 Okay, we can start now. Last meeting, whose broad stripes and bright stars. Thank you Mr. Greeley. Do we have any new town meeting members who have not yet been previously sworn in? If so, please rise. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I will participate fully and fairly evaluate all matters before town meeting. I can't hear you. And vote in the best interest of the town. I support free speech, will treat others with mutual respect. And will conduct myself in a civil manner that is becoming of an elected town meeting member. I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully and impartially perform the duties that come upon me as a town meeting member of the town of Arlington in accordance with the bylaws. The town manager act and the general laws of the Commonwealth, so help me God. Thank you. I recognize Mr. Byrne. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Steve Byrne, chair of the board of selectmen. It is requested that members of the board of selectmen and elected officials of the town, town manager, department heads of the town and staff, superintendent of schools and staff, committees, commissions and boards of the town, Minuteman regional vocational technical school district committee and superintendent. Members of the electronic voting committee and staff, members of the general court representing Arlington and also any consultants who have been retained to work for the town relative to articles to be acted upon by this meeting. Representatives of interested parties of article three and representatives of the news media be permitted to sit within the annual town meeting enclosure. All in favor? Opposed? So moved. It is moved that if all the business of the meeting as set forth in the warrant for the annual town meeting is not disposed of at this session when the meeting adjourns. It adjourns to Wednesday, May 7th, 2014, at 8 p.m. All in favor? Opposed? So moved. Okay, a couple announcements by the chair. Precincts were supposed to organize tonight. If they didn't organize before the meeting, let's organize at the break. Eight will be upstairs in front of the clerk's office. Nine upstairs in front of the clerk's office as well. Ten over, well, ten, why don't you do it over here? Because the tennis club is selling cookies at the break and will be a little crowded. Eleven over here as well, and I think 13. So, 10, 11, and 13 will be over here. To further refine the, I've gotten some comments about, I seem to go a little fast sometimes. So from now on, when we do an electronic vote, I'm going to slow down and I'm going to say something similar to this almost every time so you know what I'm doing. So we're now going to vote on whether it's the motion to terminate debate or the real article. I'll announce we're now going to vote on. I'll then take a minute to ask Mr. Flynn if he's ready. I'll get my cards, either the green card or, we're going to have a yellow card now because sometimes he has to type something into the computer. This one might be like a 10, 20 second delay. And then I'll remind you, vote yes to support, no if you don't, three to abstain. You can only vote during that 20 second window while the clock's ticking. And we think that there may be a slight chance if while if you vote early, save the five second mark and you go to put it in your pocket or away, you may inadvertently press another key and not realize it. That'll change your vote. So don't put it away until the 22nd clock is up and we announce voting's closed because you don't want to inadvertently change your vote from yes, no or abstain. So just kind of hold out. So right now we're going to do a test vote. I'm going to try to do this every night, but I forgot Mr. Flynn. So just to test our clickers, make sure we're working and that the system's operational. We're going to try and do this every night as soon as he's ready. Okay, look Jim. Okay, go ahead and vote. This is one yes, you're here, two you're not here, and three you're abstaining from telling us if you're here. It might take a second or two for it to say yes, no, received. Okay, you can put your clicker away now. We seem to have about a few people less than last week. It's a quorum call, we can see who's here, not, okay, it seems to be working. On the back table tonight there was, I noticed, a town meeting contact information form. Next year the list, the town meeting member list is going to migrate from the A list, where it's been living for a while, to the town's own website and computers. So it'll be, the town will be maintaining that, not an individual third party. So actually, if you fill this out and give it to us, we'll have your information ready next year to put it onto our computer, as opposed to trying to get you to all sign up next year. So these are in the back table, the right side, so if you get these and just give them to Ms. Weber when you're finished it, or tomorrow when you check in, it'd be appreciated. Any other announcements or resolutions? Mr. Gilligan. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Steven Gilligan, Town Treasurer, I hope you're including reports. I move that the report of the Town Treasurer to Town meeting be received. All favor receiving the report, please say yes. Yes. It is received. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Ms. Kowalski. Carol Kowalski, Director of Planning and Community Development. I ask permission that the Master Plan Advisory Committee Chairs and the Master Plan Consultant present their report to Town meeting. Yes, they can. I'd like to introduce the co-chairs, Charlie Kowalski and Carol Svensson and consultant Judy Barrett from RKG Associates. My name is Charles Kowalski, I reside at 29 Kensington Park. Carol Svensson, and I reside at 16 Temple Street. And I'm Judy Barrett with RKG Associates, with our offices in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Texas. You have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Members of Town meeting, members of the Board of Selectment, and members of the Redevelopment Board. I'm Charles Kowalski, co-chair of the Master Plan Advisory Committee. I'm a professional civil engineer. And a planner has been in consulting services to state agencies, municipalities, and private developers. And the resident of the town of Arlington since 1976. And I'll introduce Carol Svensson in a little background. I have a little background on myself. I'm an economist. And I have lived in Arlington for five years. I helped write the city of Midland, Michigan Master Plan. And I have two children in the Arlington Public Schools. Thank you. And Judy Barrett, Mr. Director of Municipal Planning Services with RKG Associates in New Hampshire. I am the Director of the Massachusetts Office of RKG Associates. I've been a planner for almost 30 years, worked on a number of master plans in Massachusetts, and delighted to be here. Thank you. We'd also like to identify the committee members who are town meeting members. We acknowledge them and ask them to stand as they are called. Sherry Barron, precinct seven, Barbara Dodger, precinct 11, and Ann LaRoyer, precinct 17. We also want to acknowledge the work of other six members of the committee for their contributions. And they are Harris Band, Joe Barr, Eric Barossa, Greg Bo, Pam Heidel, and Wendy Reckner. Thank you for your contributions. Just like to spend a minute talking about the work that's been done so far, and then turn it over