 Okay, ready? I'm starting. Sean, ready? Go on, off the loud. Sean. Okay. Please come in and take your seats. You gentlemen want to come in and introduce yourselves? I lost the card with your names on it. Sorry. Joining us in the evening, actually leading us, sir, is the Voice Inspiration. So, we are... You're not a Pella Group, going to lead the Star Spangled Banner for us. Introduce yourselves and never everybody rise. So we are four of the men from a local chorus with a lot of local Arlington members. Sorry. Is this Michael? Does this help? Yeah. Anyway, we are four members of a local chorus. It meets in Lexington, because it was cheaper. And we sing mostly Barbershop. We're called Vocal Revolution. We have Francesca Lagozzo, Luis Ades, Rodrigo Alvarez, and I'm Mark Sholdenfright. And we have a job to do. Thank you. Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early what's so proud whose broad stripes and bright stars so care... Good job. Do we have any new town meeting members? So have you had to be sworn in? If so, please rise. Please repeat after me, inserting your name. I will participate fully and will fully evaluate all matters before town meeting. And vote in the best interest of the town. I support free speech and will treat others with mutual respect and conduct myself in a civil manner that is becoming an elected town meeting member. I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully and passionately perform the duties incumbent 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. Did you both get a clicker? I do. Oh, good. I recognize the chair and the board of selectmen for the assistance this evening. Ms. Mahan. Vice chair, I'm not sure what's... Thank you, Mr. moderator. It is moved that if all the business of the meeting is 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 6, 2015 at 8 p.m. Second. All in favor. All in favor. All in favor. Post. No. Okay, then let's finish tonight. Announcements and resolutions. Mr. Bayer. Paul Bayer, precinct 13. Fellow town meeting members, at last week's sessions we considered the selectmen's motion to create a community presentation committee. There were four amendments to change the process for appointing at-large members and one amendment related to term limits for at-large members. There was considerable debate about the appointment process amendments which ended when a motion was passed to terminate debate on all matters under the article. As a result, there was no discussion of the term limits amendment nor of the majority of the three-page bylaw proposed by the selectmen. This could have been avoided if the motion to terminate debate had been restricted to the appointment-related amendments. I recommend to fellow town meeting members when moving to terminate debate that they consider whether it makes sense to terminate debate on all matters under the article or whether it might make more sense to terminate debate only on particular amendments that may have already been adequately discussed. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bayer. Sir. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. That's Steve DeCorsi, precinct 2. Just want to announce again tonight that the Allington High School Girls Tennis Team is here to sell baked goods. Today's been a particularly tough day for them. They had a match in Wilmington that they won. They didn't get back to Allington until about quarter of seven and got right down here. So I'm sure that they would appreciate your support this evening and encouragement because at this point in the season, which I don't think we've been able to say this for 15 or 20 years, if the season ended today, they'd qualify for the state tournament. They still have a ways to go, but they're working towards their goal. No, you. Go ahead. Oh, you're next, Barbara. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Jeremy, Marin, precinct 16, just a brief reminder, this coming Thursday, May 7th, the DPW is going to be having their new rot and roll event at the DPW parking lot. From four until seven o'clock, you can get all of those burning, critical compost questions that you have answered. There's going to be free compost available. There's going to be discounted bins. Presentations for kids, for adults alike, looking at the science. Lex Farm will be there. Habitat will be there. A number of others. Sorry, Thursday, May 7th, from four until seven. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Costa? Barbara Costa, precinct 10. I'm just calling your attention to the fact that I've left a page at the back about an update on the Arlington Commission on Arts and Culture, of which I'm a co-chair. To just update you, this body had formed, had charged the commission, and we have been... One of the things we're excited about doing, we're just letting you know our intent to apply for cultural district designation from the state, from Mass Cultural Council. And it's a process we're starting. We hope people from various arts and cultural organizations and businesses will get together to work on this. I think one great outcome is that we will have interesting ways to coordinate all these entities in our town. Plus, it'll put us a little bit more on a map on the website for the Mass Cultural Council. We do have, you know, in the intent of gathering all these groups and having coordination more among our arts and culture organizations. We do have a website with a calendar. I just wanted to call your attention to it. It's only as good as those who use it and list things. You can... There is on this piece of paper an email where you can send any announcements of the arts and culture variety, and you'll see some of our guidelines on the website as well. And then also to say that one of the things, one of the duties we are charged with as a commission on arts and culture is to develop a cultural plan for the town. So we will be starting to work on that as well as a great dovetail to the master plan. All right, thank you. Thank you. Look for this in the back. Anybody else? Mr. Tosti, did you have something? I have a Article 3 upon the table. Second. All in favor of putting out the three on the table? Taking it off the table please say yes. Thank you. Any opposed? None. Any other reports of committees? Mr. Gilligan. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Steven Gilligan, Town Treasurer. I move that the report of the Town Treasurer to the 2015 Annual Town Meeting be received. All in favor of receiving the report please say yes. Yes. Post. It is so received, Mr. Gilligan. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Mr. Moderator, if I could just point out one thing, there is a new exhibit on the very last page of the report. Exhibit 5 refers to foreclosure redemption revenue. We've begun a program, we're now in the third year, whereby any delinquent tax property that has exceeded $20,000 in delinquent taxes and or been delinquent for more than three years, we have taken extreme steps to contact property owners or estates and where that failed have proceeded with foreclosure in Landcourt. I'm pleased to report that technically we've only foreclosed on two pieces of property. They are now in redemption. But those foreclosure proceedings have resulted in estates and or owners paying the town the money's due. And you'll notice that we have received over $409,000 since we began this program. This is Phase 1, Phase 2, which will begin July 1. And we hope to have accomplished within the next fiscal year. We'll bring in another $400,000 in addition to that. And Phase 3 will bring in another $1.25 million. Our anticipation is that we will have unreal, unanticipated revenues of over $1 million. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Gilligan. Any other reports or committees? Seeing none, Mr. Throsti. I move that Article 3 be laid upon the table. All in favor, laying 3 upon the table, please say yes. Opposed? Article 3 is on the table. That brings us back to Article 7. Oh, yeah, test vote. Here we have to test our clickers. Tonight's test vote is, as soon as you're ready, Mr. Renaud. Ready? Okay. Whether or not tomorrow we'll get over 75 degrees. One for yes, two for no. And go ahead and vote. Apparently 135 of us think it will. Hey, um, this doesn't work. Norm, this doesn't work. That brings us back to Article 7. Next on the list was Stephen Harrington. There was someone on the right-hand side. Oh, did you move over here? I don't know who they were, but they were all five people back on the right the other day. Way far right. Is that you? Did you move here? No. Was it you, Mr. Radocha? Yep. Hey, come on up. You're up. Thank you, Mr. Marder, right above Radocha Precinct 11. When I first heard about this article, I was, I don't want to say excited, but I was happy that we were going to finally address this clutter issue that seems to be prevalent about town. But then as I read it and I get to understand it some more, it wasn't legal in the first place. And so now we're going to make it legal. And I'm not sure how this is going to make it any better. For example, if we could, we're up there. Okay, the top slide shows, that was a Yad sale sign for September 20th that was placed in the middle of September. On the, at the selectments meeting on the 24th of November, I showed this picture and asked, how do we get these things taken care of? Now that was well over two months and it was a week into it. So close to December when that was taken down. Now that's located, oops, where over 10,000 vehicles go by it every day. That's according to some traffic studies that were done in the past. It's probably closer to 15,000. And how that could go unnoticed and unattended. I don't understand it. Now the next one down, it's not that clear, but it shows the traffic pole, the light pole in the center with all of the garbage on it. And a lot of that stuff had been there well beyond the date of the event. And I look at that and could we just do one more? And I think it's there. And more of the same thing in the center. These signs outdated, they're still there. Now it's a question of, I understand if it's a telephone pole, it's okay. But my question is, are the traffic signal poles, the metal ones, are they telephone or are they town property? And if it's town property, then I think the problem might go away. But if it's not, then we still have it. I'm not sure how it's going to be enforced. And there's going to be a cost to enforce it if we do. I don't think I should be walking the streets four days after an event and then going down to see Chief Ryan and say, what are you going to do about this? Give him a list of things. But I'm not sure who's going to actually look into it and enforce it or keep it active. But I think in the meantime, it just feels like another bylaw that feels good, but does nothing. And why are we wasting our time? Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Bayer? You're on the list too, Miss. Don't worry. Paul Bayer, Precinct 13. With the moderator's permission, I'd like to make an amendment that was emailed to members and is up on the screen because it only evolves two words. And I think that's why you allowed me to do it without putting 250 pieces of paper on your chairs. The motivation for this amendment was that as I read the article, it says that a person, and that could be the manager of a theater or the manager of a restaurant or a owner of a store, can post a notice for a public event. It could be a concert or a holiday brunch or a one-day sales event. And there would seem to me be nothing to stop any of the merchants in town from posting a notice under this bylaw. So my proposal is that we add the words noncommercial before the words public event so that only the kinds of events that I believe were intended with this article would actually be allowed under this bylaw. Thank you. Thank you. That's for us. Yes? Yep. So I'm Pam Hallett, so I'm Precinct 21, and I want to introduce a resident from Precinct 21, Peter Anasa. He's going to speak to the motion. Name and address for the record, sir. Peter Anzana, Precinct 21, 39 Summit Street Arlington. I've been about a 45-year resident of Arlington. As I know it, and as I've read it, we've had bylaws on signage being posted. Signage, as I know it, I haven't seen it being forced of either taking down in a manly time. It shouldn't even, as I read it, it shouldn't even be up in the first place. So we're allowing people to put signage up. Nobody's enforcing it. I've coiled numerous signs, whether it be the Public Works Department, Selectman, Policemen, believe me. Nobody takes these signs down. Nobody enforces it. So we have these bylaws. They're not being enforced. So now what do we want to do? We want to change this, and we want to add a different bylaw to allow signage to be posted on telephone poles. But there's always been on telephone poles forever. So we're going to say now into law, okay, you can put them on telephone poles. What about our nice decorative poles, our green poles, our clock up in heights, all those nice green lamps we have, and all that kind of stuff. It's terrible. People have been putting stuff on here for years. They've been putting on with duct tape, all kinds of tape. They don't take it down in a manually fashion, timely fashion. It's illegal in the first place. It's not hard to enforce this. Yes, it takes manpower. But there's addresses on all this signage. Yeah, we're having the art sales so-and-so place. Yeah, we're having garage sales here. Yeah, call this guy here. It's there. There's record of who you can call, and it's not done. So now it's being proposed to relax the law to be put on telephone poles. I don't know if that's a great thing. Certainly not to allow folks to put it on our decorative poles. That's, you know, we talk about having Arlington, having more quality. That's the first place we can go is to make those poles look nice and actually paint them. And I've complained about it. Nobody does anything about it. It is not enforced. So now I don't know how we're going to enforce this new bylaw. I don't know if it's a good thing. I'm not sure. But I think you people should know these bylaws that have been there for years have not been enforced. Believe me, I've seen it and I've gone by it. So if you want better quality, let's keep at least that and make it strict to keep these nice poles at least decent and clean and painted. And that's about all I have to say about it. But I don't know how we could put teeth in it. It's going to take manpower. But the addresses are there and on where these things are being taken place. Believe me, I've called everybody on police, public works, selectmen. Nobody's acted on it. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Mr. Smith? Yes. Your stamps? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. From what I remember from the last meeting, I wanted to ask, it's not clear to me that this bylaw applies to signs on private property. Doug? It does not say that it does not apply to private property. I think it could be interpreted to mean any signs anywhere throughout the town. Mr. Heim? Articles 0.7. You told them under 7. Doug, can you explain it? Oh, Dan's going to. Ms. Mahant, sorry. If you look on page 2 of your selectmen's report, draft regulations for the display of notices. Number 7, notices cannot be placed on private property without the consent of the property owner. I hope that answers the question. That answers your question? It's not in the bylaw, it's in the regulations. In the draft regulations. I saw that, but for example, the number one that regulates the, and I'm not against regulating notices, I understand the issue, but like for example, it talks about the materials that have to be, the notices have to be constructed of, and I don't know if that applies to private property. Doug, Mr. Heim? Doug Heim, Town Council. The, what you see in the selectmen's comments are draft regulations. The actual vote tonight, or hopefully tonight, is only to take a limited category of what is now considered signs and reclassify them and give the selectmen the ability to promulgate regulations that would be more flexible than our current zoning bylaws with respect to this limited category of things. So these draft regulations for the display of notices are really there for informational purposes. They're subject to change, public comment, but they were drafted with the idea that Town Committee should have some idea of what the types of regulations these changes would allow might look like. Okay, that's fine, thank you. Mr. Leonard? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Mr. Прissing, 17. Mr. Moderator, an idea might be that I see by the information on this article that it's a two-day maximum that the signs would be allowed after the event. Just throwing out ideas and listening to the people say in a kind of agreeing with them that signs aren't removed, I would consider the fact that after two days these notices or signs could be considered trash. Therefore, what you might want to consider is that leave it to the Department of Public Works to remove such trash. Now a gentleman has mentioned that doesn't work, but something to consider is that in the regulations it states on the back will be the telephone number and name of the sponsor. I wouldn't attain the idea that if the Department of Public Works came to me with a number of signs that they removed days after the event, that maybe the town could consider some kind of a fee and or charge against the individual for leaving the signs up after two days. I will conclude by saying that years ago I had the luxury to be part of a committee co-sponsored by John Billifer and Sherry Barron, I believe it was the Millennium Committee, and on that committee one of the things we did was we went through the town from Cambridge to Lexington putting up signs, I believe at the time it was for a senior's event. We took the time to write down on a piece of paper every single location, every store, whatever it might be, of where we put this sign up and we informed the people we will be back. Once the event was over with we again walked from Cambridge to Lexington following our list, removed all the signs and at certain places got a pat in the back for a job well done because some people were surprised to see that you kept your word and you came back and removed the signs. Just something to think about Mr. Moderator. Thank you. I hope to select and take your comments into consideration when they draft the regulations if we pass this bylaw. There's a person right down there, right? Three from the back, white shirt, two people in. Yep, you. I don't know your name I'm sorry. Mona Zeftal, Precinct 12. I have I guess an objection to the on table one lost pet. It says time after event and needs to be removed in two days and as a pet owner I haven't had to put up a sign but I know I've seen lots of signs for lost dogs or cats and a lot of times it's up for much longer than two days and I don't think it's fair that those kind of signs if someone hasn't found their pet has to be removed in two days. It would be two days I would think after the pet is found but I don't know that anyone would know that. I hope to select and take that under advisement as well. Basically we are only voting on changes of the bylaws but not the draft regulations but do you have something that you want to address Ms. Mahan will give you her words that she's going to consider that. Thank you Mr. Moderator. As we said this is a living, breathing, evolving document when we the issue of lost pet was raised raised. First of all the reason we put not applicable for when the time duration before the event you don't know when you're going to lose your pet. And then in terms of two days after the event we considered the event being that you found your dog, cat or other animal that was missing so two days after the event of you finding him or her. So I guess my question is is somebody going to be removing the flyers that people put up for lost pets other than the person because if somebody's going around and saying this was posted on May 15th, it's May 17th, how do they know whether the dog was or cat was found? On that one that a lot of it would be honor system what we're trying to do with this is start as a basis for people saying the signs go up, they stay there forever, why don't you do something about it? So we came up with some regulations about what the signs should be when they should go up, when they should go down, have a number there. I'm not going to speak for the administrative staff on the board of Selectman but years ago I used to work in there. What I anticipate is now, lots of times we would get questions about why is that sign still up there and we didn't really know where it came from. If we have a number on file in the Selectman's office, we can call them. I would anticipate we would do that and I think if it got to a point that was really abusive to a previous speaker's query, I would look to the town manager in terms of if it's something really prevalent in terms of whether we need to engage DPW and how Mr. Chaplain would want to proceed on that. This is just a starting point. But I am listening to the rest of the board to everything that you are all saying tonight. Thank you. Mr. Chaplain, did you have something further to add to this? Mr. Mahan? Go ahead. Adam Chaplain, town manager, just in response to a number of the comments and questions, both under the current bylaw and under the potentially newly adopted bylaw being considered tonight, the level of service that would be supported by both a combination of inspectional services and DPW would be an enforcement-based compliance. There wouldn't be the ability to do any kind of active compliance with timelines that would be adopted. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. McKinney? Mr. McKinney, once I pointed you in wave, you can stop waving your hand. Come on up. Lawrence McKinney, precinct seven. I come to you with some experience in this. As a small time in Presario, I once photographed a, you know, telephone call that had no less than three different posters that I had actually created for a small theatrical event, a concert at Paine Hall, and I believe a lecture. I once did a study and discovered that the most expensive way to advertise is direct mail. The most effective way to advertise, if you're small, is to do something really good and put posters near where it happens. And you can get a lot of action. On the other hand, there is a rule among thieves, which you might understand, was I went around, if that was already, already happened, rip it down. Now, I have heard over and over again, call the DPW or call the police. You don't do that. You walk up and with your hands, if it's over the time, and you rip it down. You have the power. Take it. Thank you. Very good. Mr. McCabe, Mark. Mark McCabe, precinct two. I stand to terminate debate on article seven and all matters before. We have a motion to terminate debate. It's been seconded. Let's queue up the magic box over there, Mr. Reneau. We have a motion to terminate debate on all issues. One is yes, two is no. As soon as we get the signal. Ready? All right, go ahead and vote. One is yes, two is no. This is to terminate debate. Debate is no. We have two to terminate it. We have two third vote and I so declare it. All right, so we have before us two different bylaws. One is a zoning bylaw by the redevelopment board, which has two proposed amendments to it. Mr. Harrington's and Mr. Baer's, and we have a bylaw amendment by the select with two amendments to each of the two amendments proposed amendments affect both zoning and town bylaw because the zoning bylaw requires a two third vote and the town bylaw only requires a majority vote. I'm going to split the vote into two separate parts. First, we're going to vote on the redevelopment board, which requires two thirds. We're going to vote the two thirds, then the redevelopment board, whether or not we amended it. If that passes by two thirds, we're going to move on and vote on the select men's recommended vote for the town bylaw. I'm told that if the redevelopment board vote fails, then the select men don't want theirs to go because it's an all or nothing. We either got to pass both bylaws or neither of them because you need both to be effective. So if you're clear on how we're going to vote, that's it. If you're not clear on what we're going to do, and I haven't explained what we're voting on yet. So is the order of voting ready? You all understand? Good. Excuse me, sir. Oh, I missed you. So first, we're going to take up the redevelopment board, the two third vote. We're going to address Mr. Harrington's amendment. Mr. Harrington wants to add the words town committee or student organization right on the part A, second sentence so it would be notice temporary sign erected by a town committee, student organization, person, nonprofit, et cetera. So that's Mr. Harrington's amendment. Are you ready, Mr. Reneau? Yeah. A majority vote on the amendment. So this is whether or not you want to add town committee and student organization into the list of persons as Mr. Harrington proposed. As soon as Mr. Reneau's ready, he's over there furiously punching keys. Ready? And vote one for yes, two for no. Yes, we want to add those words to no, we don't. All right, 142 people in the affirmative, 63 in the negative. It is so amended by Mr. Harrington's. That carries. Now we're going to vote on Mr. Baer's amendment. Mr. Baer wants to add the words in that same sentence so it would be temporary signs erected by town committee, student organization, person, nonprofit organization for the purpose of advertising an individual yard sale, non-commercial public event or lost pet. If you want to add those words non-commercial and you'll vote yes, if you do not, then you'll vote no. As soon as you're ready, Mr. Reneau, again it's a majority vote. All right, go ahead and vote. That also carries by 143 to 59. So now we're going to take the vote on the redevelopment board's vote, recommended vote. As amended, this is a two-thirds vote. So if you want to have this bylaw, we vote by two-thirds. Go ahead and vote one for yes, two for no. It carries 171 in the affirmative, 35 in the negative. Okay, so that passed. Now we're going to go to the recommended vote of the board of selectmen. Now, since we just went through what we did, do we have to go through the whole explanation each time or can we just vote on the two amendments? Okay, good. We're just going to vote on the two amendments because we all understand what they're going to do. So first we have Mr. Harrington's amendment to add town committee and student organization into the body of the text. Mr. Reneau, when you please. I'll take the next one by voice. Okay, and we can vote on Harrington's amendment. All in favor, please vote one for yes to amend 162 to 39. It carries. Mr. Reneau, may I suggest you just queue up the last vote? I'll take Mr. Baer's vote by voice. So just queue up the regular vote while we take a voice vote. So all in favor of Mr. Baer's amendment to amend to add public event noncommercial, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. That is a majority vote and I so declare it. That passes as well. Now we have the recommended vote of the board of selectmen as amended by Mr. Harrington and Mr. Baer's vote. Mr. Reneau, are you ready? And go ahead and vote yes. I want to vote for the selectman's bylaw amendment as amended. Bless you. It carries 170-70, affirmative 30 and a negative. It is affirmative vote and I so declare it. That 130. That finishes article 7. That brings us to Mr. Tosti. On Monday I told you that the superintendent of Minuteman will be here to present his budget and answer any questions. So I would try to give him a little special consideration considering he has 16 towns to go to, 16 town meetings. So in regards to that, I move that we table articles 12 through 23 bringing up article 28. We have a motion to table articles, what he just said, something through 23 bringing up article 12. Can you say it again? I didn't hear the exact ones. 12 through 23. 