 Select Board meeting of April 13, 2020 as a preliminary matter this is Diane Mahan select board chair permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members please when I call your name respond in the affirmative. Dan Dunn. I can hear you. Joe Curell. Here. John Hurd. Yes. Steve DeCorsi. Here. Now staff, call your name please respond in the affirmative. Adam Chapter Lane, Town Manager. Yes, I'm here. Douglas Heim, Town Council. Present. And Ashley Maher from the select board offices in a remote area taking the minutes. Good evening. This is an open meeting of the Allenton Select Board and is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020 due to the current state of emergency in the Commonwealth given the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the virus and reduce risk of COVID-19 illness, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings and as such the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with the agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment. Even if members of the public do not provide public comment, participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment and those persons are not required to identify themselves. For this meeting, the select board is convening by Zoom as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you and that take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. Please also take care to adjust your screen or device name if you would like to speak. In order for us to recognize speakers appropriately and develop accurate minutes, it is helpful for participants to see your full first and last name when calling upon you rather than a nickname. All of the materials to this meeting except any executive session materials are available on the Novus Agenda dashboard and we recommend the members and the public follow the agenda as posted on Novus unless I myself otherwise. We will now turn to the first item on the agenda. Before we do so, permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate meeting minutes. I will introduce each speaker on the agenda after they conclude their remarks. The chair will go down the line of members inviting each by name to provide any comment, questions or motions. Please hold until your name is called. Further, please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. Please remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response, please wait until the chair yields the floor to you and state your name before speaking. If members wish to engage in colloquial with other members, please do so through the chair, taking care to identify yourself. This meeting will feature opportunity for public comment on certain agenda under citizens open forum. I will ask members of the public who wish to speak for citizens open forum to identify their names and addresses only. Once the chair has a list of all persons wishing to speak on citizens open forum, I will call on each by name and you can speak to up to three minutes. Please keep in mind that all participants and members of the public must be recognized by the chair before speaking and that the board does not typically engage in colloquially in citizens open forum because such items are not on the agenda for discussion and could be a violation of the open meeting law. Finally, each vote as we've done before taken in this meeting will be conducted by a roll call vote by attorney Han. With that, we go to agenda item one. Sorry, pardon me. I mean agenda item two. We just completed one. Organizational meeting for the purpose of electing a chair and vice chair. I asked attorney Heim to put this on the agenda and I had conversations with attorney Heim as well as one of my colleagues, Mr. Decorsi, who's also an attorney from my understanding specializing in municipal law, if not other fields. And then I asked attorney Heim basically to explain it but when I spoke with attorney Heim and attorney Decorsi in reading the selectman handbook, it seemed like there was some ambiguity and attorney Heim. Thank you, Madam Chair. We're for both members of the board and the public who's listening were obviously in very unusual circumstances. One of the pieces of these unusual circumstance that folks may have noticed is that select board administrator Marie Kruppelke is not with us. Accordingly, under the organizational meeting practice of this board, the select board administrator would typically serve as chair pro temp only for the purposes of the organizational meeting. I'd like to if the board is comfortable with this proceed as your pro temp for the purposes of this limited discussion. And I'll provide you with a basic rundown of the context and the board's options. First, select board's policy is that the chair and vice chair of the board serve for one year. The board's policy, however, is also that the organizational election of a new chair and vice chair happens following the annual town election. As folks probably know, the annual town election has been postponed to June. Accordingly, there's no perfect way to be consistent with the board's past practice. The board can either elect a new chair until such time as the election happens and potentially have another election because there will be at least one member of the board will be changing after the annual town election. Or the board can take a vote to maintain the current chair and vice chair until such time as the town election is held. Those are the two primary options. Either option, however, is going to be a partial departure from prior board practice, either a departure because the chair and vice chair only serve for one year, or a departure because the organizational meeting and the election of the chair happens after annual town meeting annual town election and not before. So with that, I'd like to propose a quick preliminary motion to see just confirm that the board is comfortable with me serving as the chair pro tem until the organizational piece of the meeting is over. And with that, I will ask for individual board comment on that specific matter only and then move on to the next piece. So I'll start with Mr. Dacorsi. Mr. Dacorsi, do you have any comment on me serving as as the chair pro tem for the purpose of the organizational meeting? No, I'm fine with that. Mr. Hurd. I believe Mr. Hurd is muted. No, I'm fine with me. Mr. Currow. I'm fine with that. Mr. Dunn. Definitely appropriate. This one. I definitely agree. And I thank you. I'll take a quick roll call. I'll take a quick motion on this and roll call. Anybody can just raise their hand. Let me know that they're comfortable making that motion. I appreciate it. Mr. Currow. I move to appoint town council Douglas Heim as chair pro tem for the purposes of the select board's reorganization meeting of April 13 2020. Second. Okay, Mr. Motion for Mr. Currow and a second by Mr. Hurd. I'll try to be efficient. Is there any discussion? Okay, I'll take a roll call vote on Mr. Currow's motion for the town council to service the chair pro tem in the absence of the second administrator. Mr. Dacorsi. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Currow. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mohan. Yes. Thank you. Now moving on to the main purpose here, the organizational meeting. As I've outlined, the board has, as I see it, two primary options. The board can either opt to take a vote to essentially maintain the current chair and vice chair until such time as the town election is held and the first select board meeting thereafter. Or the board can choose to elect a new chair and vice chair until the town election is held. I'll open that up for discussion. Obviously, if there are other points that the board would like to make, their members are free to do so. I'll start with Mr. Dacorsi. Thank you, Attorney Heim. Yes, I look at this and you've laid out the conflict in our handbook very well. We have the one-year requirement on the one hand and then we have the organizational meeting that's to take place after the annual town election. And for me, the one-year needs, in my mind, needs to give way to the annual town election. So I would be in favor of maintaining the current chair and vice chair until the town election occurs. And whether that's by way of motion or us not doing anything and just waiting until after the election occurs, I'm fine either way. But it seems to me we're going to have a different board after the election and the new board should vote who should be the officers for the coming year. Mr. Heard? Yeah, I agree. I think that we should wait until we get the new board in order to make the vote. So, you know, and I think right now with the way we're conducting meetings, it wouldn't be a good time to change over the leadership of the board right now anyways. So, I'm good maintaining the current officers in place. Mr. Curran? Yeah, I feel like everything's in a state of suspended animation right now. And we've shifted our elections. We're shifting town meeting. It only makes sense for us to maintain this in a kind of a state of suspended animation as well. And my only question would be is would it be most proper for us to make a motion and take a vote to suspend that portion of our policy for this purpose to defer the reorganization meeting until after the