the moment you're at 48% reimbursement with the states almost 50% So there's some just general math that of course why wouldn't you want to partner with them because it will Benefit everything and the end result will be improved You know again looking at something that's 400,000 square feet to renovate is a lot of money and You saw in the report. I tried to just outline some different Comparables which are hard to compare But just looking in general with all the numbers of the projects that MSB has done since they've been up and running Which has been about five six years now. I don't know what was done on those projects I just know what their costs were for a square foot and looking at the average If you just look at that as a comparison the high schools are running around a hundred million dollars easily and again That's not necessarily escalated into the future. Those were past projects that are done Cambridge and Latin was just under a hundred million dollars I do know what was done on that project and it was mainly renovation There was very little programmatic changes in spaces. It was more roof windows doors flooring finishes But the bones of the building were in good shape and not a lot of restructuring or anything going on So I said that's the last meeting. This is not about shooting the messenger because any But I think just from what I just said I think you already have a sense that you're at least a hundred million dollars and So is it 130 is it more than that? I don't know because we don't know what the what the scope will be but the but the but the main point is it's not like saying I'm putting a statement of interest in and oh my god. It's gonna be that much money We don't know for sure what the dollars will be and that's the whole point of feasibility study so everybody in the community all the taxpayers everybody else is on board with What it is that is being looked at to be done and what those cost implications would be it's not It's not that as we talked about it's not that quick of a process people will have a long time to digest What the needs are just like you all were able to go on recent tours of the building The community can go in there if they haven't had the opportunity to be in there If they're not current parents and so on and so over time I think people will understand that this is an investment in the future of Arlington It's an investment in the students of Arlington and Okay, thank you My second and third I guess are more comments than they are a question just to think about the first I think that Do we also have coming investment coming up in Minuteman vocational? No, I don't know what we don't know what form that will take or what it'll take And one of the things to talk we talked about long-term planning committee was you know How do you make it such that these things arrive at the right time if there is a right time for them? And my personal analysis of there is that there is no way to make there to make it happen So we should just identify our need and go forward with it and see how the calendar is land And so I just wanted to make that comment that This is not the only high school project that we've got coming up But I don't know of any other way to organize or order them My final thought was just procedural which was that I had in Planned on doing a hearing this hearing today, and then if we wanted I had planned on putting this on the agenda for our meeting in two weeks to actually take the vote in case people Wanted to do more research or talk with other people before they actually took the vote This is Mahana's major motion and if we want to vote on it We absolutely should but I just want to put it out there that if we want to leave this for a couple weeks We do we've got you know that was actually already built into the calendar So I'm done mr. Creely. Well yes, we're Tonight, you know gonna gonna Talk about the preservation act. We're gonna talk about Minuteman But what I'm convinced of is we have to do this for the high school So I'm ready to say yes We support you get to get in by April 11th and get that started myself Any further discussion? Yes, Diane just mr. Greeley and the chairman's queries just it can be a yes. No, I'm not trying to belabor it The first point is where the Call it old-haul for the pit the Fusco building since it's on Ellington's local historical register that is that something Am I correct that we would have to We couldn't knock that down that was something that would need to be renovated I haven't looked into it if it is already on a historic register then we'd be working with this door commission Yep, it's not on the National Historic Register It's on I checked with the planning department local historic register which gets to my second question Which I won't go into it because I'd like to go into detail with my colleagues and they may raise it under the Community Preservation Act Warren article Taking that premise that if I am correct that that one particular building. I think it's the only one I don't think column in 1937 is on but I know that is if that were the case would it sweeten the pot Be a detriment with the MSBA if they saw that when we're asking for their funding In consideration of a debt exclusion that we also could incorporate if the voters So choose just on the historic local historic Fusco building Community Preservation Act funds. I'm saying can you do that marriage with MSBA? Is that something that's been done before? I know fair haven did it recently. Yeah with part of this. Oh, I just want to get it on the record. Yeah, um, I Would say the answer is yes, but They deduct that from the portion that they pay back to you Right, so it's basically it's like, you know, it's like getting money from different parts And so then your portion still gets your percentage paid back from them So they would never discourage a community from finding other sources to help support the cost of a project. Absolutely Joe I just want to make one more point just to tie this back around to what we talked about it Budget and Revenue Task Force tonight. I think to your point on on timing You know folks in the community should realize that we're about to roll off a lot of the exempt debt service It's still a number of years out, but I think Mr. Foskett refers to it as the inflection point is between FY 18 and FY 19 We'll suddenly see a dip in our exempt debt service of over a million dollars per year the taxpayers But I agree we can't control the timing on this and we may have to submit this multiple times it's possible and The only way that we have the potential of making the mark I think is to go forward now Thank you Kathy up I Really appreciate the motion in fact, I would love you to vote on it But I didn't realize you were going to vote tonight So there's actually a very specific language that must be voted on but having this motion is fine It's just what I would want to do is bring back to you the specific language at your next meeting That that has to be voted on and signed. Okay. I think I feel like we could if we take this vote today that vote will be pretty quick. I suspect Mr. Towne manager just would be rash of us To jump forward you know, you've heard where we are. We're about to go. Do you have any comments for us? Is there any further discussion all those in favor, please say aye aye opposed Five-zero. Thank you everybody Is that for a new high school 11 years? That's what the town administrator told me. Yeah, I was So much newer than I was talking with him and I was talking about what was on our agenda for money said well Let me tell you about Yeah, do you want to take this away right now? You can Noted Correction it was It is 830 and I think we're gonna press on but I suspect we're gonna have a break before we actually finished this evening First up is warrant article hearings. So next up is warrant article hearings Our first warrant article is number eight, which is a bylaw amendment for the regulation of outdoor lighting a dark skies bylaw Which is a registered voter article from Mr. Paul Schlickman Paul Welcome Good evening, and thank you. Thank you for the vote on the high school It's an important thing that we really need to do And thank you for Inviting me here for this for this article. I submitted to you by email a brief written statement filled with a lot of pictures Basically expressing the need and taking a first attempt at Amending our current bylaw the problem is the current bylaw is such that if you own a house and You put a hundred watt spotlight in your driveway, and it shines into your neighbor's window The bylaw covers it, but if your next-door neighbor is a utility pole on town land Or I'm any kind of property that's not residential the bylaw doesn't cover it So you have a lot of these huge high-intensity sodium vapor floodlights just scattered around town spewing light around and the issue is on a couple levels problematic and Became even more noticeable when the town converted the street lights to to the new street lights Because that reduced a lot of glare I live on the 8th floor at 47 mystic Street, and I you know I got a lot more glare coming into my windows from the street lights Which disappeared when you made the new installation, but there's still a lot of glare coming in from these private floodlights some as far as two blocks away and And Looking at some of the other communities that have adopted dark sky ordinances Acton has a very extensive Zoning bylaw you see some points that happen first of all if you've got unshielded bright lights that are flooding out What happens is the net effect is sort of like driving Against a car with their bright lights on And in certain places these are on our streets, and it makes it much more difficult To see at night rather than easier to see tonight because the light is poorly directed And this becomes a genuine safety issue Secondly you get something called light trespass is that you now have unwanted light shining into your Window, and I've got a couple of examples of this in the handout I gave you the first one is a Is the pole that is two blocks away from my home that? Means I don't need a light a night light in my bedroom It's that bright that it's glaring into my eighth floor condo two blocks away and It's right at the end of Russell Terrace by Winslow Street And I have a couple of pictures of it by day and a picture of it by night And if you're coming down Winslow Street, you are faced with that glare in your eyes But even more significantly is the next picture if you look at the house on the corner That house is bathed in the light from this from this floodlight and People shouldn't have to live in a house with that amount of light being shined upon it from an unwelcome source the next page gives you a shot of the Floodlights that I can see from my bedroom window the one up here in the middle is that same floodlight The second flood lights in the parking lot of the Dys building at 30 mystic Street, and the third one is a floodlight that is above The front doorway of that building and that has an additional problem to it which is It's impact on traffic coming down Chestnut Street because it's directly in your eyes as you're driving Westbound on Chestnut Street approaching mystic now It doesn't have to be like this and just as the new town street lighting has eliminated a lot of the glare a Prime example of being a good neighbor is Armstrong ambulance Which is like a half a block from my home And if you look at this view of the parking lot, it is very well that you can see everything in the lot But if you look at it the next picture Which is this photo you can see that there's no glare from the street lights on mystic Street, and there's really no notice Beyond their property of that bright lighting that's illuminating their lot So it's very easy to go and just change the light fixture to go from this floodlight Which is pointed up high into the eyes of people to have a dark skies compliant Lighting fixture that is directed at what you want to illuminate So that you're doing a couple of things that you're shielding the light So it doesn't trespass and you're making sure that they don't go more than a 90 degree angle So they are not up like this shining in people's eyes, and that's the intent is to go and and and Get rid of these flood lights, which are a detriment to the town that make it harder to see at night which cause light pollution and Do nothing to enhance our safety or visibility it makes the town uglier so We've taken a lot of effort to change our street lights in town, and we've done every street light in town There's no reason why some of these are municipally owned some of these are privately owned these flood lights that are tacked up Mostly on town-owned utility poles shouldn't be Made to comply with with the dark sky ordinance if a homeowner is Required to comply with the dark sky ordinance Why shouldn't a business owner or the town or whoever else is tacking up these big sodium vapor orange? Prison lighting on our utility poles. Why shouldn't they