 This is the select board of Monday, April 27th, 2020. First order of business is to read the governor's executive order on remote participation. This is Diane Mahon, select board chair, permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Dan Dunn? Yes. Joe Curo? Yes. John Hurd? Yes. Steve DeCorsi? Yes. And now for our town health staff, when I call your name, also please respond in the affirmative. Our town manager, Adam Chapter Lane? Yes. Our town council, Douglas Hine? Yes. And Ashley Mahon from the select board office is also watching remotely. Good evening. This open meeting of the Arlington Select Board is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12th, 2020 due to the current state of emergency in the Commonwealth, given the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the virus and reduce the risk of COVID-19 illness, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings and as such, the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings on a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature some public comment. Even if the members of the public do not provide comment, participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment and those persons are not required to identify themselves. For this meeting, the Select Board is convening by Zoom as posted on the town's website, identifying how the public may join in. Please note that this meeting is being recorded that some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you and that take care not to screen share your computer. Anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. Please also take care to adjust your screen or device name if you would like to speak. In order for us to recognize speakers appropriately and develop accurate minutes, it is helpful for participants to see your full first and last name when calling upon you rather than a nickname. All of the materials for this meeting except any executive sector materials are available on the Novus Agenda Dashboard and we recommend the members of the public to follow the agenda as posted on Novus unless the chair notes otherwise. We're now turning to the first item on the agenda. Before we do so, permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate meeting minutes. I will introduce each speaker on the agenda. After they conclude their remarks, the chair will go down the line of members, select board members, inviting each by name to provide any common questions or motions. Please hold until your name is called. Further, please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. Please remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response, please wait until the chair yields the floor to you and state your name before speaking. If members wish to engage in colloquy with other members, please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself. This meeting will feature opportunities for public comment on certain agenda items. After members have spoken, I as the chair will afford public comment opportunities as follows. I will ask first members of the public who wish to speak to identify their names and addresses only. Once I have a list of all public commentators, I will call on those by name. Please keep in mind that all participants and members of the public must be recognized by the chair before speaking. And finally, if it's okay with Attorney Hyme, if we can continue with any votes of the select board takes, we'll be done by a roll call vote with Attorney Hyme calling the roll. Yes, Madam Chair. Thank you. Okay, first we have on the agenda an update on town meeting as well as an update on the annual town election. I will say that Attorney Leone, who is our town moderator, sent out today on April 27th, his declaration of recess and continuation of the April 27th, 2020 meeting for a period of up to 30 days in light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic and steps that we need to take to make everybody who does come to town meeting when we call it to make sure that all those involved are safe. And but we can get the important business of town meeting conducted. We will later on in the agenda take a necessary step to get the appropriate foreign articles to town meeting as well as take action on the others. So I won't do that now. I will say that as the moderator stated at the last meeting, we did meet, we did discuss some dates in June that I know the moderator has put out has also discussed possibly down at the high school field, but the moderator also sent out to town meeting members and it's being posted through the our town website, Joan Roman and social media and others that there's currently a bill before the legislature that would allow for some form of a virtual town meeting and that our town moderators forming a moderator's committee to see how such a virtual town meeting could work in Arlington and he identified several issues. So while we have discussed having the meeting outside at the high school field, there was also a discussion about virtual town meeting and it could be one, either one, the both or something else left to be determined. And with that, if I could call on our town manager Mr. Chapter Lane to give us an update on our annual town election on June 6th, 2020. Thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to know the town moderator is on the line if you want to give him an opportunity to just, I think you covered it very comprehensively, but since he's here, if you wanted to add anything, if that's subject to you. Yes, I'm sorry, I apologize, I didn't see that. Is our town moderator available? Yes, I'm here, I believe. I don't really have anything additional to add to that. I've been working with the attorney, I'm in the redevelopment board on how we can handle the postponement of the articles that won't be coming forward if that is the way this board votes later on. That's it. Okay, thank you. I only see a limited number of screens, I apologize, that's my fault. And now I'll tell manager, Mr. Chapter Lane. Thank you, Madam Chair. So pursuant to the board's vote at its last meeting, I've been working as a liaison between the existing authorities that conduct town elections in Arlington, that being the select board's office through the board administrator, as well as through the clerk's office and the registrar's. And I want to give a brief update on the discussions to date, some of the efforts we're planning to put forth and our efforts or our plan to hear more from residents before we come back to the board with a final plan at its next meeting. So the first and probably the most important item that we've been working on is putting together a postcard that can be mailed to every registered voter in town that will have return postage paid on it. That will allow with a name and some other identifying information to be put onto that card along with a signature and then return to the clerk's office and have that postcard serve as an application for an early voting by mail ballot. I know there was a lot of concern shared by myself as well that there was too many steps in this process to get people to be able to access these ballots. So we feel as though mailing out cards to every registered voter with again return postage on that card for them to be able to put on put some information down and sign it and get it back and thereby request the ballot would really cut a number of steps out of this process. So that's the first one that we're working on. Town council has drafted language for that card. We're working on putting similar to what you might see on utility bills, information in several languages not the entire card in several languages but information on the card saying important please translate this card in several languages on this postcard. So we're working on that. The assistant town clerk has verified that the company that does printing for elections can fulfill this request and do the mailing. So operationally, we should be able to get this done. We've also discussed a strategy for locating drop boxes across town for ballot return. These would have to be very safe, secure drop boxes. Again, we wanna make sure that people don't have to apply a stamp if they don't want to to return their ballots. We'll be looking at a strategy of dispersing them across town and certainly finding some way to have a ballot drop safe ballot drop at town hall available. So we're working on that strategy as well. We're also talking in this primarily is through conversations with the board administrator Marie Kruppelka on our strategy for polling locations. We do know that there's three polling locations that will need to be moved, precinct seven, nine and 20. I know the board administrator is close on finalizing new locations. So we should have news on that very soon for the board to act upon and then trigger postcard notification of those polling place location changes. The other thing that we're working on is determining whether or not we have enough poll workers who feel comfortable to work the polls that day. So that's an ongoing process right now. Obviously there's a good number of our poll workers who would be identified as members of the voting population to the coronavirus. So in the upcoming days we'll be getting a clearer picture of just how much staff we have to be able to man the polls and exactly how that will impact our strategy on June 6th. We're also committing to doing more outreach and advertising than we normally would in town in terms of signage and notification to folks about the election on June 6th. Additional sandwich boards in town, I think suggestions have been made at grocery stores or other essential stores where people might be visiting. We'll be looking into putting sandwich boards there as well as signage in places where we may not normally put signage. And then finally, this Wednesday, sort of a cooperative between the League of Women Voters and Vision Arlington, the Election Modernization Committee and also the town departments, including myself that are putting the work in to try to make this election work given the circumstances. We're gonna do a listening session via Zoom on Wednesday, April 29th, 7 p.m. That will give an opportunity for me to very quickly, hopefully as I'm doing right now, present the outlines of this plan maybe with a little added information by that point, but then hear suggestions, questions, concerns from residents in town about the work that we're doing to try to make this election run as smoothly as possible again, given the circumstances. So that's where we stand today. I wanna thank specifically Doug Town Council who's been tremendous in advising what we can and can't do legally, as well as liaising with the State Secretary of State's Office and the Office of Campaign and Political Finance to be very certain of what