next annual town election? Mr. Curran, are you asking me to switch my hat or are you just putting it out there to the board? I think I'm asking you to switch your hat if that's possible. So, I certainly think a vote could be to suspend the board's practice. I want to be clear for folks the neither the session law, the special act that provided for the postponement of elections and town meetings, nor the law generally provides a specific guidance for this situation. It's really the board's practice in terms of chairing vice chair that's that's that issue. So, you could articulate the motion in that way if you so chose Mr. Curran. Thank you Mr. Chair and I do so choose. I move to suspend our policies for the purposes of deferring our reorganization meeting until our first meeting following the annual town election. Mr. Dunn? I'm happy to serve and I don't I'm happy to do the as the rest of the board wishes, no opinion. Ms. Mahan? First, for purposes of the record, I'll second Mr. Carroll's motion to suspend and basically follow one of the two outlines areas in a handbook and I only wanted to do this because just thinking about everything need to have some clarity on it where it is kind of says two different ways and technically it didn't have to have this as an agenda item but I did want to do it that it was an agenda item just because there was that ambiguity out there and I would leave it to the future chair um whomever that is that went appropriate further on down the road um this particular and I would ask attorney Heim and Ms. Maher to sort of put it on the tickle file that we amend update the select board handbook should a circumstance like this happen again so that you know we a future board would not have to go through these steps. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Mahan. So as I understand it there's a motion from Mr. Carroll to suspend the board's policy of the chair and vice chair only serving for one year until such time as there should be a town election and there's a second by Ms. Mahan. Mr. Carroll correctly articulated your motion. You have Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other points of discussion by members of the board? If so I'll take a roll call vote. Mr. Decorsi. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Currow. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mahan. Yes. It's a unanimous vote and I so declare it. With that I would also take a motion to close the organizational meeting and note that Ms. Mahan and Mr. Dunn continue to serve as chair and vice chair of the select board respectively. So anyone wishing to make that motion? So moved. Mr. Currow is there second? Second. Thank you Mr. Decorsi. On Mr. Currow's motion to terminate the organizational meeting and return to a regular meeting I'll take a roll call vote. Mr. Decorsi. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Currow. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mahan. Yes. Thank you. Thank you attorney. So declare. Thank you to my colleagues. I will next go to agenda item three consent agenda minutes of the meetings. March 23rd 2020 and March 30th 2020. First is there a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Mr. Currow seconded by Mr. Hurd. Any questions, additions, deletions from my colleagues on the board? Seeing none on a motion by Mr. Currow seconded by Mr. Hurd. Move approval of the minutes. Attorney Heim roll call. Thank you. Mr. Decorsi. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Currow. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Ms. Mahan. Yes. 5-0 unanimous vote. We will now enter and just sit and speak if you can use the wave. His meeting is being recorded. And I'll read the preamble. Except in unusual circumstances any matter presented for the consideration of the board shall neither be acted upon nor decision made the night of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which the open forum was established. It should also be noted that there is a three-minute time limit to present a concern or request. I'm just going to give that a minute so we can select and gather that list which I'm not doing someone else's. And I would note chair if I may that it doesn't appear as though there is anybody calling in but if someone was to be calling in they could hit star nine on their phones to be able to utilize the raise hand feature. So just to make note of that. And I'll tell you right now we have three hands raised right now. Because it's open right now. Yep in this in the order of Sean Harrington. Lynette Martin. And Elizabeth Dre. I'm going to give it like 20 more seconds because technically you're supposed to be in the room for the meeting. Okay anyone else Mr. Chaplain. That is all I see right now. Okay so in my vice chair Mr. Dunn is also going to assist me on this. First we have Sean Harrington just for the audio record. Name and address for the record please. Can you hear me? Just making sure my mic's working. Yes sir. Sean Harrington 16 Lafayette street precinct four. Two things. One I wanted to address the health department notice in regards to uh mask being worn in grocery stores and convenience stores. I think it's important that we're taking health action but I think that the things I've been seeing quite a lot of in-town are individuals touching their masks still with their hands. Individuals not knowing how to properly take off masks. And I think that if we're going to be implementing this type of policy it's important that the town take action to try and educate the residents on how to properly take off masks. Not to touch your face just to have a mask on still. And also if you have a scarf or you're using things like that to clean thoroughly because most people don't think of right away taking a scarf and cleaning it. The other thing is is now an outgoing member of the Election Modernization Committee. We got a lot of feedback from citizens about the dates and the priests in regards to voting areas. One thing I think that we got from it was that there was some concern about how many polling locations are going to be open. I strongly suggest to the board that we keep as many polling locations open as possible. The idea I know some people have talked about having one polling location as a means to make it have less people work the polls but it might be one location or even just two locations quite frankly makes a lot easier for one individual COVID-19 to come in and get everybody else sick. That's for everything you're doing so far I think the town's done a great job leading as well as Governor Baker in this crisis. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Lynette Martin. If you could just for the audio record say your name and address. Hi my name is Lynette Martin 18 Eustis Street. Thank you. So I participated in the Election Modernization Meeting the other evening and there was a lot of concern and anxiety about how the elections are going to be held. There's a lot to figure out in a short amount of time and there were a lot of creative ideas to be explored. I was wondering if there'll be a place where citizens can collaborate on that with the select board members or some of the select board members such as how will the poll workers be protected and also the hours there was concern about consolidating the hours you know trying to keep stuff the same as possible and maybe even extending the hours of the days so that there's less crowding but also there's a lot of concern about how we're going to get this message out to people. It would be good if we can reach out to people in low-income housing and then lastly on a separate note I was wondering if Arlington has any plans to protect our low wage workers employed in Arlington as essential businesses stuff like sanitizing the benches at bus stops as it impacts both low wage workers in our food services as well as our elderly so what efforts the town might be doing on those things. And then if we are going to revise the poll locations and hours how we will communicate that out and comply with the need to publicize it 20 days before the election. So those are all things I just want to bring up. Thank you very much. Thank you and while we outlined that we don't go back and forth in the Q&A both your comments Ms. Martin and Mr. Harrington and possibly Ms. Dreyes I think a lot of them on the next agenda item will give most of that information but we'll get to that when we get to that agenda item. Thank you. I don't want anyone to think we're just not taking heed. Next we have Elizabeth Dreye and if you could just for the audio record. Madam Chair I don't think I think we're having a muting problem right now. How about now? Good. I heard you there. Oh perfect thank you. So good evening Chairwoman Mohan my name is Elizabeth Dreye 130 Jason Street thank you for having us here to this evening. It feels kind of weird but I wanted to just share a concern that I'm hearing from other people and I want to thank select board member Dan Dunn for talking to me earlier today for a while and so I'll keep it brief. We have under eight weeks to develop a new way for Arlington to vote while shut it in our houses due to to a viral pandemic which is a huge challenge and we need to marshal all of our resources all the employees