comply to and that's that's the intent is to bring the current by-law to Protect property owners who have lights coming in from outside sources outside a residential area Thank you Kevin. So Paul Does this include like I forget motion light So we at my house for example when I drive in my driveway this lights that come on Consider the flood light. Well, this has no bearing on that because whatever you have on your house is currently covered by the by-law so that Now it only gets triggered if somebody makes a complaint So that if your next-door name if if your flood light is shining on your next-door neighbor's bedroom He could call up the building inspector. They come take a look and see if it complies But other than that, they're gonna leave you alone But you're already covered. It's the large lot owners who are not covered You know, this is up to you to weigh in my vision of doing this is just amend the current by-law to include these flood lights and Light being generated from places other than residential lots. So that if you have a town hall or a privately owned parking lot or you're using one of these big flood lights to For decorative illumination of your building you'd have to go and convert to something that would comply So the light would be shielded and only be on your property Mm-hmm For this one, Steve. Yeah. Yeah, I am. Thanks, Paul I have a Couple concerns one is that we got an email from Christian Klein who is with the Friends of Robin's farm and he was a little bit worried about their groups Their group not being included because they are not sponsored by the town and we don't approve them So I would like to find language that would appease them and what's their concern that their events Are not Spawn like they're not officially sponsored by the town and they're not approved by us So they're permitting is on the jurisdiction of the parks and rec and not so that I Believe I saw was not included in your by-law You on number four it says lighting during special events such as fairs Concerts of celebration sponsored by the town. So the parks and rec would fall under that Yeah, and if you wanted to make that explicit you could do that. Okay And the other question I have is have you had any conversations with the police department? No, I haven't no that you know, I Understand the glare Argument and what I'm trying to weigh that against is The argument of you know light is necessary, you know, they're I You know, so I was looking at Say the example that you showed of the one that shine the light that shines right into your window Mm-hmm, and I was thinking that you know, maybe The light light in those areas are necessary to understand the argument of you know, what type of light and how much so a follow-up question that is do you know what the cost would be to Change these lights over to be that become you know legal under your by-law Well, let me let me talk about light is necessary if you take a look at this the big photo of the lot that is being Lit with two high-intensity spotlights You can see that there's some very bright areas and some very dark areas the lighting is very inconsistent in there and if you're facing one of the Lighting fixers of making it harder to see whereas if you go into the Armstrong lot, which is compliant the lighting is much Brighter and better when you're on the lot. It's just that it doesn't move off. So I Haven't priced it out but In some instances these lights are least for men's star in some instances You know, they're they're relatively cheap lights to begin with a hundred to two hundred dollars for some of these palm-mounted lights Some of these can be remedied by Installing shielding or directing them others you'd have to put on a new fixture, which is probably another couple of hundred dollars These fixtures aren't by nature prohibitively expensive Joe This is one that I'm kind of struggling with I'm sympathetic to the need and I know that we've actually already Up in my neighborhood. We've run into some issues with this from the Sims project. It's it's fairly brightly lit and there was some Light pollution to a budding neighbors, but those issues were able to be worked out just by working through the Redeveloper and we have the benefit obviously for the designated town rep up there with some shielding I think that the problems were addressed But one other thing that makes that project that project and that example different from what I think you're proposing here is that there are real Objective measures along that because it's a project that was under environmental design review and special permits a lighting plan was Submitted and this was all done under zoning. Mm-hmm. It's all done under zoning. So a lighting plan was submitted and had you know Objective measures for how you determine this and so what's making me feel a little bit uncomfortable on this is We're being asked to enforce a Standard realm where something creates glare. Are we setting up a situation where? Two different people saying yes, it's it's glaring and some are saying well No, it's it's not so glaring to me is we really looking at looking at the situation here Well now it's subjective opinion and two people pointing pointing like this And I know that there've been some situations like that even with the existing the existing I don't I my understanding is the existing law actually hasn't isn't accessed that often But it can be difficult when there is there are some of these gray areas No pun intended So I was just wondering how you addressed that with you know, I feel like the creating glare that that may be a Set up a bit of a difficult enforcement situation I mean the the intent is not to set up a difficult Enforcement situation and in fact some of the way that I've added some of the language is Defining shielded in is taken from the act and by-law which is pretty much the state-of-the-art by-law for for light pollution That sits in their zoning ordinance But that's a an extensive 10 page zoning ordinance which details setbacks and a lot of things that are more detailed and more restrictive that what I'm trying to do here Because we have an existing by-law But a by-law that really doesn't address the major sources of glare and light pollution in town What I try to do is is gently it's possible amend that law to bring it into compliance so that Large lights on commercial industrial in other words non-residential were on public ways would Be treated the same way as lights we have now Previous town council and I Worked on the language of the warrant article specifically for the purpose If the town in its wisdom decided it wanted to abandon this by-law and move the whole thing over to zoning It could be done the way the warrant article was written But I think that that's probably a more complicated process Then would be needed to address the issue of all the floodlights that are Glaring and doing light trespass in town I Had just a couple so I'm I like the what you're trying to do And the thing that for me on this one is the devil's in the details And I'm trying to figure out if we can get the right details to make it happy or to make excuse me to make Me happy I apologize My first thought is that I would if I would prefer that whatever language we draft if we if we choose to go forward with it not include 10 30 as a specific time and The reason is just because I think of some day We're gonna have first lights of Arlington or something like that and we're gonna want to be up past midnight And so I have a I want to talk whatever we do if we talk about times I want us to talk about special occasion or some exception or remove the times entirely I Wonder if there's a way to improve this by permitting light to shine on the street in a way that doesn't impede It like you're shining into someone's live eyes while they're driving the road. It's a bad idea Shining light onto a sidewalk is to improve the lighting on that sidewalk is not necessarily in fact often is a good thing And I think that the way this is the current language is drafted It actually discourages that and I wonder if we could yeah essentially the idea is if the lighting fixture is here you want the The light to go down. Yeah, and so that if that's your design of your lighting fixture and it's placed appropriately It will come down to the sidewalk and it will not be facing in this direction Causing issues lighting in this direction helps nobody I understand that that's your intent and I agree with it the thing is if we say shall prevent direct light from shining upon any street we've Direct light coming like this is prohibited. I think that's in the current bylaw. I We're talking about amending it. Okay. Yeah, absolutely Now understand this. I'm an educator. Yeah, I am not an attorney. I was not trying to I was trying to pass an improvement I was not criticizing and I am very open to improvements because I just took a first Draft at this to try to come up with with a direction I think I certainly wholeheartedly support your efforts to improve it and to refer to town council Exactly improvement perhaps I should be looking at town council when I say that rather than you because that definitely was for his benefit more than anyone else's My Fourth item I've lost it but Diane and I also I'm keeping it going across but I'm also gonna go I'll go obvious to the audience But Should I make a motion or do you want to wait here from the audience if you're ready? I'll put something on the table. Okay. I'd like to move approval with the caveat of the questions raised By the chairman It and town council can work through in final votes and comments on that And if mr. Schlickman and are the proponents that don't agree they can always file a substitute to change it back I just want to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly What submitted to us is basically Doing what we do with residential property for commercial and industrial in the sense that it's following the same structure that If a complaint is made from a residence the building inspector goes out So if a complaint is made about the same kind of lighting issue by a commercial industrial site the building inspector would go out Am I interpreting that correctly? That that was not changed in my proposal, and I think in in tranny heim's Comments you also said that stated that Well, right now. I don't see something that changes the way that the basically Enforcement mechanism would work so there's What what mr. Schlickman has basically done is stricken some of The provisions of what this covers but then added a relatively significant Set of parameters that would also cover It still would be a complaint driven process and therefore the building inspector would still be basically investigating complaints About a wider array of things including these commercial properties and potentially Yes, so basically what you're trying to do is you're just trying to take what is employed Under the jurisdiction of the building inspector for residential and just explain expanded for commercial and industrial So that's why I wanted to make as few a change as possible We have a motion dessert second oh second Joe Steve You know maybe I Shouldn't be the one to recommend this but looking at the enforcement You know you would have to assume most complaints would come at night would it make more sense to shift that enforcement to say the police department who has officers on duty every night where they might be able to Pick up on this a little quicker and handle it more effectively than say The building department which then has to you know kind of backtrack through the next day Which isn't always you know a very effective means of enforcement, and you know some things can get Do you mind if I send that question to the town manager? Yeah, of course So are you looking for us to table this today Are you looking for us to take a vote and then but then perhaps reconsider when we do a final vote on the 24th? Okay, sounds good. May I just add one other piece to it, and it's not ordinarily my sort of place to do it But well, mr. Burns is raising this issue I Think that there there's some consideration Also on whether or not the town building inspector should be investigating a complaint levied against the town So that right now the enforcement mechanism is for the town building inspector to basically go out and examine whether or not there's Like Being shined to residential property. There's only residential property owners the town building inspector is going to be tasked with Determining whether or not town lighting Is an issue under this? It's not necessarily contemplate for a moment about whether or not We're within the scope of what I think the town manager was suggesting, okay? I Would invite you both to consider that more close personally. It doesn't stress me out, but I'd be Just on that point where it says add regulations to commercial In industrial property, and it doesn't say municipal Would it apply to us? I Thought that was my understanding the intent is to apply for any light that the resident will