 Okay, let's get started here. Let's close the attendance check in. And as Julie said, this is not like an official vote for anything. So don't worry if you didn't get your vote in in time. It's really just a test vote. Okay, so while we're waiting for these screens to go by to confirm that your vote got registered. Hi everyone I'm calling Arlington's annual town meetings session seven to order on Monday, May 16 2022. So, let's get started with the star spangled banner. Great, thank you. So, I have a few opening remarks before we get to business. First, to answer a logistical question that's been coming up town meeting will not meet on Memorial Day, which is May 30 two weeks from today. And I sent a letter to the TMM email list this weekend offering some details and context for my decision to institute a straw poll for assessing interest and terminating debate. We're going to continue that practice tonight. As I mentioned in my letter, going forward the straw poll will not trigger automatically every 15 minutes of debate, but will trigger no sooner than every 15 minutes. And that will be the decision on whether to terminate debate or continue debate is up to town meeting members. I sent another letter this morning clarifying my policy for accepting materials for distribution to the TMM email list and posting to the annotated warrant. Please review the updated policy. Long story short materials need to be submitted by appropriate town officials committee chairs or town meeting members. If a general public wishes to submit material, it must be cosigned by and submitted by a town meeting member. Next, I've consulted with town council about the requirement of cycling through screens to show votes. It's complicated, but there's no requirement about showing these screens on votes to terminate debate. So I'm going to save us some time and not show those screens when we're voting to terminate debate. I worked with the developer of the virtual town meeting platform to track certain timings during the meeting, like when a speaker starts and finishes during debate. I intend to use this information going forward to help me identify speakers in the queue who have spoken less frequently or for a shorter amount of time compared to speakers ahead of them, so that I can promote the speakers who've gotten less airtime. It's going to be a challenge to incorporate this information live during the meeting, but I'll do my best. And if we get a string of speakers who are all on the same side of a debate, I may ask for raised hands in zoom for anyone in the speaking queue who wishes to speak on the other side. I've already done this a couple of times and will continue to do so as needed. Next, I want to remind everyone that the proper term is select board, not the board of select men town meeting voted to change the name of the board at town meeting in 2018 article 20, which passed 195 to six. I appreciate that old habits die hard. But for new members who don't have the habit of using the outdated term. It sounds like an exclusionary relic of the past, because it is. So please remember to use the inclusive term select board. And if I failed to correct someone who uses the old term, feel free to remind me through the Q&A in zoom. And finally, I want to pass along the sad news that LC Fiori, who was a town meeting member for 56 years from 1962 to 2017, passed away Saturday night at the age of 95. I wish to offer condolences to Ms Fiori's family, including her son Peter who serves on town meeting today. Please join me in a moment of silence for LC and her significant contributions and service to Arlington. Great. Thank you. Okay, so let's move on now to the swearing in. We're actually not going to do that live in the meeting to save some time if there is anyone still who any new town meeting members who have not taken the oath of office, not been sworn in yet. Please contact the town clerk, Julie Brazil at your earliest convenience. And I now recognize the chair of the select board, Mr. Diggins. Thank you as moderator, it is moved that if all this meeting has set forth in the warrant for the special for town meeting is not disposed of at this session, when the meeting adjourns it adjourns to Wednesday, May 18 2022 at 8pm. Okay. That's for the annual time meeting of course and any seconds. And we have a second by Mr. Foskett for the motion moved by Mr. Diggins. Let's enable raise hands and zooms for any and zoom for any objections to that. Okay, seeing no objections if we don't finish tonight we will continue on Wednesday, May 18 at 8pm. And now I want to call for any announcements or resolutions. And raise hands and zoom. Yes, Charles Foskett precinct 10 chair of the finance committee. I would like to request an administrative change to budget number 16 the zoning border appeals budget. There's a little notation on the left side of the page about a full time equivalence for three years and then the full time equivalent in the current year. It turns out that the hold on one second Mr. Foskett, can we bring up that on the display that so that everyone can see what Mr. Foskett is referring to this is item 16 in the budgets correct it says is appendix be in the finance committee. Sorry. So the 16 says should be on page. Be five I believe. Yeah, be five yes. There it is. Sorry. Oh, be sex. Go ahead Mr. Foskett. Yes, thank you sir. So, under the detail of personal services, says principal clerk and typist and it says point 49.49.49 and point eight nine. The point eight nine is correct. The three prior figures should read point two nine. Okay, so should be point two nine point two nine point two nine point eight now. We can make that change administrateable. Miss Brazil, you can make that change in the clerk's records. Okay. Okay, do we have any other announcements or resolutions at this point you can raise hands and zoom if you do. Okay, seeing none. I now call for reports that are ready to be received. Okay. Okay, so Mr. Foskett's move moved to remove the table. We have a second from Miss Brazil. Any objections in zoom. I see we have no objections. So article three is now before us. So we are now ready to receive reports. If anyone has any reports, please raise your hands and zoom and I see Mr. Barr has his hand raised to go ahead please. Thank you, moderator Christina Joe bar precinct five. And also the co chair of the master plan implementation committee so I would like to provide a brief update from the master plan implementation committee based on our report to found me. Okay. So, it has been, as it has been to the last several years of busy year for the master plan implementation committee. And we are continuing to make progress on the work of that group. It definitely demonstrates how much work has been accomplished to implement the master plan. So I'll provide some brief highlights from the committee's report. And also clarify a little