to Judy, who will summarize some of the themes that we've heard and her findings, and then Carol wrap up what's in terms of what's coming in the future. Master plan advisory committee is an 11 member board selected by the town moderator, town manager, chair of the board of selectmen, chair of the redevelopment board, and director of planning community development. To work with the community and the master plan consultant to lead the town towards a plan that will guide the physical development of the town for the next 20 years. With the board of selectmen liaison Joe Coro and Arlington redevelopment board liaison Christine Sapinski, the committee has met 20 times during the past year. The master plan effort is engaged over 1,400 Arlington residents, business owners, property owners, and town officials in developing the vision and goals and priorities for the community's future land use, housing, transportation, public facilities and infrastructure, economic development, historical and cultural resource areas, natural resources and open space and recreation facilities. RKG and the town's plan staff had interviewed nearly 100 stakeholders in Arlington to document their knowledge and understanding of the town in major issues and opportunities that the town will need to address in the future. A number of working groups have been formed and working paper presentations have been made to date land use, public facilities, housing, transportation, economic development, historical and cultural resource areas have been presented at public meetings. All these papers are located on the town's website along with surveys that can be completed by town residents. Comments on the historical and cultural resources working paper will be received through June 7th and the working paper on natural resources and open space will be presented at a public meeting on May 15th. Judy? Thank you. We've heard a number of themes that have come out of the public meetings and the interviews and and so forth in our work on your plan and I just want to talk a little bit about some of them. In most cases the themes that that we've heard have what we call cross-cutting significance for the master plan which means they affect more than one element of the plan and here are some examples. One is we've heard many concerns about housing costs and property taxes in your community. The good news for Arlington homeowners is that your homes are appreciated in value and they will continue to do so. Arlington's a desirable town and people want to live here. The bad news is that Arlington's home values have appreciated in the sense that it makes it harder for a variety of people to choose to live in your town so strategies to address housing costs will need to be addressed not only in the master plan's housing element but most likely in land use and economic development as well. We've heard interest in encouraging more business development. Arlington is compact and largely built out so the question of what kinds of businesses and where can be more challenging here than in many outlying suburbs. The master plan will need to examine the roles that the town wants to play in attracting businesses and keeping the businesses that are already here. Every master plan has an economic development element but implementing a community's economic development goals usually affects other elements as well from land use, housing, and historic and cultural resources certainly in the case of your community. From just about every corner we've heard people say that Arlington needs to diversify its tax base which directly relates to concerns about Arlington's rising property taxes. How much change the town will accept in order to reduce dependence on residential taxes will be a big challenge for this plan. People cherish Arlington's compact development pattern and walkability. Arlington values walking and wants to improve the pedestrian experience. The condition and maintenance of sidewalks as well as accessibility for all users will be an issue for this plan. And finally residents here take tremendous pride in their cultural heritage as they should. This certainly has implications for several elements of the plan. Historic preservation, economic development, transportation, and public facilities due to the number of wonderful iconic buildings that you have in your community. I think with that I'll turn it over to Carol. Carol Swenson, I just want to mention what's ahead. On June 10th the committee will have an event called Do You Like This or That where you'll see two different pictures and pretty quickly pick which one you like better. There'll be instant voting for the community and residents who want to attend. In October there will be a public presentation of the key findings by the committee and the consultants. We will also be soliciting comments from the town residents and in January 2015 the Arlington Redevelopment Board will review and hopefully adopt the master plan as prescribed in state law. Then in April we will return to seek your endorsement. Please take a handout that you'll find on the back table on the right side for more information and for ways to keep up with what the master plan committee is doing. Thank you for your time. Thank you Mr. Moderator. Thank you. Thank you all for your efforts. Mr. Jamison. Thank you Mr. Moderator. Gordon Jamison, Precinct 12 and Co-Chair of the Recycling Committee and this year I'm happy to be joined by newly elected Co-Chair of the Recycling Committee, Ms. Brazil. Thank you. Julie Brazil, Precinct 12, Co-Chair. So normally as you have in years past we do a little song and dance about Community Collection Day. We're going to dispense with that. In the back there's a little handout about Community Collection Day. It's on Saturday, the Saturday, Saturday the 10th from 9 to 11 at the DPW yard. Don't come early, don't come late. For you at home and those in the audience who want more information there's been information about this published in The Advocate and of course online website for the last several weeks you can look there. Please review carefully the items that are accepted during Community Collection Day and which items we prefer not to get. So don't come early. Oh yes and entrance is best from the Mass Avenue side of Grove Street. Julie? I just wanted to share a couple of quick highlights sort of about the work that the Recycling Committee has been doing. We prepared a handout which is on the back table. I hope people will get a chance to look at it. It sort of showcases the next wave of thought from the Recycling Committee. We want to move beyond just recycling. Of course we hope everyone recycles as much as they can in their curbside bins but there is a surprising amount of stuff that you can pull out of your trash. Bring to Collection Days, drop off at stores that take things back. And so we've created a handout that sort of begins to to get some ideas out there for things that you can divert from your trash. The reason why that's important is the chart on page two of the handout shows a pretty steady decrease over the years in our trash total volume of trash that we burn to that bottom bottom bar. When that goes down that's good for the town because we pay to burn the trash. So when we burn less that's a lot less money that we spend. We've looked at our projections for fiscal 14 and it's very flat. I think we are not going to continue that downward trend that we've been so happy with. So I just wanted to let people know that the sort of the next step in the process is to keep recycling. The curbside program has been going very well. We did get an uptick in rates when we went to weekly which was great. But now we need to just sort of think about all the ways that we could keep things out of the trash and collection days and all the other suggestions are a great idea. If you have further questions come find me at the break or contact us or come to a meeting any time. Thank you. And again collection day is Saturday and if you wish to volunteer please have any questions see Julie and I at the break. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. O'Connor your support announcement. James O'Connor precinct 19 your assistant moderator for those of you that got the email that I sent out last week tomorrow 15 members of town meeting will go to have a tour at 10 a.m. at Minuteman Tech. We're going to have lunch with the students and there'll be a tour and presentation. For those of you that were interested but don't have the luxury of taking some of your daytime hours we can schedule another meeting if you were to send me an email Dr. McQuillen is interested but the only day that he had before we present the articles on Wednesday is tomorrow. So that if those of you are interested just let me know. Thank you. Thank you. Any other announcements or resolutions sir. Mr. Toasty. Bob Toasty Jr. precinct 20. In addition it's being the community collection day Saturday it's also the U.S. Postal Service food drive so I'd remind you that to leave on your doorsteps closes to the email any non-perishable items past being about a jelly they also collect health and beauty aids that we give out to the clients anything that they less spend that way they have for other needs. I remind you of this every year and also remind that that the need is all year long not just on the collection day so do participate this Saturday including the people watching from home but also contribute all year long at collection sites would appreciate it. Thank you. Any others. Hearing none. Ports committee to article three. Mr. Toasty. Move to article three debate upon the table. All in favor. Post. Article three is upon the table that brings us to article 10. Home rule legislation cemetery commissions now before town meeting. Stephen Harrington precinct 13. Wait a second that's presumptuous I didn't call on you yet. Mr. Harrington. Thank you Mr. Moderator Stephen Harrington precinct 13. Who's tired of hearing about the cemetery cemetery fatigue I'm tired you're less than one quarter of the way through right now there's three more articles only one which is mine so let me start right away first of all what's the problem I want to use the words like fiduciary and prudent but they're not unjust characterizations what they are a precise technical terms and we've had a breach or not following their fiduciary responsibility with the cemetery commission and they've acted imprudently in the handling of the funds entrusted to them and I don't believe that that's because of any personal fault I believe it's because of structurally the way it's set up in the town of Ellington and so why do we care we care because our loved ones they have to look after them fraternity that's a long time and we only have we have a solution law allows us to elect the cemetery commission and really change the structure and make the more accountable to the electorate and the only thing we're asking tonight much like with the liquor licenses and much like with the cpa later is a ballot question to be put before the voters of the town there's a I didn't have to do that we could have changed it tonight but I think it's important to take small steps and very good steps and also it's not unusual to have a cemetery commission elected in fact about a third of the towns in massachusetts elect the cemetery commissions Belmont, Milton, Charlmsford, Framingham all have elected cemetery commissions and so it's not something unusual uh that's not done around the town no cities elect the cemetery commission really what you're facing here tonight is whether or not you want to move more towards city or move more towards the town so um if you could next page did you introduce your motion and get it seconded yeah okay the first thing I want to talk about is the inappropriate use of the cemetery we talked about parking I won't use a p-word cut-throughs there's a lot of cut-throughs that are going on through the cemetery right now uh this uses a storage area there's been a decade of delayed or deferred maintenance and we've directed funds from maintenance one of the things that was really mistaken last week was the understanding what the cemetery is the cemetery is private property that's why like any private property owner the only things that the cemetery commission could do was tow your vehicle or have you arrested for trespassing because when you buy a cemetery lot that's your personal property my parents cemetery lot is my property I have rights to it the town only has an easement on it you don't have the right to do what you want on personal property and that's where the confusion last week really existed that's why there's no ticketing it's more like having stop and shop they can't ticket your car they can tow it they can have you arrested for trespassing it's private property and this picture up here is from the town gis every inch of that cemetery every piece of grass is owned by someone and they paid the equivalent of four million dollars an acre for the right to be buried there so trespass Mount Pleasant Cemetery is used as a cutthroat I sat out front in February of this year and counted one car a minute goes to the cemetery this morning I went down there I sent out a video to some of you if we have time I might show it eight cars in four minutes coming through there most of the cars are actually commercial vehicles 91 mystic street zoned industrial it's actually on Henderson Avenue which is actually they use the cemetery as their p-word and they use they use the rest of the cemetery to come out so they come into Henderson one way they come out satchum the other this is Henderson Ave right around the corner okay you may see that the road surface is a little bit chewed up this is the veteran section they're within six inches of the veteran section that's an eight inch gap they have a large vehicle that is destroyed the road there this is the gato family the corner at Henderson before you go to the bridge zoom in at the little bit at the bottom this was last august cars ran over this section of their marker repeatedly shipping the corner the berm we heard about how it's going to stop this problem they put the berm in after i posted these pictures on patch the berms are about an inch and a half high if you can see there's actually tire marks if you hop that berm all the time one car a minute means that there's 10 collisions so are people having to pull to the side every five or ten minutes this is towards the chapel this is the old part of the cemetery you see the debris fields three feet in from the road surface you know who's buried here it's the mirage family there's another marker completely covered and another one under i mean this is six inches of soil this didn't just happen in the winter this marker was run over cracked right in half there's hundreds of these in the cemetery so they fixed it in