23. And that will bring up article 28. All in favor of tabling please say yes. Yes. Opposed? It's an affirmative vote and I so declare it. Mr. Tosti, article 28. Yes, I'd like to introduce Dr. Boko and superintendent of Minuteman Vocational School. Dr. Boko is going to be addressing his budget. Correct? Yep. Go ahead, Mr. Dr. Boko. As I'm getting a copy of the budget, I just wanted to congratulate Minuteman Arlington Jr., Julia Ruderman, who entered the Pioneer Institute Frederick Douglass essay contest and out of 66 different schools, Julia won first place and collected $5,000 today. Well, the last town meeting, hopefully you have this in front of you and I'm just going to go quickly through the slides. Overall, on page one, slide two, the Minuteman operating budget for FY16 is up 0.9%, less than 1% at $19.8 million. Things that we're driving our budget for FY16 is we're transitioning to a smaller school. Excuse me. You may recall that a year ago, the Minuteman School Committee voted to reduce the size of the school, and this budget is the first budget that moves towards that vote. We'll be implementing 16 programs. We currently have 19. We also began to fund our OPEB trust with $50,000 in this budget. We're continuing to fund critical building repairs. Our health insurance was up slightly and our school bus transportation contract, which we just opened a few weeks ago, is up about 3% as well. On slide four, there's been a change in our special education assessments to our member communities. Back in 2012, the Department of Education asked us to review how we were assessing member communities and nonmember communities for special ed services. And I'll just remind you that Minuteman has about 49% of its students are receiving some special services through an IEP. That's the highest in the state of any school in Massachusetts. So going forward, there will be no special ed assessment on a per pupil basis to our member towns. It will be based on the overall enrollment and shared across all member town students. We will continue to charge nonresident communities an additional $4,500 for students on an IEP, and that $4,500 is being based on the previous years per pupil expenditures for the services we've provided. Beyond FY 16, I wanted to mention this on page three, slide five. As we're establishing a smaller school, we're closing two programs, we're adding two programs, and we're merging some programs. The focus that we're moving forward with, and we've always been moving forward with this, but we were beginning to see some glimmers of positive response to increasing in-district enrollment, the program closures will have cost implications. If we close a program, the Department of Education has to approve that closure. We're closing marketing and telecommunications, but we have to make sure that we provide the services and the instruction until all of those students have graduated. So in FY 17 and a little bit in FY 18, we're going to be slightly over staffed in a couple of those program areas. Over on enrollment is 745. That includes member towns, nonmember towns, as well as postgraduate students. On slide number eight, you can see the overall enrollment in grades nine through twelve. After four years of increases, we had a dip this year. Our Arlington enrollment on slide eight is down 13 students to 152, and that's the basis for the Arlington assessment, which you'll see on slide nine. The overall assessment for Arlington is $4,010,950, including transportation, capital, postgraduate students. Our FY 16 revenue, one of the reasons our assessments for all of our member towns went up almost six percent was because a decline in revenue specifically, or the majority of that decline, you'll see on the third bullet on slide ten was from a decrease in nonresident tuition. That decrease is based upon two factors. One, the commissioner of education which sets that rate is reducing the rate for all nonresident tuition rates across the Commonwealth from 150 percent of foundation down to 125 percent. Roughly that translates from a tuition rate of about 18,500 to a tuition rate of about 17,200 is our estimate. In addition, we are accepting fewer nonresident students as we're moving towards a smaller school. The revenue plan on slide 11, you can see the assessments to member towns are about 10.9 million. Our chapter 78, about 2.1 million. We're anticipating a reimbursement of transportation of about 800,000. You can see the drop in prior year tuition. Current year tuition is 400,000. That's what we're going to be collecting next year. And then we've appropriated 145,000 from excess and deficiency. Overall, budget on slide 12 based upon state function codes, you'll see a drop in administration, an increase in student instructional services of about 2 percent. That reflects a 2 percent increase in teacher contract for next year. Also, our debt services up 56,000. We've been in a feasibility study with the MSBA for close to six years and the borrowing now requires a principal payment and that's where that 56,000 comes from. Then you can see the capital expenditures and repairs that we're anticipating for next year. Basically, some building maintenance issues have any do with the fire alarm and interior doors, an emergency generator, some transportation vehicles that will be used by our horticulture landscaping as well as maintenance and operations. And we're funding our stabilization fund, which is set up for capital projects and repairs. We're putting $100,000 into the capital expenditures stabilization fund. You're almost out of time, doctor. I had a couple of slides about the building project, but as we go into questions, I can answer more specific questions about that as we go. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you. Mr. Harrington? Stephen Harrington, precinct 13. First, I want to thank Dr. Coleman for, I think he always does an excellent job in terms of the report we get for a budget. It's easy to read. I think it's very good. I also want to thank him for Minuteman. I think it's an excellent institution. I know a lot of people who were in the first graduating class, they were friends and relatives have graduated from there recently, and they do an excellent job. And so I want to thank him for that. And I do have a question. You said that your total operating budget was up less than 1%. Is that correct? That's correct, yes. And you said that you have almost 50% of the students who are on IEPs? This year, that's correct. 49.7, I believe. That's amazing. How do you do that? All I can say is that I'm very proud of our staff and the way that we manage students who require accommodations. If you think about the Minuteman education, it's the typical term that people use is it's a hands-on education. What I like to say is that what we're really doing is trying to address a multitude of unique learning styles and we have flexibility to do that in a vocational technical environment that you really don't see in a regular classroom of a high school where students are like you sitting there listening to someone. Our students in a number of different ways and when students find what they love to do and do well they're motivated to learn in a very powerful way and I think that is how I would explain how we do it. So Mr. Moderator, could I ask a question of our school department? Is it our special ed class of 7%? Is that right? You'll have to ask that during the school department budget. Okay, so I think it's 7%. Correct me if I'm wrong. So it's amazing that these guys are keeping it with probably three or four times the percentage of special needs students with an operating budget of increase of 1%. I mean it's just incredible that they're able to do that so thank you very much for your service doctor. Thank you sir. Mr. Hanner. Thank you Mr. Moderator. I got a little bit confused. The special education charge you said for non-resident you're charging $4500? That's correct. No matter what the IEP encompasses? No, what the department asked us to do and what we did we had some help doing it was to develop a formula which came up with a per pupil assessment which is based on average assessment which is based upon the previous year's expenditures for all of the IEPs of non-resident students. So I'm a little bit confused. So student from town one say I'm just hypothetical figures, $100 charge student town two $9000 less than $100 comes out so the town you've answered that, I've got that the charges for special ed from Arlington does Arlington itself get assessed anything beyond the tuition for the IEP? No. So if a child came to you with for a better term a very expensive IEP that would have to be absorbed in the tuition that we pay to be absorbed across all member town tuitions and averaged so it's not only the non-resident it's the resident towns we do an average too. Yes. I just want a town meeting to I don't know how many of you saw the globe Sunday we have 152 students no other member town has the we do I'm a little nervous on the average doing this average I can understand it may work it may not work I'm just concerned about it I hear you may I respond briefly Mr. moderator Bill I think it probably helps Arlington because we're spreading the cost of special ed not across Arlington's 152 students but across all 413 non-resident students I appreciate that I'm I just think each town should carry its burden if we had 49% of our students of 152 if we only had 6 I don't know I'm concerned about it that's all thank you thank you sir thank you gentlemen over here right here yeah Mustafa of Arlington the numbers went by quickly so I want to clarify them so the Arlington numbers here were assessed almost 23,000 just around by a couple hundred there for student correct and then what I understood was the non-resident towns are assessed 18,000 did I misunderstand that the basic tuition for a non-resident is set by the commissioner and for this budget year that is $18,300 it does not include special education does not include transportation and I should mention this it does not include capital although going forward we are going to be allowed to charge non-residents for a capital project so if we rolled 4,500 and it's about 1,000 it's about actually 2,500 for transportation so 152 going into 248 I figured it's about 1,500 or so for transportation give or take so 1,500 plus 4,500 plus 18,000 so a non-resident town is paying 24,000 with no property between 24 and 28 depending on the town they come from yes some towns send us a lot of students so the transportation cost is pretty low so at the low end it's very close to being a resident town and going forward is that going to I mean should we bring people into the resident town so they carry some people into the district so is there I was surprised when I heard the 18,000 I'm trying in my mind I understood that resident towns maybe should pay less than the non-resident towns in a substantive way well one of the things that non-residents towns they do not get a vote I guess the issue around what residents and non-residents pay has been an issue I've been trying to understand myself and address for the last nine years that I've been superintendent on our budget going up only 0.1% and as we go to a smaller school hopefully as we go to a renovated or a new school our operating costs are going to be significantly lowered and if you look our goal is to hit the 125% of foundation in our overall budget we went from 165% to 151 in this budget and we're well on the way to meeting that so the delta between non-resident and resident is going to start to swing in the favor of non-residents as we move forward while the budget only went up 1% there was a 10% increase in capital costs for Arlington I'm grounding the numbers maybe it's 8 or 9 just to make life easy so we're paying 10% more than we did last year or 8% or you probably have an exact number despite the low growth in the budget and I don't think it's going to change but I just want to clarify those. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Varigal and Ms. Thornton. Thank you Barbara Thornton precinct 16, thank you very much for coming I have a couple of questions one I see that the Medicaid reimbursement stopped at a couple of years ago why was that? Well we stopped using it as part of our revenue plan it was very difficult to predict we still receive around $15,000 to $20,000 a year some years more some years less but we decided not to use it as a revenue stream because it was so small. But are you still billing it as aggressively? Because I would think with the IEPs that you're describing you have a substantial Medicaid reimbursement opportunity. It's not as substantial as that number might indicate because our students are not what you might call moderate to severe needs in regards to the accommodations they're I don't want to say they're minor they're important and we take care of them but they're not as what you might find in Arlington on the average. Second there's I always had particularly after reading the Minuteman article in the Globe the other day sort of the that there's a free writer sense that as an Arlingtonian lawyer that the people that are not part of the district get an opportunity particularly around the capital piece are you contemplating I mean the new construction is substantially lower than rehab construction. Is that because you're going for substantially lower population and is that population going to be excluding some of the non-district members? Wow there's a lot in that question I'll sit down and let you answer. Okay well remind me if I don't answer some of it okay. The Globe article quoted three models that were required by the MSBA in the feasibility study to have our design team submit three models renovation, renovation, addition and new and the data cost estimating firm they're the ones that came up with that price of 85 million all to accommodate the same number of students which is 628. Another part of your question was is are there going to be restrictions in regards to non-members and the answer is yes our admissions policy was changed to limit the amount of non-member applications as we transition to that that's going to take a few years. One of the most exciting things that's happened over the last year in regards to the non-members participating in capital we've been working on this issue for a number of years and in February of this past year the State Board of Education changed the regulations regarding Chapter 74 and are now requiring that non-member communities participate in a capital project when the receiving school such as Minuteman is under an MSBA project. Will they have the same long-term commitment that we might have? As long as there are non-member students coming to Minuteman they will be paying for the capital project. Thank you. Thank you ma'am. Mr. Carmen. Thank you Mr. Moderator. Dean Carmen, Precinct 20. I think this is the fifth year maybe I've stood up in this article to talk about it and I do so because I think it's important to break it down where we are and where we're heading. Each year and I'm not going to spend as much, I mean each year I get up here and I say the same thing about how I support the school I think it's important, I think we need to provide we definitely need to provide vocational education options for our children. So that's not why I'm standing here. Why I'm standing here is we continue to have very concerning finances at Minuteman. So Dr. McCullin started his presentation by saying the budget went up one percent. Great. Arlington's assessment goes up six percent this year. Not one percent. And