bit regarding some of the warrant articles. Since the, since the master plan was adopted in 2015 we've been spotlighting articles, which advance the master plans goals and objectives since 2017. Some of the highlights that I'll talk about illustrate where the committee had consensus and articles that advance the plan which is really the role of the committee with respect to articles that are being considered by town meeting. The board endorsed in the MPAC approved connect Arlington, which is the town's long range transportation plan to ensure that all residents workers, business owners and visitors are provided with safe reliable and multimodal transportation. The meets and aids of all ages and abilities. We have actions described below advanced key recommendations that connect Arlington, which is also taken over from the original transportation and mobility recommendations in the master plan as sort of a more full development of those needs. Department of planning community development or DPCD began the Minuteman bikeway planning study to look at opportunities for safety improvements, improvements to connectivity to the bikeway and ensure the multiple modes to utilize the bikeway. And there being the select board adopted the housing production plan, which will help the town to achieve housing goals to meet a range of housing needs and current and projected housing demand. The town also continues to work with the Stratton school and neighborhood on a mass dot safe for school project. In addition, the town expanded the regional bike share program into Arlington in 2020 for the master plan goal. Community survey exploring options for an additional two stations to extend the network through the center and towards Arlington Heights was administered in April 2022. And as I think how many members know DPCD is requesting appropriation of $100,000 to support two years of operations maintenance and assistance to income eligible users of the blue bikes bike share system under article 60. CDBG and CPA funds, excuse me for being requested at this town meeting will help advance future town projects, including a study of Coach Hollow, and feasibility study from out Gilboa. CPA funds for the Arlington affordable housing trust would help jumpstart trust initiatives in advance multiple plans. The trust action plan, the housing plan and the fair housing action plan. MPICs MPIC zoning bylaw working group was busy reviewing and providing feedback on numerous zoning warrant articles for this town meeting, including article 33 article 34 article 35 and article 36. In addition, the MPICs cultural and historic resources working group initiated a community wide archaeological reconnaissance survey in a documentation project of 20 town owned properties and landscapes, both project projects funded by CPA. Really importantly is also finalizing an open space and recreation plan update is continuing to work on public land management plan, which will help address long standing maintenance and conservation protection asset management of our town owned natural resources. Again, both those projects are funded by CPA. Lastly, over the past year the community center project was completed and the town yard or DPW your project began, which will help to update and renovate town owned facilities alignment with a master plan and maintaining critical town resources. Finally, I just wanted to clarify the are the MPIC action on a few warrant articles relating to the zoning issues is as noted in the minutes of one of our meetings we voted to endorse articles 2829 and 41, which are all related to which which which the endorsement meeting that they sort of conform to the goals of the master plan it's not a recommendation of action or no action or anything like that. It's just sort of us saying that we believe that these are consistent with the master plan goals. Importantly regarding one article 38. It also is reflected in the meeting that's the MPIC took no position on this article. The MPIC as I said does not make formal recommendations to the RB and the email sense of the RB that indicated no action did not actively represent the end point of the MPIC discussion with that I thank you very much in turn to back to you. Mark, thank you so thank you for that update on the report and that's MPIC report to town meeting MPIC is the master plan implementation committee. Do we have any other any other reports that are ready to be received if you do. Please raise your hand in zoom. Okay, seeing none. Mr. moderator, article three belated upon the table. We have a motion by Mr. Fosca to lay article three upon the table so we'll hold it for another time. And second by Ms. Brazil any objections in zoom to laying article three on the table to be taken up later. So we can see receive more reports in the future. Seeing none. I declare the vote unanimous and article three is now on the table so we now have article 50 back before us article 50 is where we left off. Last Wednesday, we finished the discussion of the education budget. And let's see. And so, just to clarify just where where this is headed and how the process is going to work. So we'll take a look at those who are not familiar. After we finish debating the budgets that were held at last Wednesday nights meeting, we will take one vote on the entirety of article 50, which covers all the budgets and funds listed in appendix B of the finance committee report. There is no line item veto on these budgets. You cannot vote down a single budget, let alone vote down a single item in one of those budgets. And there were some notices of reconsideration given for holding a budget for debate and termination of debate on the education budget, according to the handbook town meeting time. Moving the previous question, which we typically refer to more colloquially as moving to terminate debate cannot be reconsidered, according to the rules. The member who requested that notice of reconsideration did not vote on the prevailing side of that motion. So the request is denied as for the request to hold a budget, since we're already at the stage of discussing budgets, having completed discussion of the education budget I will not entertain retroactive holds, nor do I believe that notices of reconsideration apply to such holds, or lack of holds. Lastly, if you have any questions about a budget, please be mindful about whether it's a question that would be more appropriate to ask offline to the town manager or department head, rather than taking up town meetings time, especially if it's something that you're personally curious about, but might not be particularly relevant to other residents or town meeting members. So let's try to be respectful of everyone's time. Okay, so let's not so the next budget that we had held for debate was budget number one, the finance committee budget that was held by Mr rebel act. So can we bring up to do we