 All right, joining us this evening on piano, please rise. You have Eric Helmuth. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth, for that rousing and rendition. All right, tonight we're at a special time meeting, so I'm going to ask that only reports and announcements having to do with the meeting be presented, that we not have the usual, thank you, that we not have the usual everybody and their brother getting up, just anything having to do with the meeting only. Turn your cell phones on to vibrate, please. In your packet that you received, you got a letter from Ms. Luccarelli. Remember last spring, we authorized electronic distribution of town meeting materials, your notices, and all of this stuff that the select may well kind enough to send to us. We'll be able to send it all to you electronically. But to do that, you have to fill out that piece of paper that came in your mail and get it back to Stephanie. You could hand it to Ms. Weber in the back. And I think she has extras if you want to pick one up and fill it out if you haven't done it. It also asks for your email address and phone number. And if you want to have that public or private, and is the opt inbox. So if you want to do it, fill that out and check it in. But fill this out anyways, so I'm going to give mine now. I did it. OK, I have no other remarks. Any town meeting members have yet to be sworn in? Good. I recognize the chairman of the Board of Selectment, Ms. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. It is requested that members of the Board of Selectment and elected officials of the town, town manager, department heads of the town and staff, superintendents of school and staff, committees, commissions, and boards of town, Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School District Committee, and superintendent, members of the general court representing Arlington, and also any consultants who have been retained to work for the town relative to articles to be acted on by this meeting. Representatives of interested parties of Article 1 and special representatives of the news media be permitted to sit within the special town meeting enclosure. All in favor of that, please say yes. All opposed? Hearing none. A few clickers by now. We're going to do a test vote. Tim, his last name I forgot. Not now. I hope that's not a voting. One second. All right, I'll do the consulable's return. Madam Clerk, do you have reason to believe that this meeting was appropriately called by the Board of Selectment and that the consulable made a return of service on the warrant in accordance with the laws? She does so certifying to clear. Ms. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. It is moved that if all the business of the meeting is set forth in the warrant for the special town meeting is not disposed of at this session when the meeting adjourns. It adjourns to Monday, October 24th, 2016, at 8 p.m. Second. All in favor, please say yes. Yeah. Opposed? Okay, that means you want to finish tonight, which we probably can if we work at it and don't talk a lot. All right, you ready yet, Tim? Not yet. Okay. Announcements and resolutions? Ah, none, what do you know? Oh, you got one, Adam? Adam Chaps lane town manager. I just wanted to take the opportunity to introduce the new assistant town manager, Jim Feeney, who's here with us tonight. Jim, used to work. Stand up, take a bow. Some of you may know Jim from his work at the board of health for a number of years before coming over into this role, so we're very happy to have him on board and glad he's here. Thanks. Thank you. Article one, reports of committees. Called that all reports of committees be received. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I move that the board of selectments report be received. All in favor? It is so received. Mr. Foskett. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I move that the report of the finance committee be received. All in favor, please say yes. Opposed? It is so received. Mr. Irvick. Mr. Moderator, I move that the report of the capital planning committee be received. All in favor? All in favor. Opposed? It is so received. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Andrew Bonnell, chair of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. I move that the report of the Arlington Redevelopment Board be received. All in favor? Opposed? None? So received. Yes. I move that the report of the Community Preservation Committee be received. All in favor? Any other reports of committees? Mr. Foskett. Mr. Moderator, I move that the recommended votes contained in the respective reports of the finance committee and the board of selectments be before the meeting without further motion. All in favor, please say yes. All opposed? All those recommended votes are now before the meeting without further motion. Are you ready now, Tim? Okay. Get your clickers out. The test question is, is Hong Kong the world's noisiest city? One for yes, two for no. Go ahead and vote as soon as the light goes on. Go ahead and vote. One for yes, two for no. The answer is yes. Yeah. Okay. He's gonna scroll through the screens, check your clicker, make sure you were right. There are three precincts per screen. Mr. Foskett, you lay article one upon the table, please. Put the article one on the table. Mr. Moderator, move that article one be put on the table. All in favor of laying article one upon the table, please say yes. All opposed, say no. Article one is on the table. That brings us to article two. We have the article two recommended vote of the finance committee for no action. All in favor of no action, please say yes. All opposed, say no. If the recommended vote no action, I so declare. That brings us to article three. Mr. Carmen. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Dean Carmen, precinct 20, and a member of the finance committee. Tell me the members. Article three, I'll put the recommended vote up here and I'll read it. That the sum of $4 million being hereby is appropriated to fund expansion of the Thompson School and for cost incidental and related there too. And with the approval of the Board of Selectment, the treasurer is authorized to borrow $4 million under and pursuant to Chapter 44, Section 7 of the general laws as amended, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we're good enough. So what are we doing? So tonight, what we're requesting is that the town meeting approves an approp- a borrowing appropriation of $4 million to fund the addition on the Thompson School. So I think the first question people might have is, didn't we already do this? We had a debt exclusion vote. You know, isn't this done? And so what I put in the slides behind me was just was an explanation. And that is a debt exclusion vote is not an appropriation. It's an authorization to spend money outside of the limits of prop two and a half. So in June, when we went to the ballot and we voted to support this project, we voted to identify a funding source. Now we're coming back to town meeting to actually appropriate the money because no matter what the debt exclusion says, no matter what an operating override says, town meeting, you guys, are the sole authority to appropriate money. So where do we currently stand? So when I was up here, when we were up here in January, 2016, we were back in May. We were talking about school enrollment. We were talking about the growth of school children and how the kindergarten cohorts are coming in at a much greater number than the fifth grade cohorts are leaving. That trend is continuing. If you look at the slide behind us, what I have is three different points in time five years ago. Enrollment five years ago at Thompson. Enrollment projections in Thompson as of August and what we expect to be the Thompson enrollment in five years. And what you see is the trend that we've been consistently talking about that the smaller cohorts are leaving Thompson. These larger, I mean, really massive cohorts are showing up. Also in the spring, one of the things we had mentioned was even though we were going out for the debt exclusion, even though we were asking you to support it, we weren't gonna move on it until we had validation that the kindergarten class that was entering Thompson was gonna be a large class. And the projection in August was 90, the enrollment in August was 94 students. I know it has some volatility, so let's just say for the sake of discussion, it's above 80. And that trend is going to continue. So I'm assuming, you know, when I put this presentation together, I started to think about the different questions that were being asked. And the first thing I thought about was, well, I'm asking you to support an up-bond authorization of $4 million, but what's the project actually going to come in at? The good news I have for you is we've gone out, the town is done bidding. They have two bids right now. One's for about $3.8 million, as you can see behind me. The other one's for a smidge over $4 million. So under the procurement laws, you go with the lowest bidder unless there's a quantitative or qualitative reason to which you just qualify them, then you go to the second bidder. Under either scenario, I mean, the project is looking like it will, you know, it will come in on budget. Modular classrooms. You know, again, anticipating questions, I forget I talked for a moment about modulus. Does everyone probably remembers in January, 2016, the finance committee asked you to endorse the funding of two modular classrooms at Thompson to provide a temporary stop gap for the enrollment crunch. But this time last year, they were one classroom short of what they needed. And so the modular, I haven't seen them, I have to be honest. They live on the west side of town. Rarely ever cross over Pleasant Street. I'm being told the modules are there. They're in use. They're being used. They've alleviated this year's enrollment pressure. So they brought the capacity of the school from 19 classrooms to 21 classrooms. The challenge, though, when I go back to slides is we're projecting that the classroom, that the Thompson is going to need 24 classrooms when it reach peak enrollment. And so while 21, the two classrooms and modules give you a one-year stop gap, it doesn't stop what's going to happen next year and the year after and the year after. So rather than just spending a whole bunch of money on modular classrooms that get you nothing in the end, the plan currently is to put the addition on, which will give us five classrooms in a course space, make it permanent, get through the enrollment, take the modules out of there when the building's online. And do both what's best for the children academically and programmatically and also what's fiscally the most responsible path. Additionally, when you look in your vote, you're going to see this paragraph at the, you'll see this section at the bottom of it. Anybody that's been in town meeting, I was assuming they were going to look at this and say, what the heck does this mean? So rather than Mr. Leonard coming up here and beating me up and making me feel dumb, I figured I'd just explain it up front. And so what's going on is the Municipal Modernization Act, as some of you saw, was passed over the summer. It had some really good changes to the Missville Finance Law that make things more efficient. And this is one of them. Previously, what would happen is, if we would do a bond offering and we would receive a premium for our bond because of the delta between our stated rate of interest and the market rate of interest, let's say in this case we put the bonds out there for 4 million and we got 4.2 million back in bond premiums. We would have to take that $200,000, bring it back into what's essentially a reserve account and amortize it into free cash over the life of the bonds. Really not a great fiscal thing to do because you've asked the taxpayer, the taxpayer's raised 4.2 million on the debt exclusion and it's being amortized back into free cash. What this legislation allows us to do is if we end up in a scenario where there's a bond premium, when we go out to the market to lend that same hypothetical scenario, we ask for 4 million from the market, we get 4.2 million, that $200,000 can be used immediately, not immediately, but it can be used as debt service to just relieve the bond obligation and bring it back down to 4 million. It's a good thing for the taxpayer. So we ask you to support the finance committee's recommended vote. Obviously, if you have any nice things to say, I'll be over to the side. If you have any not nice things to say, Adam's right behind me. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Karman. Anyone else? We have a stowa over here first. Christian, Mr. Klein. Oh, you don't want to talk. You got your hand up. Oh, right behind you. I am Gary Tibbets from Precinct Five and I'm a very close neighbor to Thompson School. And I don't have kids in school anymore, but I definitely will support this article. Educating the kids is the most important thing we do. But I want to be upfront. I went to a lot of meetings about this and I talked to one member of the school committee. You know, I told her, I don't see how you people didn't see we needed this back when we were building the school. And she told me that, well, they kind of did, but in 08 and 09 when the decisions were made, we were entering a recession and they didn't feel comfortable asking the voters for more money. As I said to her, I would have much rather you hit us for another million or a million and a half then than four or five million now. And the other thing about it is doing this now, it puts a very active construction site next to one of the busiest grammar schools in the town. And it's dangerous. Accidents happen on construction sites. So I want the school committee and the administration to be positive that this is the size school we need and that everything is right about it. And secondly, you know, I bump into a lot of the neighbors and the parents in precinct five and I feel where I have this position, you know, they talk to me about things. And one of the issues is the traffic around Thompson School. It's gotten horrendous. There's more kids, more parents dropping them off. And the other issue is there's a new thing on GPS. I think it's called wave where it directs you around red lights and stuff. Well, there's a lot of out of town traffic must come down 93 to 16 to River Street and take a left on University Road, which just happens to be my street. And it's right around the time all the kids are coming. I watched the police lady almost get nailed three or four times when I'm walking my dog and all of them have a GPS on and no kids in the car. So they're just using it to beat the light at River Street. So I've talked to the town manager. This relates to Thompson, how? Yes, it does. Okay. I've talked to the town manager and the police department and I've asked, especially with the construction coming up and we're gonna be adding all the construction vehicles and that traffic that there'd be a no left turn sign put at University Road and a stop sign at the end of it to slow this down because it's getting dangerous and with this construction, that's how it relates. Going forward, I'd like to see the school committee and the school administration look more into some of the corporate grants that are available for public education. Our neighboring towns do this on a regular basis. I looked into this with Bill Hayner who was very helpful. We really can't see anywhere that the town of Allington looks for these grants. Our neighboring towns are getting them. Gary, that's a little far afield of the bonding for the Thompson. Okay. You're talking about school budgets. Okay, we'll let it go then. The other issue with the funding for the school is when the building is done, I would like the town and the officials to look it over and make sure it's right and if it's not right, call the contractor on it then and get it fixed because so many times I've sat in this room since I've had this position and had people come to me and tell me they needed a couple hundred thousand for this or half a million for that, they tell us that because something wasn't right from the get go with the bracket school, the police station or whatever. The town of Allington with these contracts has the contract is by a completion bond. So even a year later, you can chase them down if they're out of business. The insurance company goes against them and I just think that that's something we should follow through on more and I'd like to see the administration follow through on that. Okay, thank you and again I do support it. Mr. Roster. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I'm Adam Roster from Precinct Three and I fully intend to vote for this but I think this is a good opportunity for us and for the whole town to hear how it sort of came to pass that we are in the situation of just a few years after finishing the school having to make significant changes to it. I've heard things, I've never really heard the full story and we've got on our plate, we've got renovations to the high school, we've got the Minuteman renovation that we, or excuse me, rebuild that we just approved and I'd like to hear what lessons we've learned if any and how we can be sure that we won't make this kind of mistake again and I'll just sit down. Mr. Schlichman, as a school committee person, can you tell us how we got a school that's not being enough? Paul Schlichman, Precinct Nine. When you go to build a new school, you have to go before the MSBA and part of the negotiation is the size of the school and you have to justify the size of the school based on a projected enrollment and we haggled with the state for a considerable time on the size of the enrollment and came to agreement the number. Now remember this is going on around 2008, 2009 at the time that we were in a deep recession and the bottom was falling out of the real estate market. When I came back on the school committee in 2012, we were in the process of finishing up our redistricting which was mandated by the state. They were concerned we didn't have enough kids in the Thompson district to fill the school so when we went into the redistricting in 2012, we were adding territory into buffer zones to put more kids eligible to go toward the Thompson School. 2012, the bulge and enrollment is recent. There's a demographic change to East Arlington in particular, my building as well. I live in a 47 unit condo building which never had kids. Now I'm tripping over baby carriages. We have a new generation of millennials who don't want the house in the suburbs. They don't want the two acre zoning. They don't want the commute. They are willing to live in smaller quarters in a dense urban community in order to have the amenities. And that's the demographic trend we are seeing and the reason why particularly in East Arlington we're having an expansion of the number of kids that we did not see in 2008 to 2010 when we were negotiating with the state for a new Thompson School. Thank you. Thank you. Can I answer your question, sir? Yeah, thank you. Ms. Memen? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I'm Marina Memen from Precinct 21. I'm also in support of this article. I think, however, since there's a 200,000 that is possibly a spare, I know the architect is found from Cambridge. I saw that the project is supposed to be started November 1st. However, I have not heard anything about energy efficiency and that is a concern to me. I know we do have an energy manager that we share with another town and we have a lots of projects going on but I have not heard that anything for this school as well as for the high schools or for even for the other projects that were undertaking like Jason Russell House and the Schwab Mill. I was wondering, could that be addressed? Did somebody discuss that in the meetings? Mr. Carmen, you're gonna build us an energy efficient building? Adam's gonna answer it. Adam Chapter Lane, town manager. So town bylaw requires that all building, large building renovations and reconstructions are built to a lead silver standard. So the town has already put in place a requirement for us to build sustainable buildings. The Thompson building, the original Thompson building was certified as a mass chips verified leader. That's the lead silver equivalent that the MSBA was recognizing at the time of that construction. It's my understanding that this addition can't in and of itself receive an extension of that mass chips verified leader certification or its own. It has been designed to match up all of the specifications and the use of all the sustainable materials that were included in the original construction. I understand the lead, the measure. I think that relates to insulation. It's not the energy sources. Am I correct on that? No, lead goes across the board from the water usage, use of materials, recycling materials that you're taking out of the site, possible renewable energy, access to bus routes, bike racks, lead goes from. But we're not talking anything about solar wind, geothermal or anything that's energy efficient boilers or anything. So there's solar on the Thompson right now? Okay. I don't know that we don't have plans to extend it to this new roof, but we would certainly consider it if it was appropriate. Okay, thank you for answering my question. Thank you, Mr. McCabe. Mark McCabe, Precision Two. I stand to terminate debate on Article Three and all matters before it. We got a motion to terminate debate. It's been seconded. All in favor, please say yes. All opposed? It's a two thirds vote and I so declare if it's bonding we're gonna use our clickers. All in favor of the recommended vote of the finance committee is printed in your report for bonding please press one for yes and two for no as soon as Tim gives us the green light. Okay, go ahead vote one for yes, two for no. One to vote, issue the bonds, two you don't want to. It passes by a vote of 193 in affirmative five and the negative and I so declare it, the bond passes. 193, that ends Article Three and brings us to Article Four. Ms. Rowe, appropriation CPA for the Jason Russell House. Yes, thank you. And I've talked to the town moderator and I ask- Ms. Rowe has the floor please. I'm Clarissa Rowe, Precinct Four. I'd like to talk about both properties. We're coming to you tonight to ask for $55,000 for two properties, $35,000 for the Jason Russell House and $20,000 for the Old Schwab Mill. I'm very lucky to have my very excellent committee here and then we also have a number of the board of directors from the Old Schwab Mill and also from Jason Russell House if you have detailed questions. The reason we have not brought these two very worthy projects to you in the past is because historic preservation projects need a lot more paperwork to go with them to get CPA funds. And we have been working over the summer, Doug Hyam has been working and another outside council have been working to get these agreements and their agreements with the town and the two nonprofits, excuse me, and also a historic preservation restriction for both properties that have to be executed. And then we also have to document which we have done the public use of both the Old Schwab Mill which has a wonderful museum and still ongoing frame making and a wonderful gallery and Jason Russell House as we know is one of the biggest, most important revolutionary war sites in this part of the country. And they are always opening their lawn and their house to any time town meeting wants to come. And the exact details of this is in this report and you're seeing the pictures behind me that show the Jason Russell House deterioration and we're paying for an engineering study and some of the restoration work. And the Old Schwab Mill we're paying for a roof on a very important outbuilding that and it's because it's historic preservation that has to be done with wooden shakes and done exactly correctly. I'm here tonight as are the Old Schwab Mill and the Jason Russell House people to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. If you have any questions about Article 4 or 5 now is the time to raise them because when we're done we're gonna vote 4 and then a rapid succession vote 5. Okay, Mr. Tremblay, you're next. Thank you, Ms. Rowe. Hey, Tremblay, Precinct 19. Just out of curiosity, Mr. Moderator, do we know how big the roof is on the Schwab Mill barn? Ms. Rowe, do you have any idea? Could one of you tell me how big the roof is? A thousand square feet? A thousand square feet. So that's 10 squares, $20,000 for 10 squares. That's a lot of money. It is, it's a wooden roof. So are you gonna be sending people up to oil it? Because wood roofs require a lot of maintenance. They do require a lot of maintenance. There's a reason we quit using them a couple hundred years ago. The thing about this is that we have to restore these historic resources to the Department of Interior Standards. And as the Jason Russell House people know, they would love to use a fiberglass gutter. But the historic resources people of the Mass Historic Commission and our own Historic District Commission would not allow fiberglass gutters. Of course they're gonna work better. We know that. We're practical human beings, but we're restoring historic resources, not trying to make them last forever. If we were trying to get them to last forever, we would be having an asphalt roof. What is it? Isn't that sort of the purpose of historic preservation is to get it to last? Yes, with certain materials. You know, I just came back from Italy where the houses there were built in 1100 or 1400 and they're still in good shape. But you know, something the Italians don't seem to mind using materials where it makes sense to make their buildings survive. Would it make sense to really lean hard on the historic commissions to get them to recognize that maybe we have some better building materials now than we did 300 years ago? I can talk to them about it if you'd like me to. I think that would be great because $20,000 for a roof is kind of a lot of money, especially when you're gonna have to come back and ask us to replace it again in a few years. Well, it'll be nice to get the roof fixed so that we don't have to do any more maintenance to the building. Well, we're having a call on that. Well, we're having a call on that. You're gonna be doing a lot of maintenance to it, but I'll stop there. Thanks, Sam. Thank you. Mr. Leonard. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. John Leonard, Precinct 17. Mr. Moderator, I'm wondering where both of these places, it just occurred to me, that both of these places are listed on the National Historical Register. I brought it to the attention of town officials last year when we were talking, I believe, about the senior center that money might be appropriated from the Department of Interior of the federal government to assist in the preservation of historic buildings provided they meet a certain criteria. And if that is the case, I'm wondering what any CPA money have to be used whatsoever if they meet the criteria of the Department of Interior. I'm not sure Ms. Rose Committee explored that. Mr. Chapter Lane, did anyone explore that? One of the, I can talk a little bit about historic preservation grant. Adam Chapter Lane, town manager. I think to be fair in this specific case, the Jason Russell House and the Old Shwell Mill are private entities, so it wouldn't have been the town researching whether or not grant funds were available. They might be eventually able to work in the historic tax credits, which is something that Arlington has looked into. There is a list of something like 30 to 40 different buildings in the town of Arlington that are listed on the National Historical Register, which would qualify as far as I've been able to tell with the Department of Interior to have some kind of assistance done. And I'm wondering if it would be a savings for the CPA. It certainly would be. One of the problems with the federal programs for historic preservation is that they, in the last decade, have been severely cut. We had something called America's Treasures, which was a wonderful matching federal grant program that did a lot of restoration all over Massachusetts. But that was stopped during a previous administration. Could I gather, then, that some investigation will be taken in regards to pursuing it with the Department of Interior for these two buildings? We should also bring that up to the Arlington Historic District Commission, who will be in charge of the historic places in the town, not with the CPA committee. Okay. You have to bring it up with the Arlington Historic District Commission. While we are on the subject of the Shwell Mill and Jason Russell House. Right. Yeah. Would it be appropriate at this particular time to ask, has the CPA received this year's funding allowance from the state? We will receive it on November 1st. Would that be, as the original agreement stated, dollar for dollar? The original agreement was not dollar for dollar. Last March, the Department of Revenue assumed that we would get a 19% match to the local surcharge. We will probably get about a 29% match on the local surcharge because of $10 million that Governor Baker put in to the Community Preservation Act Fund. Bless you. Bless you. Not to split hears, Mr. moderator, but I have a booklet here from 2002 from the Vision 2020 that basically says the state provide matching grants of up to 100%. Up to. Up to. It was never guaranteed. Yeah, that was, if we had adopted it in 2002, that would have been the case. It's no longer the case because it's a very popular grant program right now. There are 167 communities that have adopted it and there are many more on the ballot in November. So it will be, it will be a subject of conversation. I've noticed that because of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts and with the existence of CPA since 2000, not half the communities in Massachusetts have signed up for it and it makes somebody one. We're not debating the, I understand. I understand. The CPA article of the state's handling of it. We're debating whether or not to give money to these two buildings and that's what I wanna keep. Here is my final point, Ms. Clarke. I was going to suggest that we're, I believe we're talking about 91,000 and set aside from last year. We're talking about. Yes, that's the reserve. 