the reason we're going up six percent is as the school is getting smaller, we are spreading the fixed costs over a smaller population of students. And so if you go back historically the last couple of years we've had large increases. We have a six percent increase this year. We will most likely have a large increase again next year because it's the same function that's going to happen. We're going to take large fixed costs small numbers of students, the numbers will go up. So it's almost certain we'll be sitting here next year saying hey the budget's flat, the budget's up one percent, but Arlington's up seven percent. That's not a place we can be. If you go through the packet that was handed out to you in 2012 we were at about a 2.4 million dollar assessment from Minuteman. Now we're at four million. That's a large number. Additionally last year we spoke about the regional agreement. I stood here and asked you to pass a regional agreement that was going to be for Arlington. Well, it appears the regional agreement is not going to pass all communities. So we're back to this really odd UN model where Dover, who I'll pick on that sends one student, has the chair of the building committee for Minuteman, came to us last Thursday to talk about how great building a building would be and how Arlington should pay 1.8 million dollars in debt service while Dover's going to pay 37,000 a year in debt service and I jokingly said to the person next to me, wow, I bet one resident of Dover could pay for that when you look at their wealth. So it's concerning I mean we're going to be at 4 million this year. We also have a building project that we're being asked for. And the building project at this point, if you came last week if you've been following it, I don't like to call it anymore a negotiation. I like to call it more, it is a hostage taking. They are telling us there are three options that could be MSBA approved and if you don't go with any of those three there are two other options they are going to go forward with. And that's very difficult for Arlington. We are the largest member. We send a third of the students. We need to do something. Unfortunately through the good efforts of now here's the part where you're going to think this is on, it's taking a weird direction. I have always and will always support the superintendent of Minuteman. I think he does a great job. I think he's trying his hardest. I think he worked his tail off to amend the regional agreement to do everything he could to bring things in line. Unfortunately it is becoming clear that the 16 member towns aren't going to work together. Everyone's going to vote in their interest. We're not going to get a resolution. We are most likely at the point where we're going to have to take an almost I don't say unprecedented, but a very uncommon step at some point of asking our legislators in the general court to intervene. To stop to help work it together at a level above the member communities. Because it seems like that's the only way that we can fix this. And it seems like a little bit of a, I don't want to say radical step or I don't know how to put it, but there's no other way to get a school that sends one child and pays 25 thousand dollars a year to Minuteman to agree to the district that pays four million dollars. I mean it's just not going to work. And so, you know, as I have in the past, as I do tonight, I felt the need to stand up here and just talk about some of the larger issues and where we're heading. It has nothing to do, and I'll go to say this again, it has nothing to do with vocational education as a value. It's definitely something we should be, you know, investing in. It's definitely something we should be working towards. It has nothing to do with the superintendent who I think worked his darn dust to try to get it to work. It has to do with the economics and I will leave you with this thought. If, if we pass this budget this year, if we pass this budget next year, let's just say that we put the building project on the, you know, let's say the building project got approved next year and the 1.8 million dollars a year went on the tax roll. We would be spending approximately four to five percent of the overall town budget for 133 students. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chappett. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Rollin' Chappett, precinct 12. Very quickly, I want to say I'm impressed with that school. You read the global article and it needs to be redone somewhere. It's getting old. It's worth the money. Whatever it's been, those kids get a good education up there. If you don't believe me, go up and take a look. There always is the door open up there, so we've never been to Minuteman. It's a nice trip. My one question, Mr. moderator, to the superintendent is on the slide, it was four or five, it talks about closing two programs and adding two programs, and I've asked this before because I sense that the school is looking at needs across the board and tries to identify the ones that make the most sense in terms of education and students. So, for example, I'm not going to argue with marketing and telecommunications being dropped because it's probably now somewhat passe in terms of what's going on up there. But I am curious about the two new programs. Yeah, thank you, Mr. moderator. We're adding advanced manufacturing and which underneath advanced manufacturing we're combining our metal fabrication and welding program. And the other new program is a really exciting program called multimedia engineering. It's fast becoming a very in-demand occupation. It has to do traditionally, people understand it if I describe technical theater arts, but along with that comes other performance and exhibits and convention hall kinds of things. Sound design, lighting design, set design, coordinating a number of multimedia technologies in an engineering format. We also have in the Boston area the Riggers Union, which is very excited about this program as well. So some of this new media engineering, I assume you're doing this on a cooperative basis with the Minuteman Community I'm sorry, Millsex Community College for example. We have in this particular, in that program we're coordinating or collaborating with Suffolk University with the MIT technical theater program, and we've actually had some of the folks involved in that come and speak to us. We're forming an advisory committee over the next six months as we're required to when we start a new program. Okay fine, that's exactly what I wanted to hear that you're continually looking at where does it make the most sense to educate our kids from an employment basis. Absolutely. That's good, thank you. Thank you. Thank you sir. One woman in red back there, yep. Hello, I'm Deanne Dupont Precinct 13. I'm the parent of two Minuteman graduates and I'm also on the school council at Minuteman High School and I have to ditto that I feel that Minuteman provides an excellent education. It provides a great choice for students and I have a very successful son working at his dream job at Microsoft. So you can get very good jobs out of not directly out of Minuteman, he had to go to college but he was much better prepared for his major where 50% of the students went out. But I just have a few questions related to the budget. One is I couldn't tell from the information how many students that the budget is based upon both high school students and post graduate students if they could be separated out how many high school students and how many post grad students. I think on slide. That's for the total. There's 673 high school and if my math serves me right about 75 post graduate students. For the budget that we have going forward is that on slide nine for Arlington it's going down from 165 to 152 students high school students. Is that correct? And then post graduates we have the cost per student but that 152 on FY 16 that's based on the October 1 2015 report which includes both post graduate and high school students I believe. The 152 does? Yes. Includes both. Yes. We're required to report the post graduate students and they actually help drive more chapter 78 back to the district. So the 152 is the budgeted amount and includes both and so that we have a decrease in the population in the budget then so we're going from 165 in the budget to 152 students. Yes. That's the basis of the assessment for FY 16 152. So if we looked at instead of just looking at absolute numbers in total budget if we looked at using a denominator maybe not a denominator like if you're looking at per student aggregate budget actually going up our overall operating budget including all students that we serve is going up 0.9%. Okay. So is that an increase or decrease in the total population? We're planning for as I said earlier we're moving towards a school of 628. So it's a reduction. So in actually if you look at a per pupil basis it's going up more than 9%. If you looked at per pupil. 0.9%. Yes. If I understand your question I think yes. Yeah. So I'm looking at if you look at the total budget and you use the denominator as the total population then the budget's actually increasing by more than 0.9% per student. Right. Because you have a lower number of students in the budget. We don't actually know how many students we'll have next year. Right of course. Okay. But it was based upon a lower number of students. Yes. I was hoping perhaps in the future I understand some towns have it this way but maybe I'm wrong is if the high school information could be broken out from the post-graduate information. So I think it would be helpful when we're looking at comparing what the costs are to the Arlington High School it would give us just a better picture of even breaking out the chapter was 78 or whatever chapter that is. Because I think we forget in Arlington that if we had 150 more students at our high school we would have to have a larger high school. We'd have to have more teachers and I'm not saying that it's equivalent but I think it would give us a better way of just comparing these things because we would need a bigger high school all of a sudden you increase the high school population by 10%. Bear with me a minute. When do does Minuteman anticipate getting to the 628? In our modeling we're estimating that it would be 3 to 5 years. Okay. And then I think one other question on slide 19. They have in it the assumptions for the cost of the renovation it says that anticipating 8% annual enrollment increase. So a question I have is if the building is built for 628 students and that's only high school students or 628 high school and post-graduate students. 628 high school students. Okay. So if it's built for 628 students wouldn't if there's a 8% increase the next year the building would be outgrown? No that's assuming that was part of our modeling where we went all the way out to FY 20. And so between now and FY 20 we were assuming making some assumptions. One of the assumptions was that we would have member town enrollment growth of about 8% a year. Okay. So this is just member town growth. Yes. Then it would be absorbing the non-resident town growth would be increasing. And the member town growth would be increasing. All right. And I think that's all my questions. Thank you very much. Thank you. The woman next to Elsie Fiori. Hi. I'm Serena Memmon from piece 21. I have a couple questions. First of all I don't understand the number since you have 152 students this year from Arlington or that's projected this year is 165 students right? No we use the October 1 from the current year we're in to base the assessment for the next year. Okay. So 165 was the number of students we had at Minuteman on October 1 2013. 2013? And 152 was what we had as of October 1, 2014. Okay. All right. Also this project with the renovations or replacements you're anticipating when I'm starting any of these projects is there a date? Well these are just the models that will be going before the school committee to vote one of those models and that would be submitted to the MSBA. The MSBA would then choose the model they think is best for the district and for the next year we would be developing more detailed schematic designs and a year from now we would go to all 16 town meetings and seek approval for the project. If we were able to get all 16 towns to approve the project and any additional votes that may be required for debt exclusion by individual communities it would be another year before construction started probably three years after that it would start to impact the member district town budgets. We're anticipating three years before we start construction and three years after that too. Probably likely yes. Okay. And my understanding of this is the member towns are 44% of the student body and 56% come from outside the member towns. No it's the opposite of that. Okay so 56% which is a significant amount considering Arlington is 37% of the students come from this town. So I understand the cost issues that are related. Also I want to know about the co-ops are these students paid when they go in co-ops and who collects the money, the students who collect the money who collects the money, the students. Most of our students are paid for their work-based learning experience. The students are paid instead of going to school during their shop week they go directly to their employer. We have about 50% of the seniors are participating in work-based learning right now. Okay. I want to know also about the transportation costs that are increasing significantly in which communities are affected the most and why is it so? Our overall transportation budget which we just re-bid we spend a significant amount of money on transportation because our district is close to 45 miles wide and about 25 miles going north and south. We have students all the way from Lancaster, Bolton and Stowe so we've always spent a significant amount on that. The budget, I mean the bids that we just opened were for a three-year bid and went up about 9% overall over the three years but that if you divided it's 3% a year and that impacts all of our member communities. We don't provide transportation for non-member communities. Okay. Good. That's good. At least they're taking care of their costs on that end. What I want to know is what is CVTE? Is it computer and visuals or something? It's on slide 5 and page 3. CVTE stands for Career and Vocational Technical Education. And then I'm concerned as Dean had mentioned we're proposing about 145 million for this re-improvements at the minimum up to 177 million and anyway from 87 to 176 