have the ability to request Well, yeah, I mean many of these lights even if they're privately paid for sitting on utility poles that are on town property Yeah, I guess I guess what I just want to make clear is that the enforcement mechanism remains the same so it's a complaint driven process it's and as such you'd still have that the Building inspector essentially Responding to any given complaint about a commercial or a municipal That wasn't clear before Thank you Is there anyone else here who wanted to talk on this particular article and come on up rolling? And I did just want to as Steve mentioned it already, but we got email from Christian Klein And so that would go under this particular I Thank You mr. Chairman members of the board Raleigh Chapman and a member of the robins farm Organization we discussed this issue the other night at our meeting Christian kind brought it up and Essentially, I think the major concern was the business about the 1030 shut off So we absolutely support your suggestion and eliminate that no occasionally July 4th, for example We could have a long party and it might be 11 o'clock and then we course product shut down and clean up and so forth And once in a while there may be one or two others, but as far as I'm concerned, I agree with you eliminate the time frame Thank you Is there anyone else who wanted to speak on this issue? Okay, so we have a motion from Mrs. Mohan second by mr. Cura We have comments from a number of members for the discussion all those in favor, please say aye aye all those opposed five zero Thank you very much. Thank you Paul Article 15 bylaw amendment cultural commission, and I hope I didn't just throw all my paper on the floor Thank you Stephanie Marlin curi all I didn't introduce myself before back before you for this warrant article So since we last met We reconvened to try to come up with a name and we were advised to retain the name commission it goes Makes sense to also retain the name Arlington It also makes sense to retain the name culture because you know to be descriptive of what the Commission does and Being you we want to be clear about about who we are and what we do so We've only been able to change the name slightly and But the idea is to not have the exact same acronym and we've gone through a number of alternatives And they still have a's and season them. So if the new acronym would be a c a c Arlington Commission on arts and culture is The new name second Is there anyone else in the audience who wanted to comment on this particular article? For the day is a true similar to Fincom you want us to call you culture calm Yes, we think that would would help add a little zipped Then talking about Fincom has been associated with having zip Former member I could say all right all those in favor, please say aye. Thank you very much Next up second water meter mr. Tibbets Welcome Gary Tibbets precinct 5 and I brought this article up to allow the second water meter Mainly to encourage water conservation. We're running out of it One of the things that made me think about it as I live near the Thompson school in the North Union Park And there's the water park down there. It's been there since I was a kid. It's been read down a couple times That thing for the last five years or so has run 24 hours a day seven days a week constantly The kids do jam it somehow. I've called the wreck about it And every night when I walk the dog it's spraying all over the place It runs when it rains when it's cold and everything else a Simple rain delay and a timer delay on it would have fixed that And I started thinking about that and then I started seeing sprinklers You know hose and sprinklers and stuff around town that are on when it's raining sprinkler systems that are on when it's raining You know stuff running down the street. It's just a total waste of time waste of water So anyway, what I'm proposing is for Ellington to allow a second meter, which Would Promote water conservation and it would distribute the MW RA charges more equal to all the uses of the water the the in-ground system the with automatic time is rain delays and Backflow inspected by the town they're proven to conserve millions of gallons of water and they protect the water supply They're also encouraged by the MW RA and the EPA They both say that they save a lot of water The properties in town that would utilize the second meter Install that their cost and permitted by the town for a fee Would save water as well as a few bucks on their soil charge And a lot of these properties that would take advantage of this are the properties that are the bigger ones That are getting a disproportionate charge on the MW RA part of their tax bill It would even that out a little bit And you know lastly, you know the town is billed by the MW RA For the water that comes in and the sewage that goes out. It's all needed. So right now the town is collecting from these people that are using Water on their lawns their plants their trees and stuff and They're not paying for it because it's never never going in the sewer and somehow that just doesn't seem right to me So I think that this Allowing the second meter would put Allington in line with its name is just about all the other towns around cities and towns around here Cambridge, Belmont, Lexington, Waltham, Stoneham, Watertown, Boston, Wellesley, Brookline all allow this and have for years So I'd like to see it happen here. So that's Okay, and so specifically you you're asking just so I want to be clear because I Say you want to be able for a set for like a resident or a commercial to be able to hook up a second meter That would essentially and if that meter would then run for things that didn't flow back into the sewage system That's right. Okay. So we've got a memo back from Adam Chaplin and Mike Rodemacher Do you mind actually could you just point that microphone a little bit down a little bit? Because I'm getting a bunch of reverb and I think it's thank you If we've got a memo from Adam and Mike Talking about our plans for 2015 that I think is really relevant to this So I want to hear about that memo and then take questions from the board Adam So Thank you, I'm gonna see where this goes. I'd like to make a motion to approve this I Can't tell you how many times over the past 15 years as a member of the board of selection that I've gotten from residents Including a resident on my own street Who have cited and back then it wasn't as many adjacent and budding communities To Arlington that had this system employed and now it's grown and grown and to me I would like to move a relaction on this to put this and have the discussion and debate at town meeting including the discussion in the proposal by the town manager and I also don't see where one precludes the other In terms of if both ideas were successful But I think this particular discussion would be useful at town meeting because I have heard it so many times over 15 years and never from a business or The country club or numb not casting any aspersions there, but so many residents even former town employees It's amazing how many times when they retire that two out of ten of them say I now want to ask you this question as a citizen So I'd like to move favor with action We have a motion from some honours there a second Second the discussion for discussion further comments discussion Gary just what's your reaction to what the town manager said if you don't mind well Adam I've met with Adam before about this. We've talked about it. I knew what he was going to say ahead of time and part of what he's saying is right, but the way I look at it that would make the Sewage part of it a little bit fair to people, but it wouldn't encourage any water conservation If anything it might encourage somebody to just set this sprinkler out and let it run all night So I don't think it saves any water and that's the main purpose of why I brought this up I just think as a town as a country We're wasting a lot of water and we're just before I came up here. I was watching a program on the history channel and There's a bunch of a major economists from throughout the country talking about things. What is the big issue? You know, we're gonna figure out how to deal without oil and You know, we're gonna figure out the food problems, but we need water and you know The Southwest and part of the country is the perfect example of where this is gone. We have to conserve it So, you know, you they don't recommend you eat fish out of freshwater lakes in New York more than once a week It's hazardous to your health because such a water shortage So I think what I'm saying would encourage people to save water What Adam saying you could maybe do it in conjunction with Government all the time gives people an incentive to do certain things I'm sure the town gave the developers up at Sims some some financial incentives. I'm sure over on Mill Street They did this is just an incentive to do the right thing attacks incentive Basically to do the right thing I want to follow up a little bit farther. I want to push just a little bit harder So I completely agree with conservation, but I don't understand how a second meter would encourage conservation where this didn't Because that example you just described if you turn on your sprinkler and you run it you're gonna pay I mean you're gonna pay for all that water and not only that that's gonna push you into the higher rate And then you're gonna have to pay at the higher rate Not if you not if you do it in the offseason in the summer season So no if you do it in the offseason if you've run your sprinkler in December January and February That's when you're doing it on the cheap, but I mean you're doing it in the middle of the winter. No, I'm sorry I'm confused that what Adam is saying is they're gonna measure the sewage in December January And they're gonna they're gonna charge more for the sewage in December January February But if you ran your sprinkler in December, it's not gonna change anything there The the thing What you're encouraging with this is for people to install the time is install the heads that spray it right Install the rain delays that stop it when it's raining. You're encouraging them to do that and Both what I'm suggesting with the second meter and what Adam is suggesting with the tier system could work together To do that and save water. Yeah, I'm just not following how yeah, I'm just not understanding yet How does the second meter? Encourage conservation more than a single meter. Well, it's a it's given somebody a benefit for going ahead and doing that and Installing the rain delays and the zoned in time systems that will save water It's given them a financial incentive to do that Right when you're looking to put the second meter in and all the other times that do it You go up the building apartment and you get a permit to do it the plumber comes and he installs the meter The homeowner or the plumber buys the meter the town doesn't installs it The building inspector comes down and inspects the meter the backflow which protects the water system which a lot of people are running these systems without now and It and he would inspect the rain delay in the zone in the zones in the time is so I mean the town would just be Given a financial incentive to do that and both the MW RA and the EPA both strongly recommend these systems Okay, I didn't understand that that was that that system was also part of your proposal Well, I included that because people have tried doing this before and it always got beat down Because it would be able to be bypassed and stuff this ensures It's like a sealed system that the building and plumbing inspector inspect and say it's good to go Thank you Yep, sorry, thank you Mike That's what our problem is it's so Mike Rademacher director of public works I I appreciate the clarification too because I was not Following how the second meter would Help conservation if you make the water less expensive The general rule is that you won't conserve my con and I agree that if you were to require that you had this Irrigation system as part of it that that would help my concern would be Bypass to that once it's inspected that you can always add another Spicket or there's a way around things and we just don't have the resources to constantly Be enforcing to make sure that that second meter is only supplying water to an irrigation system I would just be concerned that if those two were tied we would not always get potentially not always get full compliance Thank you Joe So am I understanding correctly that with the second meter when you talk about the financial incentive You're hoping that by breaking them up That that the individual will actually avoid kicking into the next tier I The only difference would be is the second meter you would not pay the sewage fee on it Yeah, which is about half of your water bill right all right You wouldn't pay the sewage on because it's not going into the store It's not costing the time anything as far as that goes with the MW RA You know and as far as Mr. Rodemacher bypass