we can and cannot do in terms of how we manage this election. And I also wanna thank all the other folks from the Modernization Committee and Vision Arlington, the League of Women Voters and the Clerks Office who are really doing all they can as well, excuse me, in the Board's office as well, doing all they can to try to make this happen on June 6th. So with that, if the Board has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Okay, I don't know if you can hear me, but I kind of lost you there for a second. This doesn't necessarily need a vote. I don't know if any of my colleagues on the Board have anything additional that I'd like to add, Mr. Dunn? Yeah, so the progress on the election sounds good. I think that that all sounds, I think that sounds all really positive because I really, it feels to me like anybody who wants to vote will be able to with a relative minimum of consternation and certainly without risk to their themselves in this way. So that sounds like a huge, like I'm very, very pleased to hear about all those steps. I am curious about town meeting. So I guess I'd heard like talk about like the football field, not the rank or anything, not an indoor location, nothing like that. I was just curious how that thinking is going. Is Mr. Mocker or? Yeah, let me bring him back in. I'm sorry, I just moved him back out of the talking category. He's back. Attorney Leone, did you hear the question from Mr. Dunn? Yes, I heard the question. It's basically very preliminary thought process right now. It's gonna be based upon a couple of things. One has the governor lifted the 10 person restriction and at that point in time, are we still under a six foot wide zone of safety around us and the Berkshires, their board of health is recommended at 10 foot squares that people would be in. I thought about the football field for a couple of reasons. One, it's outside, lots of fresh air, lots of moving air. It's already wired for sound electricity and ACMI has the press booth already wired up for TV. So it's hitting a few of our high points as far as public participation and safety. One of the biggest concerns I have is actually the town staff who was gonna check people in and hand out the clickers and then getting those back. So there's a lot of moving parts at this point, but I would feel better doing it outside than doing it anywhere inside at this point in time, given what we know. Yeah, all of that, I definitely understand all your reasoning and the good parts that you described there. I just worry about the weather. Well, yeah, yes. We'd have to have it two days. One with a rain date. And speaking with Attorney Heim and Al Tosti, we kind of a thinking like June, that Wednesday around June 15th, and if it rains, we could do it the following Monday to 24th. That would still get us in within 10 days before the end of the year. So I just could be finalized and we'd be able to go forward into the next fiscal year. So that's where my date theories are coming from. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, Mr. Cure. Thank you very much. And I also, I'm very encouraged, Mr. Manager, by everything that you've reported and the progress on making this election accessible and widely advertised. I also had some questions for the moderator on town meeting. One of the things the Chair said was that you're looking at the possibility or there's pending legislation around virtualization of town meeting. And I realized that it would be a logistical nightmare to have 252 people plus staff, trying to zoom in for town meeting. But is there a potential opening or discussion amongst moderators of possibly having satellite locations to break up town meeting and having deputized individuals on the sites to manage the speakers? So potentially if you had four sites of 50 people each, you could maintain social distancing and with deputies at each site in communication with you to regulate the flow of speakers through a virtual setting. What you're describing often happens at an open town meeting where they get 500 to 1,000 folks showing up. We've never done that because obviously we have the nice big town hall and we haven't had to have satellite meeting halls. I don't think, although it's a good suggestion, I'm not sure it would solve our problem of social distancing. And it wouldn't make the communication issue any easier because one of our hallmarks is we all sit down in the same area and hash things out. What we're envisioning is not a lot of hashing things out this time. It's gonna be quick come on in. Here's the budget you all have for a couple of weeks. Should have submitted any questions already. Let's vote them and go home before we get sick. Now, whether we do that in one big spot or we do it out in several satellites it would be the same result. And I think it would justically would be a lot saner to do it in one big open spot. And in mid June, it stays light till, I think I looked it up, it was like eight, 39 o'clock at night anyways. So everyone would be in and out of there and let's still be light out. You wouldn't have to worry about getting dark. And as far as your Zoom town meeting, that to me just sounds unfathomable with the current technology. No, agreed, agreed. Thank you, Mr. You say my name, sorry. I'm sorry, Mr. Heard, yeah. It flipped out. No, I'm just again, I'm really encouraged by the progress that we're making to make this accessible to all residents. One question, you know, I just went over my head to the town manager through the chair. Did you mention that we're sending this postcard to all registered voters in town? Yeah, yes, that would be the plan, yes. And do we, so what is the plan? Obviously, we're not gonna get all registered. It'd be nice if we had full participation, but just to confirm, we have the ability to supply ballots if in the event all registered voters asked for an absentee ballot or a mechanism to get our hands on those. So right now that is what the assistant town clerk has told me that we have a good amount on hand and should have access to more. I'll confirm that, obviously, but my understanding is yes. And we can be realistic as to what the expectation is. There just be, you know, in the event that we do have large participation, we wanna make sure that everyone that normally votes and everyone that wants to vote has the ability to do so. So I just wanna make sure that we have a mechanism in place to handle that. As far as locations, you know, I think I trust that our staff will make it safe for all the voters that are going to the actual polling locations. I think something important to note is the flow. I think every location should have one entrance and one exit, sort of a line in and line out that will make sure that people aren't passing in and out. And I think that's just a consideration to make. In the last couple of weeks, I've talked to a number of people about the election and they say the old adages, the only bad idea is the one that you don't share, right? So is it feasible to have some, for people that don't get absentee ballots but don't wanna go to a physical location to have some sort of drive-by location whereas people would queue in their cars and could drive up to the location. We're actually, I'll let the town manager also speak to that but we were just speaking about this. I don't even know what day it is, every day is like a whole year. But we were discussing having a possible one or two Saturdays where people could come to the town hall and Mr. Chapter Lane, would you like to speak to that in terms of, you know, what the ballot box might be and the process that we're just beginning to discuss? Yeah, so that gets to that idea of drop boxes that was mentioned of having there be places where people could easily and excessively drop their ballots. I do think, and we can dig into this a little more with town council, but I don't think we could stand up a drive-through polling place where people would be able to come in and give their name, get a ballot and vote. I think we could have a drive-through ballot drop off place where people who have requested early voting ballots could fill them out and then drop them off somewhere. But I mean, town council, please, with the chair's permission, please jump in. I don't think we can open polling locations other than on election day. Johnny Hyde. That's correct. So the board will need to set its polling locations if it's gonna deviate from our normal polling locations. It'll actually have to be an agenda item at some point in time. We'd need to outline where exactly folks can basically participate in that concept. There's nothing that I'm aware of that sort of allows us to have a general polling location for a sort of drive-through. And I guess there would also be some issues with respect to equity and access. If we were gonna do it, I think we'd wanna do it in every precinct. So there are some complications that we'd have to deal with. I mean, I think the good news is, is that for anybody who wants to get one of these mail-in ballots or absentee ballots, I think that the drop boxes, we definitely have a lot of professional. If I may, Madam Chair, just add one thing to something Mr. Hurd said previously. Thank you. I just wanna take a moment while we've got folks watching to let people know something that I think is on the town clerk's website but is important to understand is that with respect to having enough ballots, if for whatever reason we ran out of mail-in ballots, the law basically says that absentee ballots work the same way. So it actually doesn't matter whether you receive a ballot marked absentee ballot or a ballot marked early voting mail-in ballot, as long as they've got the same candidates and information on them, which they all will, they function the exact same way. So if we ran out of one type of ballot, it's okay for the purposes of this election only to interchange them. Thank you, Attorney Hyde. Mr. Hurd? Yeah, no, that's all good. And I think we're taking a lot of steps to make this election as accessible as possible for people in light of the circumstances. And I just wanna make sure we leave no stone unturned. So thank you for the responses. Thank you, Mr. DeCorsi. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I shared the other board members' comments. I think these are good steps. There's still several things that need to be done. I think we're on a good track. And I think the postcard I did hear from a couple of voters last week who were concerned about an inability to print out the early ballot or the absentee ballot application. So the postcard is gonna address that issue. And just wondering too on the, just getting information out. And I wanna commend the clerk's office for one of the challenges that they've had. And I've seen it from my own family here is that there are some absentee voters who were at a different address when they sent in their absentee ballot application, namely students at school. So just bear in mind if you sent in an application already and it was a different address than you're at now, clarify that with the clerk's office because you don't want it going out of state or somewhere else if you're around here. And the other thing I wanted to say, just in terms of people, and I think we should be encouraging as many people as possible to vote by mail. But just if we can get out the information that this is a receipt statute for the election, it's not a postmark statute. So the ballots have to be returned by election day and postmarked on election day won't cut it. So if we, I know we're working with the clerk's office and we're gonna have a listening section, but to the extent that we can address some of those issues as well, that would be great. Next one. I will say that every couple of minutes, my sound goes out for 10 to 20 seconds, but I can pretty much fill in what I'm not hearing. And I haven't heard any of you say that you can't hear me. So I'm just gonna continue on, but if there's a awkward pause, you can just wait to me and I'll know it's, I need to move on there. I don't want to delay the meeting. Everything's been said, so I'm not gonna repeat that. I just wanna do one last round with our town moderator, Tanya Neone. Is there anything else you needed to clarify, add or anything else? Not really. We're gonna make the determination if it's safe and sound to go forward. And if we do, we will be ready with our truncated town meeting with three or four or five items of a big consent agenda without a lot of extraneous things at all. Okay, thank you. Just heard from attorney Heim. And before I go on to the consent agenda, I did not write it down. If the town manager, Mr. Chaplain could tell me again what the virtual town forum is. I don't wanna misstate the date or anything. I'll promise I'll write it. 29th, two days from now, Wednesday, April 29th, 7 p.m. Okay, thank you. And we don't vote on that. So next we have our consent agenda. Minutes of the meeting, April 13th, 2020, reappointments, Allington Historical, Allington Historic District Commissions at large member, Charles Barry, termed to expire 630-23, request contractor drain layer license, A.T. Paving, LLC, out of revere mask, and a request contractor drain layer license, D.W. Gailey, Inc., out of woven masks. First, is there a motion from any of my colleagues on consent agenda? Move approval, sub-trial conditions are set forth. Second. Second by Mr. Dunn. Any comments, questions, minutes, reappointments? If not, not seeing any on a motion by Mr. Cureau, seconded by Mr. Dunn, Attorney Hyme, roll call please. Mr. Dacorsi. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Cureau. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mahon. Yes. A unanimous vote, 5-0. We now go to appointments. Allington Historic District Commissions, the Jackson Gray District. We have Dr. Allison Johnson, term to expire, 6-30-23. Is Dr. Johnson with us? It has to be. Okay, she, all right, should be able to talk. Yes, I am here. Okay. Hi, if you could, even though we're doing this personally, just name an address for the record and sort of we have your curriculum vitae resume before us, but sort of an introduction, not just to the select board, but everybody watching and listening at home. All right, my name is Allison Frank Johnson. I live at 24 Jason Street, right here in Arlington Center, just a few steps from town hall. I've lived in Arlington since 2005. I have three children in the public school system, a senior at the high school, a freshman at the high school and a first grader at Bishop. I am a historian by training and by profession. I teach history at Harvard University and I'm also chair of the German department. I've done various volunteer work on historic properties in my youth. I haven't done anything like that recently, but it's part of my past and something I'm interested in. And I'm not sure what else it would be useful for me to say about myself at this point. Perhaps you could give me some tips. Well, you certainly have a great deal of experience. First, what I'll do is take a motion from one of my colleagues on the appointment of Dr. Johnson. I'm Mr. Dunn. Move approval. Thank you for volunteering. Your resume is very impressive. And I think that you'll be great for the committee and I really appreciate the volunteerism to help that committee move forward. Thank you very much, Mr. Dunn. Seconded by Mr. Hurd. Mr. Hurd. Okay. Okay. Any further questions or comments by my colleagues? I do want to say to Dr. Johnson. Allison, this is my first appointment of someone through a virtual select board meeting. But thank you for being the guinea pig in terms of... I can't wait till I can meet you in person when it's safe. And we get to a new normal of the rest of us. And I really do like the fact that you're going to be a member at large because I think that allows you to serve in many capacities. And then thank you for volunteering for doing this. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And I do look forward to meeting all of the members of the select board in due course. Thank you. So an emotion by Mr. Dunn. Seconded by Mr. Hurd. Any further questions or comments? If not, Attorney Heim, roll call, please. Mr. DeCoursey. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Curell. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mohan. Yes. That's unanimous five zero. Next agenda item eight, we have another appointment, Allington Historic District Commissions, the Broadway District. We have Beth Milovchuk, term to expire also 630, 2023. Is Ms. Milovchuk with us, Beth? Yes, I am, Madam Chair. Good evening. Good evening, board members. Mr. Chapter DeLane and Mr. Heim. Good evening. Again, the same as with Dr. Johnson Allison, if you could just name an address for the record and sort of give everybody sort of brief one-on-one again, your appointment to the historic district commissions. Okay, Beth Milovchuk, 20 Russell Street. I'm trained as a teacher of Russian language to non-native speakers of Russian, having achieved a professional level of Russian. After graduate study, I've lived abroad extensively, worked abroad extensively, administering foreign exchange programs on a university level. I think as a result of that, I acquired a fine appreciation for history and for living in cities that were able to preserve architecture from many eras and came to an understanding of the importance of that to the communities. Thank you. First, is there a motion by one of my colleagues? Bye. Mr. Kiro, is there a second? Second. I apologize, that's just my audio doing that, so I don't want anyone to think anything untoward. Beth, I have seen you around town a lot. It's attending many meetings, CDBG subcommittee meetings, as well as the contact that we can have now, which is mostly through email. I'm really excited that you get involved in the town this way. I know you're gonna bring a lot of your expertise that I've seen a little bit of in other venues. So I'm really thrilled once again that you're gonna be volunteering for the town of Allenton. Any further questions or comments? If not, an emotion by Mr. Kiro, seconded by Mr. DeCorsi, Attorney Hyme Roll Call, please. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Kiro. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mahon. Yes. That's five O. We now go to licenses and permits. Leave Attorney Hurd. This is for approval, food vendor license, Anthony's Eastside Deli, 159 Massachusetts Avenue, Stabich, Siney. Attorney Hurd. I mean, I've heard it. Yeah, Madam Chair. I have a conflict on this one, so I'm gonna recuse myself. The current owner of the deli is my father-in-law, so I'm gonna step out of the meeting while this one's heard. Okay, and I would just ask Ms. Mah to have that so noted in the minutes that prior to any discussion or motion, Mr. Hurd is no longer with us at the meeting. So, do we have Mr. Saini here or yes? Yes, I'm here. Hi, if you could just say your name correctly for the record and I apologize for not saying it right and just a little bit about coming into a great business in East Allington, Anthony's Eastside Deli. Yes, my name is Sarpgiet Siney and I'm coming in to buy Anthony's Eastside Deli. I've owned some previous businesses in Belmont called Cushish and I've had a business in Lexington called Cushfield in the past. Excellent. And we do have your maintenance plan here and reports from our different town departments as well as your prior experience elsewhere. First, is there a motion by one of my three colleagues, Mr. Dunn? Move approval subject to all conditions from departments. Second. Is there a second? Bye, Mr. Carroll. Any further questions and comments besides welcome to Arlington and look forward to once again, in the time of this COVID-19 crisis, the planning department, our economic developer, really doing a lot of work to talk about all of our businesses not just our restaurants. So I hope the community, I know the community you're coming into will be very welcoming and we're doing everything we can to keep everybody safe but also keep our small businesses thriving somehow. So if not on a motion by Mr. Dunn, seconded by Mr. Carroll. Turni Hunn roll call, please. Mr. Dacourse. Yes. Dacourse. Yes. Mr. Curell. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mohan. Yes. 4-0 with Mr. Herd. Madam Chair, if I'm sorry, Madam Chair, may I add something quickly? Certainly, Turni Hunn. I apologize for taking a moment to do this and just want to make sure that everybody understands we're trying to navigate a new world in virtual meetings. When someone has a conflict of interest and they recuse themselves, they ordinarily physically leave the room. The two key provisions are that they can't be heard and they can't be seen. So while people might see that Mr. Herd is technically an attendee of the meeting, the instruction was for him to mute himself and to shut off his camera. I just wanted to make that clear that we followed the correct protocol. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. So I'm assuming Mr. Herd will know some way to get back on the agenda. We now go to agenda item 10 for approval proposal for community block grant subcommittee funding. This is something that came up before the subcommittee that Mr. Dunn and I and several town staff and the three residents met and Joanne Preston had provided a suggestion. I think we received the day of the meeting and upon further discussion, initially it was going to be under a correspondence received, but then as we had more discussion, my colleague Mr. Dunn with Mr. Chapter Lane, it appeared that there had already been some work done on this so that we could instead of just receiving it, we could actually get it moving into the process. Mr. Dunn, I'm probably not saying that everything correctly the way I should. No, I think that's fair. So we got this unexpected money through the CARES Act and the planning department had made a recommendation on how to allocate it, which the CDBG subcommittee had considered. And then Ms. Preston brought up the problem with the safety on Chestnut Street near St. Agnes Church. And she'd suggested that the money be used for that. And I think her suggestion that that section needs work was accurate and timely and helpful. But I think that the, but we agree, but Diane, you and I agreed and I think so did 10 minute Dr. Adam Chapter Lane who was there. Is it really the right people to take a look at this or tack because the transportation advisory committee is really well equipped to make recommendations to us about problematic intersections and roadways related to safety. And as I recall the conversation, there was some concern about whether or not what tack was well suited to handle traffic calming and traffic safety, which they absolutely are. They've got many years of track record of that kind of work and it's not just regulatory work they do. And so I think that what we should do is we should, I move that we refer the Chestnut Street intersection to tack for consideration and to report back to us. And also that we send it with a note, recognizing that there was a fatality there earlier this year or was it late last, this winter? And that therefore it really should be treated with the appropriate speed to make, to see if we can address any problems with the urgency that's appropriate. Okay, first of all, you get a second. And then I think I see Joanne Preston. Is that my hand up? Second. Seconded by Mr. Hurd. If I could now call on Ms. Preston, Joanne Preston. Yes, I have an update on this and I think it's an important one and I hope you'll seriously consider it. I have been working on this with the police chief and the traffic division of the police for since for the last two months. One thing we thought about was traffic calming and when I saw there might be some funds available, I wrote this proposal. However, the proposal really needs to be reworked before it gets sent somewhere. And let me just explain why. I had a 45 minute discussion with Mr. Wayne Schoenard. I hope I got it right. Who's head of engineering last Friday morning. And we came to the conclusion that the pedestrian traffic patterns need to be studied and included in the proposal. I also suggested that there be some community, more extensive community input. This, however, cannot take place until the threat of the coronavirus is over because nobody's on the street and not very many people are driving cars. And so it's hard to do a pedestrian study until people are out and about. We also discussed, he has a preliminary engineering pedestrian safety concept and we just talked about it. I talked about some of my concerns and the problem with the signalized intersection at Mystic Street and Chestnut Street, which take three single lights to cross and cars don't often stop because they see it's a ramp. So if they take out the crosswalk at Chestnut Terrace, people would have difficulty walking down the street and using the other option. So what I suggest is why don't we wait until we look at the pedestrian patterns and rework this proposal, which I wrote late at night and then submit it to the appropriate place. I think it would save a lot of time because they will ask that same question. And also this really has, I discussed with the police chief, nothing that can be done at this time because people aren't using the crosswalk because they're not walking outside their buildings much and the traffic is almost null there. So the only reason I wrote this proposal is because I just thought they were through the stimulus package some extra money and which maybe we could use a consultant. It was probably a big mistake or apparently it was a big mistake. So there's nothing to be studied until there's traffic patterns and the head of engineering felt that he could take a staff person to do this. So I would, and also I think we ought to have a little more community level input for the people who actually live there and use this. I learned a lot by talking to them and I'm sure the traffic, I mean the engineering division will too. So my suggestion is let them do the engineering people look at pedestrian patterns there and secondly consult more with the community, rewrite the proposal and give it to whoever you would like to give it to. And that can't be done immediately but there's no danger immediately because there's virtually no traffic. Thank you, thank you. And what I would say to that and I would call on my manager is there were concerns expressed at the CDBG, subcommittee meetings that this is an important issue. We really shouldn't delay it and there definitely does need to be a process. We do have a couple of options that have already been drawn up. I believe by our town engineering department Mr. Schlickman sent an email, I think I read it today, he said it's Sunday afternoon, expressing that option too with some sort of what I think needs to happen now is we need the professional volunteers who serve on our transportation advisory committee our technology to take what's come out of the town from our engineering department which are our two options and apply their expertise. Mr. Chapterlain, am I sort of encapsulating the back and forth next email you and I had? Absolutely, I think the transportation advisory committee really will provide the best of the worlds in this. They'll take, I mean, Wainchard sits in the transportation advisory committee so they'll take him and his expertise, they'll have the resident expertise, they'll bring in the police traffic division and their expertise, the senior transportation planner and his expertise as well as having it be a public open meeting and being able to invite those that live near that area and use that area. So I think Ms. Preston's right that gathering data right now might not be effective given the circumstances that we are dealing with but I don't see myself there being any harm in referring it to tax or they could scope out the work that should be done in terms of data gathering and sort of testing what's on the ground. And then when they see the time is fit to start doing that data gathering I think they can enable that and move as quickly as possible. So I still believe that our referrals attack would be the appropriate measure here. Agreed. So, first I'll state a motion by Mr. Dunn seconded by Mr. Herb. Mr. Dunn, any further comment? Yeah, just that I definitely agree with the things with Ms. Preston and the things that she thinks are important including community input and pedestrian study and survey. And I just think the TAC is absolutely the right group for that. And I think, if you're into that kind of thing reading the TAC's website can actually be really interesting. You'll read more about traffic speeds and comming and counting methods and notes from community meetings. They do a lot of really good work in particular the stuff around Downing Square which is a really challenging intersection. I learned so much from their process on that and I have a lot of faith in the work that they do. And I also have a second by Mr. Herb. Mr. Herb, any further comments? No, I was just going to follow up so much what the Tom Andrews said from being on TAC that Wayne Chinyuan is on the committee's active in the participation of all the discussions. So that's the appropriate venue for it to put it on their agenda. And then there's a lot of really amazing traffic professionals who volunteer on the TAC. So we're so fortunate to have those people as a resource. So I think they're the community to handle this and to get them going as soon as possible and they'll use their discretion to determine when the best time to start the traffic council will be. Mr. Kiro? I have no further comment. I support the motion. Thank you. Mr. Ducorsi? No comment. Okay, and everything's been said before me and I certainly had my say. So any further questions and comments if not in a motion by Mr. Dunn, seconded by Mr. Herd. Attorney Heim roll call please. Mr. Ducorsi? Yes. Mr. Herd? Yes. Mr. Kiro? Yes. Mr. Dunn? Yes. Ms. Mahon? Yes. 5-0, unanimous vote. We now go to for approval acceptance of bequest from the Marion DH Celeste Trust for the Mount Pleasant Cemetery. We have some correspondence from the officer of the treasure and collector of Texas, Phyllis Marshall. Not sure if she is with us? She is, yep. Ms. Marshall, if you could explain this to the board and to everyone on the meeting. I will, thank you. The Mount Pleasant Cemetery is one of the recipients of a bequest from the trust of Marion Sylvester. And although the trust is important to us, it's to preserve the portion of the cemetery known as the Paul Francisco Dodge Lot. And there's a, this is a critical request. The amount of the bequest is about $55,000 for maintenance of that area. And because the last decedent passed without family members, the trust has requested a new trust to disperse the funds and we have been asked to sign off on that. Our share is about 1% of the estate. Okay, thank you, Ms. Marshall. First, is there a motion by- I move approval. Mr. Curell and seconded by Mr. Dunn. Mr. Curell, any questions, comments? Yeah, I actually, I guess the proper motion is move acceptance, correct? Yeah, but I have no further comments other than, you know, to say that, you know, I think we're very grateful to the individuals who left this to the town. Seconded also by Mr. Dunn. Mr. Dunn, any questions or comments? I don't, but I did see that notice that Mr. Hyme had his hand up. Oh, I'm sorry, Attorney Hyme. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. I just want to clarify one thing as a part of this acceptance, we are essentially taking a vote to report the appointment of Deborah Lincoln as the new trustee. We represent only 1% of this trust. The law essentially requires that there be a unanimous appointment of the basically new trustee who's really won't have much to do with the town. Once the gift is made, it's primarily gonna be administering the rest of the trust. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Chair. Yes, Mr. Dunn. Do I need to amend my motion through you to the town council? Do I need to amend my motion? Yeah, so it's a move approval for the receipt of the funds as well as to appoint. Support the appointment of Deborah Lincoln as trustee. And that's still seconded by Mr. Dunn because I don't see it. Mr. Hard. Just to clarify through the chair to the town council. So this, once this new trust is getting established, it's getting dispersed, this bequest is getting dispersed to the town free of trust, correct? It's not gonna remain in trust. Pretty much, yes. Like the Prince. The cash is a little more value. Okay, just want to make sure. Okay, Mr. Ducorsi. No comment. Okay, on Mr. Carroll's amended motion to move approval to receive these funds as well as the appointments seconded by Mr. Dunn. Any further questions or comments? If not, roll call, Attorney Heim. Mr. Ducorsi. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Currow. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Yes. Did you hear, yes. Okay, that's a unanimous vote of 5-0. Next, we have acceptance of gift for Arlington Fire and Arlington Police Department mail card, gift cards from an anonymous donor, Attorney Heim. Thank you, Madam Chair. The short version is the Arlington Fire Department and Arlington Police Department received anonymous donation of approximately $7,550 worth of gift cards to local Arlington restaurants. The contact of the State Ethics Commission about this, they have an advisory, anybody who wants to read it, 19-1, which talks about gifts to public agencies because the donations are anonymous and they're to an agency. Actually, the anonymous part doesn't matter that much, but because they're anonymous and they're to a public agency, they have to be approved by the select board. And my recommended sort of motion to clearly define the parameters of the gift to our first responders from this anonymous source, which hopefully will also benefit our restaurant is to request the select board to vote, to accept this donation to the Arlington Fire Department and Arlington Police Department and other first responders and to direct those departments to utilize these gift cards evenly among on-duty staff for use in buying meals for sale. Thank you. Thank you. First, is there a motion to? Submove. Move by Mr. Kerrow to acceptance of this gift. Is there a second? Second. Second. By Mr. D'Corsi. Mr. Kerrow, you made the motion. Any further questions or comments? Well, we'll just thank you to the anonymous donor. It's very considerate. And I think we all know how hard our first responders are working right now. And thank you, Mr. Heim, for passing it through the Ethics Commission to make sure that we've crossed all the T's and dotted all the I's to allow this to go forward. And thank you. And I have a second by Mr. D'Corsi. Mr. D'Corsi. Yeah, I also want to thank the anonymous donor and continue to recognize the great work of our first responders in town. Mr. Dunn. It's a gift to both sides and it's most welcome and thank you very much. Mr. Heard. Again, thank the donor. It's amazing time and time again to see how generous people in this town are. And then just thank the first responders who are doing so much for our community right now. It's well deserved. Anyone that uses Stop and Shop knows you often see the fire truck out there. So that will keep them out of the supermarket as well. So thank you. Okay. On the motion by Mr. Kuro, seconded by Mr. D'Corsi. Roll call, Attorney Heim. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. Mr. Heard. Yes. Mr. Kuro. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Mr. Mahan. Yes. Unanimous vote and item 12 closed. We now go to agenda item 13 for approval, removal of trees on front green at Allington High School. Our tail manager, Mr. Chapter Lane. Thank you, Madam Chair. So the board has a letter before it from the chair of the high school building committee, Jeff Thielman, requesting the board's authorization to remove a number of trees in front of the high school. There was a hearing held, a tree hearing held back in February. There were three letters received in lead-up to that hearing objecting to the removal of the trees. At that hearing, there was a very detailed comprehensive presentation given by the landscape architect working on this project in regards to the trees planning to be removed, as well as at least to some degree, the planting plan for the remainder of the site. So what we're asking for is the board's permission to remove these trees. And, but we do have with us tonight, Daniel Norman, again, from the project's landscape architect firm to provide a little more detailed answer, any questions the board might have about this project. Mr. Norman, name and firm for the record? Sure. My name is Daniel Norman. The firm is Crosby's Lessinger Small Ridge. And if there's anything else that you wanted to add to what the tail manager said, or if any of my colleagues have questions for you, Mr. Norman. I'm not sure if there's much more I can add other than some detail if that's of interest of the board, but I'm here certainly to answer any question. If I may, what might be interesting, Daniel, is if you can talk a little bit about the replanting plan and how we are focusing on trying to make up for the caliper loss for these removals? That's right, okay, sure. So as part of the early bid package to get the new high school going, the front green is where a number of trees will be removed, approximately 45 healthy trees in total in that area, as well as 15 additional trees, both behind the CVS property to the east and the stop and shop property to the west. We are still in the construction document phase of the project, 60% of the way through. And currently we are showing an addition of 200 new trees to be planted at the Arlington High School, the majority of which will be replacing the trees that are removed in the front lawn area, but there are still a number of trees that will be planted throughout the property. Okay, thank you. I just want to, before what I want to do is, since this is a public hearing, come up with a list of people who wish to speak on this, I do want to state that our tree warden held the public hearing on February 26th of this year, and there were no objections registered or noted at the time, but subsequent to that, I know the tree warden and others have received written correspondence from at least three individuals. And I just want to state to people, not only with this agenda item, it seems as though there's some miscommunication and I apologize, I want to clear that out, that if you send in a piece of correspondence to a tree hearing, to CDBG subcommittee, to a committee on the school side, that isn't automatically sent to the select board's office. The only way that happens that it comes to our attention is that you also email us or regular mail us, or we don't receive everything, so everything isn't always listed, it's correspondence received, as well as we have to close the agenda and give the proper 48 hour notice. So I noticed, I think it's because of the current times, myself and my colleagues, and if it's just me, I try to do the proper channels, which is to go to the select board and forward to them, so I don't contact my colleagues directly. But once the agenda closes, Wednesday afternoon, that's all the official documentation the board has received as well as any members of the public. And I'm not saying you can't send an email at the last minute or anything like that, but I know there have been some that misunderstood that is a slight or ignoring information. It's just that we have to follow the open meeting law, have to follow the process. So please, whenever you get anything into us, if you wanted to appear, send that in whatever form you feel comfortable with to the select board's office. So Mr. Chaplain, it is a tree hearing, has anyone indicated they would like to speak at this hearing? Yes, Susan Stamps has her hand raised. Anyone else? No, not right now. Okay, Mrs. Stamps, name and address of the record or name and group affiliation for the record? Hi, my name is Susan Stamps. Can you hear me? Yes, yes we can. Hi everybody, great to see you. 39 Grafton Street and a member of the tree committee. And I'm not speaking for the tree committee, but I'm sure my fellow members would agree with the I just wanted to remind everyone and the people who will be running the project of cutting down the trees that, can you hear me? Yes. The town did adopt a policy, it's a lot of projects have been good at following some not that good, but the tree warden needs to be consulted throughout this project. And I, so I would appreciate that the tree planting team comes up with the tree warden regarding the species to be planted and various other characteristics of the trees and the planting and protecting other trees also that are on the site for many damage. So that was a lot. And number two also to remind everyone that the town adopted a policy that watering plans be in place for every town project involving trees and that that would be part of contractualization related to the installing of the trees. So whether it's the people who plant the trees, they have a watering obligation or the town understands they don't in the town has agreed to take it over. It's just an item that needs to be discussed and agreed upon. Thank you. Anybody else? If not, first, is there a motion from one of my colleagues? Any more setting? Oh, Mr. Dunn. Move approval of removal of the trees as requested by the school, high school building committee. There was a second. Second. Bye, Mr. Hurd. Mr. Dunn, any further comments? Mr. Hurd? Nope. Mr. Dacorsi? No. And Mr. Chiro? Okay, if not on a motion by Mr. Dunn, seconded by Mr. Hurd. Roll call, attorney Heim, please. Mr. Dacorsi? Yes. Mr. Hurd? Yes. Mr. Chiro? Yes. Mr. Dunn? Yes. Ms. Mahon? Yes. That's a unanimous vote on agenda item 13. Item 13 is closed. Next, we go to for approval, article 50, endorsement of the Community Development Block Grant application, CDBG. There was a little bit of confusion out there. I got some emails and Facebook messages. I think Don Seltzer was one of them. That at our last subcommittee meeting where Mr. Dunn and I and the other members discussed funding of the CARES at CV as well as two other reprogrammed and allocated funds. He was looking for the public hearing. I explained that this tonight endorsement of CDBG is our initial 1.1 million for the coronavirus and the Federal CARES Act happened on us. And that the meeting that we had just, I don't know, again, it was a year ago, a week or so ago, that that is going through the public process. And it'll be on an agenda in May before May 15th, which is the deadline. With that, I don't know, Mr. Chaplain or Ann or anyone from planning. So planning has an ARB meeting tonight. So I'll be covering this and fortunate to have the chair and vice chair who also serve in the CDBG subcommittee. So what we're looking for tonight is the board's endorsement of the CDBG application and what that really has two parts. It's favorable action on the FY21 budget as well as favorable action on the reports of town meeting and the combination of those two actions fulfills all of our federal