million costs for us it seems like quite a bit of money so it doesn't seem like it's fair. Well those costs are directly proportional to other new regional vocational schools that have been built and if you look nationwide the cost of building a vocational technical high school is about 50% more expensive than an academic high school. So the costs are high no doubt about it. But they're in line with other schools that have been recently built or are about to be built. And lastly you say on the front page Revolution and Learning is this really the Revolution and Learning is that what you're trying to emphasize? That's our branding that we came up with that tag line a few years ago. Lastly I just want to say I don't think we're worried about the cost that maybe we should cut down on the blue ink maybe colored ink make it black and white for us. Thank you. Thank you miss. Let's take tonight 30, let's take our seven minute break. The tennis girls are selling cookies and coffee. Sure. The first thing I'm going to ask you if I'm going to ask you. Please come on in. Mr. O'Brien is that an Indy? You have the floor. Mr. O'Brien has the floor. Go ahead Mr. O'Brien the microphones are loud. Indy O'Brien precinct 16 I don't know about you folks but I really think four minutes really isn't long enough to hear from Dr. Bodea, Dr. Boquillin. I think it would be really nice to give them an extra three minutes maybe next year. Plus a lot of us wouldn't come up here with questions. They'd probably anticipate them in advance. Mr. moderator if I heard correctly Dr. Boquillin had mentioned in his last 10 or 15 seconds that he was going to address some aspects of the building project. Was I correct in hearing that? We shut those hall doors. Dr. Boquillin. We provided some information on it if there was discussion on it but I wasn't going to make a presentation on the building tonight. We made that Thursday evening at another meeting but would be glad to answer any questions about it through the moderator. I heard from one of the town meeting members that was there a possibility of three different building scenarios. Is that correct? May 19th three models that the school committee will debate and vote on one of those and one of those models will then be submitted to the mass school building authority who will let us know in June or July which of the models they believe we should be building. Do you have an idea of possibility of what the cost of the rebuild will be? Yeah in the amounts that I gave you I think on the very last page it provides the cost of the three state funded models which renovation is about $175 million. A renovation addition is about $174 million and a brand new school is about $145 million. That's right. I remember that now. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Mr. President, we have a motion to terminate debate. Do I have a second? Ready on the motion to terminate debate. One is yes. I want to terminate. Two is no. Go ahead and vote. 129 in the affirmative three and the negative I declare it's an affirmative vote to terminate debate. 34 in the negative. That brings us to the recommended vote of the finance committee fund a minute man school district of $210,950. Are you ready, sir? He's ready. So one would be a yes vote. Two is no. So go ahead and vote. One yes, two no. 156 in the affirmative. 16 in the negative. It's affirmative vote and I so declare. And that terminates article 28. Mr. Tosti. I move that articles 12 through 23 are off the table. All in favor of taking articles 12 through 23 off the table, please say yes. Opposed say no. It is affirmative vote articles 12 through 23 are off the table. We now have before us article 12 revision of town committee vision 2020 standing committee. Ms. Mahan. You have the board's vote contained in your packet before you and if I could Julie Brazil could come up briefly a member of vision 2020 to explain the changes. Ms. Brazil can speak as a town resident. Ms. Brazil. And as a member of the committee. Julie Brazil precinct 12 and chair of the vision 2020 standing committee. Ms. And as a member of the vision 2020 standing committee. Just a couple of minutes of background not everybody understands what we mean when we say vision 2020 because it's actually an organization of many parts. There's the standing committee and then there are task groups. There's one task group associated with each of the nine town goals. And there can be multiple committees within a task group. In addition then so then there's the standing committee which is what we'll talk about tonight that is responsible for reporting to town meeting. That's the part that's actually created by town meeting. The standing committee serves to connect all of the task groups with each other and to connect the task groups with the town leaders and elected officials who under this proposal would be pulled out into our advisory committee. The task groups are designed to be very flexible. There may not be an active task group for a particular goal if there's not a project going on with volunteers associated. And the task groups are very grassroots driven. Any resident anyone with an idea can bring it to an existing task group or to the standing committee. If it's intended to further our efforts to live up to our very ambitious town goals then we can talk about it and it could be a new committee as part of an existing task group or we could revitalize a task group that isn't currently active. So that's sort of the model of vision 2020. The proposal tonight is really very simple. We want to simplify the standing committee and add just a little flexibility. It has two primary and fairly distinct functions. As I mentioned it manages that sort of vision and strategy part where we have the task groups and resident ideas connecting with the town leaders and elected officials. That's sort of that vision part and that's the heart of it. But there's also the day-to-day part of just running a committee. We have to manage our budgets because it's difficult to have all the same people in the room doing all of those same things. And so our plan is to simply divide the existing standing committee into two parts that recognizes the two different kinds of work that we do and it should just make things a little easier to manage. I also think it will make it easier for people to join the standing committee because it will be a little simpler. It will have the town committees. It will have an at-large membership of nine people and it will have the traditional rotating three-year terms. And I just think it's important that we sort of simplify and make it easier for people to join. The part that really changes from the current model is, as I said, we're going to all at-large. We've got large positions now and a number of positions that are specified for representatives to come up from the task groups. The problem is, as I mentioned, since not all the task groups are active at any one time, there's sort of gaps and vacancies on the committee and it's sort of an unpredictable size. So our recommendation is to simplify, have a clear predictable committee, and I hope you will support it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Priscilla. Does anyone wish to speak to this issue? Okay, we have the recommended vote of the Board of Selection to reorganize Vision 2020. Well, I don't have to second it. Do you wish to speak to this, Mr. Hayner? No. Are you ready, Mr. Reneau? Who wants to speak to it? Does? Go ahead. Do you want to speak to it, Mr. Warden? Yes, John Warden precinct date. This is a by-law change. It needs to be approved by the Attorney General. And in section C here it says that all these people are supposed to be appointed before July 1, 2015. Anyone who's been involved in this knows the Attorney General recorded history, approved one of our by-laws that quickly, except the thing doing away with the snowblowers. I don't know where you were on that. So I just wonder how practical it is to have that kind of language in there. I've never seen it in another by-law. Thank you. Oh, you want to amend it, Doug? Okay. Well, we hope it happens by then. Are you ready, Mr. Mourneau? All in favor of the change? Please vote one. If you're against it, please vote two. So go ahead and vote. 178, affirmative. Two in the negative. Affirmative vote, and I saw to clear it. The committee has been changed. And closes Article 12. Brings us to Article 13. Ms. Mahan? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Diane Mahan. Basically what this is, and it's on Page 11 of the Selectman's report, through due diligence, is that the Board of Selectmen has established a working group in terms of what we could possibly do. Three options presented themselves. The Board of Selectmen toured the site as well as held public meetings. We did look into, there were suggestions that maybe this should be food pantry or another town office up there, but because of the site and its condition and other capital improvements and what would need to be done here that just wasn't feasible. So at this time, the Board is asking town meeting to authorize a future sale, and the last paragraph on Page 12 outlines the different caveats under Mass General Law, as well as the fact that the town would have the first right of refusal in the event the purchaser later decides to sell. But one of the things we did hear from the hearings were different individual groups, educational, non-profit, small business. And the last paragraph non-profit, small business said in the interim if the Board would look at a possible short term leasing possibility, recognizing that this would take the better part of a year or more to actually come about. And some have suggested that if there were short term leasers in there it might help us place some sort of value to the land property. If you do authorize us to begin the steps to sell it. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Harrington. Stephen Harrington, Precinct 13. Mr. Moderett, I think that earlier in this meeting we did the capital budget and the proceeds from this sale were going to go into the capital budget and if I recall it was a $750,000 estimated on or budget actually. They budgeted that this would bring $750,000. I think that's true so unless someone in the Fincom wants to say there's different numbers. Mr. Chapter Lane is going to address it. That $750,000 is projected for FY17 so it's part of the capital plan but not in the FY16 adopted capital budget. Okay, thank you for that clarification. So the assessment on it is $348,000. 750 is a stretch. It's also, you know, I'm a little bit worried that this right of first refusal. Mr. Moderett, what would trigger us to, I don't know, to take this right of first refusal for an asset that's currently full and fair market value of $350,000 but the town seems to be thinking they're going to get $754,000. Are we just looking at something that is realistic? I mean, right of first refusal, I'd like to have someone sort of explain that to me, please. Right now we're just I understand we're just authorizing it but Mr. Heim, can you address it? Mr. Heim's going to address your right of first refusal. So it's a Dugheim town council. It's just one possibility of the type of restriction that we were purchased by a buyer after a competitive bid process that wanted to use it for a purpose that the town thought was a worthy pursuit and then later turned around and tried to sell it to someone that we were really concerned about what they might be using it for. That's why we would exercise the right of first refusal. After the initial sale? After the initial sale, yeah. So you're going to have a deed covenant? Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Mr. Heiner. Thank you, Mr. Moderator Bill Heiner. My concern about a short term lease, my understanding was part of the idea of the capital planning is some of this money might be used to offset one of the school projects that's up and coming. I'm just concerned that how much of a short term lease and somebody can address that? Ms. Mahan is going to address that. From my memory when we had the hearings and it was anticipated this would take a little bit over a year 12, 15 months possibly and from that hearing the individuals who got up including one of the groups from the high school and I can't think of their name but they've been very active with issues before the Board of Select said that perhaps since it's as much as 12 to 15 months out that one six month lease be considered for one use or others and then we would address it again if we decided to do it one more time depending on how, if tell me, authorizes us to put this out to first sale. My only concern is that the capital planning and the people worked very hard to put a financial package together of a stratum program and I just don't want us to all of a sudden find out where landlords instead of having the money to pay for it. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Schlickman. Paul Schlickman, Prec. 9 I rise in support of the article but I have a question. It's been mentioned on a couple of occasions that we all of a sudden discovered that we own this. I'm just sort of wondering how it happens that we all of a sudden discover that we own this property. Mr. Chapter Lane. Adam Chapter Lane. Adam Chapter Lane, Town Manager. I was waiting for that question. Basically through a compliance check of the property's liquor license when it was operating as the Disabled American Veterans Club when the board was looking into the enforcement of a potential violation of the liquor license it became clear that the owner of the property was the town through the Board of Selectment. How long has that been? I want to say it was in the 1920s through a tax taking 1926. Okay. Well, good job finding it. Yeah, I got the end. Mr. Fuller. Peter Fuller, Prec. 20 in the same vein of some previous questions. The Selectments Commentary says an approximately 7,000 square foot develop parcel. I looked at the assessor's records. They have it listed as 4,645 square feet. Who's correct? The guy who found it's going to tell us. Adam Chapter Lane, Town Manager. I can't speak to the assessor's records but I know from the appraisal that was performed the lot size and the building takes up almost the entire lot is about 7,000 square feet. Okay. I hope take away from this is that the town manager and his staff have a complete survey of what the town owns and how much it's valued at and how big the area is so we know what we're dealing with. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Ms. Malmone. Okay. Serena Memmon, Prec. 21. I want to know since we just found out about this building in 2014. So there's no rent that was being collected from this precision entire. It was the DAV. I think they would have gotten veteran services free rent even if they were there. I guess we never collected rent from them even though we could have. I don't think it's just a board for veterans. I think it's the precision tire and auto alignment. No, it's just a veterans building. It's just a veterans building? Yeah. Okay. And then is this going to still was the veterans facility considered business and is it going to be a business later when we sell it after this first fusel and so forth? I didn't quite get the question. Could you repeat for me? I want to know is the zoning on this going to be a business property or will that status change? Adam, but Carol Adam Chapter Lane Town Manager there's no contemplated or proposed change to the zoning and Carol you can correct me but I believe it's neighborhood business and so. Yeah. And the lease that's being proposed by Miss Mahan for six months. What kind of a price are you thinking about for renting? Miss Mahan. We haven't even established that as of yet. Right now what we're doing is we want to put forth before town meeting that we are requesting the sale of it. Future steps that we will take and we haven't gone any further into that because we didn't want to be presumptuous in terms of how town meeting voted. And what I would do is I would rely on the my colleagues and I would rely on the town manager and others in terms of. We are sort of leaning towards selling versus renting it even though we're thinking of a six term. We're recommending sale. And the selling price, I mean I know Sean Herrington asked was it assessed at 348 and we're thinking about selling it for the first time. I really have an objection to the selling. I think we could collect more money by renting. I think I know we're always short of money but I think it would be a logical things to collect the rent. I mean monopoly was a great game for me. I love that game. I would say just myself personally if this was prime up to date completely up to code HVAC, condition of floor, roof, drainage. We had that kind of pristine building but we did do a feasibility study of what the former DAV, 1207 Mass Ave, what condition it's in. And it's just not cost feasible. And I don't know who we would get. As soon as somebody came in it's not handicap accessible. There's so many things. So the data on this, the feasibility is on the website somewhere or where can we look at that? What I would anticipate is following town meetings vote if you all agree that we do put this out for sale. Do you have a specific question? Yeah, I want to know, Ms. Mahon just said that this property needs considerable work in order to be renovated to be up to code. And I want to know how much since it was a feasibility study done on this, how much, what numbers are you looking at? So I'm just going to put it out for sale. I'm going to put it out for sale. I'm going to put it out for sale. I'm going to put it out for sale. What numbers are you looking at? So I believe, excuse me, Adam Chaplain, town manager, I believe Ms. Mahon was referring to the appraisal which at this point is a confidential document as not wanting to prejudice what the bidding price might actually be or what someone might bid on a potential sale of the parcel. But after assessing it with our building department having some folks above the entire board of select and some other folks from key committees and town tour it became very clear that there was a plan that was made. And I'll stand here myself and say I'm of the opinion that the town is a landlord for some buildings and there's actually a rental properties budget contained in the finance committee report but I don't think that continuing to be a landlord for additional buildings that we currently are supporting is the appropriate step for the town to take. And why do you say that? I'm just not understanding what you were saying because improvements are too burdensome or it's too big of a problem. Okay. All right. Thanks. Done. In response to Mr. Schlickman's questions and some of the other following ones I will say that when I got the phone call from the downtown council that said by the way you own the building it was one of the most surprising phone calls that I've received since I was elected as a select man and we did indeed after that launch a search of everything in the sister's database to find out and make sure that there wasn't anything else that was like this and lost and we didn't find anything and so as spectacular as it is that the town owned the DAV since the mid-20s and didn't really remember I don't think that there's anything I believe that we've covered everything we can to prove that there isn't anything else waiting to surprise us in the future. Thank you Mr. Swelling. Thank you Mr. Swelling. Motion to terminate the debate. All in favor please say yes. Opposed? It's the two-thirds vote and I so declared. Okay we now have before us the recommended vote of the board of select men to authorize to dispose of the property. This requires a two-thirds vote so we're going to use our two-thirds vote to authorize them to know you want to keep the piece of property and go ahead and vote. Yeah. Yes the two-thirds. Okay we have 184 in the affirmative 11 in the negative it's pat it is a two-thirds vote I so declare and that closes article 13. That brings us to article 14. Recommend a vote of the select men of no action all in favor yes. Opposed? It is no action vote and I so declare it. That brings us close to article 14 brings us to article 15. We have Home Rule Board of Assessors Change Recommend a vote of the select men for no action. Nope you do not speak to no action. Mr. Howard. Peter Howard precinct 10. I'd like to invite Chris Loretty who is the originator of this article to speak to the town meeting. I think you have to introduce your motion first and get it seconded before we can invite anyone to speak on it because it's still technically no action. The motion has been handed out several nights ago your extra copies in the back of the room. Okay there you go. So we have a motion before us and Mr. Loretty is going to come speak to it. Thank you Mr. Moderator Chris Loretty 56 Adams Street. I'd like to also thank Mr. Howard and the thank town council for his professional input in guiding me on the legal niceties in this motion to ensure that it will pass muster with the state should it pass town meeting because many people in town seem to be prone to finding personal agendas and warrant articles where none exist. I want to make it clear to Mr. Tierney the director of assessments and everyone present in the article is not about him or his staff or anyone else. Last August after the Board of Assessors debacle in removing our last assessor in its failed attempt to hire one of its own as a replacement I wrote an op-ed piece in the Arlington advocate describing the need to professionalize Arlington's Board of Assessors and noted that I'd be submitting a warrant article to that effect. I described the two recommendations in the 2012 State Department of Resilience Report on the town's compensation that pertain to the Board of Assessors and one of those recommendations was to make to change the hiring of the Board, it was to change the hiring of the director of assessments from a political appointment of the Board of Assessors to a professional appointment of the town manager. I'm here tonight to ask you to implement that recommendation by approving this home rule legislation and I ask you to do that for four reasons. The Board of Assessors has very little policy discretion today because its actions are largely dictated by state law. Where it does have policy discretion such as granting abatements and exemptions that will continue. The Board will continue to do that, it will continue to be elected. We have working models for how this works in town. The town's planning board, the ARB, is supported by a professional planning department hired by the town manager. The same occurs with the Parks and Recreation Commission. There's also working models in other towns. Needham changed to having an elected Board of Assessors with a professional director of assessments hired by the town manager about ten years ago. I spoke to that man today, a gentleman named Mr. Davis. He's been in the assessment office in Needham for 22 years. He said it works fine there. There's no tension between the town manager and the Board. And he was actually surprised that in a town like Arlington, as large as it is, that we have a professional assessing staff that's overseen by a part-time Board of Assessors that only meets once or twice a month. The second reason for supporting this article is that the town should have the largest possible pool of candidates to hire when it advertises for the position of director of assessments. That didn't happen last year. The second time only six. Compare that to some of the other recent hires in town. 42 applications for the town council, 43 for the planning director, 81 for the deputy town manager. So what's the problem here in Arlington? Clearly it's not salary. The salary survey the town did last year indicated that our Board of Director of Assessments is more highly paid than any of the other 12 peer communities. Six applicants, most with limited resources. That's not what I would call a successful hiring process. Clearly more people would rather work for a professional town manager than for politicians. And honestly, if you were in their position, wouldn't you feel the same way? The third reason to support this article is to promote greater transparency and accuracy in the assessment process. Groups like the vision 2020 fiscal resources group shouldn't have to go to the Board of Assessments. I don't think that would happen if the town manager was in charge of the operations. I also believe it's more likely for the town to have greater, to have the problem of under assess commercial properties addressed if the town manager was the person doing the hiring of the director of assessments. The fourth reason to support this article is that I believe town meeting should trust and support its town manager. While you won't notice it or you won't notice that the town manager has changed on its merits even though he might prefer that all of the changes in the DOI report be implemented at once. I think we need to be realistic. All of the change in the DOI report are not going to be implemented at the same time because of the reluctance of the town to change from elected to appointed positions. That's not an issue in this case. Individual recommendations in the DOI report already have begun to be implemented. I would also note that when the selectmen first held their hearing on this article, the board of assessors didn't appear. They didn't respond to the board of selectmen's request for comment. It was only after they were invited back that they expressed their opposition to this article. And it seems to me the selectmen are asking you to vote no because they want to keep in good stead with the board of assessors. As town meeting members, you can show what the selectmen is afraid to. You can do what is best for the town even if it does hurt some people's feelings. Please don't let the selectmen control the conversation on this motion. Ask the town manager directly how he feels about this proposed change. If you have any questions or concerns about how he might implement them, ask him. That's what he's here for. I believe you owe that to yourselves. You owe it to him and you owe it to the town. I'm looking at you with a different perspective. You, like the State Department of Revenue, will conclude that this change will benefit the town even if it is implemented on its own. Thank you. Mr. Mahan, thank you, Sir. Mr. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Mordorita Dayan Mahan. I tell me any member, Precinct 14 also. Basically Mr. Loretti encapsulated most of what I would say. So I'll make this really brief. There were 15 DOI recommendations. These are two of with a proponent there. One of the things that my colleagues and myself felt was very important is to ask the Board of Assessors if they could come to our next meeting because we'd be interested in that elected body since it would be so affected. They did come in and indicated that they weren't in favor of this. And basically, the Board had discussion that there were 15 recommendations by MassDOR and to do it piecemeal and to also not do it with that spirit of cooperation might set up some adversarial roles. The Board has taken one of the 15 recommendations regarding the Comptroller job responsibilities and taken the recommendation contained in the MassDOR report and implemented that. And I think, speaking for myself, what we wanted to do was move forward on the MassDOR recommendations in the spirit of cooperation and we really looked to the Board of Assessors for their opinion since this is something they deal with in terms of supervising as well as hiring the Director of Assessments. And I do know that Mr. Feely, one of the members of the Board of Assessors is here tonight if you have any questions that relate to their opinions. Mr. Feely. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I'm Kevin Feely, member of the Board of Assessors and representing the Board this evening. First of all, I'd like to explain that we didn't make the original meeting that the select committee had established because we had already posted a public meeting which included hearings of the Assessing Department and we also had a budget meeting dealing with the warrant articles that will come up later in the budget. We did go to the second meeting and put our thoughts forward. We agree with the position of the Assessors that the Director of Assessing should be appointed by the Board of Assessors. I know Mr. Reddy offered a few examples. He didn't seem to offer the example that the Town Manager is hired by the Board of Selectment. How would it be if some other hiring body hired the Town Manager and yet he reported to the Board of Selectment? Same thing with the Superintendent of Schools. The report which was commissioned by the Town Manager and the Superintendent of Schools are sensibly to deal with the one and a half million dollar overspending by the school committee. The Board of Assessors and the Assessing Office have nothing to do with spending at all. So lo and behold, out of that report comes a recommendation dealing with the Assessing Department which had nothing to do with the scope of the study at all. It is two things. This is a home rule petition. State law will still require that Director of Assessing be hired by the Board and be responsible by the Board and that because that's in the general laws. Maybe Mr. Hein has a little different opinion on that but that my opinion is that the even home rule position will not override the general law unless it amends the general law. We feel that the system is working well. The Director of Assessing provides all the information that the Treasurer, that the Finance Committee, that the Town Manager need. He attends all of the major meetings at the Town Hall and works cooperatively with all the other town employees. The old adage that a person cannot answer to two masters that this makes no sense to have the hiring authority and the firing authority in one person and the responsibility in the other party responsibility put on the Board by state law and state regulations. So we respectfully ask the town meeting to vote against the purported amendment. Thank you. Thank you, Sir. Mr. Jamison. I'm thanking Mr. Monterey and Gordon Jamison, and I am co-chair of the Vision 2020 Physical Resource Task Group. But I think I'm speaking as my own person. I just want to give that as reference because our group has been and I have been involved in these types of discussions. Before I even joined that group, Mr. Reedy was involved in the group and that group surveyed a variety of towns looking at how we might change the financial organization of our town. We did that again and put forth an article that the Selectman made a committee, as some of you may remember. Eventually that was rotated or transformed into something that town meetings had done. A report was given by Mr. Sullivan of options and by that time Mr. Chapter Lane was at the reins of town manager and owing to the fact that there was one strong, very strong contingent, an elected person in the town, an elected office in the town, that did not go forward. I was disappointed by that. I mean no ill will towards anyone, elected, non-elected, appointed, employed by the town or otherwise. I want our town to have the best financial organization possible. I think I might have signed the article here only to make sure that it came before town meeting. I was, I've mixed thoughts about this. In some ways I think doing it all would be the best way but Mr. Loretty I think gave a very cogent discussion tonight, one of the best ever, Chris, you'd be commended tonight. Thoughtful, logical and I'm gonna support this motion and as a first step we could change it back if we decided it doesn't work but somehow we have to figure out to operate like most the other towns of this size around us and it's essentially all of them operate with a professional financial management team like a business. We are now a $160 million business. I think we need to operate that way and so I'm gonna vote for this then I urge you to do the same. Thank you very much Mr. Moderator. Thank you sir, Mr. Stephen Harrington. Stephen Harrington, Precinct 13. I rise to support this motion as well. Just to respond to some of the gentlemen earlier this evening. As far as state law is concerned, obviously Mr. Heim could speak to it but we don't need to, need him does it, need him found a way, Arlington can find a way. In terms of the concern that you're gonna have two masters between the Board of Selecting who controls the town manager and the Board of Assessors, we've already seen, it's very collaborative, they fit hand in glove and the Board had to be concerned with some friction between two elected boards. We don't have to worry about that. We're all done at the end of May. So there's a legitimate concern that they wanna be able to work together well. That's where we come in and tell them, well, we think we can do it a better way and so there's really no reason not to do this. We haven't heard any reason that sounds to not do it and there's plenty of reason to do it. If you've spent the time and looked through the meeting minutes like I have, about one third of the time of the Board of Assessors is spent on personnel matters. Took them three months to decide to buy back vacation time and sick time and it's not that they took them that long to decide. It's just that they don't meet that often and they're a volunteer group, right? They're paid a small stipend, elected, but they're not really day-to-day management and I'm sure that the town manager has policies and procedures in place to handle all of these issues. He doesn't have to wait until they meet again in a month and so you wanna have employees have professional management. If you have an issue with an employee, if you wanna get, say, a database of assessments in town, well, you know, if the director of assessments doesn't have the resources to do it because, well, he's not an IT department, you know, it's better if he's in an organization that has all one person who can set priorities and I think that's the town manager again and if he, you know, for some reason you're not satisfied, you don't have to wait to go in front of an elected board that's gonna act on maybe a popularity issue. You can go instead to a professional town manager and say, hey, look, I do this or I'm writing a letter to the editor and, you know, he'd probably do it anyhow we wouldn't even have to get that far. So I think that it's important that there's no reason against doing this. I think there's a lot of good reasons to do it. You could look at the past in a lot of the positions. We lost a library director recently because of some, well, I'm not even sure but it's kind of like friction with some of the board. I mean, we've also, you know, had issues with this office with, you know, several sort of directors of assessors in a short period of time. So I would say that, you know, please go with me, vote on this. It's nothing personal. It's really just seeing a problem and seeing a really simple solution. Thank you. Mr. Oster. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I'm Adam Oster from Precinct Three and I'm wondering if someone can tell me how many people work in the personnel department and how much we pay them every year. The personnel department? Don't we have a personnel department in Arlington? Yeah, we're talking about the assessors now but Adam, can you answer that question? You can answer it. Adam Chapter Lane, town manager. The personnel or human resources department has a three and a half head count and I just wanna give you the accurate personnel services and the salaries and human resources for this year are just short of $260,000. Thank you. This vote is about what will happen the next time there is a vacancy in the job position of director of assessors. It's not about anything that happened. It's about something that I hope won't happen for a while. Will happen at a time when we don't even know who will be on the board of assessors but it's for a position that is a professional managerial role that involves a high degree of expertise. The change would turn that decision over to a professional staff who handled these matters routinely and the salaries of whom we already pay for in our taxes. I have learned from watching the town that personal matters can be fraught. The town has run into some problems with hirings and firings and there've been a few situations when we really would have benefited by having a professional involved in the hiring process. When I come to town meeting I often feel at a disadvantage because I'm just here part time. I'm not in the trenches with a lot of people who meet year round and deal with the fiscal stuff and hear from a lot more people than I do. And I kind of just have to try to figure out based on the information that I'm given what the best course of action is and like a lot of you I end up voting yes on things that are recommended to vote yes. With this article I feel that our distance is a virtue because we can make this decision based not on the day-to-day stuff, not on the personalities but by asking really what is best for Arlington, what makes sense for the town. That's why I'm voting yes. Whatever you decide I invite you to make the decision based on what's best for the town as well. Thank you, sir. Mr. Harris. E.J. Harris, precinct five. We heard Mr. Moderator that there were no good reasons to oppose this and as you can imagine I was willing to accept that challenge I have for. The first is, I think the first sort of major area that I would identify is political oversight. We elect the assessors specifically because we see a public policy interest in the assessing department. I think historically that's why we do that. So in as much as we believe that there is important policy oversight over the assessors I think the fact that the town actually deposits like uses the exercise of their sovereignty to deposit authority with them suggests that they ought to be deferred to in exercising the policy preferences they enact. The second is, specifically one of the prior speakers talked about letters to the editor and I've on the floor the other night talked about town meeting speeches as a way of addressing grievances. It turns out that the way you get, the reason that people care about letters to the editor and people care about town meeting speeches as a way of assessing grievances is because those people are elected because they want the people who read the advocate to vote for them. I like the town manager a lot. We don't vote for him. He may respond to letters to the editor. He may not. He's under no realistic obligation to do so. The third is I think probably the most important in why I'm gonna ditch the fourth but I think it is true what the prior speaker said that town meeting is it turns out a fairly deferential body. And I think part of the question here is to whom are we going to defer? It seems to me that if we are going to defer to someone on this issue, it is best to defer to the people that the town has chosen, the people who elected us have chosen to exercise policy preferences in this matter. They clearly believe that this is problematic. The select men whom we all elected believe it's problematic. I think if we are going to be as deferential a body as we habitually are, it behooves us to defer to the people that the town elected to exercise these questions. Generally though, I think there is also a problem accumulating all of these policy concerns in an unelected town manager, right? Part of why we have elected bodies like this one and many others is in order to segregate those concerns. We don't let, even though he sort of is ultimately involved in selecting a lot of town departments, I think the reason we do town elections the way we do is to enact policy preferences without him sometimes or when there's a conflict so that the people the voters chose went out over somebody that they didn't. Because of that, I actually think there are a lot of reasons why we shouldn't do this without a more robust overall plan for implementing the DOR review and for figuring out what do we want the assessors to do? What do we want all of these bodies to do? I think without a clear vision of that, this is a premature step at the very least and so I'd urge you to oppose. Thank you, sir. John. Yeah, everything. Not in the room. Scott Smith. Scott Smith precinct five move the question, how it matters. If motion to terminate debate on all issues before us under the article, all in favor please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. My opinion is a two third vote. We have before us recommend a vote of the board of select and we have Mr. Peter Howard's amendment or substitute motion. First we're gonna vote on Mr. Howard's substitute motion as soon as Mr. Rose ready. So one, yes, I want the substitute motion. Two, no, I do not want it. So go ahead and vote. Two is a no vote, one is a yes vote. One, yes, two, no. Yes is 104, no is 73. So now we have the recommended vote of the board of select as substituted by Mr. Howard's vote. So one, you want to change it. Two, you do not want it. So soon as he's ready. What? One is yes, two is no, it's always the same. One, yes, we're gonna change, we're gonna ask them. No, I'm clarifying. One, yes, we want them to submit the thing. We are voting to submit the home rule legislation or whatever the heck it's asking us to do. Two, no, you do not want to change anything. Yeah, soon as you're ready. So one, yes, you want to submit this. Two, you do not want to. 116 in the affirmative, 76 in the negative. It is a fervent vote, and I so declare it. Not none of that, what was it, 116 to 76. That closes article 15 and brings us to article 16. Acceptance of legislation, complete streets. Ms. Mahan, nope. Anyone want to present the complete streets? Anyone want to speak to complete streets? It's a Smith. First we have Mr. Trembly. Oh, Ms. Mahan's gonna speak to it first. I'm Dayim Mahan, vice chair. On page 14 of the Selections Report, there's a very detailed. You gotta speak right into the mic then. Sorry about that. On page 14 of the Selections Report, there's a very detailed explanation about this program. Basically this authorizes us to apply for the funding for complete streets. I think the town manager would address this better. Adam Chapter Lane, town manager. The vote before the body tonight is to adopt the complete street statute. What that would mean is it's the first step in Arlington committing to becoming a complete streets community. After that, the town through the board of selectmen would need to adopt a complete streets policy. Following that, the town would then need to commit to actually following, complying with that complete streets policy, and would also need to adopt a municipal mode shift or a mode share goal. What that basically means is committing to shifting people from one mode, say vehicular travel to another mode, walking, bicycling, using transit. And ultimately by adopting this section of law tonight and then adopting a complete streets policy and complying with the rest of the statute, the town would then eventually qualify for state funding to then implement a complete streets project. Generally, a complete streets project would entail taking a look at a roadway and looking at all users, looking at the motor vehicle travel lanes, looking at bicycle lanes, looking at pedestrians, and also looking at transit uses and building what would be called a complete street. During the selectmen's hearing, a proponent of this article used this comparison and it's