whose job subscriptions have been made temporarily irrelevant to build the network we need to reach out to voters beyond the traditional ways to develop a creative and perhaps expensive way to ensure a smooth well run inclusive election that focuses equally on education access to absentee ballots and a safe way to return the ballot or vote at the polls. It may be expensive I'm wondering if there's money from the state that could help pay for it or money that the town is saving elsewhere that could be reallocated. I also urge you to look at the League of Women Voters recommendation that they made at the election modernization committee for a multi-platform outreach campaign to inform the voters and a working group of officials and volunteers and I thought that town clerk candidate Patty Brennan-Sautel had some creative suggestions about outreach including a self address address a self envelope to return the votes. My biggest concern is that Arlington will fall back on their traditional channels of communication which is the traditional media outlets town notices town emails the Arlington list and that the result will be disenfranchisement of Arlington voters and a quick just example of this is I see that the language is to send a request for an absentee ballot to the clerk's office and you take a photo and then you send it as an attachment like I know my parents would never be able to do that so I worry that that's what we're telling people to do I worry that people are not going to be able to do that and also I just want to say that there are times that our town needs to decide who we are and what we stand for and this is one of those times if we are really the welcoming and inclusive town that we think we are then we need to show it and this is an opportunity to do that thank you very much. Mr. Chapter Lane Diane appears to be muted. I am not muted. There are two other James O'Connor and Beth Milovchik have since raised their hands. Okay and then after that I'm gonna James uh who was first I'm sorry. James O'Connor. James O'Connor and Beth Milovchik because technically if you're in the room at the time and if you're not so but uh so this will be the end of the list Milovchik. Mr. O'Connor if you could uh for the audio record state your name and address please. James O'Connor 63 Overlook Road Chair of the Election Modernization Committee. Having heard the prior comments from uh folks that did attend our Zoom meeting last week we did have a recorded text and a video which is on the town Zoom account and I can um with your help figure out how to make available on the Election Modernization Committee webpage as well as the materials that we discussed from presenters the League of Women Voters and Patty Brennan Sotel were made available as part of the documents to be discussed during the meeting. It was constructive and I think overall 27 people attended. Most were really pleased with the participants and Janice Weber our assistant clerk was very attentive and responsive to trying to meet the needs of the resident concerns that were mentioned so I just wanted to let you know that people have asked me whether we're going to have another meeting of the Election Modernization Committee. I was even asked if we had any substantive authority in making recommendations about the upcoming election and I said no that was not our charge but we would offer this open forum opportunity last Tuesday to discuss the matters. So all of that is a public record and I appreciate um any input or questions that may come to the committee for its recommendation and or support. Thank you. Thank you. Um Beth Milovchuk if you could just for the audio record say your name and address please. Um is Beth Beth you'll need to unmute yourself. Thank you. Beth Milovchuk 20 Russell Street. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak tonight. I very much appreciate Citizens Open Forum and I'd like to give a shout out to James O'Connor who ran a very um excellent meeting last week. He was a master of both the technology and the protocols and again the public at that meeting was very appreciative of the opportunity to speak. I would just further emphasize what the prior speakers have shared that it is a meeting um video whether ACMI has it or not well worth watching for the board. I respectfully suggest as well as any citizens and residents in town. Patty Muldoon's comments and she referred to a document is excellent or excellent comprehensive and I think she had some very well thought out and thoughtful suggestions. So those are um all of the comments I have tonight and again thank you for the opportunity to speak. Uh thank you and uh just because I feel like I should do things in threes I just want to ask Mr. Chapter Lane if um and then this will be the end of the list if anyone else because I I can't see the way feature if anyone else in the third round is waiting. There are no additional hands raised right now. Okay thank you and again um I believe I know when we get to the next agenda item we'll start to begin to address and we'll have to continue to address what was raised very good points in Citizens Open Forum. Citizens Open Forum is now closed. We go to agenda item uh COVID-19 response update uh I wanted before I turn it over to the manager um in light of the remarks from Citizens Open Forum as well as uh conversations I've had with the manager with the moderator and others um the same concerns were raised um and there's been a preliminary email exchange um similar to what all the speakers said before that you know this is an unusual election and it's going to have to be the usual things that are done but also some unusual ones um and at the end of this at least for one part of it I'm going to ask a motion from my colleagues to um authorize empower our town manager in sort of being the conduit or the person bringing the various groups together for the additional outreach that we need to do. I know I've spoken about you've heard of the election committee election modernization committee has a specific charge but I do know we have to do creative ways number one in getting the election out and getting out how you actually do do the election. I think Envision Arlington would be a good group in terms of helping us with the outreach for getting citizens and the like involved. I think the town manager sort of quarterbacking overseeing all this it's unusual to bring the town manager in to an election to this capacity but I have discussed it with him as well as the select board does have a role also it's sort of in the mechanisms of the election in terms of number of polling places securing polling workers making sure people who come to vote and people who work the polls can do so safely but I agree with the rest of my colleagues that in other people who's called in there's a lot more outreach we have to do and a lot more discussion than involving citizens. Mr. Chaplain did I sort of encapsulate that what we've been discussing? Yes you did madam chair absolutely would you like me to to begin my brief update? Yes okay thank you and I'll leave it to the board's further discussion in terms of how they would like me and other town staff to proceed in terms of assisting the town clerk in the board's office in terms of the election and the concerns that have been raised by residents both the email and during Citizens Open Forum tonight. I'll start by saying I know a few of the residents who just spoke raised concerns specific to our preparation or our response to the to the COVID-19 pandemic and what I'll say is we've been managing this from a public health point of view right from the start and what we do when we receive requests for consideration is we discuss those with our leadership team which includes our director of health and human services our director of public health our police chief our fire chief as well as myself we also have representation from the economic development coordinator other members of the planning and IT staff from a community outreach point of view as well as the deputy town manager sandy pooler and the HR director Karen Malloy so the suggestions that were raised tonight in terms of education about proper wearing of a face mask as well as sanitization of certain areas in town I can bring up with the leadership team tomorrow and from the public health point of view determine what the right approach might be. Building upon that I'll add that our board of health staff continues to work seven days a week and nearly 12 hour days in managing a response to this crisis as I think many folks on the call probably are aware our case count as of today is now up to 87 positive cases in town and what our board of health staff is doing is not only advising us in terms of the restrictions and enforcing those restrictions with various businesses across town but they are contact tracing people who may have been in contact with those positive cases it seems as though we're pretty confident there is community spread not just in Arlington but throughout the region but it's still very important to trace contacts and try to limit that spread and break the line of transmission in town and that's the important work that our really incredible team at the board of health and health and human services is