march because we were down there taking pictures and um about a week later this is what it looks like this is what it looks like this morning you can see it's within about six inches of the marker again it's all over the cemetery everywhere you look the dpw uses it as a storage area this is loan being taken out of the cemetery this is the henderson avenue this asphalt pushed up onto people's gravesites this is over on the mystic street side they must bury the um little people here because it's only about four and a half feet from where that's been the road surface has been decayed here's the solution i've asked for this solution for years a gate at satchamav this is oak grove cemetery look how beautiful it looks look at the road surface the gate sign says nine o'clock to three thirty it's not open it ends the people using it to commute so four violations of master and the law chapter 114 they used principal out of the perpetual care fund you all did that for the last four years you transferred more than 200 000 dollars from principal time's almost up uses a public way that's what we're doing and that's against law we don't have the authority to do that thank you and good night thank you mr chapterling adam chapterling town manager uh quickly want to start one town meeting member asked before the session started tonight if we could just name the three appointed cemetery commissioners the current commission is chaired by michelle hassler and the two other commission members are william mccarthy who was here on monday excuse me last wednesday evening as well as gloria turkle so i'll be very brief just a few points of clarification in terms of the funding issues me and the article or the substitute motion proponent have been discussing this for the past several months and apparently remained at a point of agreeing to disagree there have been no appropriations of principal from the perpetual care fund only capital gains as well as income income income excuse me income earnings on the perpetual care fund have been spent no principal has been spent and the way that we have expended the funds we've checked with both dor and our independent auditor powers and Sullivan and they are they have stated that the way in which town meeting in the cemetery commission finance committee has spent the funds is appropriate also in terms of um diverting money to the general fund we've done a thorough cost analysis of the cemetery commission spending and if you look at direct costs which is what you see appropriated in the finance committee report as well as indirect costs which include costs from the engineering department working on cemetery matters the administration department dealing with cemetery business all in public works motor equipment repair fixing parts fixing machinery and equipment in the cemetery fuel used by the vehicles in the cemetery benefits for cemetery employees retiree retiree retired healthcare retired employee benefits annual depreciation of capital assets support services from the comptroller personnel the gis department we have a fully loaded cost of operating the cemetery of about $729,000 a year so even if you look at total cemetery revenue in the perpetual care offset we still actually the general fund subsidizes cemetery operations by about $200,000 a year so that's an accuracy that was stated earlier in terms of cut through traffic in terms of cut through traffic i'll read directly from a correspondence that i've had with the article proponent so cut through traffic we appreciate this concern and are committed to addressing it in an appropriate manner to that end we plan to do traffic counts to determine the extent of the problem and thereby help inform the best solution to the issue as you know we need to be cognizant of the need for cemetery staff to travel throughout the cemetery and the need for those with loved ones in the cemetery to access the facility in a convenient fashion options include gating on the bridge or possibly gating at the entrance to sachem avenue however without studying the issue further we are not able to make informed recommendations based on this we plan to perform these counts in the fall of 2014 and have recommendations prepared for later in the year the reason for performing these counts in the fall is to ensure that school related traffic is accounted for and also to avoid spikes that might be caused by construction related traffic so we're very aware of the cut through issue i know it's been a very long-standing issue but we stand prepared to address the cut through issue and the only other point i'll raise in terms of the maintenance of the cemetery under our article 12's debate i mentioned the $230,000 investment in the roadways planned for the fy 15 budget as well as the water system upgrades that were budgeted in fy 14 and are currently getting underway a lot of the issues of deferred maintenance are accurate the article proponent is absolutely right but they've been addressed in the budget and a great deal of improvements are forthcoming to the cemetery so i just wanted to clear up those issues and be happy to answer any questions thank you thank you sir uh mr mar thank you mr moderator john marr precinct 14 i'm going to date myself here i think uh looking back i believe this is my 40th annual town meeting and with all due respect to the proponents i cannot think of a more ill advised suggested action for this town meeting to take in 1952 the general court the legislature enacted chapter 503 of the axon resolved from 1952 establishing a town manager form of government for the town of arlington the town finally stepped into the 20th century the hallmark of the town manager act is a strong town manager answering only to the board of selectmen the principal policy making board of the town all of the elected boards before that board of health cemetery commission and so forth were abolished at least with regard to the election thereof the principal provision of the act is that even though these bodies still exist such as the board of health the board of library commissioners the board of trust fund commissioners and so and the cemetery commissioners still have general law capabilities and prerogatives but under the manager act which supersedes the general laws it states clearly that they answer to the town manager they are subject and i'm quoting to the general supervision and control of the town manager to go back to having separate feet thumbs politicizing the cemetery is not the way this town meeting should act and it's a species argument i respectfully suggest to say oh we just want to get it on the ballot each and every one of you have a responsibility to decide what goes on the ballot and i object strongly to the the imputing of the integrity of the cemetery commissioners in the town i have worked with them i know them i've worked with them over the years they are dedicated public servants and i they do their best they may have differences but people this is a town manager formal government and they answer eventually to the town manager i think it would be an extreme backward step for us to return to the old days where there were these separate elections and that one board elected here one board elected there at cross purposes we either have a town manager form of government in arlington or we don't i suggest to you that it has served the town extremely well we have for all intents and purposes been scandal