and I agree anything is beatable You know it happens You know I've been in basements of houses where I've seen the water meat is distorted and everything else it you know It happens. Yeah, you know my dad used to tell a story I guess years ago that get the gas used to put nickels in a thing in the in the house and the gas company came and cleaned it out like every couple of months and Some guy down on Tremont Street was making nickels out of ice He was putting them in of course they melted he was getting plenty of gas But he would know nickels in it when the guy So I mean people are gonna be you know anything you do and they're probably beating it now I mean, you know, there's I'm sure there's unmeeted stuff in town already that you know So if people are gonna try to steal it's hard to catch them no matter what that's why I wanted to clarify that though because it seems that with the the path we've been on you know to adjust our rates adjust our billing cycle and And to adjust the way that we do the the meeting of this sewage You know we with the new tiering system. It seems that the The potential of kicking up into the next higher tier actually is the disincentive to using More water than you need to that that's that's the conservation measure that seems to be Implied with what we the policies that we've already been you know set out But but it still doesn't put the stopgaps into play You know you drive by even some of the town buildings on a rainy day and the sprinkler systems are running like crazy Yeah, and I mean that those alone would just you know and Mike told me that they'll definitely put them in the North Union Park And this is redone and I went to the meetings for the design on that they promised me it would be done Steve and anyone else and then I'm just a reminder. I'm gonna go out for anyone else Just a clarification Question for Adam on that so other towns are the people who install these second meters are Benefiting on the backs of the people who don't install them by the higher rates I have a question for Mr. Tibbets as well What what would it cost start to finish to install what you're proposing here The second water meter to somebody that has an Irrigation system most of the plumbers tell me you're looking at about a thousand dollars material And then what about with the you know stop the systems? I would say run and my company does not sell them are installed Installations, but we don't we don't get into it the average system. I think runs a couple thousand dollars You know soup to nuts with the rain delays and everything and Just in response to what Adam was saying Obviously we have to pay a certain amount to the MWRA to get rid of what we pump out of you but right now people are paying for something they're not using so It's not fair the town is collecting money from a b and c People that are not using it and it's lowering the rate for DENF and it shouldn't be Everybody should pay for what they get the town should charge for what the service cost so I agree with you the sewage fee would probably go up and Both what I'm talking about doing what you're talking about doing could be done simultaneously The difference between the two is I believe what I'm talking about would save money as an ice set and as I said Government all the time gives financial incentives people to do the right thing and this is the right thing This is these rain delays and timings and zone stuff and this new drip irrigation save a lot of water Okay, the EPA and the MWRA and then I went online this morning. I was able to pull out a call out of office Yeah, I'm sure you some of you people did so yeah If give me a little bit, so I just want to keep to see if there's anyone else in the audience Is there anyone else here who wants to speak on the water meter issue? Okay, not seeing anyone. Is there Joe? I have a question. Yeah In order to allow second water meters is a warrant article A town meeting action necessarily required or is the board empowered to do that in the course of our Policy setting and rate setting around so what what what mr. Tibbets is advocating here is a by-law that basically mandates a system whether or not the board can Mandate a system of that nature without going to town meeting. I'm sorry. I'm just not not mandate allow So to can the board allow a second water meter? I don't know that there's a prohibition of on installing a second water meter right now In other words, if somebody wanted to spend the money to install a second water meter I'm not certain that there's something that would stop them from doing that But I'm not certain off the top of my head. I'm sorry to say Yeah, I mean I there has to be serviced By the town and there's an interplay between the town's Servicing of the water Issue a little further see if the select and have the authority to promulgate some sort of regulation Without the reason I sorry. I want to keep going with the board Yeah Just to that point and this is just for historical and Information when this question has come up and I've raised it as an individual select man Not that other select men haven't done it past and current I have always told that the vehicle for this would be to put it before town meeting by previous Administrations and previous town councils that that because I had said is this something that we the policymakers of the town And I'm not saying that that holds true for today Maybe there's different circumstances, but in the past I've always been told the only way we could go is through town meeting and You know getting it there and just to try to Help make my argument as brief and concise as possible having made the motion for positive action to approve I totally respect the town manager's comments, but just in terms of Process and protocol. I understand some of the concerns that you have I was listening very carefully to what you said You were saying it probably might do this. It could do this We might have these Unfair charges if the town didn't in concert with what they're planning on doing Change rates address rates so that the proper people were paying their share. I feel very confident I'm like I don't go by making my decisions on could and might should I go by you know What's before me? What's the process and I feel confident that if we did along with what the town manager and DPW Director are suggesting possibly could happen in 2016 not saying it will This is something that could happen with the water conservation Driven Message at the forefront that I feel confident that the town manager and the DPW director would sit down and look at the rates and make any cost adjustments and I don't think the town manager can commit to us that what he's proposing that might happen in 2016 is actually going to happen Correct me But this is a concrete step that encourages water conservation I agree when you talk about apartments in Arlington, I won't go any further than that But in terms of if somebody's trying to beat the system, so I'm just trying to Hopefully sway enough boats, but maybe not maybe Kevin did I see you raise your hand there? I wondered whether Mike could answer the question on can we have currently have a second water meter because They'd have to be read so right now will they read to water meters? No, we currently The policy is one meter per residence I'm sorry. I just want to clarify that the question is is there that to make sure I understand mr. Currow is there a way in which the board can say We want you to regulate Differently to have a different policy without going to town meeting I mean Ms. Mahan spoke to that and I to be frank with the board I'm just not certain of so my head if there's a means by which the board could implement that type of regulation on proper pop on private property and use of water without going to town meeting is it would affect Town charges in a way that's it's very substantial. So I have to look into that to give you that answer mr. Currow Okay, thank you I think my reasoning in that it's just because knowing that we serve as the board of public works for the for the town and we do take this up my preference is to be able to take this up as Kind of a comprehensive package and if we're to revisit the issue of second water meters to revisit it in the context of the other measures That we're looking to implement. So that's why I was curious My cop I Will not be supporting Mrs. Mahan's motion. I think that the point about fairness is Absolutely is the driving one and I'm satisfied that the fairness is studied. It will be satisfied by the Winter sewer rags that we're going to be doing it because I really think that that's going to what that's going to do Is it's going to be making such that everyone is paying? the appropriate amount for their sewage because they will be Assuming you know you use your sewer at approximately the same rate the whole year your sewer rate will be set during the period Where you're really only using the sewer and you're not doing irrigation and then from then on it's about how much water you use and I think and not the sewage, but how much water you use and I really think we can get that with one meter And I'm really content to stick with that. So that was my Two cents so we didn't have anyone else from the audience. Are there any further comments from Adam or Mike or the board? We have a motion made by Mrs. Mahan second by Mr. Kuro all those in favor, please say aye All those opposed nay, so we have a vote of two to three against stare emotion I move no action Second motion to second any further discussion all those in favor of motion of no action, please say aye aye opposed Nay three to two. Thank you very much. Mr. Tibbets. See you town meeting It is nine 27 and I think we should take a break Called seven minutes. We'll be back 934 I know you've been waiting, but if we're gonna pay attention to you we would need to take a little bit I'll set Thank you very much calling us back to order. We are going to resume our hearings with article 18 Bylaw amendment Lake Street signs. This was also a registered voter article Leslie Bennett welcome. Thank you very much So I'm a resident and I live on Mary Street And I don't know if you're familiar with Lake Street traffic at commuting particularly even evening rush hour times But this is a time where Lake Street backs up pretty much all the way to route to those individuals who are trying to get to Massav It's very difficult particularly for those residents who live in the neighborhood between route to and sort of up to the Hardy school area Because there are several signs posted on Lake Street at Homestead and little John and Wilson that basically prohibit right turns there Which is perfectly reasonable and nobody wants to take those signs away because frankly a lot of people do turn right and sort Of zoom down and try to cut up and you know avoid all of the traffic Similarly people turn left into Kelvin Manor and try to zoom up and go around the traffic What I propose is simply to make an exception for residents who live in that area just simply to make it Okay for residents to turn right I In the people who I spoke to and asking people to sign and neighbors in general most people support the idea because they Some of them admit to doing both of those activities turning right where they're not supposed to and turning left into Kelvin Manor and say You know it would be nice for us to do something about the traffic Some have disagreed with my proposal One person in particular didn't like it because she was afraid more people would turn on to Mary just because there was an accept Residence sign that it would encourage more people to go down that path I you know I don't know but you know being a resident and talking to my neighbors thought that this might be one way to try to address a Difficult traffic problem though. We know the traffic in our Not an easy thing to untangle. I also understand that there might be an alternative to Proposing this warrant article. I'm certainly happy to me with town council or do other what other is a more appropriate mechanism Happy to do that. This was just something that I thought might be Might might work. Okay, that was actually gonna be my very first question because so as the board of select We actually can change signs without going to town meeting because and so You didn't have a specific reason that you want to town you wanted it to happen You didn't care whether it was town meeting or the board of selectmen. Yes, okay I didn't realize that you had the authority to change signs. That's exactly what I proposed Okay, all I am proposing like there are similar signs in Cambridge, Somerville Medford where all you have is two words Accept residence. That's all it says. It's it doesn't do anything to the current signage It's just an add-on basically indicating that, you know, you can turn right unless you're a resident and then you may questions from the board Steve No question, but would it be or yes question actually, but not very Would it be appropriate to move no action and place this item on the next agenda? Or