requirements as well as putting forward the budget for next year. So, Chair Mahan, you just hit it on the head, but I'll repeat it just for the sake of repeating it. This is the standard process that we go through every year. This year, like last year, we've gone through an enhanced process where we have three residents who serve on a committee along with Chair Mahan, Vice Chair Dunn, myself, and Jenny Raitt, the Director of Planning and Community Development. We go through every single application. We score them all with a metric that's been put together by our CDBG administrator. And then after that scoring, go through a long decision-making process of what will be approved and then what the funding amounts will be from all of those categories. So that's the process we went through this year and that's what's before you tonight. There are some other materials attached to this agenda item just to inform the Board about the CARES funding as well as some of the reallocated funding that was discussed at the last CDBG meeting. But again, like Chair Mahan said, that'll be brought back at a future meeting of the Board. I think we're actually aiming, it was actually tonight's materials that needed to be addressed before May 15th. The CARES materials and the reallocation materials will be brought back most likely at the Board's May 18th meeting. So tonight, I'm happy to answer any questions the Board might have, but tonight while we're looking for a favorable action again on the FY21 budget and the draft report to the town meeting. Okay, Mr. Dunn, anything you wanted to add to that? Yeah, just a couple of things. I just wanted to mention the criteria that we use when we're ranking these and Adam mentioned it at a high level. And I just think it's worth talking about what the individual criteria are. Their community need, resources and capacity and how much they encourage partnerships with other organizations. What the cost benefit is, what the, whether or not they leverage funds from other sources, excuse me, whether or not they're self-sufficient and whether they're new or whether they're like a repetition of an existing program. And so, and we go through and we grade each one pretty harshly and then we like, or I shouldn't say harshly, we grade them fairly. And then at the end of it, we rank them all and we say, okay, where did they all turn out? And I think some of them turn out really kind of a little bit as you'd expect. And you're like, yep, I expected that one to score well and I expected that one to not do so well but there are also some surprises in there. And I really think that our criteria and our evaluation, I think I mentioned this one has really gone up and I think that we maintained that standard this year. And the second comment I got was just that I received an email correspondence saying that the CDBG subcommittee hadn't considered the Whittemore Park money and I would actually beg to differ with the author of that email. And it was particularly memorable because it was right after this board had its public meeting and one of the people who spoke at the public meeting wanted to speak also at the private subcommittee meeting and we didn't let her speak because we'd already heard the speech and the public and the subcommittee meeting is a working group as opposed to a public hearing. So I just wanted to, I guess, assure my colleagues and the public that in fact we had discussed it at that subcommittee meeting in late March. I think that's all I got. Oh, I guess, one more, sorry, but one more thing, which is just to remind the board that this actually has the votes, six voters because the town manager is also an allocator of the CDBG money. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. And I'm gonna shortly ask if there's a list of anyone who wants to speak on that. Again, this is something I got email on, but I believe she may possibly be one of the speakers. So I won't take her questions, but I got it, I was sent this afternoon a little bit before four. I really would implore people, if you're sending anything, you can always email all of us, but for some reason I didn't check my email one last time at six o'clock. Oh no, I checked it right after I came in, that's all right. But just for the sake of record keeping and it really, if everything could get to at least CC to the select board office. And if that doesn't happen, I think I have close to 100% track record of doing that. But again, all the materials that are legally supposed to be considered what we receive in our packet, 48 hours in advance, but so we'll go from there. Mr. Chaplin, is there anyone raising their hands for, yes? Beth Molafchuk has raised her hand. Okay, anyone else? Not at this time, no. Again, just name and add to the record, Ms. Molafchuk. Beth Molafchuk, 20 Russell Street, town meeting member. I did attend both subcommittee meetings when we were still having meetings in public that was moderated by at that time, the CDBG program officer in the planning office. I'm not sure he's there any longer. And then I did attend the meeting, public meeting again when we were still having public meetings led by Aaron Swarco, where I shared my thoughts. Ms. Mahan does have my detailed letter of late March, which I submitted to Ms. Swarco as we were instructed to do so. And I was very shocked that that was not reflected in the documents before you on the Novus agenda. So I attended the first or the two subcommittee meetings and I was surprised that the merits of the Whittemore Park application for the $125,000 of HUD CDBG monies was not discussed before the public. Not, I'm not speaking of the design of the park or anything, but the merits of HUD CDBG monies for this phase two of the application. I attended both meetings, I stayed the entire time. Joanne Preston was with me at the first meeting. Patricia Warden was with me at the second meeting. Patricia Warden attempted to make comments they were shut down by one of the committee members, but the merits of the application for phase two of this park redevelopment were not discussed before the public. And that is what I take issue with in particular the granite amphitheater steps, which I think in the application are referred to as a retaining wall. Had I had the opportunity at those subcommittee meetings, I would have asked whether the Disability Commission had reviewed this application because I don't understand how that could be included, particularly in CDBG money application, granite amphitheater stairway that's not accessible to all people. So that's my main concern. Again, these monies as we're well aware are for low income and moderate income residents. I know we've got Winslow Tower nearby and Chestnut Manor nearby that could potentially become less accessible to this park. If we lose that crosswalk, I would hate to see that happen. But that's my main concern that the merits of the application being worthy of CDBG, HUD monies was not discussed, was not given a full vetting before the public. Thank you very much for listening to me. Thank you, Beth. Mr. Dunn? Well, I just want to say that, well, I agree that we didn't go into the details of the individual of the plan and we don't go into the details of really any of them. We did score that project just like we score all the other ones. Yeah, so there's a matrix I think was referred to before that came out of planning this, to my memory, six categories. There are three different boxes you could put them in. We all come in and share what we have in the box and we literally discuss each one of, why people voted it as highly useful or neutral or not income producing all that. So we definitely did go through that over the course of two meetings. So, but I understand Ms. Milovchik's concern. Okay, Mr. Chathline? I also want to add that the grand amphitheater steps that Ms. Milovchik is mentioning is not part of phase two. It's part of phase three for which a funding source has not been requested or pursued yet. So that issue she's raising is not your main to the topic before the board tonight. Thank you. Okay, but we'll make sure we follow it through when we do get to that phase. And I know we'll get answers and make decisions based on those and other answers. First is there a motion by one of my colleagues to approve Mr. Dunn? Move approval of the recommendations for the CDBG funding. Is there a second by? Second. Mr. DeCorsi, Mr. Dunn, any further comments? Thank you. Mr. DeCorsi? I just want to thank the subcommittee for their work on this and bringing it to the board. You're welcome. Mr. Kiro? No further comments. Thank you. And Mr. Hurd? No comments. Okay, on a motion by Mr. Dunn, seconded by Mr. DeCorsi, roll call, attorney Heim, please. Mr. DeCorsi? Yes. Mr. Hurd? Yes. Mr. Kiro? Yes. Mr. Dunn? Yes. Ms. Mahan? Yes. That's a five- I'm sorry, wait, Mr. Chapter Lee. Sorry, Madam Chair. Mr. Chapter Lee. You're getting a vote. Yes. Thank you. Okay, six-zero unanimous vote on that warrant article hearing. Now we're going to final votes and comments in the midst of our COVID-19 coronavirus crisis. We've sort of spoken about this at several meetings. What the board and what the town moderator referred to earlier is that we need to, at the, need to get the business of the town done. Need to make sure under the law, even though we have been given some latitude, that we get the budgets and things that really need to be addressed. But also bearing in mind, trying not to expose, overexpose, town meeting members, department heads, and anyone else that would attend. So I'll let, as we go through the course of this, what we plan on doing is voting on the basically budget warrant articles that are before us that will encapsulate our anticipated June meeting that's still being discussed, how that will be held. And the meeting that myself and Mr. Chaptilane, Mr. Leone and Eric Helmuth and Al Tosti were there. The town moderator after discussion from everyone, I think Turnie Heim was there, that for the remaining warrant articles in order to not take any sort of vote that could possibly subject them to having to wait for a year or possibly two years to refile. If it was a citizen article when zoning, a vote of no action would be the proper vote for those remaining articles so that when we have what we anticipate will be a special town meeting in the fall. And I don't want to announce a date or anything for that because we still haven't finished with June. A vote by this board of no action is not saying we're not in favor of it. We're just trying to do what we need to do legally. So in whatever months, two, three, four, come up, those proponents, those citizens won't have to wait for the annual spring town election. They can be taken up there. And I'm going to ask with Turnie Heim to please correct any misstatements I made or explain