and corruption free we are the envy of the commonwealth when people's when i go to conferences when i was a town employee when people would say oh you're from arlington please don't do this i strongly urge you to defeat the substitute motion mr harris ej harris precinct five i think in the speech defending the substitute motion uh what we didn't hear um was what debaters call solvency which is the idea that the proposed the proposal the plan is actually going to solve the problem that it purports to solve right we heard a bunch of problems and i think we all agree that those problems exist but there wasn't a link about why electing the cemetery commission is going to solve those problems but for a sort of vague assertion that they are structural based on how the cemetery commission is chosen i think we need to hear that link before we could like seriously consider um adopting the substitute motion to my way of thinking there are three reasons to elect an officer of the town um the first is because the officer elects or exercises significant sovereign authority on behalf of the town um that they on on behalf of all of us they exercise police powers they exercise taxing powers something like that um there are many many uh officers the town who exercise significant sovereign authority uh that we should be considering electing before we elect the cemetery commission if that's the goal of the proposed legislation the town manager uh the chief of police the head of the department of public works this plan is of course disastrous right we shouldn't do that um i also think that the cemetery is closer to like a utility than it is to the police powers so i don't think that can be like a justification uh the second reason and i'm glad this word was used already because i worried about using it is to allocate personal thieves um and to be clear i like personal thieves right i think that's a perfectly justifiable way to run a government um like we're going to hear on actually a medievalist by training right like that's fine with me the fact that some of them are hereditary is awesome for me that's fine but if this is the goal of the town uh i'd like to see us start with the library commission uh because my current recreational reading is about the reception of thomas and aristotelian metaphysics in for in the 14th century Byzantine empire and my dream of doing that on somebody else's dime um would likely keep my empty life going for many many years so i think that would be um like a much better use of our time if we're going to start the thief allocation system of town elections the third reason to elect an officer of the town is of course to make people feel good uh and that's a good thing too right that's fine um but i think there are a lot of uh town offices we should consider before the cemetery commission if that's our goal too right um the first i think is actually poet laureate right because i think we should make sure that the poets that we'd laureate um write poems that the people of our like actually like if that's really something we want um i think there would be much it would be much more hotly contested if we created an honorary office of like political agonist in chief uh for the town of arlington uh i think many more people would be interested in running for that position certainly i would more than cemetery commission um i think that you know i really just i don't understand the conceptual framework that would give us a reason to elect the cemetery commission i don't think we've had a link on a pragmatic reason to elect the cemetery commission i urge you to oppose thank you very much john harrington i'm john harrington precinct 15 um i was actually hoping i could ask a question mr moderate to um when the last time the bridge connecting the two parts of the cemetery was inspected yes do you know that mr chapter lane inspected by who the town of arlington anybody town of arlington adam chapter lean town manager it was inspected early this year by an engineering firm one was the last time pre before that it was inspected i'm gonna defer to the public works director now let's he doesn't have that information handy let's um that's kind of questions we'll ask beforehand but keep within the scope of the election i'm kind of being tongue-in-cheek here because i know the answer um wasn't within the last two years it wasn't if i'm correct it wasn't the last three years or five years um one thing that we keep on talking about is the public roadway now if this was just a flat surface where it can we're one row connected to the other i'd have less of a problem with the road quality but we have a wooden bridge that connects these two parts of the cemetery together it stops people from going into a massive ditch where a stream rungs through um so far i have no answer on when it was inspected census last year um is it possible to get an answer of what uh the inspection found once they looked at the bridge i can get an answer if you can tell me how this is within the scope it's within the scope due to the fact that the the proponent of this substitute motion is talking about the quality of the cemetery and its roads and bridges i would imagine that that would be in the scope but it's a setup question just continue it is yes we don't have we don't do setup questions but um um have i'm correct the and i could be proven wrong i believe the quality wasn't that good i was just by there recently um to go by a friend of mine's grave and it was there were some actual holes in the wood um but i digress on that issue um i hear a lot of people say well you know we shouldn't have an elected cemetery commission because it's not because we haven't seen enough problems uh let's basically we don't see a positive outcome from it well let's continue that debate then that's all we're doing i mean let's put it this way our arlington town meeting voted just last week to continue the debate on whether or not the town should have five more liquor licenses we didn't say we want to go back to prohibition we are saying that we wanted to continue the debate to allow arlington citizens to be part of a bigger conversation um and a very important issue so if anything i think that a good reason for us to move forward and to have this debate is to see what the residents of arlington think about this have them have them decide yes we do have the the residents of Arlington think about this. Have them have them decide. Yes we do represent them and that is the way our system works where people elect excuse me where people elect representatives to take votes for them on issues like this but on issues such as this I think it's very important that we go forward and ask and ask our residents or fellow neighbors to vote on it because of the seriousness of the issue I mean what I saw up there on the slide returned my stomach I have not seen such what I can only sum up to as disrespect and abuse of not only the cemetery but former Arlington residents people who may have served in town meeting who lived in this town just like us who cared about the quality of life in our town we now see their headstones cracked covered in dirt I don't want that to happen to any of my relatives I hope to God it doesn't happen to any of my relatives if I have relatives that far back in the cemetery I don't think any of us want to see that and from what I have gathered from the proponent of this article he hasn't seen a major response