we could even dispose of it and just send its attack right now if we wanted or if we had a different path that we wanted to take Or did you want to put it on the next agenda for our vote? But not as a warrant article as Vote no action on the warrant article, but then take it up on our next At our next meeting as an agenda item because then, you know, we can hear from some more residents that You know might have something to say on this And then I don't even know if we'd have to put this to tack. I'm comfortable Not putting it to tack. Okay So we have motion no action in a second The diet and I know that there is at least one person here wants to talk And just for the future conversation that we're going to have and I'm just again gonna do this by memory So don't hold me a hundred percent My memory is this initial process involved Two-thirds of the residents on a majority of the affected streets Came in with the petition to the then board of selectmen saying that this is an issue Can you put signs up and address it the then police chief? So I would like to hear from our current police chief town manager, but the then police chief chief Del Gezzo and and town manager Maki basically said at that time and to put up residents only that they weren't advocating for that because of the Manpower involved and they just they just saw impediments to it happening So I would also like to do no action just so that we can further spread the word Because one of the caveats are the milestones that the residents of these affected streets And I know you've gone out, but one of the similar to when we talk about Repaving private ways you get two-thirds I just want to make sure that I think this moving no action gives us two more weeks to get the word out and to Allow you to get the word out as well as I really like to hear what the current I'm not saying what the previous police chief or town manager Binds us because times may have changed, but I know back then they did have some concerns about Enforceability and the like so I would like to hear At our next meeting or whenever the chairman Puts us on from our current town manager and current police chief It would seem that making a referral to the police traffic division like we would with a Issue like this might make sense to get a quick recommendation for the next meeting I just don't want to bog down tack So let's send it to the officer at O then and is something we should vote the motion Yeah, but I before I do what I Know this at least one or I think does anyone want to talk about this at this point So what we're gonna do is we're going to we're gonna recommend But we're gonna recommend no action on the town meeting vote We're gonna continue to assess the issue and the way we're gonna do that We're gonna ask the traffic division of the police department to take a look at it So if you with if you want to follow up with the police department or if you want to weigh in right now That would be completely appropriate come on up Good evening. My name is Mike Williams. I live on Wilson Ave I've lived in that neighborhood my whole life and I'm here to oppose The amendment to the sign for the I'm a state trooper by profession And I heard Leslie say about as far as one car goes and they all go and I'd say that's pretty accurate As far as like major events break down lanes They see one car go and they all go even if it is a resident. It's it's tougher to enforce and in comparing Mary Street to The Kellman manna Mary Street's like a runway when they take that right in the left They just hit the gas and they try to get to Margaret Street as fast as they can So going through the Kellman manna they take a left a left and a left and I really don't have time to get the speed up So I'm opposing that today Thank you. Thanks. Is there anyone else come on up? In green sorry Yes, sorry miss fury. Sorry if you're a piercing to other on Mont Street So just help me out here Are you so are you you're going to put this on your agenda in two weeks to discuss this issue? Is that correct? We'll we're gonna refer I think what we've evolved to is we're gonna refer it to the traffic division Which is officer Rato and whoever else he chooses to designate if he comes back in two weeks Then we do it in two weeks, but if he needs more time, I would do it a little bit later Okay, but but it will at some point even doesn't go to town meeting the issue will be on one of your on an agenda some Yes, okay, I'll wait until then. I don't want to keep you here Okay, then I want to be I don't I'll speak I'll speak at a hearing be more appropriate Okay, then you're meeting that you're meeting when it's on the agenda then it would be tonight because you're gonna vote No action on this one. Yes. Okay. Thank you though. I do invite you to Talk to the town manager and give your thoughts even before then just to see if any questions or comments You have can be resolved even before we get there Okay, Marie is telling me that it's likely to be April 7 Sixth of Sunday, I don't I'll see if you're welcome 58 March 3 town meeting member Channel 2 and I do mourn my good friend Harry McCabe you all know we were in 50 years together in town meeting and It will be very strange not to see him there. Mm-hmm I Just want to say a couple of things about this because I was stunned I didn't we didn't get the fly it shown this morning. They might have been delivered last night and I expressed to The person who is leading it that it would have been a good idea to have The neighborhood talking together Before we came into a political meeting where nobody else know anything about it. So now I'm suggesting if I could that Before you have your April 7th meeting if somehow Lady who's leading this Thing, yeah, right Should have a neighborhood meeting and I told us I could try to get some room at Trinity Baptist Church where we could meet and I'm not saying you have to be there The thing is that for people turning right even though we say it's for residents only that's okay, but it's Mary Street is a you can go all the way down But March Street is a one-way street. So even those of us who residents on March Street, we can't Go in and say Wilson Avenue. We can go in on Little John Street So I'm not totally opposed to this, but I think there's a lot of discussion that needs to take place about it and So I'd like to see a neighborhood group meeting first and then It could still the one-year meeting. I'm assuming the 7th of April Okay, I'll try to work with her to get a space. I think I'm gonna be able to can talk because She lives down way down the end of Mary Street. I live at the beginning of March. So There's quite a difference in it, but I myself for years have thought that we should have Residents be allowed to get in there, but it's making sure that it's only the residents that are doing it And not the rest of people who are just cutting through. I would say one more thing because years ago when When Alan was here, we found out that most of the people who travel on Lake Street in the late afternoon they're going from Not not necessarily Belmont, but say from Watertown to Medford None of those people live in Arlington. So they don't give a hoot about what happens to our side streets So we have to be very clear and make sure that it's the people that You know live in the neighborhood that have preference Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fury Come on up I'm Larry take if I live on Margaret Street And I've often thought it was sort of bizarre and perverse that I couldn't take the shortest route from route to to my home And instead was forced to wait 15 or 20 minutes at times in a traffic jam and inconvenience other people You know might want to take my place on the street You know, I realize that not everyone obeys the street signs and some people might ignore a sign that says residents only Those people might ignore Existing signs or any other sign as well So I'm in favor of the warrant article or whatever other Mechanism you use to change that rule in those signs. Thank you anyone else Any further discussion? All right, we have a motion of no action and a plan to take this up at a future meeting most likely April 7th all those in favor Please say aye aye all those opposed 5-0. Thank you very much next article 22 Community Community Preservation Act a.k.a. The CPA Welcome. Should we introduce ourselves? Please My name is Clarissa row. I'm a precinct for 10 meeting member Susan stamps a precinct three time We're very glad that you all have looked into the community presentation We're glad it's on the warrant and we just want to say Have a brief speech because I believe it's quite late And there'll be a lot of conversation on on 10 people floor What we're trying to do is get it on 10 meeting floor We have a proud tradition in the Arlington when we're asking money to come out of people's wallets to go to the voters and that's Basically what we're looking for is a vote by the town to To both CPA up or down The thing that I like about CPA having been involved with it for almost 20 years is it's a local It's really a local issue. It's Community money that is used in the community and it's decided on by Local people and it really has worked all over the state because of that and I think the You know, there are a lot of sort of state mandates This one isn't you get state money, but nothing is mandated by the state except a yearly reporting and It's something that I think will do Wonderful things for Arlington as you know our wonderful finance committee They deal with the health and safety and schools and they do a really good job of that This is a well-run financially well run town We have in the past Also down very well with recreation. I think that was a pretty good job People like me that do recreation for a living think that we could spend a little bit more money on it but you know the balancing act of any municipal budget is one that Requires that You know, we use the money that we have This the second area that it focuses focuses on is affordable housing or what I like to call community housing We have an Arlington a situation with a lot of seniors and houses That are getting older and there they have less money to spend The housing corporation of Arlington has a thousand people on its waiting list. They have a hundred and eighty three families They want to live in Arlington and we don't have a lot of affordable housing if you look at the rental Boss for going up to Sims or for going to bring them those are not affordable I wish them all the best luck. We're gonna get lots of High-end people here like that Taxes or their owners do But I think we need to really be thinking of our seniors People with disabilities There's a town quite close by here who actually has a house that says side for disabled veterans That money came from CPA. I mean, I think that's something that we really should be looking at I don't know that that's one of the needs that we have The other thing is historic resources and I think of our historic resources as a business Arlington and I want I want people to say oh, I went to Arlington and Lexington and Concord and why are those Yeah, if you get closer to the mic, it'll actually help, okay And I think that we have a lot of historic resources that we haven't That including this beautiful building which has it happens to be one of the most beautiful town meeting Town Hall buildings in the Commonwealth. I've seen a lot of them in my work And this is by far the nicest one I've seen And I did go into the town clerk's office right after part of the plaster had fallen down into the office So I think that there are things that we haven't traditionally done that we could do We're asking for the five of you to vote yes to put it on the floor of town meeting You know, we don't need to go into much more detail we're here to answer your questions and we know it's late Thank you So I I did just want to make clear for the viewers that the Community Preservation Act funds Projects in just four different areas in case that wasn't made clear Purchase rehabilitation of open space Purchase rehabilitation reconstruction of historic resources Affordable housing and also Fields Yes outdoor recreational facilities what we're hoping to do is it was a very good presentation in January and That information was very informational We're going to try to put it up on a website so the town meeting members can look at it and anybody from the Answers a lot of the technical questions. I know you all have read your packets in detail Any more Diane wave me down first First I'd like to move favorable action If for the very sake just to have the discussion at town meeting Second I will say that I do some support the Community Preservation Act was one of the questions from the League of Women Voters So I'm not breaking any Secret news I should have waited it until the 20th and for a whole myriad of reasons first of all in terms of the Process if anybody watching this doesn't really know what Community Preservation Act is CPA First of all it'll go to town