 All right, calling to order the meeting of the Allenton Select Board for Monday, December 7th, 2020. As a preliminary matter, this is John Hurd, Select Board Chair, permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Diane Mahan. Yes. Joseph Curl. Yes. Steve Dacorsi. Yes. Len Diggins. Yes. Staff, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Adam Chapter Lane. Yes. Douglas Heim. Yes. And Board Administrator Ashley Maher is participating remotely. Good evening. This meeting of the Allenton Select Board is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12th, 2020 due to the current state of emergency in the Commonwealth, given the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in order to mitigate the transmission of the virus and reduce risk of COVID-19 illness. We have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings and as such, the Governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with the agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment even if members of the public do not provide comment. Participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment and those persons are not required to identify themselves. For this meeting, the Select Board is convening by Zoom as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that folks may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. Please also take care to adjust your screen or device name if you would like to speak in order for us to recognize speakers appropriately and develop accurate minutes. It is helpful for our participants to see your full first and last name when calling upon you rather than a nickname. All of the materials for this meeting except any executive session materials are available on the Novus Agenda Dashboard and we recommend the members in the public follow the agenda as posted on Novus unless the chair notes otherwise. We're now turning to our first item on our agenda before we do so permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate meeting minutes. I will introduce each speaker on the agenda after they conclude their remarks, the chair will go down the line of members inviting each by name to provide any comments, questions or motions. Please hold until your name is called. Further, please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. Please remember to speak clearly in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response, please wait until the chair yields the floor to you and state your name before speaking. If members wish to engage in colloquy with other members, please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself. This meeting will feature opportunities for public comment on certain items. After members have spoke, I as the chair will afford public comment. Opportunities as follows, I first will ask members of the public who wish to speak to identify their names and addresses only. Once the chair has a list of all public commentators, I will call on each by name and afford three minutes for any comments. Please keep in mind that all participants and member of the public must be recognized by the chair before speaking. Finally, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call vote. All right, and that takes us to item number two on our agenda. We have a proclamation for Diamond Chimalis who is currently Arlington's eldest living resident. Do we have Ms. Chimalis with us? We're here. Yes, we're here. Welcome. Am I pronouncing your last name correctly? Is it Chimalis? Correct. Yes, Diamond Chimalis. We're a little crooked here. There we go, perfect. All right, we do have proclamation here. I'll read the proclamation that will give you an opportunity to introduce yourself and go through the board for some comments. So we have a proclamation here signed by all five board members. Whereas Diamond Chimalis was born on November 7th, 1914 in Lowell, Massachusetts to Stanley and Florence Chimalis, the original Greek spelling, who immigrated from Legathea, Greece when Diamond and her six siblings started attending school. The spelling of their last name was modernized to Chimalis for the ease of pronunciation. And whereas Diamond was valedictorian of her graduating class from Lowell High School, as a result of the hard times of the era she was not able to pursue a college degree as she would have liked. Her brothers, George and Chris came to Arlington having bought Martin's diner on Mass Ave in Arlington Center after the end of World War II. This prompted the other siblings to follow them to Arlington. Diamond worked as a sales associate at Terrain's Ladies Clothing Store on Mass Ave in Arlington. And whereas in the late 1950s, her brothers sold Martin's diner and purchased Kendall diner in Cambridge partnering with their other two brothers, Alex and Nick. Diamond became the hostess slash waitress and her sister, Catherine, a waitress. In 1960, Diamond with her two remaining single siblings, Alex and Catherine, constructed a house that Diamond designed in the new development called Poets Corner in Arlington where Diamond has lived for the past 60 years. And whereas in Diamond's younger years, she always enjoyed singing at the Greek church, dancing at the Commodore Ballroom in Lowell and participating in the Young Democratic Party. She loved decorating her house and used to work in her yard cutting grass and trimming bushes up to her late 90s. She is blessed with seven nieces and nephews, 10 great nieces and nephews and 14 great, great nieces and nephews. And whereas on November 7th, 2020, due to the restrictive COVID-19 pandemic guidelines instead of a traditional birthday party, a festive drive-by parade was held for her birthday celebration, which she loved. Happy 106th birthday, Diamond. Now, therefore be it resolved that we, the members of the select board in Arlington, in honor of Arlington's eldest living resident, proclaim November 7th, 2020, Diamond Chimales Day in the town of Arlington to commemorate her 106th