have clean. I guess I guess we don't need to bring up the specific termination of debate on that until we get to that point. So, I'll give Mr rebel act the first shot at this and I'll do this for each of the budgets, whoever was the first person in line to hold the budget. I'll be happy to call you up so. So let's open up the queue for debate or discussion on the finance committee budget. And we can start with Mr rebel act who held it from the list of budgets. Thank you Mr moderator Steve rebel act precinct one. I just have my questions have to do with the budget in general and I thought the finance committee budget would be the best context for asking them I hope that's appropriate and I will be trying to. I will try to be mindful and respectful of the meetings time. So when it comes to Arlington's budget we typically ask questions about we talk about spending and for good for good reason. I'd like to ask a question or two about the other side of the balance sheet income and more specifically new growth. Mr moderator is there someone here who could provide a brief explanation or definition of what new growth is. Let's say let's start with Mr Foskett since this is the finance committee budget. If not we can go to Mr chapter lane perhaps. Thank you thank you Mr moderator Charles Foskett precinct 10 new growth is expansion of the asset base of the town, based on new building or renovations or improvements in buildings that are contained in mostly in the real estate tax base. Mr Foskett and Mr moderator I'm wondering how does new growth affect the our budget deficit and the need for overrides. Mr Foskett can you feel that question. Well, if you look at the earlier plan to the back of the appendix D the back of the finance committee report. You see a line item called property tax e. And that's a revenue item. And when that increases from year to year it will increase basically for two or three reasons one is that there's a typical permitted 2.5% increase in the tax base on existing assets. And there may also be new growth in other words assets that are taxed that weren't existing in the prior fiscal year. Okay, and could I would it be fair to say that if Arlington, you know new growth would either reduce the amount of deficit in any given year, or perhaps reduce the frequency of overrides. Yes. Okay, so I the reason I bring this up is I was reading through our public and annual financial report which says that we had 0.72% new growth this year. You know, which happens to be lower than any of any of our comparable communities. So we came in last, and it's also well below the state average of 1.6%. So, it's, I guess, compared to our peers were growing quite slowly. So Mr moderator I'm wondering why our level of new growth is so low and if there are bylaws or policies or zoning that generally inhibit new growth in Arlington. Mr Fosco, do you want to take it. It's quite simple we don't have a land. It's, it's where we're land constrained in the towns that have high rates of new growth have relatively speaking best land where, you know, new lab space can be put in our new manufacturing facilities. So, you know, in the, in the, in the 495, you know, when they close the military base there, they left hundreds and hundreds of acres to be expanded into new development, and that creates new tax income. That's new growth. I'm actually thinking more along the lines of say Watertown or Waltham or, you know, Medford other communities that are also land constrained but still seem to be finding ways to, to expand and build their tax base. So to just I do want to keep this in scope and we're kind of. I'll just, so I would just want to just point out that, you know, in terms of, you know, the need for overrides and, you know, the need to control spending, there is another half to the budget equation. And that, you know, while Arlington may never hope to attract the amount of commercial investment that, you know, like say a Cambridge or a Somerville or a Watertown or Waltham might get a little bit. You know, new growth might help take some of the edge off the overrides. Thank you, Mr. moderator. That's started pretty far to scope but since you're done. Let's take Mr. Moore next. Christopher Moore precinct 14 pass. Okay, let's take Mr. Levy next and name and precinct place. Let's see is Mr. Levy able to unmute. I'm seeing that he's not here. It appears. Okay. Let's in the interest of kind of spreading the wealth of speaking time let's go to miss high and leave a high and precinct 15 pass. Okay. And let's take Mr Miller and then if there's time we'll go back to Mr trouble is Mr Miller there. I apologize. Multiple mutes, Matthew Miller precinct 11. So my thought on this issue was kind of aligned with what we previously heard. I think it is appropriate to consider that, you know, the overrides are a little bit more than other towns. And also that I think that, you know, if there are other towns that are land restricted like ours is what's the difference. I'll leave it at that for open discussion if anybody has any comments on that. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, let's take Mr trouble. Hello, Mr moderator. I'm not quite sure how my name got on the waiting to speak list. Maybe it's left over from the school budget. I hope we'll have opportunities to speak on other budgets later on. I have nothing to say about the finance committee. Thank you. Let's take Mr McCabe next reason to stand to terminate debate on article 50 and all matters before. Mr McCabe for all the budgets or for the finance committee budget. The finance. Okay, so we have a motion to terminate debate on the finance committee budget by Mr McCabe. So we have a second. I assume the seconds are in reference to that our second from Mr Palmer. So let's bring up a vote to terminate debate on the finance committee budget. Okay, so we should still have the enforced waves of voting. In effect, so if you see a message that your turn to vote has not come up yet just please sit tight. I'm going to get a chance I'll be keeping an eye on how many votes have been cast and how many outstanding votes there are so to make sure that we're getting almost everybody able to vote if not everyone. And so we're voting here on whether vote yes if you wish to terminate debate on the finance committee budget vote no if you want to continue to date on the finance committee budget and just vote or if you've already voted. I just want to point out like, there may be more kind of jumping around out of order the speaking queue tonight of folks that I select to speak. And that is because I'm consulting kind of like some of the historical data we have from previous meetings of, you know, speaking times, durations frequencies, and trying to kind of spread that wealth of speaking time. Okay, so we have about 220 voters with about a couple of dozens still outstanding, only six voters who haven't