meeting to say do you want to approve this as an option as something to be put forth? For the voters of something that they might want to avail themselves up So just because this goes to town meeting and or town meeting votes to adopt it We haven't encumbered anybody the next step is first to apply and Be granted a you know that were applicable for CPA funds Submit that but then also go to the voters So this isn't doing anything to my father already said to me you raising my taxes I said no we're putting an option forth myself personally looking at this I know the previous speakers have cited some Possibilities I do want to say of the funds that you get only 30 percent 10 10 and 10 percent are identified What you have to do historic open space? I like to say supportive housing and then the remaining remaining 70 Given that it's approved under the guidelines of CPA you dictate what you want to do What would I do to offer as an option for the CPA? We discussed this earlier on the high school We don't know if it's five ten years out. We don't know what the funding mechanism is if we can go to the voters and say instead of just a Dead exclusion all out and out we can say well some of it's a debt exclusion But some of it is the CPA which you'll be paying for some but you won't be paying for a hundred percent We can I'm just going to throw numbers out don't hold me to it We can get 10 percent so you're only paying 90 from the community preservation act the other thing that I Feel very strongly about as again giving the voters options is that you can go and correct me if I'm wrong and increments up to 3% and I think you can do one one point five two two point five three And I believe in the literature that was submitted to because my husband will be saying look at the tax bill That was submitted to us just to give from my memory correct me if I'm wrong the first $100,000 is it I'm going to say exempt and then what it would be is a 1% would be 1% CPA would be 57 dollars Per our recommendation at the moment is one of the Lovely So in so what I'm looking at it's just an opportunity a to have a discussion and then be if it comes out of town meeting To have it as a discussion in an option for any future projects whether it be the high school the historic It's on our local register. I checked with the planning department It would apply just the Fosco building when we're talking Mugar when we're talking poets Connor. I do know the housing core Had a discussion with Ms. Rowe today. I just wanted to check my facts The housing HCA housing core right now that they're in a purchase and sale discussions with four different properties Up by Downing Square Westminster, which could be you know for a link which Allington residents Allington seniors just all into disabled people So for all those reasons, I would ask that a let's get this to town meeting floor and be hopefully We as many of you if not all can support it when we get I Actually, no, okay I'm supporting this because I'm afraid of Clarissa. I just want to be very clear about that No, I I'm real and I'm 90% there But I absolutely favor this going before town meeting and the voters let them decide But I do think the two issues of upcoming overrides debt exclusions Does seem like this is the best timing because of that and you know, I Don't like you know asking people to pay more money But they're going to get the right to vote on that and decide for themselves. So I support it Joe, thank you very much Thank you for the presentation You know, I go back to a few things we've heard tonight and and at our at our last meeting You know at the budget and revenue task force. I'll go back to that again We sat there a number of us said, you know Arlington has done, you know, everything we possibly can We've used every tool that the state has given us not quite This is one significant tool that the state gives us that we have not used yet You know in our conversation about the high school We talked about what are the options between going it alone or trying to use the mechanisms that are available to us It's the same thing here. We're leaving money on the table right now the state this past year. I think They're their level of what they call it matching funds It's not one-to-one match, but it was at a rate of about 53 percent I believe this past year the state kicks money into communities that adopt this and that's important to realize The other thing that's important to realize is when we talk about 1% we talk about 1.5% We're not talking about a one-and-a-half percent increase on your tax bill We're talking about one and a half percent of the amount of your tax bill. So it's actually a much smaller percentage Increase that that's just very very important to to recognize Also The town manager gave us a memo here and he listed out a whole number of items that are already in our our five-year capital plan that could potentially be funded by CPA funds if we Go forward with this if the voters choose to adopt it We are potentially freeing up some capacity there for other vital projects that are coming down the down the road Things that the community talks about a lot that get Push to the side again and again. These are the types of projects that the CPA can address Some communities for example, we've been starting to hear now the conversation about Community Center well, I can be the closest thing we have to the community center is the senior center It's in a historic building that the historic restoration of the historic building falls under the the CPA The last thing I go back to that we've heard here in the last couple weeks is just two weeks ago We heard all the present presentations from our CDBG Applicants not all of those projects but an awful lot of those projects with the types of things affordable housing and some historic Preservation initiatives that we could address here. We always talk to our you know about our CDBG applicants also trying to leverage other funds the CPA would allow us to if the voters weren't where to choose would allow us to You know make a small sacrifice in our own and leverage that money for some reimbursement from the state So I'm all for it. I Even having said that I recognize that we do have a lot of needs coming down the pike So if we're to take a specific vote here tonight My impulse would be to go halfway as far as as the state allows us the state allows us to go up to a 3% surcharge my impulse would be to support a Question for town meeting at the one-and-a-half percent level with all of the exemptions that are allowed exemptions for low and moderate income households exemptions for all residential commercial industrial property for the first hundred thousand dollars of Taxable value, so I strongly support this and I thank you for bringing it forward Steve Well, there's three votes So So I You know, I think that the CPA is an excellent state program as well I Think that it I've seen it used in many communities And it really has done wonders That being said, I don't know if it's right for all communities. I I And you know, we talked about the high school for a while. We've been talking about We're talking we're gonna start a conversation about another override and You know It makes me Hesitant to support asking for more and I understand that you know that it's not a lot to ask per year but when we're putting it on top of several other You know several other increases and asks That you know, I don't want to say they're more important But that there are things that will really need and while this is you know, this would be great to have I I don't know if it's the right time for you know, right now And so I'm sorry. I really do love the CPA and I've gone back and forth on this I feel like a hundred times now, but I'm Come and talk to you. I And I am I'm open for the conversation one for it and we're gonna have that conversation at town meeting And I'm sure it will be spirited Thank you. I Have some thoughts if you can I'm sure you're all shocked So I have to talk to a number of people over the last few weeks about this particular one thought and my the first my first reaction still holds true, which is We whatever we do we have to work We have to look at that I believe we have to look at this the CPA in the context of our bigger financial picture The CPA is just one part of what we've we've got and we know we've talked about it enough times But I'll just briefly new high school or high school renovation Minuteman operational override And I can say and so I can I can support the CPA if it's in that context And I found a way to do that but it requires us to take a specific Set or as a board at least as a consensus to come to it to make a couple Adjustments, I think to Mrs. Mohan's motion. So I'm gonna lay out the argument for those and see see what people think First of all, I just think it would be an absolute tragedy If we supported the CPA got the CPA through and then failed to do an operational override in Whatever year it is that we actually need to do it 1718 19 or whatever it is because if we successfully support our historic Structures and our do affordable housing and yet we fail to support education public services and all the other things that we fund with Our budget we have failed so that is that is the tragedy that I very very much want to avoid And so when the question is to me it isn't just whether we think we should talk about this on town Town meeting floor. We're attaching a recommendation to we're sending a recommendation to town meeting about what they think what we think that vote should be and I And so when someone asked me Dan, are you recommending that we should raise taxes? I'm gonna say yes, but and or yes with and here's what I suggest if we if you again coming back to the town manager's memo virtually if we apply Everything that we get the CPA in the next five years two items that are already in our five-year plan That more than takes up all the CPA funds, which is to say this is we can if We can fund parts of the high school we can fund all You know all the things that are on that list and we can do it through an increase in taxes Which is exactly what we're talking about the CPA and we can do it with additional money from the state And that's the reason to do this that this is the argument that pushed me over the edge is that when we go to the Voters and we say we want you to do an override every time I Last I did this last time when I did it I said kid have you done everything you can to save money to do other sources of revenue? And I can't quite say that yes, but yet, but I can do it with the CPA But because what we'll be getting is you know a few million dollars from the state Which is money that we would not otherwise Have gotten so let's talk a little bit about the specifics of the recommendation that we're making from the memo from Doug he talks to adopt the CPA to my knowledge proponents are advocating a one and a half percent surcharge which is exactly what Joe said and He also talks about their there are surcharge exemptions And there's at least three here that I think we should that we should recommend property owned and occupied as a domicile By a person who would qualify for low-income housing or low and moderate income senior housing in the city or town So those individuals would be exempt a hundred thousand of the value of each taxable parcel of residential real property So that's essentially means that would have the effect of Removing the surcharge Like I wouldn't remove the surcharge But it would lower the impact of the surcharge on lower wealth or lower property owned families and third a hundred thousand of the value Of each taxable parcel class or three commercial property in class four industrial property have the same effect for small businesses in that so those Are the things that that I think we should do and now here's where I'm gonna get a little bit Controversial I or at least a little bit controversial and that is Joe specifically Yeah, I'm gonna pick on you just a little bit about some of the things within the CDBG I'm asking that we recommend that we forego much of those things and we'd really try to Restrict ourselves to essentially things that we would have already paid for in our priorities now I'm saying we can't you do that universally and I'm obviously not only that this board nor town meeting would have the authority to actually Enforce that but if we did that as an intent and we did that as a part of our vote We could pass because of these funds are then in the future disbursed by a The CPA committee is it and so if the CPA committee is brought into existence in the town of Arlington with a vote of the Select when a vote of town meeting, you know saying this is what we want you to do with that money I suspect that that board would listen to it so I think Wrapping up everything I said, I think that the CPA is The right the reason to do it is because it maximizes money from the state and the reason that I can say Let's raise taxes now is because it unlocks this money from the state and because