still doing again seven days a week 12 hours a day to try to do their do our best to fight this fight this outbreak we meet again virtually 12 o'clock every day to discuss what our message will be that day the board probably saw as well as many residents probably saw today we announced requiring grocery store workers pharmacy workers and convenient store workers to wear masks while working also issuing a strong recommendation for residents to wear masks whenever they're outside or visiting those stores they were also asking residents of senior housing that whenever they are coming to congregate areas in those senior housing complexes that they wear masks as well so we'll continue to monitor this we'll continue to issue guidance as things go forward we'll continue to determine whether whether or not further restrictions are necessary on a daily basis one thing that we're continuing to monitor is the use of the bike path under the recreational paths and whether or not based on the intensity of usage if it's a safe thing to keep it open so far we have kept it open we're also receiving requests to give consideration to widening sidewalks not physically pouring more concrete but eliminating parking in certain areas to give people more room to walk and have safe social distancing from one another and that's something we'll try to take action on this week and see where and how that might be possible to try to give people options throughout town of where they can walk and get exercise while still being safe and practicing safe social distancing finally we're trying to continue to find ways to connect with people in town and answer questions and allay concerns they have about this pandemic tomorrow we're going to launch our first virtual town forum this one will be focused on small businesses and nonprofits it'll be at two o'clock the the zoom access is posted on the town website it'll be a webinar style event just like this meeting is and this will be the first of what will hopefully be a series of these we'll likely do another one for small businesses and nonprofits we'll do one for residents in general and we're also working with the superintendent to organize a virtual town forum in regards to education and how the school system is is dealing with this crisis so i think i'll stop there and then obviously answer any questions that the board might have okay thank you um would anyone like to uh start first uh comments on around the election what myself and the town manager has discussed or um i'm seeing yep madam chair yes mr don and then mr carol mr don uh sorry joe if i jumped in front i just with five people i don't i'm just not in the habit of uh using the electronic hand waiver um so i did have a couple of several good conversations about uh the election today which uh which and they were it was kicked off with a very useful call that with elizabeth ray that she mentioned earlier and um one of the things that i've been one of the things that i've been thinking about since then is that uh we kind of can think about the election as having two tracks i think one is the track that we consider like what i'd call our regular track which is uh people show up at the polling locations and they vote and the tricky part there is that like it still can't be exactly like obviously can't be exactly the way that we've been doing it for instance it doesn't make sense to bring guests into chestnut manager and we're going to have to choose additional locations for for that and in my conversations with marie capelka who is traditionally the person who chooses those locations and identifies them she was already ahead of that and thinking about what the alternatives were for those locations and she also felt like she was going to be able to get enough poll workers and of course all that is just presuming that we you know the health situation and the regulatory situation is such that we can have an election on june 6th but for the moment let's assume that that's true but then we've got this second track and this is one that's kind of new to us i mean it's not kind of new it really is new to us which is the remote uh or the the absentee ballot version or the mail-in version depending upon which one you want to call it this is going to be the first election in massachusetts where you don't really have to explain beyond saying COVID-19 why whereas ordinarily you'd have to say oh yeah i'm out of town or i'm unavailable and so we have an opportunity there's a way here that we can really beef up that alternative call it like an alternative way to vote and i do think that the town manager's office is uniquely suited to help us with that what with particularly like jone roman the public information officer and also i think some of the it help and also some of the other office and uh dugheim of course the town council and so i do think it's really appropriate to ask the town manager to in particular um i don't want to limit it to this but in particular to ask the town manager's office to help with what i'm calling the second lane of voting the absentee lane of voting thank you madam chair thank you mr dunn mr carol thank you very much i i think my sentiments are very close to to mr dunns i mean there there are a couple of issues at play here i mean the first the first issue that's been raised is about getting out the word about the election um and i'm recalling back the last week's meeting it's actually you mr dunn who who referred to this as a public private partnership and i think it very much is so um getting the word out that the elections is kind of a public private partnership between the town where we set the election date and we're administering the elections and using those traditional communications channels to to get out the word the media that would be your allington dot com the advocate patch and acmi as well as um advocacy organizations like the league of women voters and lastly it's campaigns and candidates and this is where i think that our linkedin is going to be operating at a at a great advantage because we have such an engaged citizenry that this is the first time i ever remember that there are contested townwide races for every single townwide office not to mention almost every single precinct for town meeting which means those candidates and those campaigns both incumbents and those who are who are seeking office are important partners in this as well in getting the word out it can't all fall on the town we all have to be working together on this the second piece of what we're dealing with though is is as you rightly stated mr dunn it's the administration of the election itself and that's traditionally a partnership within town government between three really three different parts of town government strictly speaking in elections are the purview of the town clerk the voter registrar registrars of voters the select board plays a very important role in selecting staffing and running polling stations and of course we set the date of the election and thirdly the the town manager and manager staff does play a role in a lot of the logistics around elections as far as facilities are concerned as far as details are concerned and and such to make sure we have a smooth running election so that's a partnership so i think madam chair what you alluded to in suggesting that that we asked the town manager to serve kind of as a as a point person to help coordinate between those three parts of the town government as well as that the volunteer advocates like the election modernization committee i think that makes makes sense to have someone who can actually speak across them and come back to us with any recommendations that our board has to take take action on what does make this so different and just to reiterate what mr dunn said is i think the whole mail-in mechanism and option is something very different it's really it's a two-step process where a lot of people most people used to voting in purpose in person and now they have to take two steps they have to you know submit or get their their application for a ballot and receive that ballot and then get that ballot back back to town hall and i think what we all knew when we were looking to to move the election and when the the state legislation was passed that that a public education is going to be important so that people understand that they do have that option available to them so i'm going to be looking for some recommendations on on on how we can creatively and efficiently you know cost effectively make sure that that information and that process is as as smooth as possible within legal legal parameters so i i don't know if you're looking for a motion madam chair to to ask the the manager to serve in that that role for us or from discussions with the town manager that would be appropriate especially around this important issue okay so i would like to i would like to move that that we uh the select board direct the manager to liaise with the the the the clerks office our our board board staff any of any of his staff or other relevant committees to develop a set of recommendations on how we most effectively remove potential barriers to participation for for for residents in the election especially in light of the the early voting that was very