response back from the cemetery commission or the Board of Selectment on the issue so then we bring so if we are not able to get a discussion going on that level let's bring it up to a higher level let's bring it to the people who we work for Arlington residents I mean can we honestly say that we are satisfied with the work that the cemetery commission is doing just look at the photos and honestly tell me that you're satisfied with that work that's all really I have to say just the fact that if if the question is that the cemetery commission hasn't done anything wrong because they didn't know about the issue or because that's not how Arlington works well I can't buy that so let's and maybe you can give me some time to convince me and get me to vote with you actually when the issue comes up on the ballot so please put this on the ballot let the discussion continue and let's see if we can find a solution because right now from what I'm hearing is well we don't have any solutions well this debate will hopefully help us get some of those solutions thank you thank you sir gentlemen right there yep bill moyer precinct 10 motion to terminate the debate on the article and all matters before it we have a motion to terminate the debate on the article all matters before it let's use our can't tell devices mr flin okay we're going to vote on the motion to terminate debate yes is if you support it no if you don't and three will abstain please vote now okay voting's closed 154 in the affirmative 47 negative it passes so it's terminated we have before us the substitute motion of mr steven harrington for article 12 the elected commissioners mr flin are you ready okay so we're going to vote on the substitute motion if you're in favor of the substitute please press one for yes if you do not want to press two for no and you can vote now and voting is closed uh it loses 141 in the negative 58 in the affirmative five people risen please can you show us the slides sir oh he'll cycle through it again okay we've gone full cycle we now have a force to recommend the vote of the board of selectment of no action all in favor no action please say yes opposed it is an affirmative vote for no action and I so declare it that brings us to article 17 before we bring to article 17 mr toasty has an announcement for us the superintendent of men and men has notified me that uh the budgets for men and men which many of you were probably looking for today uh we'll be here by 10 o'clock so if you have to leave an emergency you don't come back tomorrow and get it but otherwise they should be back there by 10 o'clock tonight okay so you can pick those up in the way out we'll all have them um we have a recommend to vote in no action mr tidbits did you have a substitute motion hi my name is gary tidbits from precinct five and i'm here to ask you to support article 17 which would allow a second water meter in allington um the purpose of this is to encourage water conservation in the town i get interested in water conservation i live near the thompson school and there's a spray park in the field there it's been there since i was a kid it's been redesigned a few times and the last redesign had has turn-ons for the kids to use to turn sprays on and everything i've seen that thing run seven days a week 24 hours a day for weeks on end it just doesn't shut off i got involved with the redesign and went to the meetings and everything and they agreed to add a rain delay which would shut it off when it's raining out and a timer which would turn the system on and off you know at a certain time in the morning a certain time at night and it would save a ton of water it got me thinking that you know the town could save more water if we started encouraging people within ground sprinkler systems to add time as in rain delays to them which would mean you know they're not running when it's pouring out water is not running down the street it would just encourage water conservation and the second meter the way it would encourage it is the second meter there wouldn't be sewage charged on the water that goes out to the irrigation system because it never goes into the sewage system the town never pays sewage money on it to the mwr a so it doesn't seem right that you know people are paying sewage on it um the the uh it would the systems are you know they're smart systems they put water where you want it when you want it and it would at my own house use in it i probably saved three or four hundred dollars a year on water just by using it and if i was it was you know had the the the sewage savings and it would be even greater and it would encourage more people to use them the the fact of the matter is the government every day encourages people to do things to to save energy you get tax breaks for you know new windows you get tax breaks for high efficiency burners um you know and things like that this is just a way that the town could step in and encourage people to conserve water i've read a lot that you know water is going to be the the big thing in the world economy going forward bigger than oil is now and it you know we're lucky here in massachusetts you know in boston irlington we have the quabban we get great water uh good quality and there's plenty of it but you don't have to go far just go down a brockton a brain tree down that way and they're running out of water and um you know you go down south in this country there's lakes where there's docks boats used to be tied up on that are virtual deserts now so i mean we you know we have to save water these second meters to encourage conservation are allowed in just about every other town around here when i you know went up the town hall to file this motion i was really encouraged by the number of employees who told me that this was a great idea and thought it should have been done long ago i've been encouraged by the phone calls i've gotten at work the thumbs up i've gotten from people for putting this forward and trying to make it work so i'm asking now for the town meeting to step up and and encourage some water conservation in irlington and help people do it that's it thank you thank you sir mr hannah bill hannah precinct two this town is constantly is talking about conservation this town does a lot a lot of talk and it does a lot a lot of walking the talk most of the time i was shocked that when this motion this article was brought forward hearing people's reasons for not supporting it and the only reason i could find because the this motion the full expense of this second meter is borne by the individual not the town this will cost the town nothing what this does do is make me a person who does not have an in-ground system and will not because i have a small little patch of land i will pay my fair share of my storage bill currently the water coming into the house is what the storage bill is based on not the water going into the storage my water coming in goes into the storage i should pay that full bill if i had a large piece of land and i had an in-ground sprinkler system the water going into the ground i would not be charged if this warrant article passes for that on my storage bill some people opposing this said uh the winchester country club would get a big thing on this winchester country club now draws its water from the mystic lake it does not draw it from town water this if you believe in conservation this saves money i excuse me saves water it does it is we pay