birthday. We are honored to wish her good health, happiness and prosperity on behalf of the past, present and future residents of the town celebrate in celebration of this remarkable event. And that is signed by all five members of the select board. Welcome, Ms. Chimales, happy birthday. Is there anything you'd like to say? I appreciate it, I'm honored. And I would look forward to have people to recognize me too. I love my city, my town, my state, my everything. I'm a normal person, but I love things. Thank you very much for this honor. It's greatly appreciated by an old lady like me. But I'm an old lady in mind only, but I have other nice things about me that people should know. And I worked hard. I was a major in the born, I had a business that we owned. I loved doing things for my family, but I was unlucky to lose them. So I've been doing whatever I can. Thank you. Thank you, we appreciate you participating with us. All right, Mrs. Mohan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to first move approval, proclamation and say to Ms. Diamond Chimales, I know you say you're an old lady, but you look like a very beautiful lady to me. And I can tell from what we receive that you're very dedicated to your family as they are to you. And I understand we're now entering your 106th birthday. God bless you. Any words? Any words? Wisdom we would take, but I think you've already stressed that family is very important. So thank you for letting us share in your birthday and your family's life. Oh, I'm so happy you gave me this honor of people to notice me too that I was a hardworking little girl when I weren't here and I worked for my family. Everything they asked of me, I did. And I'm happy. God bless you. Thank you. Mr. Diggs. Well, he really, I just really want to echo with my own colleague, Mr. Han said and my inclination generally is to ask questions, but I have too many to ask tonight. But if you have a chance to write down the secrets that got you to 106th, please do, Eden. And you know what? Let's look forward to some more years, all right? So we want to see you back here. All right, take care. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for this honor. I appreciate it. But I would say a lot of kind of worth it. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate all my place for my study, my government, my family, and my friends. I am well-fed. We have a great sense of humor. That's great. Love it. Thank you very much. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just echo and say happy birthday. Your story is told and the proclamation was very inspirational. And I will say that I noticed the proclamation said that you are blessed by many. I guess nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews. I'll just say that we are blessed to have you as part of our Arlington family. Yes, thank God for that. Yeah, this is to a couple of nieces and nephews right beside her. Hey, Mr. DeCorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Malus. Happy birthday. It truly is an honor to have you here with us tonight. And I can see your dedication to your family and into the town and just to repeat again with some precedent by the fact that you're a valedictorian of your class at Lowell High School. And thank you so much for joining us tonight. Thank you. Not only that, but I think I like you. You're a nice person. You say nice things about me. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I just wanted to ask the town manager or town council. If you'd like to join in Mr. Chaplin. I'll just join in what all the board members have said. Many people as well. Maybe that maybe that's one of the secrets. Mr. Diggins is to surround yourself with people you love to add to your longevity. On my right hand. On my left hand here. My knee. Yeah, we take care of her. To make sure she's still in her home and doesn't have to be in a nursing home or someplace like that. I think that's done a lot. Someone alive to 106. They can be in their own surroundings. And I want to thank you. Easy for me. Thank you. Just share how heartwarming it is to see so much wisdom and love. Sitting right there. What did I'll say? One, two. I'm sure. I guess. Yeah. And I would just say. Thank you for participating. It's a major milestone. And we look forward to on your 107th birthday, you can come in back into the select board's chambers in town hall. And we can properly congratulate you face to face. Okay. That would be great. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to second Ms. Mahan's motion. Yep. So we have a motion to approve the proclamation by Mrs. Mahan second by Mr. Curl attorney. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Mahan. Yes, thank you. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Carol. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. To unanimous vote. Thank you very much, Mrs. Chimales. Be well. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Right. So that takes us to. Mr. Chris. Mr. Curl. Mr.ragon. Yes. And our consent agenda, we have meeting. Of minutes. November 30th, 2020 joint meeting with the Arlington housing Authority. In meeting of minutes November 30th, 2020. Mr. Curl. All the approval, Mr. Corнем. Second. Mr. Diggins. Any comments? Thanks. Thank you. Ms. Mahan in comments. I know. Thank you. Thank you attorney. Yes, thank you. Mr. DeCoursey. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Curell. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. It's unanimous vote. Thank you. Next on our agenda is our open forum, accepting unusual circumstances, any matter presented for consideration of the board shall neither be acted upon nor a decision made the night of the presentation. In accordance with the policy under which the open forum was established, it should be noted that there is a three minute time limit to present a concern or request. So at this time, if you'd like to speak during our open forum, please use the raise hand function on your Zoom application. There are no raised hands, Mr. Chair. All right, and with that, we will move on to traffic rules in order and other business. Item number five on our agenda, discussion future select board meetings, which I was already focused on. We are through December, I believe right now, Monday, January 4th and Monday, January 18th. Well, that'll be M-L-K-D. M-L-K-D. Okay. 25th, four and 25. Four and 25. Yep. All right, so we have January 25th and January 25th. January 4th and January 25th. Into February, looks like we'd be on 8th and 22nd. Yeah, second if that's the second. Sure. That good, two months, good enough for at this point. All right, so we will schedule for the 4th and 25th and January the 8th and the 22nd in February. Okay. All right, that takes us on the next item, correspondence received. Item number six, traffic concerns regarding Westminster Avenue, Downing Square in Lowell Street areas. Becca, Shalya, Matthew, 265 Lowell Street along with additional signers from the area. Mr. Curl, do you want to have a motion on this one? Yeah, I would, I'll move receipt of correspondence received with the following the referrals. Number six, traffic concerns regarding Westminster Avenue, Downing Square to TAC, speed limit enforcement in the Crosby Street neighborhood to the town manager and Harold Brothers HVAC bid regarding the Allenton High School project to the Allenton High School Building Committee. Thank you. I'll second that, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, yes. So the item in regards to Crosby Street was actually brought before the board at my recommendation to Mr. Amstitz's recommendation for the board to refer it to TAC. So we, Dan has already worked with them and it seems best if we bring it to TAC if that is okay with the board. Yeah. Happy to reply my motion. Yep. Thank you. And then Mr. Chaplain, do you want to introduce number nine? The board only needs to receive that. Yep. Okay. All right. And do you want to include that in your motion, Mr. Chaplain? Yes. Yep. All right. And Mrs. Mahan? Yes, definitely second. And on correspondence to receive, I'm going to make sure I'm muted. Agenda item eight, I have had a conversation with the town manager on that. And I understand it's something he and the, the HHS building committee is aware of. And I will leave it to our town manager to answer back to that, but the answers I have received have been satisfactorily explained, especially regarding OSHA requirements. So thank you very much. Janine? Mrs. Mahan? Yes, thank you. Mr. Dacorsi? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Kuro? Yes. Mr. Hurd? Yes. Janine, I misspoke. Thank you. New business, attorney Hyde? No new business, thank you. Mr. Chaplain? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have three items and I'll share the first two, which are a little more brief before getting into a third item, which will focus on the latest in pandemic response, both regionally and locally. The first is to thank really everybody involved with the successful town meeting that took place over the course of the past few weeks. It all, it started here with this board's support and the urgings and promptings and work of board member Len Diggins. And then really transferred into great work by a number of volunteers and town staff and the town moderator and then really culminated with 252 very patient or mostly patient people who worked through five nights learning a new process but keeping a democratic process alive in Arlington. So I don't mean to steal that from any of you. I think we should all, if we care to thank all those who made it happen because I do think it was really an excellent team effort, community-wide, again, volunteers, staff, elected officials, appointed officials. It was a really great effort to make it all work. The second is I wanted to just make mention that a week from tonight on December 14th at 7 p.m. there will be a public forum. It's called the Connect Arlington Public Forum for our sustainable transportation planning effort. This will be an opportunity for people to hear about the planning effort and give some feedback. There's also a survey active online right now for people to be able to give their feedback before the forum about issues of sustainable transportation in Arlington. So I wanted to call attention to that as well. Finally, I wanted to talk a little bit about some, I don't want to say breaking, but updates in regards to both the town's response and what's happening more broadly with response to the pandemic. I think as we've all seen, case numbers have been surging, not only nationwide, but in the state. We've also been seeing that surge in Arlington. We're seeing numbers we didn't even see back in the spring in terms of a daily case count. And it's certainly raising our concerns. My concerns, I think I can speak for the Director of Health and Human Services and her concerns about how widely and quickly it's being transmitted in Arlington. I've been part of a coalition as I've been from the start of local mayors and managers, both asking for actions and for assistance of the state and federal government. More recently, that group has been talking about the need for the consideration of some targeted strategic, hopefully time limited rollbacks to try to once again flatten this curve while the vaccine is actually beginning to arrive. So we don't believe that local independent action makes a lot of sense from a practical point of view. It would negatively impact businesses and not necessarily have the impact we wanted to have from a public health point of view. But we do continue to advocate at the state level for action. Both action in terms of a rollback as well as potential relief action for small businesses in the manner in which the state could contemplate as well as continuing to advocate for federal relief which more recently does seem like there is a chance of there being federal relief