long and come back to the board with recommendations for any actions that we must take okay there will only be certain actions i think that we will have to take but but that that would be my motion i know it's a little messily constructed but is there a second mr hard okay uh is that is that mr carol for you all set the only last thing i would say is i i just want to say i i i do agree with what the point that mr harrington raised i understand that there's been some sentiment around cutting the the number of polling places but it does seem to me that that having you can either have more locations or longer hours i don't think the law affords us longer hours or logistically we can do that so having more locations i think will reduce the the contact between folks and that's all i have so thank you madam chair thank you mr herd yeah so just briefly i was going to follow up on what mr harrington said as well is and if we can get to me the number of poll locations is determined by how many poll workers we can get if we can get poll workers the staff all our traditional locations save some that need to be moved i think that's a much safer option because there's a lot less contact individually for the people that are sitting there and it can just get if you put too many people in one place no matter how much controls you put in it's hard to keep it completely safe so i would definitely think as many locations we should have as many locations as we are able to staff with poll workers and then not to reiterate but just on the second aspect of it as far as absentee ballot you know we it's just so important in this election to make sure that ballots are accessible and i think this is what can be part of the charge that we're giving the town manager right now to the a's with the other departments to if there are concerns about absentee ballots in the sense that there are some citizens that can't get absentee ballots based on our current policies i think that needs to be addressed and has to be addressed right away thank you mr decorsi thank you madam chair and uh no i agree with my colleagues and just focusing on the second aspect that that mr dunn identified with the remote voting and you know we this is going to be new it's essentially no excuse absentee voting and so to the extent that we can work with the clerk's office to provide assistance if it's if it's welcome and through our it department to to get links to uh the the application the absentee ballot application is on the clerk's website right now the secretary of state actually has a an early ballot application which is going to serve the same purpose but that that i'm sure will be going up this week and section or chapter 45 um that that allowed us to move the election actually allows for any form of communication expressing a desire to vote to be used in the same manner as a absentee ballot application so so it's really notifying the public and making sure that that people know whether it's the absentee ballot application or it's a a request that that they can obtain the a a ballot um and then on the on the other point just on the notice and again going back to chapter 45 one of things that we can do and and actually was in contained within chapter 45 is providing notice to the public that we have changed the date and we've already done that but that there's more to be done on that and if there are changes in the number of polling locations um we should get that word out and there were a number of i'll call it suggestions in chapter 45 that we can follow and and consider and and actually go beyond those so um i think this is a a good idea and and we'll need to all work together to make sure that the word gets out thank you um and thank you uh oh i'm sorry mr herd mr currow and attorney heim all have their hands raised mr herd yeah just a question for attorney heim based on what's um mr de course he just said under the law can we make it so people can just email a request in to the clerk's office for an absentee ballot so this an adab chairman yes attorney heim thank you so this has been one of the more frustrating pieces of what we've been trying to deal with in terms of a disconnect between uh the special legislation that was passed and the sort of law generally so folks can email a request for an absentee ballot the problem is is that there's supposed to be some kind of signature affixed to it people can email they can fax they can write but under the law and this is on the secretary of state's guidance on the secretary of state's website for folks who want to check it out they're requiring there to be some form of a signature that's i think what a reference was during citizens open forum to a picture being attached to an email they the secretary of state basically is saying that you need to have some way of showing that you've signed this document they're not necessarily saying that you have to fill out the application in the same way for the quote unquote early voting but what's really a mail-in voting ballot but the problem is that functionally speaking you've still got to provide some form of signature which is why i think the assistant clerk has been recommending that people fill out the form and attach it as a pdf but the reality is the law says something that's kind of confusing it says you can communicate in any form but then the secretary of state is also saying you need to have a signature affixed to it in some way and they're not necessarily talking about that slash s electronic signature so it's a little bit it's a little bit tricky to communicate to folks but yes you can email a request but you've got to have some kind of signature attached to that Mr. Hart, I'll say it. Mr. Carol? Yeah just quickly I just remembered that it should be noted we have do have precedent for sending out postcards with with special notifications what when the Stratton school was being renovated and we had to temporarily relocate precincts 13 and 15 down to the to the rink I know that postcards were issued to each of the registered voters within the precinct so that I just put that out there to remind us all that there is some precedent for for methods of notification it's just not the the mechanism for voting thank you you're welcome and I was in the office last week and the framework of that's all been set up including we needed to get a new printer because Chuck and Nancy Pappas have moved on to Florida so that's already ready and ready to go pending the results of this vote. Attorney Hine? Thank you Madam Chair the one other thing that I wanted to note for folks because I think this is is very important the other legal constraint that we're sort of dealing with and trying to get a little bit of either flexibility or clarity on is that folks may remember it wasn't that long ago maybe last year that we sent out some communications that were candidate statements by town meeting members that issue was vetted with the office of campaign and political finance who sort of gave us an okay on it because they were town meeting members and a lot of the ethics and campaign finance laws don't really apply as clearly to town meeting offices as they do to other elected offices the as a general rule the town's not allowed to expend town money in support of a political candidate I understand and I'm very warm to the idea the policy idea behind can we provide some way of letting people know about the candidates for all the various offices that are contested the dilemma is figuring out how much latitude the office of campaign and political finance will give us because as I said they were okay with us sending out these sort of town meeting member candidate statements because that's kind of substantively different than some of these other offices in their eyes these are obviously extraordinary circumstances so that's something that I'm happy to work with the the manager pursuant to your vote the clerk's office and some of the town organizations to try to figure out how we can best support these things in a legal way thank you thank you attorney high and I guess to sort of wrap it up and then sort of recraft the motion to make sure we get it right having the town manager sort of the the leader of a team because we do need a team all the different town offices select board town clerk town manager as well as I'd like to engage amazing Arlington well I would make the suggestion to the town manager to look at amazing Arlington in that campaign that Kelly Lanema and Adam Korovski I think or have started that along with Envision Arlington there are a lot of things that we need to do I think in terms of absentee ballot or if it's called voter mail-in how you can vote by mail how you can vote by person and how we publicize the election I'd like to get it like everyone else would as much information out there as possible any sort of vetting we can do before we actually put an option or options before us to make sure and I don't know how we can't do that on everything but I'm sure we could get somebody that's you know might say I'm kind of computer challenged and we say you know we have an FAQ sheet frequently asked questions what do you think of those and there may be terms of art or certain phrases whether it's technology or other that we might assume