our fair share go green thank you this gentleman yes sir you who's passing not you uh rime for our precinct for and i'm also a recent former member of the finance committee where for the past seven years i have reviewed the water and sewer budget so i'd like to bring to everybody's attention the substitute motion to emphasize what it says which is that this the purpose of the article is to is to promote water conservation so i just want to repeat that again is to promote water conservation so the first thing uh that i'd say about this is that uh mwra who provides water to this area has got plenty of water during the 80s we the system was close to about 300 million gallons per day which was the safe yield capacity by my last check they're down to about 185 million gallons per day so mwra is actually out actively promoting to sell their water they're looking for new communities and to expand their system and otherwise expand their base so the idea of conservation is based upon when you want to conserve a resource generally that's a good idea but in our case we've got plenty of water to sell in the authorities eager to expand their current base and move beyond that the second thing is you have to ask the question why are why is the authority using so and why are all the member communities using so much less water well the first thing is because the manufacturing base has gone down great deal and we also have a lot of efficient toilets and other water efficient devices but the other thing is that people are responding to the price signal so as things become more expensive you use less of that water and that's one of the major reasons why mwra is using less water so if you follow through what this proposal does you're actually making it less expensive for these people who have irrigation systems to use water so what does that mean that means you're going to be using more water and water that isn't necessary for your health you're not showering with it you're not drinking it you're using it to water your lawn and water your bushes so i don't know how that is uh that that's really encourages conservation and uh finally i would bring to your attention if you if everybody still has the board of selectments report page 17 of that report outlines uh some recent changes that have been made to the water and sewer budget uh upon the encouragement of the finance committee with the support of the town manager the director public works and the board of selectments you'll see a number of changes on page 17 that have been made to the water and sewer budget including changing the peer structure changing the rates and moving to quarterly billing but the other thing you'll see in this is the move in July 1st 2015 to moving toward winter water averaging so basically your sewer rate will be based upon what your winter water uses so that you won't have that issue of spikes in the summer which is one of the primary reasons why people who want second meters say that they want that because they don't want to be charged that extra spike uh the town has already committed to move in that direction and deal with it in this manner and the good thing about this is that it doesn't benefit those people who just install the second meter and can afford to do that for their sprinkling system it's a benefit for everybody and that's much more equitable and a much more appropriate way to do that so uh again uh just to re-emphasize we've got three things there's plenty of water MWA's looking to expand their system uh the proposal and I think the proponent is well-attentioned as to what he's trying to do with this uh uh proposal but I think it does just the opposite for it and it actually encourages you through the price signal and finally the town is already doing that through again page 17 on the Board of Selectment Report so I encourage all of you to uh please vote down the substitute motion and to support the no action vote of the Board of Selectment and the finance committee thank you thank you sir Mr. Chapter Lane thank you Mr. Moderator Adam Chapter Lane Town Manager uh I actually just want to echo some of the sentiments of the prior speaker um first I want to start by saying uh the substitute motions proponent absolutely has the best intentions with this uh and these are intentions we've heard for several years now about not having sewer charges attached to exterior external or non-essential water use uh and that was one of the main components of our comprehensive rate study that we performed last year and the results of that study came back with what the prior speaker just mentioned a proposal whereby you would only be billed for sewer use based on your winter quarter so very explicitly um from that uh page 17 in the Selectment Report so if you used 10 ccf's of water during the winter quarter and one ccf is 748 gallons if you use 15 ccf's in the spring 20 in the summer quarter and 15 again in the fall quarter your sewer bill for each of the four quarters will be based on the winter quarter so no irrigation no non-essential use will be billed and that would be town-wide so we we really feel that it's a much more equitable approach to not having sewer charges attached to irrigation and non-essential water use um again to echo the last speaker's comments under the current substitute motion only those who wanted to make the investment in both the upgraded sprinkler system and make the capital investment in the spring uh excuse me in the second water meter would get the benefit whereas under the proposal that the Board of Selectment will be asked to act upon next year the entire town would get the benefit uh the last thing I would say is again to echo the the last speaker this is not a conservation effort neither the substitute motion nor the proposal I just outlined that the Board of Selectment would be asked to act upon will achieve conservation what it will do is make non-essential water use cheaper and thereby send a price signal and usage could go up I think that's a very clear takeaway that needs to be taken away from this argument it is not a conservation effort in any shape or form so based on that I ask that you defeat the substitute motion uh knowing that there will be a more equitable solution uh addressed in the future thank you Mr. Jamison thank you mr. moderator gordon jamison precinct 12 I move the motion and all matters before us thank you we have motion to terminate the baton matter and all matters on the article and all matters before it mr. Flynn he's all set so oh that's yellow I'm going to announce it once I get the green card okay so what we are going to vote on is the motion of mr. Jamison to terminate debate on all matters before the article in the article itself so mr. Flynn is ready so if we're all ready to terminate debate one yes you want to terminate debate two no you don't or three you can abstain go ahead and vote now voting is closed okay we have 142 to terminate debate and 60 to not terminate debate that is a two third vote debate is terminated terminated debate so are you ready again there is to Flynn what we're next going to vote on we're going to vote on now is whether or not we want to endorse the substitute motion of mr. Tibbetts if you want mr. Tibbetts substitute motion please vote one for yes two for no and three for abstain go ahead and vote now okay voting's closed it is 62 and affirmative and 139 of the negative the motion does not carry so mr. Tibbetts