voted. Who have been, or six members who haven't voted who are have been recently active in the portal so try to get your votes and she can. Let's just give folks another 15 seconds, 10 seconds, you can always get your vote through the q amp a if you're having trouble with the portal. So five seconds. And let's close voting on termination debate of the finance committee budget in article 50. And just a reminder that we will not be cycling through the voting screens for votes to terminate debate. So it motion passes to a tool one in the affirmative 24 negative. So debate is terminated on the finance committee budget. So let's move on to budget number three the town manager budget, and the first person I had raised hands was Mr. Marr. So we bring up Mr. Marr. It's been a while since I've seen that screen. Okay, do we do we clear the speaking queue. Thank you, Mr. moderate john Marr precinct. Precinct 14. By the way, I'm pleased to be participating in my 48 the annual town meeting. Congratulations. Thanks. I think we know, Mr. Shantel is leaving the town and I think the town is much better off for his tenure and much poorer for his leaving. But my concern is not so much to talk about Adam but it is talk about the salary line item which has troubled me for some time. It is extremely difficult to find professional town managers. And as we know Tom manage position is extremely important to having a strong manager power form of government in Arlington. There are at least three other communities surrounding us that are seeking professional management positions I'm not sure I think that's Cambridge Lexington and perhaps one other. And as the town managers position is the hiring is not subject to the pay classification plan is subject to a particular provision of the general laws which permits the select board to negotiate a contract on various salary and benefit items. And I've been concerned about the, the low figure that the town managers position has received over the years and I just would like to get the, the, perhaps the select board could weigh in and give us an update on where we are with the new town manager. I know we have a consulting firm. But again, my concern is that in the future that the select board not be reticent with regard to providing adequate compensation because I think that's absolutely critical to getting a new town manager be he or she to fill this extremely position. So if I could, through you Mr. moderate ask the select board where we are with regard to that new selection of a town manager. Sure, sure. Mr. Diggins, do you want to take a step at that. Thank you Mr. Chair on me Mr. moderator. And thanks for the question Mr. Mar. So at tonight's meeting we have, we, I was authorized by my colleagues me to enter into negotiations with Mr. Diggins to potentially function as the acting appointed town manager that could potentially last me the, the, the remainder of Mr. chapter lanes term me most likely not. But we are in the process we have hired a search firm in and we are in the process of starting to engage them. I am meeting with the director of HR tomorrow in order to discuss the details of starting taking the next steps in that process. So that's where we are. And I am, I'm willing to entertain a follow up but that would be through the moderator. Anything else, Mr. Mark. No, thank you, Mr. moderate appreciate it. Great, thank you. I apologize, there was some confusion about the speaking to I think we had leakage of speakers from from Wednesday nights meeting because it's all under the same article the budgets work a little differently from most articles so apologize for that. We'll try to get that right going forward by clearing the speaker queue in between each of the budget discussions. Let's take Mr. Kaplan next. Thank you Mr. moderator Mark Kaplan precinct nine. While Mr. Chaplain still might be available to town meeting is, can I ask him a question. You can ask a question which I, which I may forward to him. Yeah. Okay, thank you. So for a long time I've been concerned about headcount growth in the town budget and a shortage of capital spending. You know, even just simple things like street lighting, or street sweeping or maintaining, you know, street paint. We'll get to the capital budget and article 51 but we can keep it focused to the time manager. I'd like to know that why, while other towns did a lot of layoffs in early 2020 Arlington did none other towns, people laid off especially lower level ones were able to. Yes, let me just interrupt there so as far as like, so we're going to have that's outside of scope because we're talking about the budget for this year, not not going back to 2020. Okay, well, why have we added 12 new positions using ARPA funds and what's going to pay for them when the ARPA funds exhaust are exhausted. Other towns used ARPA funds to rehire laid off workers but Arlington didn't do that. So they saved money but Arlington taxpayers kept paying and paying. So what's going to happen with these ARPA funded positions. Mr. Chaplain to have an answer for Mr. Kepline's question about the use of ARPA funds for new positions. Thank you Mr. moderator Adam Chaplain town manager. I'm not immediately familiar with 12 positions being funded by ARPA as suggested by the speaker. There are a small number I believe, two positions at least for town departments, being funded through ARPA dollars. And we've made it clear for both those town departments that are receiving staff funding for our from ARPA, as well as some nonprofits in the community that have received ARPA funding, who will be utilizing it for staffing. That it cannot be expected to be continued after the expiration of the eligibility for the use of ARPA funds which is December 31st 2024. So we've made it very clear that we understand there are needs to be met, stemming from our continued recovery from the pandemic. However, we cannot expect to be able to continue those positions after the expiration, or the full usage of ARPA funding. And anything else Mr. Kepline? No, I guess that's the only answer I'm getting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Foskett next. Thank you Mr. moderator Charles Foskett precinct 10 and chair of the finance committee. I want to join in the auditory comments about Mr. chapter lane service. I think they're well deserved. I'd also like to comment on the prior speakers, exhortation of the select board to focus on the size of the salary of the town manager. And I hope that the select board keeps in mind that town salaries are growing at a rapid rate that we are looking at a $7 million deficit in two years. And that one of the primary things that we should be looking for in the next town manager is his or her ability to control town expenses. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Okay, I see we have no more speakers. So let's move on to the next budget. Budget number 11 town clerk. And also just in case I didn't mention this earlier, I will set a, I'll keep a timer going, which I'll reset as we start a new budget. I'll set like a 15 minute timer again it's like I won't necessarily cut off debate at 15 minutes but I think I'll consider that the earliest time at which I don't have the right to cut off debate, but I mean is to ask for a straw poll to see if there's interest so I'll have that timer running for each of these in case we're talking about any given budget for for longer than 15 minutes. And of course as always it's up to the meeting, whether we're actually going to terminate debate or not. So do we have any speakers for so the we had, Miss Benedict had asked to hold this from the list of debates of budgets. So if Miss Benedict wants to get on on the speaker queue I'd be happy to take her up first as a courtesy for holding it. I pass. I pass. Okay, so let's take Miss Atlas. Hi, yeah, I was just looking at sorry, only at last precinct for when I was looking at the budget on 11 and this might be a typo from the select from the finance committee report, but the number for total personnel services. The number of personnel in 11 a sums to 256199 and what's actually listed at the top for personnel services is 438194. It looks like an 81% increase, and I do see the expenses have gone up a lot as well. So I just looking for some clarity if that's a typo, or if there have been some changes. Mr. chapter lane, do you have an answer for Miss Atlas. Thank you, Mr. moderate or Adam chapter lane town manager. So this is the first year that section be the elections and town meeting have been included and I believe that explains the jump it's not actually an increase in expenditures. There's a difference in where it was reported. The prior three years 2021 and 22 elections in town meeting were budgeted under the select board's budget. And that explains the difference that you're seeing there. Thank you very much. Okay, so it was a reporting discontinuity across years, thank you. Okay, seeing no more speakers for town clerk budget, let's move on to budget number 14 planning and community development and Mr. Oster had asked to hold that for discussion. So if Mr. also wants to come up. Thank you, Mr. moderator Adam Oster precinct three. Mr. moderator, I am trying to act on your invitation to preserve town meeting time by getting things in writing and I had a I asked this question of our town manager got a detailed response. I would like to refer people to it but unfortunately from some glitch it's not up on the warrant yet so I'd like to pass and when it is available, make a brief announcement at the start of one of the town meeting sessions. Okay. I support your right to do so. So, we'll make sure we get that ironed out and get that posted on the annotated mark. Thank you. Okay, and we have miss bloom. Let's take her up next Nancy bloom precinct 18. I have a small question on the planning and community development budget. The expenses went up by 81,000 is that an extra person. Could someone answer that is is this rate here. Director rate or Mr. chapter line. Are you able to answer that question. Yes, I can Mr. moderator Adam chapter in town manager, the major difference the major addition that you're seeing in this budget is the CDBG administrator. That's a position that has existed in town for decades since the start of the town receiving CDBG funding from the federal government. However, we've never reported it as part of the general fund we've always kept it in a separate grant account. We've never covered this year in an attempt to increase or really ever increase our transparency in our budgetary documents. We reported the CDBG, excuse me, administrator position in the general fund budget, but we're showing an offset and you can see a under the offset section, a CDB administrator offset. That's the expenditure to the general fund coming from that, but we are reporting it and thereby showing an increase in expenditures based upon that. Thank you, Mr. moderator and Mr. chapter link. Great, thank you. Seeing no more speakers let's move on, but I find that community development block grant rolls off the tongue better even though it's a lot more soldals so let's move on to budget number 16 zoning board of appeals and Ms Friedman asked to hold that budget for discussion. So Ms Friedman wants to come up to speak name and precinct clips. Bethan Friedman PC 15 pass. Okay. Seeing no more speakers let's move on to budget 17 public works and so let's bring up Mr trembling. Let's queue up Mr. Rottermarker. Thank you, Mr. moderator and trembling precinct 19. One of the, one of the questions I have is, I was curious if the town is planning to part of me wants to say mess up more intersections in town but I think I'll be polite and say, is the town planning to reconfigure any more intersections in town this year. Yeah, let's go with the more polite framing. Mr Rottermarker, do you have an answer that but there's any plans to reconfigure any intersections in town. Mr. moderator, Michael Rottermarker director of public works, the two major intersection projects that are in planning right now, Mass Ave and Appleton and Chestnut Street and Chestnut Street where we're looking at some improvements to crosswalks. Because I'm not familiar with where, with Chestnut Street, Appleton Street are you going to be taking down those the markers and putting up curves or anything like that or what are we, I mean I've seen problems that intersection when they want to truck tries to deliver materials to the stores along there. The bus can't get through. That was quite amusing watching that. Mr. Rottermarker. Thank you Mr. moderator Michael Rottermarker director of public works. The project is in the, is in the planning and design stage so I don't have a clear picture of what ultimate design will be. Well, will there be public hearings about that. Yeah. All right. I guess that's all I have for now. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let's take Mr. Kepline next. Hi Mark Kepline precinct nine. I had a little head scratcher about the Mount Gilboa repaving as a private way. So the house is owned by the town and the park that the road runs through is owned by the town. And yet this came out of a private way repaving budget. I'm curious how the accounting worked out. That's all. Mr. Rottermarker do you have the answer to where the funds for that project came from? There was a private way. I'm sorry Mike Rottermarker director of public works. There was a private way not leading up to the road but a private way in the area. Does that answer your question Mr. Kepline? I don't know. I'm a little confused what road was repaved. I remember for a long standing that the road going to the house was in need of improvement. But I'm not sure what road. You know I'm just looking at the map. It looked like you know it's all surrounded by the town of Butters. So they're you know it's the town. Whatever. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Nothing else. We have many more speakers for the public works budget. So let's move on to budget number 18. The facilities budget and we had Ms. Thornton asked to hold that so if we can bring up Ms. Thornton. Good evening Mr. Moderator. Thank you. Ms. Barbara Thornton precinct 16. I have a question about the facilities department budget. The Arlington invests a lot of money in our buildings. We spent $2 million for the high school alone. But the assessed value records as of a couple of years ago only showed buildings at 5 to 10% of their replacement value. For example, Robin's library was valued at about 3.8 million replacing our hard assets is expensive and the facilities department is the key department charged to take care of properties and make them last. This benefits the taxpayers facilities maintenance is a relatively new department that seems to have had a lot of turnover in its leadership. Last year, the select board received a commitment from the town manager to produce report on the department's progress on a regular basis, at a minimum of once a year. Can someone speak to the status of the department, its director and whether there is an annual report available for last fiscal year this fiscal year. Thank you. Mr. chuckling. Do you have an answer for this Thornton. Yes, thank you Adam chapter in town manager. Mr. is absolutely correct we have suffered from turnover in the director's position over the course of the past several years. We are fortunate however that a new facilities director with a great deal of experience in managing institutional buildings like those that Arlington has operating as a town government started today. So we do have a new facility. Yeah, it's good new. It's very good news. Mr. Rob Baron. We'll take it. Well, you know, we'll find the right opportunity to introduce him to the community in the coming weeks. Admittedly, given given the lapse in time between the last director leaving and the hiring of a new director we have not put together that annual report yet. We have the experience of Jim Feeney, the deputy town manager acting as facilities director and now that you're new director coming aboard coming aboard we will be able to produce something and share. Great. Thank you. All right, let's take Mr. Trumbly next. Thank you, Mr. water and Trumbly precinct 19. In keeping with your, your comments about reaching out to town officials actually Mr. Feeney reached out to me when he saw me asking about the so these budget. And we had an email exchange very good one and he answered all my questions, but just briefly to report to town meetings. The maintenance staff is very short. It's not that the town has been trying to hire maintenance staff. But in this current working environment, it's been very difficult. And that was the crux of my question is, is with 1.3 million square feet that the time managers. How many, how many actual employees were there to actually do the work in all plumbers electricians that and that's sort and Jim told me that they're doing the best. The time is doing the best they can, but they're very short staff, just like a lot of other people. And so I will encourage the town to hire. Oh, I should. This goes back to a previous comment about the, the whole step step thing we talked about a couple of a couple of sessions ago. It would be very nice to have a discussion about what the step is a sort of a description of what it is and what the pay is so we can get a better feel. Mr. Feeney told me that using that step process they've been trying to get, get the pay rate up to something that's competitive. And I wholeheartedly agree with that and hope the town is able to hire the skilled people that are needed to maintain all these buildings. Thank you, Mr. Tremblin. All right, seeing no more speakers for the facilities budget. Let's move on now to budget number 19 police services and Mr. Weinstein was requested that we hold that for discussion so if we can get Mr. Weinstein. Yes, can you hear me. Yes, I can name increasing. Okay, thank you, Mr. moderator. I have three questions. I'm sorry Jordan, Jordan Weinstein precinct 21. I have, I have three questions. Should I ask them all at once or one at a time. That's my first question. Okay, the first one is about social workers I noticed that there's been a 22% drop in the salary for 2023 from 60,000 to about $47,000. And it looks to me the way I understand it or interpreted is that the position has gone from a full time position to a three quarters time position. And I'm wondering if that's the case why that was, or just to have that explained. Yes, we have chief Florida here to answer. Mr. Weinstein's question. Moderated Julie flowery chief of the position of a homeless outreach. Social worker and that's a shared position with help and help in human services. So we did not reduce that position it's shared between the two budgets. Oh, I guess just as a follow up to that but why does the budget show a decrease from in 2022 60,500 and then 2023 47,000. Chief flowery. I will defer to Mr. pooler on that I don't have the answer to that question. Deputy time manager. Mr. Puller, do you have an answer. Mr. Weinstein, could you repeat the sandy polar deputy time manager. So I said, could you repeat your question as I'm looking at the budget and see which line you're looking at. Yeah, sure. I'm on page 42 it's police services on detail of personnel services. Social workers down a third from the bottom there. Do you see that. Yes, now I see it. Thank you. If you follow along. 66,000 69,000 60,000 for 2022 and then it suddenly drops to 47,000 and that was my question. Why the drop believe because of the accurate depiction, the accurate description of the split is really a 5050 split between the police department and the health and human services department and so the previous budget it overestimated what the amount was. And so this was just correcting that those figures. Okay, I was just wondering if the, the work week of the social worker had been reduced but obviously it happened. The question has to do with the overtime figure. We're paying it seems like, generally speaking, are approximately the same amount every year for police overtime to the tune of about 660,000 dollars. And then my question for that is, why are we spending so much money on overtime. When we could potentially roll that into I'm assuming overtime is often paid a time and a half or double time, depending on the contract but when we could perhaps be saving money by actually hiring another body or two. That's my question. Mr. Poole and if Mr. Bowler is not able to answer we can go to Chief Flaherty. I would say that we the question about hiring more people versus keep versus paying more overtime is one that is always