91,000 and so we're using 55 of the 91. Right. I think it's 94, but I may be wrong. Would it be something to consider? And this is my final point of maybe holding off on one of these projects only because with the state, basically right now it's having tremendous trouble balancing its books. I would like to think that maybe we should hold one of these projects off in kind of like a rainy day fund in case as usual the state does not deliver. You can vote against the articles if you wish and make that argument to the crowd. Thank you, Mr. Moderate. Thank you. Tom Michael Moon, President Sevin. Mr. Moderator, could we have some more elaboration on exactly what constraints there are in the building material associated with these historic buildings? We can and I will do my best. I'm a landscape architect, not an architect, but what these buildings require is replacement of the materials that they were originally built with. I think that's a very simplistic answer, but that outbuilding of the old Schwab mill had a wooden roof, a wooden shake roof, and that's why it's being restored with that material. Also in the Jason Russell house, which the $35,000 is a lot for structural study because the building is bowing out. If you go along Massachusetts Avenue or go down Jason and take a left on Massachusetts Avenue, you will see that the front of the building is beginning to bow out. So one of the things that we do with the CPA funds is to look at the reasons for the material deterioration and that's what part of the $35,000 is. And could you confirm, Mr. Moderator, that there is a need for replacing the roof? Maybe we can go back to the picture on the left. And I granted it's pretty small, but you can see on the right hand side, there's a lot of deterioration on the roof. There's moss growing on the roof. The trim is deteriorating. That's good. Mr. Moderator, can we find out who is responsible for asking for the grant for grants or matching funds for CPA project? Is it the applicant or is it the committee? I think the way it works is we raise $6 billion and the state gives us 25% of it. The question was, within a particular project, when a project is submitted to the CPA, they make a request for funding. They can request all the funding or part of the funding. And part of that funding can be offset by funds from the applicant or funds that the applicant gets from grants. But I'm wondering, does the applicant have to proactively do that or does the CPA committee... The applicant doesn't. In fact, the Jason Russell House got a grant from the Mass Historic Commission, Historical Commission, to do additional work at the Jason Russell House because of the CPA funding that was coming down the line. So that's one of the things the CPA does is it really lights a spark to get other grant funding. Obviously we have a lot of historic resources in Arlington and we need a lot of them repaired. So one of the things that we hope in our committee is that this is the beginning of these applicants like the old Schwab Mill and the Jason Russell House and the Arlington Historical Society and the Arlington Historical Commission all going and getting grants. And they're the ones that research and they're the ones that come to us and ask us for the money. So they're leveraging, they're putting in not 100% of the funds. And then above and beyond that, we get the 19% extra match from the state this year and the expected 29% match next year. Is that my understanding? Is that correct? We don't know what the match next year will be but I'm assuming it will be about 19%. One of the things that we are very lucky in Arlington to have is two nonprofits like the ones that run these two historic resources because they have been keeping these resources going for many hundreds of years and they're in pretty good shape. And they're visited by more and more visitors every single year that we have the historic signs up. We're gonna be on the scenic byway. We're gonna get more and more visitors and I think they deserve a real vote of confidence for their stewardship of these two resources. So thank you very much. I'll definitely be voting for the article. Thank you very much, sir. Mr. Bahama. Good evening. Guillermo Bahamon, President Ford 14. I just want to give a few sort of quick answers. The roof needs to be replaced right away. Otherwise you'll have more damage if it's not replaced this fall. It's just $20,000, 1,000 square feet. The total cost may be 20,000, may not be 20,000 because once you take all the shingles you'll discover a lot of rock. The copper might not be in good shape. So it's something that we need to do right away. You gotta speak right into the mic. It's something that we need to do right away. So it's just like when we need a new roof we don't say let's wait for grandma to die so we'll get an inheritance. Then on the other thing, on historical grants just forget it, the state doesn't have it, the federal government doesn't have it, the federal government does not fund replacement research. Replacement research is just the regular repairs that we need to do on our public buildings or historical buildings or schools every day of the year so that that's also wishful thinking. We need to bite the bullet and do it right away. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Smith. Scott Smith, precinct five, motion to terminate debate on both articles. On articles four and five. We have both terminate debate on article four and motion to terminate debate on article five. All in favor please say yes. All opposed? No. The debate is terminated on both articles by a vote of two-thirds, I so declare it. That brings us to the recommended vote of the CPA committee as printed in your report. As soon as Tim's ready, please press one for yes and two for no. And go ahead and vote. One for yes, two for no. This is article four we're voting on now. It's an affirmative vote, 186 yes and eight in the negative. Vote and I so declare it. That closes article four and brings us to article five. Soon as Mr., I can't remember his last name today. I'm sorry, Tim. Soon as he's ready, we're gonna vote on article five. Same thing, soon as we get the green light, one for yes, two for no. This is a vote of 184 in the affirmative, 10 in the negative. It's an affirmative vote and I so declare it. That closes article five and brings us to article six. Bylaw amendment, vacant store front maintenance registry. Sir. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Dan Dunn, member of the Board of Selectment. This article has been largely, has been very much driven by the town manager and we as a Board have been very happy to support it. But the person who can best explain the article and its intent and impact is town manager, Chapter Lane. Did you want to do a good thing? Good evening, Adam Chapter Lane, town manager. So article six really started with the combination of a large amount of citizen concern expressed to me, to the Board, other town officials, regarding a legitimate concentration of vacancies in Arlington Center and also in Arlington Heights to some degree. In fact, if I remember right, I think the town moderator had one of the test poll questions at last spring's town meeting about how many vacancies there were in Arlington Center. Yes, you did. So this is something we've been talking about for a while and we have been primarily through the town manager's office and the planning and community development office, taking a very collaborative approach with property owners to try to understand why their storefronts are vacant and what we can do to be of assistance to help them fill those vacancies. However, coming out of some of those discussions, we also felt that coupled with that collaborative approach, we needed to pursue a regulatory approach to make sure that we were really coming at the issue from both angles to see what we could do to lever a property owners to be sure that they were filling their storefronts if at all possible and maintaining vibrancy in the commercial districts. So the proposal you have before you tonight would be a bylaw that's crafted based upon what a number of municipalities have done. However, most of those municipalities have done this based on residential property vacancies. So this would be a vacant commercial storefront property registry. What we would be doing is having any commercial landowner who has a vacancy for more than 21 days, register with the town that such vacancy exists, and then after committing to such registration, they would then have to meet certain maintenance requirements in terms of public health, public safety, and aesthetic requirements within the commercial district. This bylaw would not force them to fill the storefront, but rather it would have us be able to track it, have them be on record as to why it's vacant and have data on how long some of these vacancies are occurring and hopefully facilitate even more strongly the dialogue with these property owners about filling those vacancies. So again, I wanna say we've tried within the limited legal means we have as town government to be responsive to citizen concerns and our own concerns about vacant storefronts and what we've put before you tonight with my office planning community development, the town council and voted on by the board of selectmen as an attempt to give us a bit of a tougher regulatory tool to hopefully match up with our collaborative efforts to start to deal with some of the vacancies in our commercial districts. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Heim, you're gonna make those two changes. In reviewing this with Mr. Heim, we noticed there are two words left out we're gonna add administratively so get your motions out. Doug Heim, town council. Just two quick notes in the various iterations of this that were developed at various different times. There's two administrative corrections. Doug, you gotta speak right into the mic. Doug Heim, town council. In the various iterations of what you have before you, there were two administrative corrections that were noted to me. One is in section one, line five, should read commercial and industrial vacant properties where property should follow vacant. So that's, again, section one, line five, it should read commercial and industrial vacant properties, not just vacant. And then second, in section two definitions, vacant building, the word non-residential is meant to be in front of commercial industrial real property so there's no confusion about what we're talking about. Commercial and industrial properties are generally terms of art here in Arlington. When we say commercial industrial properties, we don't mean two family homes where somebody's renting out the other half of it or apartments. So it should read definitions, vacant building, non-residential, commercial, or industrial real properties. Thank you. Okay, did you get those? So in line five, right after the word vacant, we're adding properties and on the definition of vacant buildings, be non-occupied, non-residential, commercial, or industrial properties. We wanted to make sure it was people didn't think they had a two family home and it wasn't rented, you were gonna have to register it. This is for commercial properties. Gentlemen, over here with the glasses, yeah. I am Daniel Jalkett from Precinct Six. I wanna just rise to speak a little bit in support of this, especially in light of the fact that I've seen some news coverage that frames this, I think, in a way that sounds more punitive towards landlords and business people than I think it actually is. I saw something today that framed it as the headline was something like town to decide whether to penalize landlords for vacancies. And I think my reading of this proposal is much more better summarized by saying that the town seeks to take stock of the situation with respect to vacant commercial properties and to put some measures into place that will formalize how the town can both understand how much vacancy we have and ensure that the properties are kept up in a way that makes them both safe and to the extent that it's reasonable, make them not appear like a kind of public blight that appears obviously vacant. There's language in the proposal that says the property owners should do things, attend to garbage that's left or graffiti that is painted on these properties. And I think that most reasonable people in the town would agree that that's something that especially a property owner in our business district where so many other business people and landlords are dependent on the overall image of the town would benefit from these property owners who have the vacancies just sort of pulling their own weight in that respect. So actually the way that it was framed I think in the news article I saw was something like they could be fined. The fine is almost, it's almost not even worth discussing because you don't even get to the fine aspect of this that really I think matters to a degree that most business owners or landlords would care about unless you are grossly negligent and defiant against the requirements of this proposal. And I think it comes down to $100 a day if you are actually either defiant or negligent about the specific rules that are laid out in this proposal. Otherwise, I think the main cost to landlords if I'm understanding it correctly and maybe I can make this a question, am I understanding it correctly that the main cost to landlords who are not defying the proposed bylaw would be the annual registration fee? Ms. Chaptely? Adam Chaptely in town manager, yes, that is correct. And can you tell me just to reiterate for the clarification what that annual registration fee is proposed to be or is there a proposal yet? We have not set the annual, we've set the penalty but we have not set the annual registration fee. We would come up with what the administrative cost of managing the registry would be but I wouldn't imagine it would be any really significant amount of money. Okay, one little like presnickety point I noticed reading through it was I think you might be subject to the annual fee as soon as you are considered by the bylaw to be vacant and I believe that happens after you are vacant for 21 days or more. So I guess just to speak to the concerns of people who might be worried that that's, I don't know, too quick or something. Is that something you considered whether somebody who say takes a month to rent out their commercial space should be subject to registration and then paying an annual fee if they're gonna rent it back out a week later let's say. Is that something that, am I misunderstanding that or is that how it would play out that somebody would be expected to pay that immediately after 21 days? So they would be expected to register after 21 days but there would be opportunities for them. They could be expected to pay it or if they were gonna be able to put public art in the windows they wouldn't have to pay it or if they were able to demonstrate that they would be immediately filling the vacancy we would be able to have an opportunity via the director of planning and community development and the director of building inspections to waive the fee. Okay, thank you. So my overall takeaway, especially with that clarification is that this proposed bylaw would set up a system where yes, there would be a new obligation for commercial landlords in town primarily to have their vacancies on the book with the town so the town has the opportunity to decide what they're working with. Like, do we try to work with those landlords to convince them that there are opportunities to rent to people? Do we try to go out into, I don't know, public sector to say like, hey, we got a lot of opportunities here with vacancies. The punitive aspect of this is very slight in my impression and that $100 a day, it's only if you're in violation of the bylaw which more or less only occurs if you refuse to either register your property when it becomes vacant or you refuse to clean up graffiti, clean up trash or you refuse to cap off utilities that are gonna be not used for like a long period of time, I think it's six months or more or you otherwise basically defy the spirit of this bylaw which is to say if you're going to have un-rented property in Arlington, we want to know about it so we have the opportunity to encourage people to try to rent it and we want you as a landowner to keep it safe and keep it somewhat attractive so that it doesn't deter the public from taking advantage of all the other great rented out business we have in the town. So I think that sums up my position. I am going to be voting for this and I think it's a modest move. It's not a major move at all. It's something that encourages us to get a better grip on what's going on. If you go down this main strip in town, you know it's an issue and this is a really modest way for us to get a grip on it and try to make a small change in the right direction. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jelka. Mr. Yonter? Do you have a hand up? Yep. Tom Michelman, precinct seven. Mr. Monterey, can we find out whether there's any difference in property taxes for vacant and unvacant buildings, commercial properties? Mr. Chapter Lane? Adam Chapter Lane, town manager. Yes, myself, deputy town manager, have done a lot of work with the board of assessors and the director of assessing to figure this out and get a clear answer on that. The way commercial property is assessed is through the collection of rental data that allows the assessors to set a uniform market rate for commercial property. So there's one rate that is applied to all commercial properties. One individual vacancy does not in and of itself give any commercial property owner a tax reduction. However, I guess it is important to note that should they file for an abatement, they could use those facts appealing their way up to the appellate tax board, but in terms of our own tax policy and the way we administer taxation or assessments, no, there is no discounted tax rate for a vacancy. So that leads to a second question, which is how prevalent is that request for abatement asked for and given? Adam Chapter Lane, town manager. So I don't have that data with me, but from our conversations with the assessor, my sense was it's very infrequent. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Michael. Mr. Ruderman? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Michael Ruderman, precinct nine. I'd like to ask two succinct questions before my remarks. Can someone speak to the matter on the fourth page underneath section five C? Is there nothing in our existing regulations regarding health and safety in town that prevents a property owner from being required to clean up trash and graffiti? And similarly, is there nothing in our present bylaws or should I say, has there ever been the situation where the town's inspectional services department has felt it was necessary to enter a property and cap off utilities immediately? Have either of these two conditions arisen outside of our present regulatory structure? Mr. Doug, can you answer about the bylaw and then we'll get the building inspector about capping? Come on. Mr. Burns, can you answer about capping? Evening, Michael Burns, Director of Inspectional Services. Not to my knowledge, has there ever been an emergency to trust to go into a property and cut and cap everything? Thank you. Adam, chapter lane town manager, just quickly speaking with both Mr. Feeney and Mr. Heim, seems that there's nothing as specific to commercial property owners with the specificity about accumulated trash and graffiti in existing bylaw. Thank you. Like I said, I live in and represent Precinct Nine. Precinct Nine, whose border is the northerly sideline of Mass Ave, pretty much from the foot of my own house up the street. These are my neighbors. This is my neighborhood. In the last couple of weeks, I've had the opportunity to speak with quite a few, of the tenants and commercial property owners along that stretch of Mass Ave. And I can tell you that they agree with me to a person, they are not in favor of this bylaw. They are not in favor of leaving properties vacant, but they are not in favor of this bylaw. They and I say that except for the one situation that we've just had clarified for us here, where there's nothing specifically in our existing regulatory structure that allows someone from the town to come in and say, your property is trashy, your property is covered with graffiti, you've got to clean that up right now. There's nothing in this bylaw that assists the property owners. There isn't. It forces them to manage their business affairs in such a way that if they choose, you know, I don't know logically why, but if they choose or if they've been unsuccessful in getting the tenants that they want, they have to register with the town. Think what that means. You have to put your name on a list as if it weren't possible for the folks from our planning department to do tomorrow what they did in the springtime and the summertime and go out and create a list of vacant properties for all to inspect. That simply being on a list doesn't help the property owners. Certainly it is in their own interests to maintain their properties in an attractive fashion. The town's not helping with that. The town is not providing any marketing, any consulting, any planning or studies. Perhaps you could adapt your property in such a way, invest this and that change, you appeal to a different sort of tenants. No, there is nothing in this bylaw that comes back to the property owners in terms of helping them manage their businesses. No, instead this bylaw says we wanna have a list so that we can know who and where you are. Now I'm leaning into the microphone for dramatic effect. Take away the dramatic effect and just think of the words. We wanna have a list so we know who and where you are with your commercial properties. They already know this. They're not going to provide any help in accomplishing the goal of a commercial landlord, which is to conduct business, make money. There are a couple of lines that I think are the most telling in the way this bylaw is written. One is section five E, compliance with this bylaw shall not relieve the owner of any obligation set forth in any other applicable bylaw regulation code covered in condition restriction association regulation. Two minutes. So basically we're reminding you you have to follow the law here. Section eight unsafe buildings. If the building inspector determines the building is unsafe, the building inspector can act in accordance with Massachusetts state building code to protect public safety. That power already exists. We're creating a regulatory framework whose sole object here is to create a regulatory framework and to charge the regulated parties for the privilege of being regulated. They're not being assisted. In fact, I would seriously disagree with the previous speaker. $100 a day. You've got a piece of commercial property. You are stuck. You don't want to tear it down, but you can't find a tenant. What are your options? And the time has run out and the town now says $100 a day until you get somebody in here. Excuse me. I've missed both. Yep. I said so. The town is imposing a structure of fines to achieve an end which it cannot help, which it cannot further, which it cannot promote and which it places the burden on the individual property owners to achieve themselves. So I all vote against this. Thank you, sir. Mr. Dunn. John Dunn, precinct 19. I own two small pieces of commercial real estate in Allington. So as one of the little guys, this warrant, article six concerns me if I had a difficult time renting my space. It is a hardship for me and I feel this warrant creates even a bigger hardship for the little guys. I understand and appreciate the basis of this warrant article, but it seems a large number of vacancies in Allington's business district is due to one to two landlords. Having your property considered vacant after 21 days and beginning the registration process along with fees, possible fines seems unreasonable. I agree that the property owners should maintain these properties in accordance with local state codes as stated in section five. Of the warrant article, I am concerned with the vagueness of the registration process and of the fees and the fines associated with this warrant article. At this point in time, I would ask you to vote no on warrant article six until we can fully consider the necessity of this warrant article. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Dunn. Mr. Fisher. I would urge a yes vote. I don't think the idea is, oh, I'm sorry, Andrew Fisher, precinct six. The stores that are vacant now, especially Madrona Tree and across the street, there was a gift shop were very clearly empty because the landlord performed what was, in my opinion, price gouging. And if this bylaw can make life at least have some consequence for landlords asking for exorbitant rents, I'm off for it and I will vote yes. I would go much further and at least, maybe it can't be done in a bylaw, but establish some sort of legal framework where when a landlord raises the rent and causes the tenant to leave, if the property can't be rented within six months, obviously it was price gouging or three months or one year and the landlord should be held liable for destroying the business's property. I mean, the Madrona Tree, whoever, they build up a reputation, they build up a business, that should be regarded as a real value piece of whatever you call it. Just because it's not real estate doesn't mean it's not real and that's been destroyed by somebody that was, it should be regarded as price gouging. So I will vote yes for this. I don't see why we should be concerned with holding their hands. We're supposed to see business people as having risk. They don't seem to have any risk. Please vote yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fisher. Mr. Fuller. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Peter Fuller, precinct 20. I have a small question that might yield to an administrative correction. Toward the end of the motion, section eight, unsafe buildings, it reads, if the building inspector determines the building to be unsafe, the commissioner may act immediately. That appears to be the first and only mention of the commissioner in this motion. Can we find out who this mysterious person is? Mr. Heim? Doug Heim, Town Council. Thank you, Mr. Fuller, I appreciate that. In the definition section, you're correct. For the most part, we refer to our building inspector as an inspector or as a zoning enforcement officer, not as a commissioner. So if we need to make an administrative correction, I appreciate that. It should read inspector, not commissioner. So to read building inspector, sounds good. I apologize for not bringing that to you sooner. I didn't read the thing closely until the Cleveland, Toronto playoff game is over tonight. Thank you, sir. I'm Cleveland one, they're going to the World Series. I'm gonna vote for this, I think, with respect to the comments of a previous speaker, it's not that punitive. It will certainly help the planning department and particularly their economic development people to make contact with landlords of vacant properties and say, we're here to help what kind of tenancy you're looking for, let's help recruit. This can probably expedite that process. It's said that they know about the vacancies now, but the registration scheme will make sure of that. So I hope it passes and in the event that it does, I hope the selectman will set the registration fee at a very low nominal level. Thank you. Thank you, we will make that administrative correction. We'll make that in section eight of the article to cross out in commissioner and writing inspector. Mr. Radocia. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Bob Radocia, precinct 11. I do not support this article six at this time because basically for the past 12 years, the town has neglected to maintain the infrastructure of the center up through town hall, including town hall. I believe it's unfair to the commercial property owners to penalize them for the vacancies when the town did little over the past 12 years to keep the center presentable and a desirable place to do business. I began in 2004, noting, walking along Mass Ave in the center, two orange cones covering up missing light poles, 2004, 12 years ago. That number grew to seven over the next 10 years. I also noted at that time, in front of the Jefferson Cutter House, the granted post and rails, there were several rails missing, damaged or whatever. That was back then, and to this day, today there were five missing and one damaged pole rail in need of paint. So we've had 12 years of neglect, no attempt to make that correct. And there was a period of three years recently where graffiti was stayed on the mated box in the Russell parking lot. It was three years, I've had photos of it, one year, second year, third year. Took three years for the graffiti on a public, and that was the town not doing its job and making it a presentable place. The brick sidewalks remain hazardous with missing, heaved and depressed bricks and attempts to patch it with asphalt patch. That goes to show that that's a lack of concern when we're willing to just kinda throw some back bark patch. The town exterior, the entrance out here is a disgrace. It remains a hazard with the depressed stone pavers and the elevated stone pavers. I watched some women cross over today and you can see how they almost nearly tripped, but they had to be careful about it. And the men's room has not had a 20th century, never mind 21st century, paper towel dispenser, as long as I can remember. It's on the radiator cover and you roll it out. I don't know about the women's room, but the men's room, it's been that, somebody could verify it one way or another, please. All right, litter and trash can always be seen out here in the garden. Years ago I made a request to get some barrels put out there, but the answer I got back was, and I think I have it in writing also, if we had them out there, they'd be filled with trash and we don't have anybody to pick them up. Now these are just examples of what we don't do to maintain a property that we wanna be proud of, like Lexington Winchester Belmont. Here you walk those streets, they feel good. I know people that live in Lexington, they pay high taxes, but one of my friends said to me, you know, I know it's high, but you know, I feel as though I'm getting my money's worth here. And sometimes we pay a lot of taxes, we complain about it, and we're not getting our money's worth when we treat the center as it is. So these are examples of why I don't support it, and until we make this whole thing presentable and we pair the sidewalks, it's not a question about removing seven parking spaces and putting in meters. That's not gonna make the difference at this point. For some reason people think if we have meters, we're gonna bring in people to do business. That's not it. And furthermore, I think we're losing, somebody might be towed out here in the citizen's parking lot because they're gonna tow cars after I was out there now. So yeah, did you see that, the signs? Yeah, they're out there. So, and then the other thing I'd request, not to do anything to do with this, but if we could delay, I'd like to bring it back to the article. Okay, this is, okay. That's why I don't support it, and I'd like to also ask if we could delay the time of town meeting because I don't wanna put money in the meters to be here at eight o'clock. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Moore. Christopher Moore, precinct 14. I have one question about, let me back up. I'm generally supportive of the notion of maintaining the center as a place to do business and a place that's attractive for other businesses to join us. I am a little confused about section five. There's a whole bunch of stuff in here about maintaining the buildings. That makes sense, fixing the windows that are broken, et cetera. Part C, second sentence, the owner shall maintain the condition of the building and the property so as to appear not to be vacant, which feels like a very aggressive standard. I'm wondering if Mr. Moderator, we could find out what's really intended there. Because often a vacating store owner will remove their fixtures and the building is in fact empty. Mr. Heim, can you tell me what the thought process was behind that portion of the bylaw? Doug Heim, town council. Obviously you're dealing with a somewhat subjective standard, but I think when folks spoke to the town about their concerns about commercial vacancies, one of the things that they're trying to reflect is a concern about the aesthetic impact on the rest of the businesses around town. If you look next to Common Ground, for example, right now you'll see a bunch of shutters, half pulled up, half pulled down, some sort of twisted, things like that. I don't think it's meant to be over burdensome as much as to give us some sort of means of saying, look, we know your property's vacant, we're allowing you to place advertisements in your windows, we're providing a vehicle for waiving fees by displaying public art. Let's have these vacant properties look presentable. And other than having an exhaustive list of what presentable means, which I think would only create more problems, I think we've got a trust that our inspectional services and planning staff have some ability to read this type of bylaw and state, this is what we mean by something that doesn't appear vacant. We don't want broken windows, things like that. So the intent is good repair and attractive presentation, not to simulate a lack of a vase. I think that's a good characterization. All right, thank you. I'll be supporting this, thanks. This gentleman, fourth row, yeah. No, no, no, right behind you. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Charles Hartzahn, precinct one. I had a question, would this apply to the industrial properties that are outside the center like the old transmission place? Mr. Heim? Doug Heim, town council. Yes, it does. And I want to actually state something very briefly on that because there's been a few points of discussion about where the supplies and where it doesn't. One of the things that's tricky to balance in any type of bylaw like this is to not punish certain property owners by virtue of exactly where they're located so that people in the Heights carry a disproportionate burden to commercial properties in East Arlington or vice versa. And while there's an expansive discussion about this, industrial properties, for some similar reasons, some a little bit different were included in it so industrial properties are generally included in it. Thank you. Okay, now you, sir. No, not you, not you, you didn't even wait on all this. Yeah, he was so excited before. Greg Christiana, precinct 15. Mr. Moderator, I have a question. I'm not sure to whom to direct it about. The, what I'd like to know, is there any estimate on the number of current vacant storefronts that would be in non-compliance and would be subject to the penalties in section seven? Mr. Heim? Doug Heim, town council. There's someone who can probably speak better than I can to the number of vacancies, but there are no storefronts currently in violation of the bylaw because the bylaw sets a scheme out where a vacancy has to exist for a certain period of time and then there's a registry and then only if you failed to sign up for that registry or failed to abide by the requirements set forth in section five, would you be in violation and therefore triggering $100 a day fine? Great, thank you. So it sounds like by definition, no one could actually be in violation right now. So focusing on the appearance, would any current vacant storefronts by dint of their appearance be in violation? I'm not sure Mr. Burn has done such a survey yet. He would be the one who would be responsible, I believe. Have you looked? Yeah, I'm just gonna try and answer. I'm chaptering town manager. So as we've been looking at and dealing with this vacancy issue, the building inspector I know has done some code compliance checks and just some status checks on various properties. So I wouldn't want to guarantee it, but my sense is that at least the vast majority of the vacancies right now would be complying with those maintenance standards. So it wouldn't strike me as though there is a large quantity that would immediately, once the 21 days had passed if this was to pass, would instantly be sort of in default or in violation, but there certainly could be one or two that I'm, yep, sorry, there certainly could be one or two that I'm not immediately aware of. Great, thank you. I'll be supporting this, I think, is very reasonable and pragmatic, thank you. Mr. Wagner. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Carl Wagner, precinct 11. I move to terminate debate on the article and all associated matters. We'll motion to terminate debate in the article. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. All opposed? No. In my opinion, it is a two-thirds vote. We're ready to vote on the article, it is ready. We'll vote one for yes if you want the article, two for no if you do not. Okay, go ahead and vote. One for yes, two for no. One is if you want it, two is if you don't. It is an affirmative vote, 136 in the affirmative and 57 in the negative. The bylaw so passes. The vote may so declare it. That closes article six and brings us to article seven. Acceptance of legislation. Used to parking meter revenue without appropriation. Yes, sir. Carl Wagner, precinct 11 point of order. I just got some new glasses. I sit in the front row. I still can't really read the blue on red so I don't know if it's possible when we have to change things if we are supposed to look at that. Could somebody please change the color coding for future? Thank you. Dave, it will be done. Your wish is Dave's command. Ms. Mohan, you're gonna tell us about parking meters? Mr. Chapter Lane is. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Adam Chapter Lane, town manager. So earlier tonight, you heard Mr. Carmen mention the Municipal Modernization Act and these next three articles all deal with pieces of the Municipal Modernization Act that town meeting would need to adopt for the town to gain access to what's allowed under those parts. And I think it'll be a continuing trend at town meeting in the spring as there's literally hundreds of pieces of the Municipal Modernization Act that will be, we have been working through and will continue to work through and potentially be bringing more recommendations to town meeting. Specifically, the article that's before you is in regards to the use of parking revenues to be expended on acquiring and installing parking meters, paying for that acquisition and installation over five years directly from the parking revenues received not subject to appropriation. So prior to the Municipal Modernization Act, that could be done what I just described, the acquisition and installation and then paying for the meters directly from the parking revenues without further appropriation could have been done without the acceptance of the legislation. The Municipal Modernization Act updated that language of that statute requiring local acceptance. So we did enter into an agreement for the meters that you've all seen being installed in Arlington Center under the prior statute, but with the passage of the Municipal Modernization Act, not only did we wanna be consistent and make sure that we were trying to remain in compliance with the new statute but also have the flexibility to be able to pursue it or access it in the future. So that's what's before you is the acceptance of the statute that allows us to directly take parking revenues to pay up to a five-year agreement for the acquisition and installation of those parking meters. So just to sort of describe how this would be working, there's approximately 225 meters that are being installed in Arlington Center, street parking meters. If there's an 85% occupancy rate at a dollar an hour, which is the rate, it would be just about $700,000 annually collected. At a low estimate, a 50% occupancy rate, an annual just over $400,000 would be collected. So functionally, what we would be doing is paying the, we would be collecting those funds, transferring them or depositing them into a special revenue fund, paying the annual equipment lease for the meters, which is just about $52,000, and then taking the remainder of the funds and putting them into the general fund. In the future, I can see in the spring we will most likely be coming before the body and asking for further adoption of a statute within the Municipal Modernization Act that would allow us to create a parking benefit district. That has been part of what we've been talking about as part of this Arlington Center parking management strategy for a long time. That would allow us to take a portion of the revenues that I'm talking about tonight and then directly a portion of it back to investments in Arlington Center. That is not what we're talking about tonight, that's a future potential use of the revenue. So I think that covers everything I wanted to mention. Again, we entered into the current program under the way that the prior statute had been written and we wanted to ask Tenor Meeting to consider adopting this so that we would seemingly remain in compliance with the new statute, as well as have the future flexibility to access that authority. Thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions. Mr. Leonard. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. John Leonard, Placing 17. Some questions if I may. After talking with various residents in the town, I've been informed that there was at one particular time parking meters in the town. Could somebody elaborate as to why that policy failed and they were taken out? Do we have any idea when that was? Do you know when we had Mr. Chaplain? I don't remember meters. Adam Chaplain, town manager. I can only relate an anecdote that was shared with me that when a prior long-serving town manager made some decision that they were either too hard to maintain or too much of a pain and that they should be taken out. But that's an anecdote that I heard. I don't know when they were actually removed or what the legitimate reasons were behind it. It would be interesting, Mr. Moderator, if we could learn the lessons of why they were taken out, but maybe that will come in the future. Second of all, if this is not approved tonight, Article 7, for the acquisition and installation of parking meters, does it mean that the work that has been done so far will be taken out? Because the money won't be there. Mr. Chaplain. Adam Chaplain, town manager. No, so we did legally enter into the contract under the prior writing of the statute. It would just mean that in the future we wouldn't be able to do it in the same manner. So the stanchions and the project would continue on? Yes. Okay. I'm curious, Mr. Moderator, on what some of the local businesses in the town of Allenton has said, especially those who have been here since the meters were in the first time, what their opinion is of the meters? Mr. Chaplain. Adam Chaplain, town manager. So we did conduct a pretty thorough engagement process several years ago now as we developed the parking management strategy, as well as working through and finally making a recommendation to the Board of Selectment for the adoption of the installation of meters on Mass Ave and certain sized streets in Allenton Center. And I would say there, as with anything, there's a mixed reaction from property owners, though I would say there's a number of commercial property owners or business owners who understand that if we wanna turn cars over, if we wanna make sure that there's parking availability, that parking meters are an appropriate strategy. I've heard it myself, I've heard it secondhand. So again, as with anything, it's mixed, but I certainly know there's support. I will also say the Chamber of Commerce has had a representative on our Parking Implementation and Governance Committee that's been working on this. The Allenton Center Merchants Group has had a representative also on that group. So there's been a representative of business groups at the table. They've been supportive, they've been putting their feedback in as in regards to how we implement this and how we manage it, but we've definitely had a business with a seat at the table and a voice in these discussions from the start. One last question, Mr. Moderator, with the comments that I have heard through the town in regards to how Mr. Leonard, the center of town is dark, is all heck with the new lights. Is there anything you could do about it? I'm wondering, will the new meters have any lights on them that could be seen so that people know how much money to put in if they are faced with such a problem at night? How the meters backlit? Adam, chapterling town manager. Yes, the meters are backlit, so they will have their own lighting within the meters. And if I may venture just slightly out of scope. It has been a little dark in the center as part of the Arlington Center Safe Travel Project. You may have noticed that two of the light poles in the median strip across or between the Cambridge Savings Bank and the Jefferson Cutter House were taken down as part of the project. Those will go back up in some of the darkness that has legitimately been there will be gone. I will be voting against this article. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you. It's like 9 to 40, usually we take a break. You wanna have a break? Okay, all in favor for a break? Say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. Mr. Jamison. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Gordon Jamison, precinct 12. I queried the manager and spoke with him before. First of all, I'm in favor of this because I think it's gonna turn over, make the parking spots turn over in the center and drive people to the long-term parking. They're gonna be there a long time rather than sitting out front, they're gonna go to the big lots. So as the manager alluded to, the money will go into a fund and perhaps you can say yes or no that I understood correctly. So let's say it's the $450,000 revenue thing. The cost means that 50,000 of that, which is the cost of the program would come off and the other 400 would go into the general fund. Is that correct, Mr. Moderator? Mr. Chapter Lane, explain the finances to us one more time. Adam Chapter Lane, town manager. Yeah, I very specifically discussed this with the Comptroller in preparation for tonight. So the entirety of the collections would be deposited into this fund. The lease payments or the agreement payments for the meters would be paid and then at the end of the year, the proceeds would then be deposited into the general fund. Okay, so two follow-ups if I may, Mr. Moderator. So if there was no cost, then all the funds would be transferred. If we got to a point where there was no cost for the program, all of it would be transferred to the general fund. And the timing is the transfer goes in the general fund at the end of the year. Does that mean it has to be certified as free cash and loop around to the next year until we can use it? Yeah, in the absence of us adopting something in regards to a parking benefit district, as I mentioned earlier, that's how it would work. So perhaps when you get to that point, you might think of having it be a calendar year operation or that way it could be appropriated during the normal town meeting. Yeah, we could look into that. And then this will crew as local receipts? Yes, as the revenue from the parking meters in the two town lots currently do, yes. Okay, thank you very much. I will, again, I support this. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Trembly. At Trembly Prec. 19, I find it interesting that we just passed a bylaw about vacant storefronts and we're putting up parking meters, which if the experience with West Medford is any indication will result in more vacant storefronts. West Medford has had, I think the merchants that I know over there told me that they had about a 40% drop in business after they put parking meters in. So Mr. Moderator, do I have a couple of questions? One of them is, is this parking meter fund, will this allow the town to expand the location of parking meters without having any... Adam Chapter Lane, town manager. So I guess the answer is a bit nuanced. The Board of Selectment, as the parking commissioners could decide to put parking meters virtually anywhere it seemed appropriate. So adopting this in and of itself wouldn't expand the powers of the Board of Selectment to do so, it simply depicts the manner in which it could be paid for. So it gives them the money to do it if they so choose. Correct. Okay, and I guess one thing that concerns me a little bit, we've had the example for the last decades of Congress and Washington abdicating the responsibility to manage the purse. And I think that this is the town meeting purview is to manage the, well, I'm not manager, but look over how the town spends money and this seems to be a way of going around that. Could you tell me what the difference between this and a revolving fund is? I mean, the revolving funds we get to look at, but is there a difference here? Chapter Lee. Adam Chapter Lee, Town Manager. It's different from a revolving fund in that it's authorized under a different statute and it's not necessarily governed by the same rules as a revolving fund. This would certainly be something we would report about in the annual financial plan and we could even talk with the finance committee about including a section about it as an appendix to the finance committee's report to town meeting. So, and it's also, it's not revolving because it's not taking the entirety of the proceeds and then expending it towards a program. It's taking a portion of the proceeds, paying for one specific acquisition or capital asset and then putting the rest into the general fund which revolving funds do not do. Okay. I'm sorry, if I may, so revolving funds carry a balance. So every year at annual town meeting, a revolving fund, a whole report on all the revolving funds in the town comes before town meeting and you can see the revenues, the expenditures and then the balance that's carried into the following fiscal year. Here, there would be no carried balance. It would be collected, the amount needed to pay for the acquisition installation of the meters would be paid and then the remainder would go into the general fund. So there would be no carrying balance in this account. And if we don't vote for this, it's not gonna really mess anything up per se. It's just gonna require that the town has to appropriate through town meeting any funds that they want to use to pay for new parking meters or whatever. That's accurate. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Koch. Kevin Koch, precinct 16. Mr. Moderator, how are... I'm concerned about people who park on Medford Street waiting to pick people up. Are they all gonna be dinged for parking? Adam Chapterling, town manager. So the Board of Selectment actually voted on Monday night to in state 15 minute free parking at all of the meters. There's a button on each meter where simply pressing the button would give you 15 minutes free. And the intention of that is for pickup, drop off, take out, running into get something from a convenience store. We're not trying to inconvenience people. We're trying to make sure people don't park so long that the businesses don't prosper. So providing 15 minutes free so that people can go and quickly do their business, whatever it might be. If they're leaving in 15 minutes, we're still achieving our parking availability goal. So that's how we're trying to address that matter. Mr. Wagner. Carl Wagner, precinct 11. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I move to terminate debate on the article and all associated questions. Motion to terminate debate on the article and all questions. It's been seconded. All in favor, please say yes. All opposed. My opinion, it is a two thirds vote. As soon as Smith's left, what is ready? One, you want to adopt this article. Two, you do not. One for yes, two for no. And go ahead and vote. One for yes, two for no. Is it affirmative vote? 156 affirmative, 25 and a negative. It's a vote and I so declare it that closes article seven and brings us to article eight. Article eight and nine appear to be pretty similar except they're different speed limits. Why don't we talk about eight and nine at the same time. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Diane Mahon, chairman of the Board of Select Mentale, committee member, precinct 14. Just very briefly, and I'm going to ask the town manager to come up and answer the second part of this question. When I first got involved in politics and was a brand new baby selectman, it was much to my shock and chagrin that town officials and department heads and selectmen didn't get to set speed limits and for years under then Senator Haven and Representative Garbly, I and others across the Commonwealth would file homeroom legislation to try to say in certain areas and neighborhoods that appeared before us, could we lower the speed limit from 30 to 25 or 20? And that basically is pretty futile. So now thankfully, some seven, eight years later under the Municipal Modernization Act, this is article eight and nine, basically authorizes the board by a vote of this town meeting to consider just that case, whether to 25 to 20. Now it's not something the board would just go out and do on its own and not seek any outside input. So if I could ask my colleagues on town meeting, could I call up the town manager to outline the process he's recommending to me and myself, my colleagues on the board, as well as my colleagues in town meeting that if one or both of these were to pass what the process and protocol we would go through before we would actually institute a lowering to 25 or 20. Mr. Chapter Lane. We have six minutes and 47 seconds left. Adam Chapter Lane, town manager. So as the chair just did, I'll speak to both articles eight and nine. So both of these again are from the Municipal Modernization Act. So article eight would allow the town to reduce what's called a statutory speed limit. You might be able to call it a default speed limit. Most places in town that haven't had some other decision made by Mass DOT have a speed limit of 30 miles per hour. Acceptance of this new statute under article eight would allow the town to consider reducing those statutory speed limits down to 25 miles per hour. So what I would be recommending to the board of select men is that if article eight is adopted, that we refer the matter to the Transportation Advisory Committee or TAC, have them assess what the appropriate process would be for the board of select men in TAC to consider requests for a reduction to 25 miles per hour or more than likely more preferably, consider whether or not the town should be reducing its statutory speed limit across the board to 25 miles an hour. But I would leave that or I would recommend that the board of select men refer that to TAC for their analysis opinion and recommendation. Article nine is specifically in regards to safety zones being able to reduce the speed limit to 20 miles per hour. Mass DOT actually in a very timely fashion sent us some guidance just yesterday in regards to this whole matter. And there are several criteria that are laid out for safety zones and what would apply or what would comply with being a safety zone. They have to do with likelihood of vulnerable road users being using the road, potential conflicts of various modes of transportation at certain parts of the road or also certain proximities to crosswalks, driveways or intersections. So similar to article eight, if town meeting adopted article nine, I would also recommend that the board of select men refer that TAC for the recommendation of a process by which the town would consider where to establish these safety zones. I don't think those would be potentially as widely used or expansive as a potential town-wide reduction of the speed limit. But I think a process in place for people being able to petition for safety zones would be something that would be very valuable to the town to have in place. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Mr. Moore, Mr. Smith. Scott Smith, precinct five. I'm going to speak in favor of this. I'm also a member of a transportation advisory committee or TAC. And for I'll be brief, first want to report that earlier this evening, TAC voted unanimously to support the select men's recommendation on this article, even though we know we're going to have to figure out how to implement it. And we wanted to quickly review, some of the background, what's the current speed law? Everyone says it's 30 and that's not quite true. It's actually reasonable and proper speed. And then it goes on to say, well, if you're going faster than 30, that's pretty much falsely evidence it's not reasonable and proper. And the reason that's important is over the years, we've done many, many speed studies and we're finding that many of our local streets, not all that your median speeds chosen by motorists tend to be less than 30. Now, there are reasonable drivers, not the speed demons, or just say many streets that you're already obeying this. And so I think if we were to go to a lower speed limit of 25 on some roads, it would send the message to really the minority that's doing like 35 now and it's hard to have enforcement. And so why is this important? Thank you, next slide. So Doug out, this is, most of Arlington is thickly settled. When you have thickly settled means you have pedestrians and the risk, if your car hits a pedestrian, the risk of injury or death increases enormously as you get up faster than 30 miles an hour. Okay, a little blurry there, sorry, but bar on the left is like 10 to 15 miles an hour and then 40 plus miles an hour, it's almost certain to have a serious injury or death. So I think that the reason to consider this is simply safety for all of our road users. So I urge you to support the Selectman's motion. Thank you. Gentlemen, right in the back. Yep, you sir. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Team Oriantar, Precinct 7. I believe I am in favor of this warrant article, actually both warrant articles eight and nine. Out of curiosity though, I would ask, well let me first say, I believe I support them because I support public safety and I believe lower speed limits would achieve that. Out of curiosity though, I would ask what the town contemplates regarding enforcement of compliance with the lower speed limits. Whoever might be appropriate. Chaplain, Chief Snot here. Adam Chaplain, town manager. So you may recall at town meeting last year we actually requested in town meeting approved two additional police officers to be added to the police department specifically to staff up or further staff our traffic unit for traffic enforcement. They actually, the new class of officers just graduated from the academy two weeks ago. So we should be able to be getting that traffic unit up to force and have more police on patrol to do traffic enforcement. So I won't claim that it's necessarily gonna be enough everywhere all the time but I think it would at least give us a better chance to adequately enforce what we're talking about here. Thank you, glad to hear it. Again, I believe I support this, thank you. Mr. Jalkot. Daniel Jalkot, Precinct 6. I move to terminate debate on articles eight and nine and all matters related therein. If motion to terminate debate on articles eight and nine all in favor please say yes. Yes. All opposed. No. In my opinion it is a two-third vote and debate is terminated. So as Mr. Lathwood's ready, we're gonna take a vote printed in your report on article eight. One if you want the 25 mile an hour speed limit two if you don't and go ahead and vote. One for yes, two for no. It is an affirmative vote, 157 in the positive, 19 in the negative and so declare it. That closes article eight and brings us to article nine for a vote. So as Mr. Lathwood's ready, go ahead and vote. One for yes, two for no. Number nine is also an affirmative vote. 151 in the positive, 19 in the negative. That closes article nine and brings us to article 10. Do we have substitute motion on article 10, Mr. Warden? Quiet please. Mr. Warden has the floor apparently. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Quiet please. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. John Warden, precinct eight. Mr. Moderator, I move the substitute motion under, I move the revised substitute motion under article 10, which is the sheet that was on your chairs tonight. And it is not the one that you got by email earlier in the week, it's been revised in two respects. And the reason for that is that this afternoon, Mr. Chaplain, the town manager and I had an exchange by email back and forth and his main concern was that we changed the 50 cubic yard minimum amount to get a non-hearing exemption to 500 and I agreed that I would do that in exchange for his speaking in support of the article. As you no doubt know, this summer a developer suddenly started banging away at a huge rock ledge in Irving Street, a ledge about 20 feet high at the dead end of that street if you're familiar with it. The noise was deafening for anyone nearby and could be heard as far away as the bike path and right here in town hall. Small earthquakes were felt several hundred feet away. Nearby properties were showered with rock fragments, dust and tiny stone particles which can have severe health impacts. To everyone's amazement, no permit was required because the developer claimed he was not selling the rocks. This went on for nine hours a day, five days a week for six plus weeks. When average people heard about this, the typical reaction was that shouldn't happen to anyone. How can I help? Town officials expressed sympathy but said there was nothing they could do. The Board of Health said the excessive noise could only go on from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. the hours that the developer was already working. They measured the decibels a couple of times and even though they exceeded the allowable limit, they did nothing since the average was below the limit. Just about everybody in town, unless they were living in a cave, knew what was going on as did the redevelopment board but they proposed nothing. They received our warrant or article on September 7 but didn't hold a hearing until 40 days thereafter. Then they issued a report to town meeting recommending no action on the day before the meeting. Is ambush the right word? If they had all these concepts as outlined in their report, why didn't they reveal them earlier? The report is even mathematically challenged. They seem to think that 600 is 1,000 more than 300. If you remodel your bathroom or kitchen, you have to get a permit. If some neighborhood teenagers have a loud party, you can call the police and they will shut it down. We even have a bylaw that says you can't shine a light into your neighbor's property if he or she objects. But a developer can come on to the lot next door and bang away at Roxson Ledge for weeks on end without any permit and you can't do anything about it. Does that make sense? This situation is widely reported in the Advocate Urellington list. Yet there was no movement to do anything despite a, so when I read in the Advocate on Thursday, August 25, that there would be a special town meeting, I decided to file an article. We did it, got 235 signatures very quickly through volunteers and we filed it on September 7. The article, after it was filed, we made some modifications to exempt small projects such as moving a few boulders or something if you're building a porch. And we provided no notice of public hearing was required for certain other projects which now include projects up to 500 cubic yards, which is a lot of stone, but that is what Mr. Chaplin and I have agreed to. So the bylaw is proposed, may not be perfect, few are, but we have an opportunity to do something now that will take effect shortly and will save people from this kind of aggravation during the next construction season, next spring and summer. If we pass something, we wait till spring town meeting to pass something, it won't take effect for almost a year from now. And so people will be subjected to all that difficulty and trauma and a lost summer, if you will, for all that additional period of time. If you live in the north or west of Mystic Street, Pleasant Street, there is a rock outcropping somewhere near you. That unbuildable lot or that small house, slab on grade, is suddenly ripe for exploitation. If you live in East Arlington where you don't have rocks, remember that we in the Heights are your neighbors too. We voted to expand your Thompson School, your almost new Thompson School, by an overwhelming majority. And so we are all one town. We're all in this together. So different parts of town have to help each other despite the different situations. So please vote yes in the motion to substitute and yes in the motion to substitute it. Thank you. Okay, I have a second on his motion. And is it, Mr. Warren, just to clarify, it's the one that says revised substitute motion? Yes sir. And we all have that in front of you? Okay, good. Benel. Good evening, Andrew Benel, Chair of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. Mr. Warden's motion in front of you this evening is not the motion on which we voted no action the other Monday night at our meeting and public hearing. However, as Chair, I can only speak for myself, but we would still oppose this motion. Most importantly, at town meeting last spring, there was a substitute motion on the table that passed overwhelmingly to create a citizens committee under the purview of the Arlington Redevelopment Board comprised of a number of residents in town to focus specifically on residential zoning issues. That committee has been staffed by a number of zoning experts who are very well qualified to present very good legislation to town meeting come this spring that I think will accomplish some of the things that this legislation seeks to cure. It's not a perfect piece of legislation. Mr. Warden is right, it's far from it. 500 cubic yards is minimal. It's a very, very small amount of rock to move from a piece of land. Typically in bylaws like this, you'll look for something like 3,000 before it has to go in front of Planning Board or the ZVA. This residential study group has this issue on its radar. They are exploring it among other things and I wanna emphasize that this group is staffed by zoning attorneys, it's staffed by planners, it's staffed by people who have extensive experience in rewriting and researching zoning laws and codes. This is a hastily put together piece of legislation that, well, I think the intent of it is noble. I don't think that was the right time. I think it needs additional work. It needs additional baking in the oven before we bring it out. In the meantime, this won't be a lost summer. This won't be an issue where people are forced to live through the kinds of unique situations that I think this one project, this Irving Street project, posed to the neighborhood. There are enforcement mechanisms in place in town already. They're not in the zoning bylaw, they're under the general bylaw. Article III concerns open excavations, which states, and I'll read only in part. Owners of land which has been excavated shall be required to erect barriers or take other suitable measures to protect persons from damages incident there too. They're already required to put up fencing. They're already required to put up barriers that protect their neighbors. There's already a noise abatement bylaw and the general bylaws. Article 12 protects that. It's incumbent upon the people of town to complain about developers and homeowners that might be going outside of what's allowed, but we have a very good enforcement staff in town. They can't be everywhere at all times. It's incumbent upon people to let them know that some of these things are being violated and that there are things that can be done. In addition, even the current required public hearing notice under this bylaw exceeds by 100% the currently existing notice required, or as opposed to the proposed public hearing notice exceeds by 100% the current notice of 300 feet. Definitions of rock in this proposed bylaw aren't adequate. They don't adhere to best practices under what's typically acceptable in these zoning bylaws. The proposal includes a recommendation for site plan review, which actually would fall into redevelopment purview and not under the purview of the zoning board of appeals. Town meeting did an excellent job last spring in nominating this residents committee, this citizens committee. I ask that you wait until the spring, let this committee do its job and bring some better, more thorough, more protective bylaw proposals to you in the spring. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Bean. David Bean, precinct eight. Could we have the video first? I too support this motion. I live about 100 yards from where the jackhammering was taking place this summer. And it took me a while to realize what was going on. There was a constant tap, tap, tap, tap, tapping that started early in the morning and continued all day long. Each day, of course, I thought, well, that's the end of it, it'll be gone tomorrow. And it wasn't, kept going for six weeks. Besides the annoyance of the noise and dust that the project caused, I'm also concerned by the potential of unregulated rock removal to alter the beautiful topography of our town. I don't think we could actually lose whole hillsides, hill tops, as Somerville and Boston have historically. But Arlington's uplands have a wonderful roughness that I think lots of us love. I suspect we're not actually going to hear the noise in this video, but you can see it. I guess someone had a drone and flew in. Here's some of the machinery. Trees that were taken out. That's, there, the noise on the computer is what we could hear. And it was, as if somebody was downstairs in your house using a chisel all day long. You can see the kind of work that went on there. On the orange sheet that was provided to you, there's a URL on there for a YouTube video, which looks like it's probably not quite correct. But if you use that, you can enjoy this, enjoy this repeatedly. That wasn't part of the project. The substitute article has a limit of 500 cubic yards or less as the cutoff for requiring a hearing and a permit. Could you, there, here's one of the well-known cuts on Mass Avenue up by Wanamaker's hardware where a big piece of hillside was taken out to create parking places. I went up and measured this. I decided that this particular one was about 100 cubic yards removed from this basically triangular section. An architect who lives close to me estimated it was probably closer to 200 cubic yards. But anyhow, this is less than half, this large amount is less than half of the amount of stone that would trigger the requirement of a hearing to remove it. I think this is a good start anyway and we need to do something to protect other people from this kind of thing next summer. I collected a lot of the signatures for this article and in many times of canvassing the neighborhood for this or that, this was by far the easiest signature collection of them all. I think that if a project like this takes place in your precinct, you'll find the reaction of your neighbors is about the same as it was in ours. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mrs. Warden. Patricia Warden, precinct. Eight. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Fellow town meeting members, Irving Street neighbors were tortured for over six weeks this summer. Heavy industrial operations in this non-industrial residential zone, working from home was almost impossible. Toxicants, air pollution, flying rock pieces suddenly happened. Air pollution was reported to the police. It's particularly dangerous for children and seniors that can cause asthma, heart attacks, reduced lung function, irritation of eyes, nose and throat and increased vulnerability to diseases such as diabetes. It can affect children so badly that they can never enjoy sports. A 93-year-old neighbor told me it was the most horrible summer for her and her husband. She hopes no one else would ever have to go through that and she hopes we will approve this article. This article does not prevent development. It is about safety. That is all. It is necessary because buildable land is scarce and so builders are now building a ledge which they can drill, drill, drill into oblivion. East Darlington town meeting members, precincts one through seven, we need your votes. Without your yes vote, this article will fail. The article will not affect you because East Darlington does not have ledge all over the place and you won't be needing protection from pollution from ledge excavation. 50,000 years ago, East Darlington was ocean and north of spypond was ancient, rocky mountainside oceanfront. Your soil is sandy, not rocky, but please be sympathetic about the rocky terrain in the rest of town. You need to know that I have a master's degree in medical sciences from Harvard Medical School, a first class honors degree in pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of Glasgow and a doctorate in molecular biology from Harvard University. Four of my immediate family members are practicing positions. One son, one son-in-law, one daughter-in-law, my youngest sister, with whom I often discuss health matters. With Jack hammering of rocks, pollutants include invisible fine particle dust which penetrates deep into the lungs and can cause, among other things, silicosis, a painful and debilitating disease which is irreversible, irreversible. It is a life sentence of ill health. Neighbors pleaded for mitigation, but all that the town got from the developer was one or two days of totally individual, general area of water spraying, nothing near compliance with the code of federal regulations for these activities. Children, infants, toddlers and even young adults up to 20 years of age are extremely vulnerable to damage from particle pollution. The child's respiratory system is immature and must develop for many years. This development is very complex, anatomically and biochemically and fine particles are drawn further into the lungs in children. Near these residential ledger excavations, there can be little babies with extremely delicate respiratory passages and also seniors being subjected to the same hazards as at industrial sites without the monitoring or mitigation that is mandated for industrial sites. In fact, we have zero monitoring, no oversight, no protection, nothing. The developer's trump card, not to be political, is speed. He comes in fast with a blitz grid of industrial machines, leaving neighbors horrified and shocked with no way to find out about the project and too late to arrange for children to get away to a safe place. Health and safety of residents in town are the first responsibility of appointed and elected persons in town, including us here at town meeting. No child in town should be placed at risk just because parents bought a house which happened to be near a lot with Ledge that developer decides to develop. Neighbors requested help from the board of selectmen, the board of health, the building inspector, the town engineer and the town manager, but they did not find any of these officials felt there was any instrument in town available to them to help. So, we don't want this to end up like in Flint, Michigan. Their residents tried to get local and state officials to help reduce lead levels in the water. The Kansas Scott kicked down the road from one official to another with no solution and eventually residents had to solve the problem themselves with the help of researchers. Likewise, here in Arlington, residents also tried to get state help but the Kansas Scott kicked back to the town with no solution as it has now reached us here at town meeting. We can vote yes on this article and bring the town the instrument it needs. Permanent state and federal safety regulations are being ignored in favor of safeguarding developer profits. So, one or two more engineers who are familiar with state and federal standards and regulations should be appointed to the Zoning Board of Appeals, at least as alternates bringing expertise to resident protection. Consultants should be used if necessary. Maybe the Arlington Redevelopment Board could share the wealth. They have 13 paid staff members and frequently used consultants. I can't emphasize enough the seriousness of this situation, especially for children. Young children have incomplete respiratory epithelium so air pollution exposure can do a lot of damage. It can take weeks or years for symptoms to develop. If this article says even one child from lung damage it will have been well worth your vote. Please vote yes. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Ms. Band? Hi, Carol Band, precinct eight. Patricia's right, this project was horrific and it did put the neighborhood through health for eight weeks during the summer. I live about a half a block away and it was loud and the town was unresponsive because frankly there was nothing they could do. There was no regulation in place. We called the town manager who was very nice but he said, I can't really do anything called the Board of Health. We called the Board of Health and they came and they said, yeah, it's loud but we can't really do anything. So we do need some kind of regulation. The Board of Selects has been voted no action on this proposed article and I would like to wonder if the language could be changed, Mr. Moderator. Can we, if we change the language sufficiently can we resubmit it in April? Well you have three, two, do you have a couple options you can either vote Mr. Wardens. Yeah. You can vote to amend it lightly. You can vote no action, you can vote it down or you can vote to refer to the residential zoning committee. But if we, if we vote no action, you said it can't come back for two years but if we change the language can it come back in April? Mr. Heim. Doug Heim, Town Council. So there's a couple of options available. With respect to the main motion, we have a pending motion for no action. So it's difficult to bring it back without the agreement of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. So the Arlington Redevelopment Board can allow it to come back in earlier than two years but any motion that is substantively the same on a zoning matter that fails can't be brought out, can't be brought back without the agreement of the redevelopment board. So what does substantively different mean? Or. So this is within the purview of the town moderator but a substitute motion has been filed by Mr. Warden for example on the no action recommendation of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. At this point in time, any further changes to Mr. Warden's motion would have to be acceptable on town meeting floor within the discretion of the moderator. The only other option is to seek to withdraw a motion although I'm not, given the fact that we have a recommended vote of no action, I don't know that unless the redevelopment board also wanted to withdraw their no action motion, their vote of no action so that the entire matter has been withdrawn. Can't withdraw. Okay. What's your only other option is to do a substitute motion to refer it to a committee and we vote one of the two substitutes yes or no, we vote on both no and then we go back to no actual vote. Well, I certainly have to defer to the moderator on the rules of town meeting. Yeah. Okay, thank you. I think there is an urgency with this issue and I think that if we wait long that the land in Arlington is so valuable that it's being snapped up and we're gonna have houses jammed into what were previously unbuildable lots. Okay, thank you. Mr. Moore. Christopher Moore precinct 14 in heights with the ledge. It sounds like a really unpleasant thing happened but I have some questions about whether this is really the right way to address the problem. My first question Mr. Moderator is if we made a choice to for instance refer this to committee and we came back with a change in the bylaws at the spring town meeting, when would the change become effective if we did it in the special town meeting in the spring? If we made a change in the special town meeting. We're also gonna have a special next spring. Don't we generally do it? Only if Adam wants to do something really quick and spend money before the AG comes back in July. I see. Otherwise you have to wait for the new fiscal year July one and then we wait for the attorney general to approve any changes to the bylaws and that usually takes the end of the summer. Yeah. Once they've been approved he's gonna give you the exact timeframe. So typically the attorney general's office for a spring town meeting won't have approved a zoning bylaw until some time around the end of the summer. There is some question which is getting a little bit too thick into the weeds for a potential zoning bylaw amendment about whether projects are put on sufficient notice that they have to abide by a pending zoning proposal. Thank you. I think Mr. Chaplain wants to elaborate as well. Adam Chaplain, town manager. Just to help with this conversation I do anticipate either during the annual town meeting or maybe even prior to next year's annual town meeting there being a need for a special town meeting to consider appropriating funds for the renovation of the Gibbs school. So if that town meeting were to occur and we were to make a bylaw change at that meeting when would it become effective? It has to go to attorney general for approval. Once he approves it, or she approves it, I'm sorry then the town has to advertise it for two weeks and we advocate after those two weeks it becomes effective. If we're lucky, yeah 90 days. So 90 days if we're lucky. Yeah. Not the end of the summer which would be the more normal timeline. Okay thank you. April, June, July. That gives us a little bit of an idea of what we might have as an option. But I think the thing that's really important for today's discussion is that this is not the right response to this problem. It looks to me like the current zoning bylaw says we can't have rock quarries, gravel pits, and for some reason sod farms. That's the reason I presume that we can't sell the rocks. The problem here though isn't rocks. It's not even really removable rocks as far as I can tell. The problem is noise and dust. We do have a noise ordinance and I think we've heard that maybe it's not adequate to our needs. If we have a noise ordinance that doesn't do what we want let's fix the noise ordinance rather than creating a separate law about certain kinds of equipment being used to remove rock. I'd rather just fix the noise problem. If we have a noise problem let's fix that. If we have a dust problem let's fix that. That makes a lot more sense and we'll cover the problems that we actually perceive. So I would like to make a motion to refer this to the citizen's committee. Can I get that in writing and can I get a second on that? Okay. Thank you. So come on up and put that in writing. Next on the list is Mr. Berkowitz. Referring to the citizen's residential zoning committee. Study group, whatever it's. Study group. Thanks Mr. Moderator. Bill Berkowitz precinct eight. As I say at the Larrington redevelopment board as a responsibility directly or indirectly to safeguard the welfare of the residents of the town. I would like to say that the redevelopment board is doing its job with distinction. Judging by its actions over the past year I'm going to need a little bit more convincing. I appreciate Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Berkowitz. I'm more convincing. I appreciate Mr. Bernal's remarks. But over as you may remember over the course of the spring town meeting a number of articles, citizen articles came before us as town meeting members to limit what number of people here felt was overly intrusive development. These articles failed. The ARB recommended no action on them and their view