I know with absolute Certainty that we are going to need the money before the decade is out And if I wasn't clear, I apologize my motion is exactly that what the proponents have said the one and a half percent The three exemptions as you outlined as well as because I just want to be clear I'm voting positive action on all Issues presented from the proponents which also includes a revocation clause which basically says the way you got in is the way You get out Meeting in the vote it but it does have the caveat I think with the understanding that if you've already used some CPA funds Yes, it's five years, but it also says You know if you've already committed to something right you have to stay the course with that but then you're out of it So I just want to make that clear. That's exactly what my motion was in favor election Kevin help me understand how you linked CDBG Okay, so what I was saying is thank you. I didn't articulate that well It will say one way of looking at CDBG is it's a Christmas tree And underneath the Christmas tree you have all these presents of things that we would not the presents that we would not have otherwise gotten you know things it so That's really the best way of saying it is it like because this pot of money now We could be used for a whole bunch of other things and I'm saying, you know We're gonna I'm asking us to not put additional presents under the tree in so far as we can You know I'm saying we should we've been making a prioritized list of our Investments and we should continue to invest according to that priority list and ask the CPA committee to prioritize differently No, I'm asking them to actually I'm actually asking them to strongly hue to the To what are their current capital planning committee with the process with the town manager than the deputy town manager? So our current capital plan has five years of capital money spelled out, right? Include and it will include things like the high school and stuff like that And I'm in the CPA can either read from that list or it can create its entirely own list Like for instance, Elizabeth Island in spy pond would have been one of those things that could have been done with the CPA money And I'm saying that we should endorse the CPA and say let we need to resist things like Yes, I believe that was raised all with private money and some state grants which is exactly Right. Thank you. I have just one question Okay, no, I just wanted to point out that I think with our motion today We're looking to just put the question of the CPA just to clarify the process. We're looking to put the CPA before town meeting if they pass it'll go to the voters the voters would adopt the CPA They would have to then be a future town meeting action I believe would have to be town meeting if I read the the law correctly to create the community preservation Committee which must include a Member of the Historic Commission a member of the Park and Recreation Commission a member of the Housing Authority But then there is leeway for who else is on there. So it seems to me That potentially down the road to try to guide that if town meetings taking that action We could look at, you know, a member of the capital planning and potentially member of this board as well to try to Align those I think yeah, I think we can guide it But I think we have to be clear and honest with ourselves and honest with everybody else Honest is the wrong word clear. You can only encumber future boards. No, not even future boards We can't encumber we can't force the CPA committee to do anything Sorry, it's always a town meeting vote. I mean that's the committee can bring whatever they want But it's the town meeting that votes like I like your idea And I'm sure that we're spending we could spend 10% on affordable housing and 10% of historic resources I'm not sure that I haven't seen Adam's list So I've seen some of the list, but you know, you might what's the 10% you're worried about Well, you have to spend 10% on affordable housing and you have to spend 10% on Historic resources. Yeah, I think you can do that and I think so The the I think that that's a good thing to do in Cambridge, which is a City and I told her she wasn't allowed to talk about any other town or city But that's what they did from the very beginning they wanted all their money basically The seven then 80% of it to go towards affordable housing and that's what they've done And that was a directive of the policy makers and that's you know, they've done it But they've also done wonderful a historic resource work and affordable and Open space and just as a footnote Cambridge has received about 50 million dollars in state money since they adopted the act Since 2001, yeah, they were one of the first adopters. Can I do might if I go to the Is there anyone else come on up two days in a row Hi, my name is Denise long I wanted to thank you for the vote on the high school I too was a student many years ago and put two kids through the high school and it's long long overdue I put my remarks down in writing so that I would be brief I'm here in support of the Community Preservation Act to put it on the ballot And I think as the board has already mentioned You're always faced with projects that are worthy of support and that often have a price tag associated with them And that price tag forces you to win on the list of worthy projects down to something that will keep Arlington's Fiscal House in order But the fact to me that there are always limited dollars is the very reason to support the Community Preservation Act now Even if the act gets funded at the lowest surcharge rate, whatever, you know, that ends up being those monies However small generate funds that will increase protection of open space improve stewardship of our existing historic properties and Assist in the acquisition of affordable housing such projects would then become ambassadors for the CPA itself Paying for something that you can actually enjoy makes paying the bill smaller. It always does For those of us that are homeowners We know firsthand what it means to have competing fiscal priorities Sometimes you need a new furnace at the same time a water pipe breaks And then you find out next month that your roof has gone But what happens next month or the month after tucking a few loose bills under your mattress here and there Adds up, especially when the state is kicking in a few of those dollars So let's establish a foundation for the Community Preservation Act Even if it just turns out to be one measly brick or two at a time because that's something that we can all build upon Thank you very much. Thank you someone else Come on up Welcome. Hi. My name is Sarah Burks. I'm a resident of Arlington on Mass Ave I'm a member of the board of trustees of the Cyrus Stalin Art Museum and I work for the City of Cambridge at the Cambridge Historical Commission So I have firsthand experience seeing what good projects can be done with CPA money in all of those categories But as an Arlington resident, I see all around me opportunities for Where we could make good use of those funds in our historic buildings and open spaces Community housing for our seniors and those who Can't afford to continue to live here but I think CPA will pay for itself both through the state matches and by Allowing us to take care of these resources that are such a draw to people to this community I like to live in Arlington because of those historic parks the the beautiful town hall and the high school these historic buildings and because the The Then the affordable housing aspect of it allows more people to benefit from all of those good things So I would happily pay a little bit more in my tax bill to support Community Preservation Act. Thank you. Thank you Ann LaRoyer chair of the open space committee, I'll speak with that hat on right now And so as you know from a few weeks ago, I was here and we are Submitting a proposal to the CDBG to get a planning grant just a one-time grant for this year to update our open space plan, which is the required document for the state and We know already that Many of the recommendations and goals and objectives that will come out of that plan Will need money and so of course the CPA is a perfect Solution to help with some of those Goals and to help with the the loss of staffing at DPW and all of the other needs that we know that the town has for protecting its parks and and Recreational facilities and so again just to reinforce The importance of open space and recreation in the town that everybody the vision 2020 survey this year addressed a number of questions about open space that we're going to use to you know feed information to our plan and They were just overwhelmed with response and people just love the open spaces in Arlington and want to protect them and have them maintained properly and so Hopefully this would be one more vehicle to help us do that. So thank you for your support. Thank you. See you in town meeting indeed anyone else Further discussion from the board All right, so we've got a motion made by mrs. Mahan seconded by All those in favor, please say aye Apologize I forgot my favorite question, which is town council. Do you have everything you need? Apologize hold on one moment. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman My understanding is that the vote is as follows the board is voting to Support favorable action on a 1.5 percent surcharge with three out of the four exemptions I believe the only exemption that The board is not approving is for Basically larger types of businesses But that in the comment to the board's rationale The board would like to strongly assert that this money though it understands it cannot be earmarked for these Capital projects which have already been identified should first be used to address those most pressing needs Is that is that the sum and substance of what the what the vote and the comment of the board is in the revocation language? Yes, the revocation languages is part of the statute and that would also I can stress that as well Let's put it in the comment for sure. I will certainly do that and yet we vote. Can I just clarify? Was it intentional to to leave out the the last? Exemption or what is the last I can explain the fourth exemption is for We were talking about a hundred thousand of person of Residential real estate hundred thousand of commercial industrial real estate the the fourth exemption was 100% of Commercial industrial real estate obviously we don't want to just not have any surcharge it all be on commercial industrial So that's why that was the fourth exemption Appears as though to use that exemption you have to have a split rate, which we don't gotcha. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you Thank you. Is there anyone else? That's my understanding is that anyone else who wants to have a good vote and the comment with yes other concerns I'm seeing three heads at least going up and down at the moment if I know it really fast can it be for yeah I should have asked you earlier Do you now have everything you need all right? Let's try this again all those in favor of the motion by mrs. Monson second My mr.. Really, please say aye aye all those opposed We have four to one mr. Burn a post. Thank you very much. We're very grateful. Thank you so much. Thank you Next up article 25 revolving funds mr. Towne manager I'll simply add that the board has or I'll state that the board has before them the Vote as is annually prepared by the comptroller And the last page in the board's packet is a new addition this year in response to both board comments and town meeting comments Which provides a level of greater detail in regards to the expenditures within each account? so Happy to answer any questions about that Make any adjustments before it becomes finalized before the report the town meeting But we try to categorize expenditures so that they were we had added a level of transparency without having an overwhelming Any further discussion there's nobody here to comment I Know it's so late. It's so late. I just I flagged for the items where the expenditures and Receipts were or you know offer obviously the goal is to balance the expenditures and receipts the extent possible I believe in these revolving yes for the most part And I think there are four of them where that really wasn't quite the case And I didn't know if there was anything that you want to flag it before that where that wasn't the case was life support Board of Health fees Town Hall rental white goods Just looking at those is there anything extraordinary that you'd want to report I would say for Board of Health and life support that probably has to do with timing of the year because there's a larger town hall The fact that and they're off really is that based on the fact that we're using that town hall to Pay for some deferred maintenance and larger capital projects within town Also, those don't necessarily show up in one year So we build a little bit of a balance and spend them or in this case spend a little bit of a balance that