because we all know it we've been doing it for so long and again I think that's where we're going to need all the involvement of if it's appropriate if the town manager says through amazing Arlington and the framework that they've set up in each precinct each neighborhood in vision Arlington and and anything else along the way that either any of my colleagues and attorney Heinz part that he's going to play in this so on a motion by Mr. Carol seconded by Mr. Herd to appoint our town manager as liaison to begin to bring together the aforementioned town offices as well as citizen committees is there any further discussion on that Mr. Carol did I get close to what you wanted or did thank you Madam Chair okay many questions or comments if not on a motion by Mr. Carol seconded by Mr. Herd attorney Heim roll call please Mr. DeCorsi yes Mr. Herd yes sorry Mr. Carol yes Mr. Dunn yes Ms. Mahon yes so that's a unanimous vote five zero it's agenda item four we'll now go to agenda item five discussion and vote I asked the town manager when he received the application from Senator Friedman regarding the resulting legislation that's currently come out there'll be more coming in the future that the board have a discussion and vote on any of the possible forms of relief that we want to avail ourselves of before I turn it over to Mr. Chaplain I am did have a brief conversation with Mr. DeCorsi would this be an appropriate time for you to speak Mr. DeCorsi well thank you Madam Chair I think maybe maybe more appropriate to hear from the town manager first and then offer some comments okay so I got Mr. DeCorsi first so with that turn it over to our town manager Mr. Chaplain thank you Madam Chair so so as you said this was a municipal relief bill that was championed by some of our local legislators here Senator Friedman representatives Garber Lee and Rogers as well as championed by the governor signed I think maybe just about a week ago maybe a little more than a week ago now provides really wide sweeping relief for municipal government ranging from town meeting postponement powers being expanded for the town moderator budgetary flexibility being provided to cities and towns as well as what we want to talk about tonight the ability to push back certain tax payment dates as well as the ability to waive penalties and interest for certain payments due to the town there may come a time in the next few months where we want to come back and talk about certain parts of the budgetary flexibility that this relief bill has granted I think it's pretty mature for us to talk about those things now if we are able to conduct a town meeting before June 30th and put a budget in place much of those pieces of flexibility will not be needed if we are not able to conduct a town meeting before June 30th we may need to come back and revisit some areas and I think it's just too soon for us to be able to know to know about those matters today however we do want to want to recommend certain areas of relief in terms of tax payment dates and certain penalties and interest so this was this was put together by deputy town manager sandy pooler in consultation with treasurer collector phyllis marshal they're both available on the call tonight with the chair's discretion I would ask sandy to talk about the recommendations that he's made and then potentially answer any questions that the board might have and respond to mr decorsi's comments as well certainly um we could have our deputy town manager mr pooler can you hear me now yes very good thank you so as adam mentioned there is a comprehensive bill that provided relief on any areas sections 10 and 11 of the bill are what we're going to talk about tonight section 10 allows us to change the due date for our fourth quarter property tax bills make that due date June 1st and recommend that the and request that the board go ahead and approve that this would give people a little time to get their tax payments made and I think a reasonable amount of time so that we will still get our payments in and the f y 20 20 section 11 uh holds uh basically the waiver of payment of interest or other penalties in the event the late payment of a whole array of different uh payments including excise tax generally assessments water rate or annual sewer rate charges uh that that may appear um we are recommending that um board go ahead and approve this section as it applies to water and sewer bills so that those would be due on uh essentially June 29th um we are not recommending at this time although we're certainly happy to discuss extending the due date for the tax bills or the excise bills to a later date mostly because of cash flow issues uh make sure that we get enough revenue in before the end of the um and I think to some extent to the fairness to people who have already paid their bills uh that is uh those are our recommendations and I'd be happy to answer any questions okay thank you and I know we have our treasurer I believe we have our treasurer collector um Ms. Marshall um if if you're available just I assume naturally since it's a zero recommendation along with Mr. Cooler whatever needs to be done out of the treasurer's office remotely you sort of started to ponder that yes we've been discussing that and we've been looking to uh continue to keep things operational but we're working on how those matters can be addressed and how we can meet our needs okay thank you um uh turni hind did you have anything you wanted to add before I go to my colleagues or any advice no I think you guys have the recommendations of the treasurer and the deputy town manager as well as the town manager and um I just note that the legislation is fairly broadly written in terms of its terms and I think it forwards a little bit of flexibility in terms of the items that are being recommended uh and the items that are not thank you and if I could just ask attorney hind one question before I turn it over to my colleagues um if the board chooses to make motions either on these two matters or one two or more other matters could should it be one motion or should it be separate motions uh these are thank you madam chair these are technically different sections of the same legislation I I would recommend two motions with respect to um basically tax bills versus um any uh waiver of penalties of interest so I would separate into those two camps and if there's a third would it be a third step along like sorry attorney hind thank you madam chair so yeah the the sort of the the end of the end due date for different bills versus the penalties and interest that is how I would separate them my recommendation but I'll leave it obviously to the board's discretion thank you I'll stop taking a list but I'd like to start off with mr. decorcy thank you madam chair and um thank you to mr. pooler and this miss marshal for the for the memorandum and the explanation there I'm going to make a motion and then I have a couple of comments and in uh following attorney hind's recommendation I want to break it up into to two motions the first motion um being pursuant to section 10 of chapter 53 of the acts of 2020 that we vote to extend the fourth quarter payment deadline for real estate and personal property taxes from may 1 until june 1st and then for purposes of the exemption application filing deadline um that we extend that from april 1st to june 1st and that's for purposes of chapter 59 sections chapter 59 section 59 and those are personal exemptions that the deadline actual is april 1 but by extending it people who may have missed that deadline can tell themselves of that and there is a complete list on the assessor's website of what those tax exemption programs are so I encourage people to take a look at that um the second piece is under section 11 of chapter 53 I move that we um vote to to waive penalties and interest for the late payment of water and charges for those payments that would do on or after march 10 2020 through june 30th um so that make the two motions if there's a second I have a couple of comments second okay seconded by Mr. Hurd um we're going to do that separately so uh I'm going to take that on your first motion regarding section 10 chapter 53 of the acts of 2020 there's a motion by Mr. DeCorsi seconded by Mr. Hurd uh Mr. DeCorsi on the first part of your first motion yeah so so in the first part of the motion is you know we we have a fourth quarter tax payment deadline coming up and this just allows people an extra month on that through june 1st consistent with the legislation and then the other one was on the exemptions um my comments are really related to the second half so I'll hold off on you talking further until the uh goes around the board okay Mr. Hurd yeah so I definitely support moving the due date to june 1st particularly since you know probably the bulk of residents that pay their property taxes separately are elderly elderly residents and this will relieve the burden on them a little bit in doing so um question I don't know Madam Chair who this would be addressed to but do we have an idea whether or not mortgage companies who ask for taxes for for homeowners are still going to pay on May 1st or if this would if we pass this if they would defer that to june 1st attorney high oh I think either sandy or phyllis