sometime in the near future. Not that the jinxed, but it does seem like that those talks are going better than they have in recent times. More locally, some have probably seen this news today. We did have a positive COVID case of an employee at the Robbins Library. Based on that, we will be shutting the library for resident access for the next two weeks. We'll continue to update residents about access as that becomes available. We don't have any reason to believe that any residents were exposed based on that positive test, but out of an abundance of caution to protect both the staff and residents, the library will be closed. I think that's all I wanted to share. Oh, I'm sorry, one more piece. Also announced today, we are piloting another testing opportunity for residents in partnership with Armstrong Ambulance that will start tomorrow and run tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday. You can register on the town's website. There is a charge associated with it. For those unable to pay, we are working to identify resources to be able to support the costs associated with providing them the test. But we're piloting it for this week to gauge interest and operability to make sure that it works well and that we're filling a need in Arlington. So I think where I've been saying this on my weekly updates in ACMI, we're in this second surge. This is the first month of the end of the pandemic in terms of vaccines becoming available, but there's a lot of work left to do to get us all through this pandemic as healthy as we can be. So I urge everybody in Arlington to keep wearing your masks, keep it hearing to the guidelines that are issued by the CDC, by the DPH, by the governor and locally here from the Arlington Board of Health. And right from the start, we've been saying, we're in this together. We're gonna get through this together. And I think it's through our collective effort that we will get through this together. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So yeah, with respect to Tom meeting, I sent an email out and so people know how grateful I am to everyone that helped pull together. And I will submit a letter to this board so that we have some documentation of the effort that went into it being not only for posterity, but also of meeting so that if some other entity wants to try something like this, it'll have a sense of what it takes to do it. And I also want to echo the top managers announcement about the forum and to also let people know about other surveys that are going on, there is one for the, well, I guess this feedback on the residential design and another presentation or forum that's gonna be on industrial zoning. You know, we, the sound does a lot of good work being and because of that, there's often be a lot of input that we ask for from our residents being and I know it can be burdensome sometimes, but think of it as a good problem to have. And if you delve into some of these reports, I mean, they are just so full of information. So if you don't get to it in time for input, I strongly suggest that you check them out because you will learn a lot, Ian, and you'll learn a lot about the topic, but also you have a great appreciation for the work that people here in town are doing. And I do want to say to the town manager that support your initiative along with the other municipalities for this regional approach to the pandemic. And yeah, it's a little scary, Ian, and as when we talked this morning, I said one of the issues too about the spread of the virus is that even if you don't get really sick, there was a piece on 60 Minutes a couple of weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago about how some younger people in particular who don't get sick because of the way their immune system responds that prevents them from getting really sick. It does tend to cause some other problems. I mean, that can be long lasting. So we really need to contain this as much as we can. And yeah, businesses that if we roll back, we have to find some way to support the businesses that are affected, because not simply those businesses mean, well, let me rephrase that, when those businesses are affected, I mean, it's the employees mean that are also affected. And so it's a lot of reiteration, but it's a short meeting. So I figured I could spend a little time doing that. Thank you. Ms. Mon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to Town Manager regarding what's happening at the library. I know I've said this at least two or three meetings previous. So I'm gonna say it again, but I'd really like something concrete in terms of, we're going into 2021, what I bend down Town Hall and other town buildings and besides the library, the clerk's office, the treasurer and the select board office, everything else is pretty much closed. I'd like to see a plan, if we can have it at the next meeting in January for a cautious reopening. I see other cities and towns are opening their town or city offices by appointment only. Sometimes they have COVID testing requirements. So I would put that forth to the Town Manager and Town Council. I would just like to see a plan about reopening town offices, not the Town Hall, but reopening the town offices. And I understand that people are working from home, but I'm also around town and the Town Hall. So I really wanna see, I've been asking for this for a couple of months and haven't seen anything. I'd like to see something printed in terms of how Town Hall reopens, whether virtually or maybe in the lesser case in person or walk-in, I should say. And then the second thing is we got some federal CDBG funding that the CDBG subcommittee met, that we sort of fast-tracked it so that we could get it to the select board for a vote, which we took the vote and we took the vote so that either at the end of November or the first week of December, we would get out the applications and the parameters for businesses and low-income residents to apply