it better than I did. Thank you, Madam Chair. There's no mistakes. There is an update to at least one piece of it. So the basic concept here is that we don't want to prejudice anybody from bringing their warrant articles before a full town meeting once we feel like we can safely have a full town meeting with the typical type of discourse that we would expect but whether we have a town meeting on the football field distanced in 10 square foot blocks apart over the PA system or we have a virtual town meeting or whatever other option, the essential concept would be to have only the essential financial business go before town meeting and to take either a no action vote or basically another type of vote relative to zoning articles that would make sure that everybody's articles are understood to be basically just being put on hold until the next special town meeting or non-emergency situation town meeting. There's a slight update with respect to zoning articles that I won't belabor the point too much. The mass moderators association ended up recommending that zoning articles be referred to a committee rather than take a no action vote so you wouldn't have the complexity of dealing with this assurance that the planning board won't block things from going to town meeting for two years. With respect to the select board, there's no such issue. Any article before the select board which has a no action vote taken on it whether it's in substance or just in form, it doesn't matter. You can bring that same article back to the select board immediately at the next special town meeting. If the select board's so inclined, the select board could even vote to place all warrant articles before the select board this year on the annual town warrant and on the next town warrant as a gesture to sort of make sure that folks understand that this is basically just so we can have an abbreviated town meeting where we only address those articles necessary for the financial operations of the town, some of the borrowing that we need to do for capital projects and things like CDBG. Okay, Mr. Capilane, did we cover everything before I start to craft what I think will be two separate votes? You both covered it very well. The only thing I would add is that so one financial piece was covered tonight with the CDBG vote. The next meeting will be bringing back the revolving fund votes as well as the parking benefit district expenditure votes and then that should encapsulate the financial votes that the board is taking. Okay, and please correct me if I'm wrong, Attorney Hyde. First, what we want to do in order to get what I'm calling the budget, the business of the town warrant articles into this June meeting, I believe I would get a move approval on article 789, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, and 83. Is that correct? You'd be voting no action on all those articles, yes. No action, okay. All right, so now that I've totally confused the process and done it backwards, and you might, first of all, one of my colleagues wanted to make a motion of no action of what all the articles I just mentioned. So moved. Mr. Dunn, is there a second to Mr. Dunn? I can. Was that Mr. Hurd, I believe? Mr. Dunn, any further comment? You know, this is one of those things where there's so many comments, but nothing germane. Seconded by Mr. Hurd. Mr. Hurd, any comments? Yeah, I just want to say we don't take this vote lightly. You know, a lot of people put a lot of time and effort into these warrant articles. And we look forward to having a little more time to discuss them up until the next fall to get the ins and outs of these articles. Mr. Dacorsi? Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question for Attorney Heim. On any articles that we had voted previously, this vote, while it may be the same as some of the earlier votes, we're not going to have any comments on any of the warrant articles. It's just basically, it's no action basically without prejudice to put it back on the warrant for the next special or annual town meeting. I would go a step further, Mr. Dacorsi. I'm sorry, Madam Chair Maynard. The Attorney Heim. I would go a step further, Mr. Dacorsi. You are taking a no action vote even on those articles which you had previously approved. You're essentially saying that the only business that you're not going to make any subjective determinations about which articles we think, you know, we might want to go forward, which articles we favored, which articles we didn't. We're basically saying that unless it's a finance article, we are voting no action so we can have an abbreviated town meeting and we're retroactively voting no action even on those articles that we had supported so that town meeting will really hopefully be one or two basically consent agenda style votes of budget capital expenditures, something of that nature. Okay, thank you, Attorney Heiman. Thank you also for sounds like you're working with the moderator on that zoning issue and that was good that that could be worked out because chapter 48 made it a little tricky in terms of procedure. So well done on that. Mr. Herb. Nothing further. Okay, and I just want to, in case anybody at home is watching this one, where you talk about the no action vote on the warrant articles contained within those warrant articles are six resolutions that are coming before us as warrant articles. Those are also included in this no action to be taken up further down the road. And I do want to note that the town moderator did have communication with all of the 10 registered voters warrant articles, including the resolution, explaining the process if they have any questions. And I believe I saw one or two people not objecting, just wanted for the clarification. So we've, I believe we've done everything to make everything aware. Am I correct with that on that? Mr. Chapellein, Attorney Heiman. Yeah, I want to just thank the moderator for crafting something and getting it out to town meeting members and specifically article opponents is basically asking for their cooperation. We're all sort of in this together and whatever form of town meeting we're going to end up having is going to be really, really challenging to execute. And so he put out that notice to all town meeting members as well, current town meeting members, as well as to article proponents to just explain, this is what we're doing and this is why. Thank you, Attorney Heiman. So on a motion of no action by Mr. Dunn, seconded by Mr. Hearn. Any further comments? If not roll call vote, Attorney Heiman. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Hearn. Yes. Mr. Curell. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mohan. Yes. We don't get the town manager on this one, right? That's five oh, sorry. Have a little fun with. Now we go to correspondence received. We have a correspondence from Brian Ustisha. I would say his name wrong. Request temporary amendment to traffic rules and orders. Mandatory sidewalk use is their motion to move receipt by. All moved. Mr. Carroll, is there a second by? Second. Mr. Dunn. Mr. Chatelain, our town manager. So I just want to let both Brian and the board know we are actively working on this request. I had a Zoom call this morning with Mike Rademacher, Dan Amstutz from the planning department and Chief Flaherty as well as Jenny Rae from the planning department to talk about this request. We're looking at potential for both lane reduction and sidewalk temporary sidewalk expansion and mass av as well as the closure or closure slash slash shared street designation on neighborhood roads throughout town as a number of other communities across the country are doing. So we're trying to figure out what the safest most or safest and least resource intensive approach will be. We're also trying to figure out what the right way to get public feedback is on this before we implement it but doing so in a quick and efficient fashion. So hopefully very soon we'll have more to come on this. We think it's a good idea. We think it's going to be necessary as the weather gets warmer and we still have social distancing restrictions in place. So we're actively working on this and I hope to bring back more to the board very soon. Thank you, Mr. Chatelain. So motion by Mr. Kerro. Mr. Kerro, any further comments? No, no further comments. Seconded by Mr. Dunn. Mr. Dunn. Thank you, I'll set. Mr. DeCorsi. No comments. Mr. Hurd. No comments. Okay, on a motion to move receipt with the information provided by our town manager but motion by Mr. Kerro seconded by Mr. Dunn. Turniheim, roll call, please. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Kerro. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mahon. Yes. Five-zero vote. We now go to new business starting from my virtual left, Turniheim. The only piece of new business that I'd like to raise is in addition to thanking all the folks who are working so hard whether they're folks who are members of our town staff or they're volunteers and residents who are trying to communicate with all of us is that in order to set our polling loop, I believe we may need to get out a notice before May, on or before May 15th. So as we work to finalize those polling locations through the board office, it's maybe necessary to convene the board outside of its regularly scheduled meeting. I just wanted to make the board aware of it. Thank you. Thank you, Turniheim. Mr. Chapterling. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a few brief updates on the town's COVID-19 response. We continue to meet daily via Zoom with the leadership team on both our response locally as well as our understanding of what's happening regionally. Today there was an update where we are, we've put in place today, a face coverings advisory. We're strongly advising those who leave the home to wear a face covering to protect themselves and others. We also are expecting that next week the board of health will take a vote using its statutory authority to make that mandatory face covering policy. We're seeing a number of our neighboring communities do that and from a public health perspective, local public health experts think it's a reasonable measure to put in place. Those some may think it is extreme or a bridge too far. We do believe it is in the best interest for these next couple of weeks or more to keep everybody as safe as possible and break the transmission of the virus. I also wanna mention, there's much increased conversation at the regional level and at the state level about safe reopening at some point which will likely be a phased reopening. I feel very lucky that I've been asked to chair an advisory group of other town managers and mayors to the governor and lieutenant governor which will be meeting internally for the first time tomorrow and then hopefully talking with the administration soon. And I'm also part of a working group with another group of mayors looking at a set of guiding principles that we'd like to adopt regionally in terms of reopening that we can hopefully get on the same page with the state so that we're all doing this in lockstep and that we don't have border wars in terms of what's open and what's not open. So I think there will be a lot to come in terms of data over the next few weeks as well as news and potential strategies for how we look at a phased reopening over the course of the next several months. So stay tuned for that, but there is more to come. And then the final thing I'll say is we have back by popular demand on Thursday at 2 p.m. another virtual town forum in terms of the town's public health and public safety response. We had about 140 people participate last week, ran out of time in the hour we had allocated. So we've now allocated an hour and a half to do another virtual town forum to try to get to as many questions as possible from town residents. So that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Dacourcy. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of things. First of all, I did see the town forum that the town manager ran last week. And I wanna thank the town manager, Director of Health and Human Services, Christine Bonjono, Chief Flaherty and Chief Kelly. Very informative hour. And that's still available, but just the things that's between the health department and place and fire have to do to adjust and provide services safely is remarkable. So I wanna thank them for that. And I also wanna recognize, we had a discussion early tonight about how important voting by mail is gonna be and how we're encouraging it. And there's a group in town that one thing that has remained the same throughout this crisis is we get mail every day. And the postal workers in town, I wanna thank for this service. They're unheralded, but they're out there every single day. And they're gonna be a big part in this town in terms of both getting out applications and making sure they get back to town hall. So thank them for their efforts. And for everybody, we still have a ways to go here and let's keep working together by staying apart. This is very real, it's affecting a lot of people, but let's work together, check in on your neighbors, check in on your relatives. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. I don't have anything except for sharing my heartfelt thanks to all the people who are working so hard to keep us safe. Thank you, Mr. Heard. Just again, wanna thank all the town staff, all of our medical professionals in town. And again, as the weather night gets nicer, there's a lot more temptation to relax on some of the social distancing mechanisms that the towns put in place. And just to remind people that this is really the peak and this is the time that we can make the right decisions or the wrong decisions so they continue to make the right decisions so we can get to a phase opening as the town manager mentioned. And then on a personal note, I'd like to thank our delegation at the State House, Senator Friedman, Rep Robert Rogers, and Rep Garbally, particularly Rep Garbally, because I've texted them every day for about a month about virtual notarizations that Governor signed that today to allow real estate closings to happen via Zoom or other electronic means, which is a big step in helping to stop the spread of virus because of the thousands of closings that are happening last Tuesday the day. So again, on a personal note, I'd like to thank our delegation for supporting that legislation. Thank you. Mr. Curell. Thank you, Madam Chair. I was also gonna note the Public Health Forum. I was also able to tune into it and it demonstrated what I think we've known for many years that part of what makes us so strong as a town is that our public safety and our public health officials work so closely together. And there is really kind of an unbroken bond. And I think seeing them in that forum, you could see the level of really strong and close cooperation between all of them. You know, and it's worth noting that both our police and fire chiefs, although they've been in public safety for a long time and are, you know, tried and true veterans, they're both new at the tops of their departments and they're taking on this big challenge and really rising to it. So thank you again. I'm glad there's gonna be another one of those. The only other thing I would like to just share, I think we all felt great sadness to hear of the passing of John Flood. I think many people who tune in and watch our meetings have undoubtedly gone to forums up at the senior center where John has worked for the last number of years. It's kind of the caretaker and he was a long-time facilities professional here working for the town. But he was also a select tone and he, at every veterans event, Patriots say John was the guy singing the national anthem or singing God Bless America, such a beautiful voice. So I know that he's up there somewhere singing with our late colleague, Kevin Greeley. He did well. He raised a family that also in turn provides a lot of service to the town. So I just wanna share my sadness and thank you, John, wherever you are. We know who you are. Yeah. Sorry. Is that it? I'm sorry, Mr. Carroll. Is that it? Yes. Okay. I don't wanna leave everything on a sad note. Also condolences to our representative, Sean Gobily, on the passing of his dad, Jim. He's a great man as well as there are the Arlington residents that unfortunately lost some COVID-19 related, some not and those are people, family members, loved ones. So concerning my remarks, the manager and others sort of touched on it, but I can't stress to people in Arlington, residents, small businesses that are really coming together in ways that I kind of expected, but not to the degree and to the dedication and the outreach in terms of trying to serve people during this crisis. All of us are here, members of the select board available to you, but I cannot stress enough if you can go to the town website, www.arlingtonma.gov. You can check there every day, Monday through Friday. Use around the left of five for the coronavirus updates from our town manager, from our health and human services director. There's also links there where you can get town notices, email alerts, submit a question, as well as information all of us provide individually. I did speak to, again, I need to really stress to people that, as a process concerning our select board agendas, please follow that process, starting with the select board office. To that end, I did receive on Wednesday morning a email from one of our town residents, Elizabeth Dre. I called her back the day after, spent a little over an hour on the phone. She had requests, wanted me to put on two agenda items on the select board agenda, and I explained the process for that. It turns out one of her requests, we were already discussing with the election update, the second request, which I said I would not avail myself the opportunity of, but I would pass on to my colleagues. Elizabeth had envisioned that the virtual town forums would feature an individual member of the select board, and that meeting would be covered by ACMI and residents could call in. And she referenced it in lieu of the fact that she and any other resident could no longer call a member of the select board and have coffee with them. She's trying to replicate that. So I told her I would indicate that to my colleagues. I did say I didn't feel that was the purpose of the virtual town hall forums. Me replicating meeting her for a cup of coffee was sitting in front of Lexington High School for over an hour, returning that phone call. So I just wanted to make my colleagues aware of that. And there are other ways, I was thinking when I was talking to anyone for more than an hour before the coronavirus pandemic, I would get one to three letters snail mail, they call it, largely from seniors or low income families who don't have access to internet and do research on that, sometimes make calls and connect them with the appropriate people as do my colleagues. And now we're all getting that just about daily. So the day goes by that something doesn't come in. So yes, there's technology, we need to avail ourselves of that and be there, but we also have to make sure we're reaching everyone. And then the last thing I'd like to leave with the town manager, I've gotten this quite a few times from residents who have asked me, where can I donate money? My spouse and I, my partner and I, fortunately still can work and would really like to donate money to especially people who are renting or people who need help paying their bills. I have been referring them to not so much the fuel assistance program because I know that that's pretty well funded and the need on that is waxing and waning. The council on aging, the AYCC, as well as refer them to the Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville arcs chapter of RIM, which is the refugee interfaith ministry, which one of the people actually used to serve on it and she lived in Somerville, so she was gonna get reinvigorated to that. But what I would say to the manager is they were asking, is there any way we can donate money to people needing help to pay the rent, make the bills? I know we're putting aside proposing CDBG CARES Act money and I assume we can't co-mingle public funds, we can't direct them to that, but I just wanted to put out there that I've gotten that request quite a lot and I always refer them to the town website. I don't know if you wanna say anything about that tonight or maybe at a future meeting, sort of think about it and talk to the leadership team. So the Arlington COVID-19 relief fund should be launched in the next two days. To fulfill the exact purpose you just described, we're just putting the finishing touches on the website where people would be able to donate online and the key focus would be on people who are struggling to make their monthly payments, as well as potentially a portion also being able to help small businesses that are struggling. So yeah, that exact fund that you're describing should be launched very shortly. Right, and I'm pretty sure where you're gonna have our restaurant bingo card launch coming up soon also. So people have asked for that. So with that, the next meeting is, next scheduled, regularly scheduled meeting is next week, May 4th, 2020. With that, I'll take a motion to adjourn by. So moved. Mr. Carroll, seconded by. I'm on wave. Mr. Herd, non-debatable, on a motion to adjourn by Mr. Carroll, seconded by Mr. Herd, Attorney Hyde. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Carroll. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Mr. Mahan. Yes. Good night, everybody. Good night, everyone. Night.