we Drown up and Pat are built up in past years and what I didn't what was the fourth one you mentioned So what white goods is really on its It's moving towards its closure We don't really collect very much into white goods under the new track under the new collection contract So there's very few revenues coming in so we're sort of spent spending down what we have Mostly on offsetting the recycling coordinators position. So that's potentially in the future. We'll be we'll be looking Okay, thank you We have a motion of second all those favor, please say aye Post 5-0 Set special town meeting article to home rule legislation all alcohol licenses second Do we need to fill in a blank on that one? It just increased from 15 is all it's I May have read it wrong too What is the numbers that I thought there wasn't one and I may have missed If I could be helpful, there was not a number necessarily that there was a couple numbers talked about It may be open to the board's consideration of how many would like to increase the license by but my understanding from the select Refresh my memory. What's the current count 15? Yeah, I believe the concern was as reported by the office was that the length of time this process takes One that could you know Be a situation where we could get our five additional license and turn around and want to start all over again So it's it's a matter obviously for the board's consideration the vote language will end up having to be relatively specific I've given you have as clear of an indication as I can of what that vote language will look like But it's it is the selectman's discretion if they wanted to Say that it was more than five or if they wanted to potentially leave open to town meeting How many they wanted to approve? I would it's my recommendation that that you have a specific number, but but Kevin so do we have to have a specific number? I don't know that a specific number Well, you'll have to have a specific number when it comes to the question that's placed before the voters But you don't necessarily have to have I'm sorry in the home rule legislation, but you don't necessarily have to have a Number when you go to town meeting. It's my recommendation. You should have one Because otherwise it'll be far too. I think it'll be ambiguous and it'll cause confusion But but what I'm asking is do we have to have a number at all? Can we just say we're in power to give out these all alcohol life? Oh, no, you have to have a specific We don't have a specific Okay I move that we recommend favorable action to go to 20 So that's five We were most sure of second I will signal that I would support 10 just because I think we can make the case that we're giving them out Prudently and they're going to things that are making the town I think when we did the what before I was here when the first five went out It was a big experiment, and I think we're seeing the results of that experiment That's why I'm asking do we need a number at all? I agree with you a hundred percent What I'm worried about is am I right this eventually goes to the voters. Yes So I'm afraid voters saying go from 15 to 25, and I think whoa, okay I'm with you otherwise. I'm just worried about the procession. I'm happy to support a further discussion seeing as no one else is here to talk about this one either All right, we have a motion for mr. Greeley I Mr.. Keros I can thank you. I lost it all those in favor, please say aye. I opposed All right, we'll approve them of all final votes and comments I have one No, it's a totally appropriate. I'm sure people will agree with me Actually one is I'm sure and one I'm not they're sure Article 20 was for one as opposed to five zero. It's been noted. Yes. Okay. All right and Article 54 I thought we would just wanted to say will report And maybe that is the vote that I we successfully took But I think so my my argument is we want to see how electronic town voting works and then we want to make a recommendation That's that's the way I interpret the intent of 54 I'm okay with it is right now, but I did just want to float like I feel like We're gonna be doing again an experiment We're gonna be using these electronic tools and we should do it for and then at the very end of town meeting We should say should we keep on doing it? And so We could do that underneath the current language But part of me just says we should just strike the current like to the appropriate body and say There was there was discussion whether or not the Board should be the one reporting. Yeah, but if it's the board's sentiment that it was Your intention to like say that you will report then we can strike that I guess I would say one or the other I don't like one like we should either just ask them to make the recommendation and that or we should do it You know, I guess I don't want to leave it as an or maybe that's my hang up Would the proper Phrasing then be voted the town meeting does resolve to continue the use of Electronic voting is that not specific enough? Well, we could leave that as recommended But I'm not so I think of us saying that we achieve what you want But it actually doesn't because what I want to do I feel like when we make when we're passing these votes We are making a recommendation to town meeting and saying town meeting We think you should vote acts and I'm not prepared to take make that statement personally 54 I believe mr. Dunn's Chairman Dunn's recitation there was an accurate recitation of What the board thought at the time this was presented that that the board was not prepared to Make a recommendation on this other than to say they will report because of the timing of it I believe that the town moderator and The other gentleman who was with him on from the electronic voting committee committee understood that and supported that notion I think the question that To my recollection was presented was whether or not the Board itself or whether this committee established by the board would be the one to report on it If it's the board that would like to report on it though I think the most appropriate thing is miss chairman Dunn suggests is just to say voted the board Were reported town meeting? if If that's the side, so why don't we change it to I make a motion to article 54 will report Any further discussion? Thank you all those in favor, please say aye Mr. Chairman Were you comfortable with taking the final vote on article 21? Thank you for reminding me I Strongly suggest we take article 21 off Joe and I had the distinctest pleasure of being at Minuteman on Friday morning Which 16 towns saw me change and turn purple It's green What you spotted I could I didn't swear But that was restraint they of the school committee tomorrow is gonna be voting on a new Amendment to the proposed so we voted approval for a language and they're about to change it again And the change is changing the weighting on the The vote which would reduce essentially would have the effect of reducing so currently we have exactly 1 16th vote in the language that we all voted on two weeks ago or Yeah, I think it's two weeks ago. We would have had approximately one one third and under this we would essentially have one fifth and There's a lot frankly I want to see what they act the school committee actually does and then I think we're going to talk about it again So I respectfully ask that the board not vote the language on article 21, and we'll revisit it in two weeks Thank you for reminding me Adam. I had lost that Sounds good Let's dispose of that tabling then we'll come back to the other motion all those favorite tabling article 21 I Opposed no table. Okay. Now. We've got a main motion, which is to approve language 10 11 12 19 20 as amended 54 as amended Any further discussion all those in favor, please say aye. I opposed 5-0. Thank you everyone Correspondent received Any further discussion All those in favor, please say aye New business Thank you very much Doug no new business Adam. No new business Keep it going brother No, no business Diane. I do have new business, but I'll try to make it really breathe. See why I said brother No, I know it is because I'm just so proud You gotta talk about the jail. I know but it really is a big thing. I'm not even kidding We as we are I keep bothering everybody about we went to states States do large and small all girl and large and small co-ed. So we went one of eight small co-ed We went in at number eight when you go in and cheerleading that gets counted as your vote as part of your score Waited score. So if you're one two or three you got a leg up if you're down at the bottom you're kind of pretty much stuck there so The ladies and Liam performed they came out first, which is the worst Spot to have because you're coming out first and you're nervous Did a fantastic job? Yeah, seven other teams. So then they announce, okay Third second first they all go to national Canton Gloucester Grafton Everyone went wild now. I had my team as fourth which everyone thought I was nuts because in order to overcome coming in eighth You not only have to do well. You also have to carry that handicap and do even better So everything's over everybody's screaming we go up and we get our scores and head coach Kelly turns to the cheerleading team and Sees that we got fourth to which the team starts screaming and crying to the point that other teams thought maybe the national Bitfairy was giving out extra bids and started to come over But but even the parents because to go from eighth in the state to fourth They really had to overcome and the other thing I'm really proud about is that the teams behind us Difference between first and second place is point seven five and second and third was I think one point two five And then we were fourth and then trailing behind us It was twenty two point five and twenty eight and I can't remember the bottom So that's how well they did and I know it wasn't a number one win But I couldn't have asked for anything better and from every day to the rest of the election if I can just feel the way I felt on Sunday. I'm a happy camper, and I'm just so proud of that team. It's ridiculous And thank you for letting me go into detail. So Diane next year. Do they go in at fourth? Would they go in some before that's a whole new year? We're just forced for 2014 It's been an extremely busy two weeks, but I'm not going to avoid you with that I just wanted to just share two things for us. Ms. Kruppalka and Ms. Chaplain, and I attended the police awards ceremony Many of our officers and some community members were honored I don't have the Roshua the program with me, so I don't want to leave anyone out I just do want to note that officer Scott Urquhart was honored as the officer of the year Which is an honor which is bestowed in part by votes from its fellow officers And certainly we congratulate him and all the other officers for their their outstanding duty and service And the only other thing I wanted to share is I went to the one of the MMA legislative breakfasts I went down to to Waymouth and awful lot of the discussion was around substance abuse issues and I shared With folks there what we are doing with our medication collection box at the police station that that was an initiative of the Arlington Youth Health and Safety Coalition It had been funded under the drug free communities grant But when we lost that the police department has continued to support That and you know all residents should know if you have old Medications that you don't know what to do with how to dispose of that box is there You know it's man, you know 24 7 we take a 50 Pound drum out of there every two or three months and replace it. It's it's serious So I just want you to know that the other another number of other communities came up to me and asked me about the program How they can get that started in their own so that was one way in which it seemed other communities were really impressed with what Arlington's doing And I wanted to report that also I met a town manager down there I'd never met from another community said gee I was just looking at your your virtual your visual budget online, so We're leading in a number of ways. I just wanted to share that One really brief one and that is and I meant to bring this up two weeks ago I forgot so the information is aged, but the telephone the double pole working group Since our their report they have made the utilities have made significant progress the items that weren't in the database have largely been entered in the database and 27 of the poles that were there have been removed So I actually haven't gone and well There's a constant flow of poles going in and out, but this was actually like a win so to speak We should make sure it's in the database So I was saying that I have not gone to Verizon and talk to them basically because we're getting what we want right now and I will continue to I don't honestly. I don't expect to report back until April again to this group, but anyway, I just wanted that brief update. Yeah, great We have emotions second all those in favor. We are adjourned