could answer answer this this is one of the main uh point of consideration they gave in making this recommendation so I between sandy and phyllis I think they can answer pretty well okay mr pooler thank you Madam Chair um we've already received a an email from the largest mortgage company payer asking if we are going to postpone the dates either to june 1st or to the end of june so we think that there's a large chance that the mortgage companies will delay payment but I think that would most affect them in other words they'll sit on the money until they pay it to us and not be a benefit to the homeowners so that was one of our concerns one of the reasons we recommended yes on 10 because it seems fair but extending it farther we didn't think necessarily it was going to help a lot of people and um miss marshall is that something you concur or agree with and or anything else you'd like to add to that uh madam chair we uh we did discuss that and we have had a couple of contacts from mortgage company uh escrow companies excuse me and looking to get that information I believe they sent that sent those emails to maybe all of the towns and and we did have that concern that sandy outlined mr pooler thank you uh mr herb that satisfied yeah I you know I guess that makes sense especially in light of the federal legislation regarding deferment mortgage payments to allow the same courtesy to the to the lending institutions but it's not I mean as long as I'm sure miss marshall and miss pooler would have made the recommendation if we're going to run out of money by june 1st so you know I'm good okay mr dunne uh I support the motion no additional comment mr carol uh no additional comment I support put the motion thank you okay um a motion by mr decorcy seconded by mr herd to adopt section 10 chapter 53 the acts of 2020 um as well as uh state the filing deadline shall be postponed from April 1st to june 1st um for the purposes of section 59 of chapter 59 um any further question or comment if not roll call attorney hind mr decorcy yes mr herd yes mr curel yes mr dunne yes mr mahan yes the animus vote on uh the aforementioned section 10 um motion we now have first we have a motion made by um mr decorcy to waive the penalties and interests uh for water and sewer charges with those charges for payments that were due on or after march 10th 2020 first there's a motion by mr decorcy um do we have a second second by mr actually I think mr herd already seconded 30 we did the first one okay second our okay sorry I probably should have done it that way also first uh mr decorcy did I encapsulate correctly your motion and then any other comments yes thank you madam chair just a couple quick comments and again going back to the to the memorandum I think it makes good sense to limit this waiver at this point to the water and sewer charges however I am concerned that there are people who are going to have difficulties even with the june 1 date and bearing in mind that we want to make sure that we can pay the town's bills for the month of june um this may be something just speaking for myself that that maybe we could revisit depending on what the payment levels it look like as of june 1 or or shortly thereafter the other thing I want to point out just for the public this waiver applies provided the payment is made by june 30th if you don't make the payment by june 30th actually the waiver goes away so it's a it's a it's an additional 30 day waiver for water and sewer but it the amounts have to be paid during the month in order to take advantage of that waiver okay thank you um mr carol uh no no additional comment thank you mr dad um no additional comment I'm happy to support the motion mr herd nothing further I support the motion okay um I also agree that we may need to revisit this june 1 as well as I'm sure either myself mr chapter lane or mr dunn under new business will speak to new cdbg news that we've received besides the initial allocation that the subcommittee met and with the town manager and planning director and the citizens on the committee presented a plan that will be no later than may 15th on a select board agenda but also I had contacted jenny and adam initially when I got some information from hud about what the federal cares act stimulus package would mean for allington cdbg because that meant another influx of funds and it's I think a pretty substantial amount that I'm certainly happy to get but can't speak any further into that until the cdbg subcommittee meet so perhaps um that's something cdbg subcommittee discusses um because there have been a little bit of changes in terms of the formula and how you can apply it so on a uh an attorney heim or mr chapter lane anything else you would like us to add you would like to add no okay on a motion by mr decorcy seconded by mr curell to uh waive the penalty and interest for water and sewer charges for those payments due on or about after march 30th 2020 any further comments or questions if not uh attorney heim roll call mr decorcy yes mr herd yes to curel yes mr dunn yes mr hawn yes and uh with that I would in the spirit of mr decorcy's um in my other colleagues remarks uh I'll continue to work with mr chapter lane about um other parts of uh this legislation that came out that needs to be addressed or readdressed at a future meeting in the interim that I am I am still chair um because um come june first as my colleagues have said there may things be things we want to visit or revisit um depending on how things are proceeding to launch so I'll make sure along with uh town council and the town manager that we when we have our thursday morning conversation we'll bring it up do we need to bring some of this back again and then we'll determine from there is that appropriate mr chapter lane yes absolutely thank you okay we will that's agenda item five we now we'll go to agenda item six approval letter of support for all america road designation from the federal highway administration's national scenic byways program our town manager mr chapter lane thank you madam chair uh this is uh simply a letter of support for the board that we're asking for the board to consider signing uh we're not or frankly asking the board to be part of nominating the battle road scenic byway for the all america road designation so as the letter outlines the scenic byway uh which runs through several communities was uh designated a scenic byway in 2006 and now there's an opportunity for the battle road scenic byway to be designated as an all america road and this is request has come from the scenic byway committee drafted by the economic development coordinator and we're looking for the board's support in uh approving this letter uh first driver motion to approve by approval is there a second by second mr done any further mr caro any further comment i'll just say i think that once um once all the social distancing measures lift there's gonna be a lot of people looking to take road trips so i'm happy to be in the list and come through island thank you uh mr don any further comments question no thanks mr decorcy uh no no further comment and mr herd how far the comments um really excited by this uh started many years ago along with uh my then colleague who became our colleague again um miss roe um when we first started going to these joint meetings with lexington and bedford and conquered and ollington and getting everything designated and i remember we were at a meeting one time and i commented uh to uh a woman from the lexington representation i said i really like that you have maroon as your colors up here in terms of their design and she turned to me and said oh my dear that's burgundy not maroon so floris and i had a lot of fun from that meeting on uh so this really is an important designation and when we can all get out the road trip is no longer you know going to the front of the post office to put your mail in that secure thing that's a big thing for me um if no further question or comments on our emotions move to approve by mr carol second and by mr don attorney heim roll call mr decorcy yes mr herd yes it's a cure yes you're done yes miss mahan yes and that my friends is a unanimous vote um we now go to agenda item six is closed we go to agenda item seven discussion may 2020 um board meetings um wanted to just do may um i'll speak personally i think the june 6 election day is in my mind still kind of fluid uh so i figured we'd do this uh month at a time i know people i've got several emails why we weren't going a little bit further than that and i see the pros and cons but i'd like to um with my colleagues approval just do may for right now unless one of my colleagues thinks we should go beyond um so our next meeting would be April 27th and we don't have to necessarily do this on a monday night um we do have memorial day uh the 25th so um would someone like to throw out two dates are sure we sat with four and 18 that seems the most natural how does everybody look for may 4th monday may 4th mr done uh i i don't have anything on my calendar at this point for any of these days because i have the obvious reasons um the only thing i'm thinking about is and i don't think we're probably ready necessarily ready for tonight it's just uh we probably still have a handful of