for that. I haven't seen anything on that. I'd really like to see that at the latest within the next week. I don't wanna wait to the January meeting part of the reason that we took the ambitious task of having the CDBG subcommittee meet presenting it to the board was so that at the very latest it would be the last week in November, first week of December and we've gone beyond that. And I'm really concerned about that. And again, that may tie into what I'm saying about having employees come back to the office, not necessarily that it's open to the public but they're back in the office in planning or wherever, getting that work done. And then my last two things would be I'd really like to see by the next meeting the town manager referenced it tonight regarding vaccination distribution as well as again, the town manager spoke to this tonight, increased testing, hoping that in 2021 there's a lot more opportunities for that. And then I don't know if perhaps the chair and or the town manager could speak to since it appears we may meet again in December although it would be for a business meeting like this, I assume and nothing more. I do recall something from our veterans services director about something possibly happening at Mount Pleasant on December 19th or did I read that wrong? So our veterans coordinator had reached out to us. I don't know if he had locked anything down set in stone, but I'll ask the town manager to see if he can confirm that. Yes, I have the same experience and I know he asked us to hold the date. I thought it was, yes, you're right, Ms. Mohan, it's December 19th for a noon time ceremony. It's called wreaths across America, but he's not yet confirmed. I can check with him to see if that actually is confirmed. No, okay, thank you. And if I could through you, Mr. Chair, ask the town manager, hopefully no later by the end of this week, we have that second round of CARES Act II federal funding applications out. Okay, I would only add that that is entirely dependent on the approval from HUD, which I don't believe we've received yet. So as soon as we get that approval, it will be turned around as soon as we receive that. Okay, thank you. Not to be picky on, but did we send it in and when? It was sent in as soon as it was approved, within a day or two after this board approved it. Okay, if you could. I'll talk to you about that later. Thank you. All right, Mr. Carroll. Thank you, Mr. Chair, no new business. Thank you, Mr. DeCorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, just two things. I did one of my thanks to everybody who worked at town meeting and it made it such a success. Mr. Diggins from our board, and he really was impressed with Mr. Koreski. He really was a star at the town meetings, but everybody who this was a unique situation and there's so many people worked hard to make it work. So thank you. And briefly on the pandemic, I did want to thank the town manager for his words and for his advocacy with other town managers and mayors. I think it's so critical that this gets addressed on a regional and statewide basis. And the town manager was quoted in the Globe today about you can't really do it by yourself. And this has to be a regional approach. And we really, as far as resources are concerned, we really need to look to the state and the state needs to look to the federal government. And it's critical. We're hitting a point here. The next few weeks are gonna be tough weeks. And we started back in March when the first shutdown occurred. And we have a ways to go. We're getting near the end, but it's so critical to be disciplined, continue to wear masks, watch large gatherings. And I'm really hopeful that we're able to get some guidance from the state that just doesn't, so that we don't have to try to act within our board as it really needs to happen across the Commonwealth. I can't stress that enough. And we really need to look to the state and we really need to look to the federal government hopefully sooner rather than later for relief because in addition to small businesses, there are a number of tenants that are just not gonna be able to pay their rents. And we really, there's some help that can be given but they need help. So thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. And I will reiterate my thanks to all involved. There are too many to name, but particularly Mr. Diggins from this board who has been an advocate for the virtual town meeting from the beginning. After the first night, we thought we were gonna be there till February and then we really hit our stride. So I think, we figured it out and we may be doing it again. So it's good that we did, but I do wanna thank everyone that was involved in the process. And again, not to reiterate, but on the town manager's comments, just thanks for stepping up on that. You know, I, if it was a couple of weeks ago, I probably would have been a little bit resistant to that, you know, those types of comments, but I've never, there hasn't been any process, any part of this entire pandemic that I've known more people that have tested positive. It's just the surge is incredible. And, you know, we know the resistance is that it's potential to hurt some of our local businesses. I just invite, you know, fellow board members, residents to remember that during this holiday season, there's ways that you can safely support our businesses instead of, you know, buying something on Amazon, go purchase a gift card to our local restaurants, our local shops. And that way, you know, we can make sure that we put some capital in their pocket during these tough times and support our businesses in a very safe and reasonable way. So with that, I will take a motion to adjourn. I'll move. Second. J. Han. This is Mohan. Yes, thank you. Mr. Dacorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Kuro. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Hernandez-Vote. Thank you. Good meeting. See you all in two days. Hey folks.