prevailed. So be it. We come now to another citizen article which as its proponents say, excuse me it was signed by 235 people and you've heard the reasons why, which I won't repeat. But the ARB for reasons of its own or actually reasons detailed in this report again recommended no action for perhaps very cogent reasons. I think this loses the sight of the larger picture which is, as other people here have reported, when this rock drilling occurred during the summer it was literally and figuratively shattering. I live myself about, I measured 0.4 miles from the side of the drilling. If I step outside of my house during the summer I could distinctly hear it. You can imagine what it was like for the people who are the neighbors, the immediate butters of the house. Yet again the ARB recommends no action and the town was not able to help them. Something is wrong here. We can do better as a town and we should. The ARB's recommendation of no action is disappointing to me. Despite the whatever the merits may be of its reasons for several reasons I think it could have done, could have acted differently. For example, it could have supported the Mr. Ward's motion as it was. It could have supported it with some refinements. It could have formulated its own recommendations. It could have expressed at least minimum some sympathy for the situation facing the immediate butters and those people surrounding 108 Irving. It did none of those things. That's disappointing to me. I am rising to support the original substitute motion presented by Mr. Warden as a first step, not as a final step, but as a first step in the process of making sure that these situations don't happen again. And I hear Mr. Moore's comments about other actions needed to prevent, to prevent noise and dust, notwithstanding that, I think this is a first step we can take rather than delay, kick the can down the road, punt or continue to take no action. I think the larger point that I would like to make though is that in many planning decisions, a planning group, we or we, must balance the rights of developers, people who are developing against those people who are impacted by the development. In my view, the Airbnb is giving the impression that it favors the developers, developer side too much of the time. And I would like to encourage the Airbnb to be more cognizant of the need, and for us to be more cognizant of the need to balance the rights of the developers versus those people who are impacted by the development. Thanks very much. Thank you very much, sir. Gentleman in the purple. Yep, you, yeah, you end up. John Gersh, precinct 18, first time addressing town meeting. I strongly feel like I wanna support Mr. Warden's motion. I sometimes feel at the mercy of developers and committees and studies, and this just seems like a really common sense way to give some protection to me and my neighbors up in Arlington Heights, that's all. Gentleman right next to him in the blue. Yeah, Mr. Belkis, you are on the list, ma'am. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. John Belkis, precinct 18. I stand here in support of Mr. Warden's motion, and I oppose the no action as proposed by the redevelopment board. And I speak from firsthand experience, and I'll tell you why I am standing here. December, early December, 2014, Saturday morning. There'd been a lot of activity and a lot next door because they tore down a small cape. I knew there was going to be something larger, but on this Saturday morning, the excavator that tore the building down was there with this huge device, one of the biggest jackhammers I have ever seen, and all they had to do was remove a little bit of ledge that they wanted to kind of expand the foundation a little bit. It went on all day. Pictures were falling off the wall. I should have brought the video that I made off my back porch where you could almost feel the vibrations and sense the pounding that went on. So we have laws that supposedly help us in these situations. So first I call the police department and ask them because it's Saturday, none of the town offices are open. The police officer came down, he checked out the action and replied back to me that, well, they have a building permit so there isn't much we can do. But I was aware as a 16 year town meeting member that sometime past, we had passed some noise ordinances. So why can't we get the noise level verified? Well, the capability rests with the health department and they're not open on Saturdays. So this continues all day. And believe me until you've lived with it and not just me, my neighbors three and four houses away. And this is relatively small. They weren't removing a huge ledge like in the previous example. This was just a little bit of ledge they wanted to remove. But you've got pictures falling off the wall. You've got glasses falling off the shelves. I probably have some cracks in the ceiling to go with it. So we're saying, well, the redevelopment board says, well, we'll hang in there. We've got a study committee we put together. I applaud them for that. But this isn't gonna happen for a while, okay? I'd like to flip the coin the other way. If we accept Mr. Warden's motion, well, next year, the redevelopment board and the committee that they have can come in with warrant articles that can adjust or change this. There's some immediacy to this warrant article. Until you've lived next to one of these situations, you can't appreciate how bad it is. And I appreciate it. And I strongly urge you to support Mr. Warden's motion and not accept the no action motion. And next year, they can bring in their changes to what we're proposing here if it doesn't quite fit. Please vote yes on Mr. Warden's motion and vote no on the redevelopment boards. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Veldes. Mr. Trembly. Good evening. Micah Trembly, precinct 21. I was hoping to come up here for you to terminate debate, but hearing after hearing some of the discussion, go on about this particular warrant article. Unfortunately, I feel I have to comment. So I oppose Mr. Warden's article, but I do not support the Arlington Redevelopment Board's vote of no action. The reason I, excuse me, the reason I oppose Mr. Warden's article is because I believe it is bad legislation. And by bad legislation, I mean, it doesn't actually achieve what we're trying to do. What we're trying to do is control noise and dust from these construction sites. And okay, informing all the residents around an 1,800 foot radius is a good idea. But having the contractor just jump through hoops to get an approval, that doesn't solve the problem. Mr. Moderator, could someone explain to me if the building department has authority to mandate certain safety regulations or procedures, such as water, a spray water dust control system? Mr. Byrne, can you answer that? Or Mr. Hind, do you want to? Oh, Ms. Bonjornos can answer, of course. Christine Bonjornos, Health and Human Services Director, Board of Health, Representative. The Board of Health does mandate watering down of the site if there is dust that does go beyond the property line. So that is the case. Okay, and I forgot my other question. Oh, Mr. Moderator, I don't know, I open this up to the floor, ask you to open this up to the floor. Is there anyone in town meeting or in this room that knows of any other ways of removing rock or ledge besides blasting and chipping? Thor's hammer. Mr. Fisher, is there another way? There are wedges that use air compression and I think Inkins did it with logs which is the way they would then make the logs swell with water. Yeah, none of this is getting on the record. So what she's basically saying, there were no permits issued for the Irving Street project. So yes. For the chipping, specifically. Can someone explain to me if that was part of the building permit plan? Who's plan? Mr. Moderator, I ask, is it, is the chipping and the process of being approved for the chipping, isn't that part of the building permit? This guy, he didn't go for a building permit because he hadn't put in that he's gonna build a building, he just went up there and started chipping. He didn't need a permit to chip. Okay. There's no requirement to report to anybody, he's to his property. Okay, I see. I missed that little detail. Nonetheless, I do feel for the affected parties, I know waking up at seven o'clock in the morning and having a giant 30,000 pounds machine, 30,000 pound machinery start chipping away the rock next to your house is not a very pleasant or desirable situation to be in. However, I feel there should be, instead of just requiring them to arbitrarily go for a permit, especially if they are going for a building permit. I feel we should review this legislation, come back to it in April. Where I had some idea for an alternative, but have them put in the appropriate water dust control systems, maybe limit the amount of time that they can chip to four hours a day. I don't know, but this legislation does not solve the problem of noise and dust. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Tremblin, Mr. Jelka. Daniel Jelka, precinct six, I move to terminate debate on article 10 and all matters related therein. We have a motion to terminate debate on article 10 and all matters before us. So all in favor of terminating debate, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. In my opinion, it is a two third vote. Debate is terminated. Okay, so we have before us, pay attention, two substitute motions. We have Mr. Warden's substitute motion which sets out parameters for new section 11.03, sand and rock removal, et cetera, et cetera. So we have two substitute motions, Mr. Warden's substitute motion you have before you for new section 11.03, removal of sand, et cetera, et cetera. We also have before you Mr. Moore's substitute motion that would refer the matter to the citizen's residential zoning study committee which we formed last spring. So we're gonna vote on those two substitute motions. One first, hold on a second, let me finish explaining what I'm doing then you can ask your question. First we're gonna vote on Mr. Warden's. If you wanna have the new bylaw, you're gonna vote yes to substitute Mr. Warden's. If you don't like Mr. Warden's just vote no. If you wanna vote it to refer to the committee, you'll vote for Mr. Moore's. If you don't wanna refer to the committee, you'll vote him down. If you wanna have no action, you'll vote both down and go with the no action of the ARB. So you have basically three choices. Now this guy back here had a question. Yes, Mr. Michelson. There's a point of order on the voting. Correct. If they so choose. If they so choose. What you're, we're talking about point of order from how we're gonna vote. We're not continuing debate. Mr. Burkowitz, what's your point of order on the method of voting? You have to come to the record. You have to come to the mic because we can't get this on the record. Bill Burkowitz, spacing eight. Wondering if you vote for Mr. Warden's article, can you also vote for Mr. Moore's? Meaning that you vote for the substitute and review the larger issue to committee. They're mutually exclusive in my opinion. They're mutually exclusive. Thank you. Mr. Rierig, what's your point of order on the voting? Brian Rierig, precinct eight. Mr. Moderator, what will your ruling be if both pass? Well, that's gonna be up to the attorney general. I don't think so because we then have to take the vote on the main motion. So if we, if that's why I'm saying they're more or less mutually exclusive, Mr. Rierig. If you want the article, if you wanna have this bylaw, you vote for Warden, you don't vote for Moore. If you wanna refer it to the committee, for them to come back with further study, you don't vote for Mr. Warden's and you do vote for the referral. If you want neither, you have vote on both down, you go with the ARB no action. That doesn't mean the committee can't do what they want. It's... I understand. Mr. Heim, do you have a point? We could reverse the order if that would make the... If I may, Mr. Moderator, you still have the same problem. I understand you're suggesting to town meeting members that they only vote in favor of at most one of the substitute motions, but you can't force them to. I can't force them to do anything. And if you wind up with a vote where both have passed, you need to tell us whether the second yes vote is gonna supersede the first one or not. You have this course, the second yes. So we'll reverse the order then. We'll go first to refer to the committee. If that doesn't pass or if it does pass, we'll substitute it. See, this is the problem with all these substitute motions coming in and having a one day special on these sort of things in front of us. It's hard for legislation. Wait, wait, Mr. Heim is pointing out a technical point right now. Oh, correct, yeah. Okay. No, not the substitute. Yeah, okay. All right, at some point we're just gonna have to go ahead and do this now. A point of order. Post-legman precinct nine. It's my understanding that we were debating a substitute motion by Mr. Warden. In the midst of that debate, another town meeting member came in with a substitute on top of Mr. Warden's motion. Correct. So this would in essence be an amendment or a change to the substitute motion before us so that my understanding of the way the rule should work would be that the referral motion should come first as it is an amendment or a substitute to the substitute motion previous. Well. Excuse me, Mr. Yeah. Okay, so come on. Reconsideration of how the order of voting will do Mr. Moore first refer. Then we'll, come on. Let me make a make a rule here. You didn't like the first way. I'm gonna do it the other way. So let me just think about it and come up with a scheme of voting. I would like to do Mr. Warden's first, but the meeting doesn't seem to want to do it that way. So, quiet. We're gonna vote Mr. Warden's first. All in favor of Mr. Warden's substitute motion, please vote yes. And Mr. Laughwood is ready. If you want Mr. Warden's vote yes. If you don't want it, vote no. Mr. Warden's carries. Mr. Warden's is substituted for the no action of the ARB. Now, Mr. Moore, if you want to substitute Mr. Moore's for Mr. Warden's, you'll vote yes. If you want to refer it to the committee, you'll vote yes. If you don't want to refer it and you want to go with Mr. Warden's vote no. Mr. Laughwood. So if you want to refer it to the committee now, right now we have now substituted Mr. Warden's recommended Mr. Warden's substitute motion for the recommended vote of the ARB. The ARB vote of no action is now out. It's Mr. Warden's is now the main motion. We can now substitute Mr. Warden's motion and refer it to a committee if we go with Mr. Moore's motion. So now it's, do you want to refer it to the committee for study or go with Mr. Warden's? And then following this, we're gonna take another vote. So Mr. Laughwood, if you want to refer it to the committee, vote one. If you do not want to refer a vote two. It's defeated. All right, we now have before us, when Mr. Moore is done, we're not gonna refer it to the committee. We now have before us a recommended vote of the ARB as substituted by Mr. Warden's motion and as it's, hold on, zoning. So it has to pass by a two-third vote. We had a substitute. We've now substituted Mr. Warden's vote. If you want to pass Mr. Warden's vote, you have to vote yes. If you don't want it, you vote no. And it's a two-third vote because it's zoning. All in favor of the article, please vote one for yes, two for no. One for yes if you want it, two if you don't want it. It's real simple. If you want the article, vote yes. If you don't want it, vote no. Voting as amended and it has to vote by two-thirds. Final vote is 98 to 68, the article fails. It's two-thirds. It's two-thirds, it's zoning. It has to pass by two-thirds. That closes article 10. That brings us to article 11. We have a recommended vote of no action. All in favor of no action, please say yes. All opposed? Wait a second, let's dissolve first. That closes all the articles in front of the, Mr. Foske, please remove article one from the table. Mr. Moderator, I move that the special town meeting be dissolved. All in favor of moving article one from the table, please say yes. Yes. All opposed? No, that dissolves the special town meeting of October 19th, 2016. Thank you very much. Trees return your clickers on your way out. Please return your clickers on the way out.