motion fails we now have before us the recommended vote of the board of select men for no action all in favor of no action please say yes opposed say no it is a majority vote for no action so declare it that closes article 17 and brings us to article 18 lake street signs we do not we do not have any substitute motions from what I see and have not seen so all in favor of recommend a vote on the action please say yes yes opposed say no it is the majority vote for no action so declare it that closes articles 18 brings us to article 19 junk cars mr. Burns what do you want to tell us about junk cars thank you mr. moderator steve burn chair board of select men this is a pretty straightforward warrant article that will allow the board of health to issue tickets for junk car complaints it's a very sensible change because the board of health regularly gets called for these complaints and this will eliminate the duplicity of having the police department have to go as well so I hope you will join us in supporting this motion thank you thank you very much sir mr. harrick and steven steven harrick increasing 13 so i guess i'm confused what's the junk car mr. moderator from what i understand it's a car that's been abandoned does not carry insurance or license tags license plates is that correct mr. heim okay he's going to get the bylaw out and tell us exactly what it is thank you so the reason i'm asking while he looks for it is um i just bought a new car my wife and um we've got the old one at home we're washing it we took the license plates off it's still registered it's still insured put us out of my private property and it doesn't display license plates am i going to be worried that someone's going to turn me into the board of health the second thing is you know i worked on cars as a kid we had probably seven eight different cars that you know we're in various stages of repair and you know i've always junk cars too i just you know i don't want to see too much regulation over regulation on people who don't practice a lot of discretion around you know talking to you and on and neighbor complaints i i really just like enforcement by neighbor complaints i think he's got your answer just to answer your question mr. herrington a junk car is defined in title five article two very specifically it says that it's an abandoned wreck dismantled in operative rusted junked or partially dismantled condition whether attended or not in open view upon private property for period in excess of 10 days so at this point in time the bylaw already exists and it's already fairly well defined and it's enforced solely by the police department thank you thank you this time i'd like to keep with the police department thank you thank you mr. lennard did you have your hand up thank you mr. moderator john lennard precinct 17 mr. moderator we've heard at certain times in the past that the board of health is shot handed by people i'm concerned that how are they going to find the people to go out and put these tickets on cars if they don't have the personnel in a department madam christine bonjour no director of health and human services so uh at the current time the health department does have the authority to regulate junk cars under the housing code which is a code of mass regulation 105 that regulation requires that we issue a written order to the property owner and then if that is not if the property owner does not comply with that order we then are required to go to courts in fact that does take a much longer time and we feel that uh by issuing a ticket we can affect change faster again mr. moderator does the board of health have the personnel to go out and put these tickets on cars it is my opinion over the years that due to cutbacks they don't have the number of people that could do such a job so uh yes the board of health is required and mandated by law to follow up on these issues we we do the best that we can do with the staff that we do have and we feel as if by allowing us to issue tickets rather than go to court and follow up with written orders that this would this would take less time to enforce again as i think she's saying yes and if we did this would be better more beneficial for her department because they could not have to go to court and spend extra time doing the same thing they get that right no yeah i think that's the answer john uh then one last question mr. moderator and i believe she's answered part of it already it's a ticket or the authority to go place a ticket then placing the ticket and there's really no is there a set process so will be a process be developed by the board of health moving forward and how to get this job done or will they be adopting anything that the police department already has in place this banjorno christine banjorno director of health and human services it would be like any other by-law ticket that we issue we just write a ticket and provide it to the property owner well thank you mr. chappett thank you mr. moderator rolling chappett precinct 12 i think i got the answer once town council read off the by-law here's the situation i own a 1930 model a ford roadster i bought it in california 50 years ago and drove it home and i use it when i went to college because that's all i could afford but about 10 or 15 years ago i put it in my garage and it's still there i bought it because i was i kept it because i intended to work on it when i retired well i've been retired for 10 years and i still haven't done the work on the car but i'm not getting rid of it but i think my answer was given mr. moderator that as long as i keep it inside of my garage so people can't see it unless they come looking for it i'm gonna be okay is that correct that's my interpretation of what mr. hind read to us thank you thank you mr. schlickman what we're gonna do paul schlickman precinct okay we have motion to terminate debate all right yeah he should have paul schlickman precinct nine motion to terminate debate under all items under this article okay we've motioned thank you sir for getting up we have a motion to terminate debate on all items under the article um we all set okay we have a motion to terminate debate we are now going to vote to terminate debate we have 20 seconds yes if you want to terminate debate to if no if you do not so go ahead and vote and time's up 175 in the affirmative 25 in the negative debate is terminated should we try a voice vote you ready i think we want to use the clickers all the time but i can do a voice folks i think it's going to pass all in favor of the recommended vote of the board of selecting please say yes opposed it is the majority vote and i so declare it that closes article 19 that brings us to article 20 free tar sands we have a record all righty so we have nothing on this one all in favor of the recommended vote of the board of selectment for no action please say yes opposed it is no action vote and i so declare it article 21 ah article 21 is going to be mr. toasty in order to bring this in on wednesday at the same time the superintendent of minute man is here so we can do both minute man articles i move to postpone this article till wednesday may 7th if motion postpone to wednesday may 7th all in favor please say yes opposed it is postponed to wednesday may 7th okay now before we get in the community preservation act let's take our 10 minute break so we can just hit the road running come back here in 10 minutes thank you very much