a comparison I've used as well. This is not dissimilar from the Green Communities grant program where the town committed to a number of criteria to become qualified as a green community. And then once qualified as a green community eligible for grant funding, again, this would be similar. The town would commit to a number of criteria to become a complete streets community per se. And then if meeting those criteria, qualify for grant funding to implement a complete streets project. Thanks. Mr. Trembly. At Trembly, precinct 19. So what is complete streets? We've heard how it makes the streets friendly for all users, pedestrians, bikes, motorcyclists. Really? Arlington's been doing what complete streets calls for for some time now. And I can't think of any realigned intersection newly installed island or bump out that's been motorist friendly. For example, the intersection of Forest and Summer Street and along with the summer overlook intersection hasn't worked out too well. When I pass on, they can put on my obituary that Ed Trembly spent three months of his life sitting at the Forest Street traffic light. The Summer Street islands, they're car killers. The town is already striping roads for bike lanes, adding bump outs, crosswalks. And pedestrian safety is an issue. But if you go look at the complete streets websites what actually might improve pedestrian safety namely pedestrian-activated crosswalk illumination so that you can see a pedestrian at night or know when the crosswalk is occupied, they don't talk about that. So it's not about pedestrian safety or bike lanes or anything like that. We're already doing that. And it's definitely not about traffic improvement because the more complete street type improvements we add, the worse traffic gets. So what is it about? Well, one answer came from a town official I talked to. It's a no-brainer. It's free money. Really? There's no such thing as free money. If it's free money comes from the state which pocket does it come from? This one or that one? And if it's from the Feds, well, it's monopoly money. If the Feds don't shut off the printing presses we're gonna be in deep trouble. We're living beyond our means on credit cards. We've been doing that for a long time. So I don't think that we should be taking federal money to do stuff that is questionable value. But I also think there's another more sinister reason. A few years ago, a guy from the Metropolitan Planning Council and I don't know who died and made the Metropolitan Planning Council the Arbiter All-Roadway Projects but nothing gets approved without them giving it the okay. So a few years ago, this guy from the Metropolitan Planning Council was standing right here at this podium, this one, at the Mass Ave, well, we were discussing the Mass Ave project and he was getting pressed pretty hard by the opponents to it who were concerned about traffic flows and all that stuff. And he got kind of frustrated and in a rare display of honesty he told us we were all gonna be riding bikes by 2030. So fast forward a few years. I'm on the Mass DOT Green Line email, the whole Green Line Extension email thing. And so anybody in this body here who's also on that email thing got the same one I did and it informed me that by 2030, 30% of us were gonna be riding bicycles. Well, when I hear essentially the same thing from two different state agencies with the same dates, it kind of gets my attention. It's pretty obvious to me that the goal of Complete Streets is to screw up traffic so bad that we all choose to get out of our kites and cars and ride bicycles. And I don't know about you, but, you know, my work van has a few thousand pounds of tools on it. I'm not using a bicycle for that. And I'm also, when I'm in 2030, I'll be what, 73 or something? I'm not riding a bicycle to stop and shop to go shopping in the middle of the winter. Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm like a freedom guy and I think people should have the freedom to take whatever form of transportation they want, if they wanna walk, take bikes, great. But I also don't think that we should be supporting policies that use our tax dollars to screw up traffic and make it difficult for us to get from one place to another. It's kind of a freedom thing for me. And I don't think that the federal government has, we should be supporting anything that limits our freedom to go and do whatever we want. So please join me in voting no on this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scott Smith. Scott Smith, precinct five. Do you have them? Okay, I've been asked, you may know, I'm also a member of the Transportation Advisory Committee and Bike Advisory Committee. I've been asked a couple of times, just what is a complete street? So I'll just read the definition off the master plan. Complete streets are designed and operated to provide safety and access for all users of the roadway, including pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, motorists, commercial vehicles and community safety vehicles and for people of all ages and abilities. So like the previous speaker, for me it's also a matter of freedom and I'll just offer two slides to give some examples. Can you back up one please? Thank you. Yes, sorry, it's hard to see. So I just went on the Google Maps, found a few streets around this area, which I think all would agree, one complete street. This is Beacon Street in Brookline leading into Coolidge Corner, recently redone. Got the green line over to the left, got transit. Works fine for driving. I drive down there and visit friends all the time. Now has a bike lane in parts, shared lanes in other parts, good sidewalks, good curb ramps, directions to parking. It's covering, serving everyone. Next slide please, great. Example, not a complete street. Mall Road, Burlington. Try being a pedestrian there. This is the Route 350 bus stop by the Burlington Mall. No sidewalk, no pedestrian crossing. I used to work up that way and was so dangerous. Walking there, I did not have the freedom to use transit. I had to drive, adding to traffic in Arlington because the pedestrian environment up in that area was just too dangerous. But this is not what Arlington's gonna do. As previous speaker pointed out, we are trying to look out for pedestrians, especially in all of our projects. So this is not a major change in policy. What it does do is open up a potential new source of funding for projects like improving our sidewalks, some other roadway projects, things that we desperately need to do and really don't have enough money to do right now to our satisfaction. Please join me in supporting this. Thank you, sir. Ms. Lacourt. Annie Lacourt, precinct 15. I also rise in support of this article, violating my own rule for the second time this season by not asking a question. I believe that when we began town meeting and Kevin Greeley asked us the question of what do we think the problem is going to be 50 years from now, I think that the response, at least to the most people around me, was something along the lines of climate change, flooding in East Arlington, so on and so forth. These kinds of programs that are designed not to restrict the freedom of people to use the form of transportation they want, but to encourage alternate forms of transportation to take some pressure off traffic on the streets. And also, frankly, as a very aggressive driver, I have to tell you, to calm traffic. I drive a lot slower in Arlington along those intersections in those areas that Ed just mentioned that are near my home because of the new traffic controls. It sort of helps keep me in line, would be a good way to put it. So I think that, yeah. All right, I'm just being honest, guys. So I think that it's important for us to take advantage of these kinds of programs so that we have the funding to make the kind of modifications that will make our streets friendly to all modes of transportation. And that streets that are friendly to all modes of transportation are less dangerous for everyone. People are less likely to get in an accident. Believe me, when a car hits a person on a bicycle or hits a person who's a pedestrian, the driver doesn't feel safe. The driver feels like they've done an awful thing and they're in a lot of trouble. So it's protecting everyone to do this kind of traffic calming, to provide safe alternatives, modes of transportation for people who are walking and biking and forcing us all to share the road. And if we have some money with which to do these kinds of modifications that we get without actually raising our own property taxes, I think that's an advantage to us. So I hope that you will consider voting for this article. Thank you, Mr. Deist. John Deist, precinct 13. I would just like to point out that the second paragraph on page 14 of the Selectman's report, it says, the recently enacted complete street statute is projected to make $50 million in street and sidewalk improvement design and construction funds available to Massachusetts municipalities. A little bit further down toward the bottom, it says, hence bearing in mind the success of similar, excuse me, not there. Should the final regulations be too onerous, there will be no impact of declining to develop an internal complete streets program. So if we do not adopt this, if we say no, that means that $50 million will go to other communities to improve their streets. If we say yes, then of course, the money will be available. And if we decide that we don't want to do something because the restriction is too onerous, we simply won't do it. So as far as I can see, there's no reason not to vote for this article. Thank you very much. Michael Mann. Thank you, Tom Michael Mann, precinct seven. Mr. Moderator, could somebody answer the question? What exactly happens after we, if we approve this article that goes in front of the Selectman, but then does it come back to town meeting at any point? I'm just curious. Oh, I believe once we approve it, it's the law of the land. Adam Chapterland, town manager. If town meeting was to adopt the statute tonight, the next step I would presume is that the Board of Selectmen would consider adopting a complete streets policy. There have not been final regulations issued, stemming from the statute. Should this regulations then require that an actual complete streets policy be adopted by town meeting, we'd certainly come back. Currently, it's our understanding that the Board of Selectmen would be the ones adopting that policy. So there's a little bit of a variation in exactly what that route would be, but that's how we see it laying out. Thank you very much. Thank you. Fisher. Andrew Fisher, precinct six. I just want to express agreement with Mr. Trembly's assertion and object to the way quite a bit of policy does come down from professional organizations like Metropolitan Area Planning Council. I'm not a libertarian sort, but things like we're about to receive a traffic light at what used to be Steve's Pizza, where Swan Lane is. Pardon me? Your question is, I'm assuming that that's an example of complete streets is the type of regulations that we'll be assuming. I don't think it's outside of the scope. Is it inside of the scope or not? Well, just keep going. We don't like you about the scope. I just hate it when people yell scope because they don't understand what you're saying. You have to say it before they can understand. So I've decided to strike back when people... Well, that's my job. Your job is to keep proponent your point. Did this community ask for a traffic light so we can all stop for the 50 or so bicyclists that cross who they didn't ask for it. They're crossing in good shape. So I agree with Mr. Tremblay. And I'm tired of seeing us bend over backwards for funding to conform to guidelines that weren't asked for and aren't necessarily agreed to. Thank you. Yep, no, no, Sean, the guy behind you. Whose name I forget. I'm sorry. My fault for sitting behind Sean. Steve Revolac, precinct one. I enjoyed seeing the two slides earlier. I've ride a bicycle a lot. I've been down on Beacon Street and Brookline and it's a rather nice trip. I've also been on Mall Road in Burlington and it's a little challenging. You know, and with all deference to the gentleman who spoke earlier, I honestly planned to be bicycling to stop and shop when I'm 73 in the middle of winter. And hopefully I'll actually be able to follow up on this. I do not have to, I ride to work every day. I don't have to haul a thousand pounds of equipment in a truck because I definitely would not try to haul a thousand pounds of equipment around on a bike. But I would argue that for those who need to drive as part of their job or et cetera, it might be to your advantage to have more people riding bicycles. But I do have a question. Regarding the, as a cyclist, one of the things that, one of the factors to me that makes a street safe or less safe is actually the condition of the pavement. So for example, you know, there was recently some paving done on the Minuteman and it's very nice to ride on. There's a section of Mass Ave right in front of City Hall that's just sort of like a little bit of a roller coaster. And I'm wondering if the, you know, a complete streets program has or does there are elements that deal with the pavement and the quality of road surface? Can someone answer that question? Yeah, Adam's gonna take a shot at that. Adam Chapter Lane, Town Manager. I don't believe the complete streets policy would directly speak to the condition of the pavement but the adoption of the statute and then the policy and then the funding that could be coming subsequent would help us be faster at making some of the upgrades to pavement condition that we currently have planned. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Wagner. Carl Wagner, precinct 11. Move the question and all associated matters. We have a motion to terminate debate. It's been seconded. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. It is a two thirds vote and I so declare. We now have a force to recommend to vote the Board of Selectment on the complete streets program. Mr. Reneau, you're ready? So if you want to adopt the complete streets please vote yes, number one. If you do not vote two, no. And go ahead and vote. 157, the affirmative 33 and the negative it is a positive vote and I so declare it. We have a motion to adjourn. All in favor of adjourning, please vote yes. All in favor? No. No. Do we have any motions for reconsideration? Al Tosti has served motion for recant. Notice of reconsideration, article 28. What is it sir? Seven. Mr. Harris serves one on seven.