town meeting article hearings left to do and uh figuring out how to get those in may be the hard part right um i know a lot of words to say any day is good for me okay all right and um we have uh cdbg the regular the regular allocation cdbg public meeting we need to have by may 15th and then we'll have this subsequent um federal cares act cdbg funding um which i assume would have on the same night so um i'll guess i'll go forward with right now i'm hearing from mr done and then i'll check lastly with mr chapter lane um may 4th and may 18th work for you um mr currow they're fine thank you mr herd both dates work for me mr decorcy both dates are fine and um our town manager mr chapter lane uh those two dates fine or do you want to suggest something else or those two dates work for me okay all right so um and what what we have left sort of on the on the platter to clean up is the cdbg public hearing and the five um resolutions um proposed by miss thorton who i know is first in zoom so um i'll endeavor to perhaps we can do it all in one night perhaps we'll split it up so so next regular scheduled virtual board meetings are may 4th and may 18th and we don't necessarily need a vote for that so we will now go to new business attorney hind i just want to um echo a lot of the comments that other folks have made uh thanking uh the folks who are working so hard in the health department uh our first responders um i also want to thank uh my workers compensation staff who are responsible for line of duty claims and have been doing a terrific job of trying to stay on top of things to make sure that any of our injured workers are still getting paid and that payroll is coming it keeps going through so thank you thank you our town manager mr chapter lane hi thank you madam chair just building on what you mentioned earlier uh there is from the the federal stimulus bill or federal bill that was passed several weeks ago a pretty significant influx of additional cdbg money in the town will be receiving uh approximately six hundred thousand dollars to help us in the response to this crisis so we will be meeting with the cdbg subcommittee on wednesday morning at 10 a.m recommendations of that committee of course will be brought back before this board but um just wanted to build on your comments from earlier and that's all i have thank you mr decorcy thank you madam chair just briefly uh you know and echo comments made earlier thanking our health department our first responders and thanking health care workers in general for all the work that they're doing during this crisis and and i i heard a quote a couple weeks ago governor kawomo was actually quoting president roosevelt and i had a couple discussions of the weekend one with a health care worker one with police officer and and uh just maybe think of the the the courage that they've all shown through this i'm going to leave you with a quote and the quote from president roosevelt is courage is not the absence of fear but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear i think it really sums up what uh what do all these these workers and first responders are doing and i want to thank them for that thank you mr decorcy mr dunne uh thank you madam chair and no new business mr herd i'm trying to remember where will you normally sit mr herd yep just again to reiterate to thank everyone that's been working so hard to keep people safe and just to remind people that a lot of our restaurant establishments are still working hard to provide takeout and delivery services we've been using a number of them and they've been really doing a great job to continue to provide food services throughout the town but in itself healthy and safe way so continue to patronize our businesses mr kiro thank you madam chair um sort of just remind everyone that you know this weekend we won't have the marathon we won't have the red socks we won't have the patriot's day parade or the reenactment or the visits by uh paul revere and william does but um you know we do have a lot of people as as all my colleagues have noted who are um working hard to defend our community against this this new threat um right now um i think you all know that um my brother is a first responder in another community and he did test positive as did others who work directly with him drove home to me he's he's doing fine now but it drove home to me just the real very real risk that our first responders and our grocery workers and our health care workers are taking it's real so thank you to them and thank you to all of the residents who really are working hard to follow the social distancing guidelines and to to keep others safe we're going to get through this but we need to all row together here so thank you very much thank you and uh for myself um again the influx under the federal cares act of cdbg money um i anticipate we'll have conversations around uh the guidelines that not have been relaxed but that we have to follow in terms of assistance to low-income renters and businesses um here in ollington that really uh are definitely everybody's hurting um but um there's been a a lot of issues and a lot of relief put in there and i think with this influx of money perhaps that can also happen as well as the um we got noticed that um which i had a feeling that our cdb subcommittee meeting this would be the case the solar panels um that has been canceled as well as some reprogramming funds and i know that mr dunn and i were in the subcommittee um there was conversation around ollington eats so i'm going to endeavor um to i think that would be an appropriate discussion for a possible use uh the only other thing two things i would do is first um i do want to thank acmi jeff munro and shon keen um who have been going through this process with not only with the select board meeting but with other other meetings school committee meetings as well as their involvement in our unusual possibly june 6 election i know they have candidate profiles if you go on to acmi's website you go on to the government on demand feature there's individual candidate profiles they've done um some debates we'll have debates for all the town offices um that the candidates agree to um and and thank you for uh people have said that the select board's doing a great job with these virtual meetings and um i think acmi's is number one leader partner making us uh get the information out in in really good semblance of order the other thing besides thanking all of our first responders um i would say to everybody at home you know if you if you can think of those first responders who really are out there and playing against the odds and having to have i mean when i say myself and my colleagues and the manager and town council are staying at home um and practicing social distancing but we're doing that um because especially for our loved ones and our friends but also for for the citizens the residents and our town employees who um basically put themselves and more importantly to them their families at risk um going out doing their job keeping us safe and making sure this um this town runs uh efficiently and safely so and to that end um i have my way the bike path would have been closed a couple weeks ago because it's i don't know how any part of the town fitness program a lot of our public works police fire employees that used to be part of their training whether cardio or bicycling and um i haven't been out there but i've heard story when i've gone to the popular crossroads um whether it's going through the center or certain parts of the bike path at east allington and the heights um i do not see social distancing out there and the town manager and the director of health and human services are really monitoring this very well and i put something out this weekend please pay attention and follow the advisory if you must use the um bike path please social distancing recommendation of the masks um allington we're not doing a great job on that you know if you don't necessarily have to exercise on the bike path you can walk around your block or two or three blocks um but i my personal opinion is if the use especially when the nights of weather comes the town manager and his leadership meetings honest to goodness discusses the same thing every morning that they discuss the morning before the morning before the only thing being different is something new um and um i'm not saying an action will it will not be taken but um i can kind of see the handwriting on the wall so if we don't change our behavior stop throwing your gloves and masks in parking lots and the gutters i just don't understand that and honest to goodness we're all it's tough for me as not only the politician but the cheerleader in me that wants to get out to events and cheer people on um but you really must listen to the guidance from the town and with this warm of weather um you're going to have to work three times as hard to do that so with that um our next scheduled meeting it's uh monday april 27th 2020 with that i'll take a motion to adjourn by mr dunne i move the way adjourn is there a second by mr kiro second on a motion by mr dunne to adjourn seconded by mr kiro roll call attorney hind mr the course yes mr herd yes it's a curel yes mr dunne yes mr mahan yes good night hollyton