one that we try to balance it so it's a good question that you're asking. I think we have in general looked to the number of positions that the police department has told us we need. We sometimes have had vacancies in those positions which meant means that we have not been able to fill them as quickly as we'd like to. And so that sometimes means that we have more overtime than I ideally would like to have. I would say in this day and age I would just add, there are challenges in hiring that have been persistent for a number of reasons. And to all of them tonight it's a long discussion. But I think overall we do try to hire with the right number of people. And we do look at that on an ongoing basis to make sure that we are properly staffing the department. My son did you have a third question. Well, I have one of the follow up on that. I guess my concern is that I could understand if over time spiked because of a shortage in personnel, but it seems very consistent going in 2020, around 630,000 the same amount 2021. In 2022 it goes up a little bit to 660,000. So I'm just asking if perhaps the town management could look into that and maybe see if we're spending more than we need to on overtime and could save money by actually hiring someone. I don't see it as a line item, but I'm wondering I know that there's been coverage about the use of body cameras that is going to be are going to be deployed in Arlington I don't know to what extent to where that is where that sits at this moment but I was wondering where that is seen in the budget and if it could be explained about how much that's going to cost the town, if anything. Sure, Chief Flaherty, does that appear in the, the budget that we're looking at this year. No, it's done. Thank you, Mr. Julie flowery chief of police. It doesn't appear in the budget right now the town currently in negotiations with both police unions. We did apply for and receive grant funds from the state for body one cameras and we also have asset for future funds that we would be purchasing them with. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Weinstein. Let's see next we have Ms. Garber. Oh, can you hear me. Yes, I can name and precinct please. You did Garber precinct for. I actually did see something in the budget about the body cameras under the double star and expenses looks like there was 40,000 spent in fiscal year 2022 for body cameras. I remember this coming up at how many last year. And my question is, do we have any policies in place yet for these body cameras around recording or storage of footage, given that we're spending money on it. Chief Flaherty can answer that question. Yes, thank you, Mr. moderator Julie flowery chief of police we haven't spent any money on body cameras because we have not purchased them yet. We do have draft policies in place and again, the town is currently in negotiations with police unions. To move forward with what body cameras. Thank you. Thank you. Apologize if I misread that budget. And then the line item for stipends about $23,000. What is what are those stipends for. Chief Flaherty, the stipends can continue answer with those are in reference to you. Be more clear which, which stipend. It just is stipends. This is the believe it's a second to last row before the last, like total line. A little bit to moderator. Yes. The sandy pool or deputy town manager that is a stipend for clothing. Okay, can we scroll the display down just a little bit to see the bottom of this budget section. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much that's all. All right, thank you. Okay, so let's take Mr. Jameson next. Thank you, Mr. moderator Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Jameson. Mr. Jameson, if you can hear me, your audio is coming in very garbled. Yeah. That's a consumer from the panel, perhaps contact. His question over Q&A and try to get that addressed while we're on the police budget. Because I don't think we're going to be able to have a real time conversation over audio. Yes. Mr. moderator, Mr. moderator, I keep getting to hear me now. Yes, I can hear you now. It seems clearer now. Mr. moderator, the problem is I keep getting muted by the host numerous time. Oh, yeah, which is quite novel. It happened last week too. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Gordon Jameson precinct 12. I hope to inquire about these details from the chief. These, these form an important function to make sure that work in town by contractors and et cetera can get done. Otherwise projects are delayed and that's bad for development. Now, last year or the year before we enlarge the scope of who can fill the details. We didn't have enough people to staff the details. Chief flowery did, did that address the issue with having enough folks for details. Thank you, Mr. moderator, Julie flowery chief of police. It did for the most part. So for any given day we have from three to 30 traffic details, depending on several factors, including weather, the time of the year and the projects that are to be completed. We use Arlington police officers, we use neighboring town police officers, and we now have four special police officers who have been assisting with traffic details. It's really difficult to say how many details go unfilled. But the number is relatively low. So for the most part, yes, I think that that that is definitely worked towards filling the details that were going unfilled previously. Thank you, chief flowery. Now, I hope that you'll you and the town manager's office will continue to monitor this. And if there's still a, even a small amount of unsubscribed next fall, that you consider bringing forward to us a town to town meeting, a citizen's traffic solution. And lastly, I have a question, perhaps Mr. pooler might be asked of this. The fees that the police get for scheduling the surcharge on that where do those funds go, and has the manager's office considered using an offset. Mr. Chaplain, do you have an answer? Thank you, Mr. moderator. Adam chaplain town manager. I believe we budget those as a in a small revenue account, but I have to be honest, I would have to look into that and determine whether or not legally we could utilize that as an offset. Thank you very much. And Adam, congratulations on your quote unquote retirement. We will miss you. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Great. Thank you. And I'm hearing from technical folks on the panel that there might be issues where if someone has a poor connection, internet connection to the zoom call, the zoom might be. The permission to talk might be cycling as the connection kind of comes and goes. So apologies. If that if that's the case, we're not really sure why that was cutting out. Okay. Let's see. Mr. Fisher next. Or take someone out of order that we haven't heard quite as much from. Hello, as a Fisher precinct for. I share my colleague's concern about the overtime line. The consistency of it and the size. And I was just wondering what duties are most common when paying out overtime. Who approves the request for overtime and what are the details? So, Chief Flaherty, can you answer Mr. Fisher's questions about overtime, how it's decided to like, what. Details tend to get it and so on. Yes, sir. Julie Flaherty, chief of police. We have a minimum amount of staffing. That's in patrol for any given shift. And when that falls below the staffing level, then we would hire overtime and that would be in the patrol division. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fisher. Thank you. I see Mr. Foskett has his hand raised. Is that just a leftover hand or. No, thank you, Mr. Moderator Charles Foskett precinct 10. I just wanted to address Mr. Weinstein's overtime question. The numbers in the finance committee report are the butts for overtime. That's why they're all the very simpler. And overtime is sometimes used when there's. An extra number of hours of overtime. And that's because of the number of hours of overtime. And that's because of the number of hours of overtime. When the numbers retire, for example, and you have to make up for the, for the lack of personnel to fill a certain. Certain duties. And. Or, or when people are out sick or, or whatever. So it's, it's a budgeted number. The, the next year's budget is based on what the actuals. Okay. Well, thank you for that clarification. Sorry. I didn't catch your. Your. Your hand earlier. No problem. Okay. So let's take. Miss. Hi, I'm next. I'm precinct 15. I moved to terminate debate on the police budget. Okay. So we have a motion by Ms. I'm to terminate debate on the police budget. We have a second from Mr. McCabe. So let's bring up a. Let's open voting on terminating debate on the police services budget within article 50. Okay. So we're voting on whether to terminate debate on the police budget within article 50. So if you want to stop debating the police budget, then you'll vote yes. If you want to continue debating or discussing the police budget, you vote no. And as always, termination of debate is a two thirds vote. And if you haven't, if you're having trouble voting in the portal, you can always vote through the Q and a 195 votes in, just wait a little bit longer, try to get your votes in as quickly as you can, as soon as your wave of precincts opens up for voting. And then as I mentioned earlier tonight, we will not be cycling through the voting screens on. Votes to terminate debate, but we will on main motions and. Motions to amend and substitute motions. Most votes are in at this point, like the vast majority. So let's just wait another, another 15 seconds before we close voting on terminating debate on the police budget within article 50, 10 seconds. Five seconds. Okay, let's close voting. And we have 170 votes in the affirmative, 53 negative 76%. And it meets the two thirds threshold. So debate is terminated on the police budget. And we're not going to wait for the screens this time. Let's move on to, but you could always find these votes in the portal under the view votes button on the left hand side. If you're interested who voted to terminate debate or not. So let's move on to budget number 21 inspections. Okay. Let's move on to budget number 21 inspections budget. And Mr. Jameson asked to hold that. So let's bring up Mr. Jameson. To speak on this. Let's clear the speaking queue. If you haven't done that already. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Mr. Jameson. Go ahead. Name and precinct. Gordon Jameson precinct 12. Wish to welcome the new director of instructional services to. The town or to the position of director. Perhaps the director through you. Could you summarize in a sentence or two of the important functions of his department? Can we bring up the new director to describe his department? And also, can we clear the speaking? Because we still have, I believe, speakers from last budget, I believe. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Mike champ director of instructional services. Yes, of course. So obviously our main function is the review and issuing of building permits for the projects in town, but also. The enforcement of the zoning in town bylaws. I mean, that's, you know, those three items make up our main functions. Thank you. And in our, just on our email discussions, you mentioned that you have some new hires and some objectives for them. Could you briefly tell the meeting about that? We do. That is correct. Yes. We were short staffed on the, particularly on the building end. And we've recently. We recently filled a building inspector position and an administrative position that will both help. Help us catch up with our backlog of enforcement and in the paperwork that goes along with it. So we've already began some outreach with, with local businesses on, on. On violations such as signs. And so we're hoping to catch up soon. Excellent. And you also, I believe have some new processes, including affidavits regarding the building permit. Could you detail that very quickly? And are there some initial positive results you can share? Yes, of course. So yes, we've added. A final cost affidavit to the building permit applications. Although not. Not fully in effect. Because of our staff shortages. We've still seen a positive results. Even just the initial submittal of the applications prices are coming in. More realistic and. More realistic. More realistic. More realistic. More realistic. Our revenues are up because of that. Excellent. And. Could you briefly remind citizens who are might be listening in home as well as the body. The benefits of using the building. The inspectional services department access to extra fees. Access to your expertise. As well as the risks of not using them in safety and potential financial penalties for not pulling permits. Right. So. I'm not limited just to citizens, but yes. I'm sorry. Try to use some more inclusive language, Mr. Champa. I'm sorry. Could you repeat the questions? I just, I just thought you could. It's told briefly on the benefits of using your department's expertise and the risks of both of the safety and penalty level for not. Yes, of course. So. Particularly at a time like now where the. You know, constructions at the highest that we've ever seen it. There's a, you know. There's a lot of. A lot of building that, that, you know, a lot of building going on that we're catching that's not up to code. There's a lot of unlicensed. Building going on. There's. There's a. There's home owners being defrauded. There's, there's a lot that's going on and. You know, we're, we're definitely making a difference right now. Yep. You got your hands full and. And there's penalties if you don't pull permits, right? Yes, of course. If you're a licensed builder, you would pay triple fee on the. On the permit that, that you would have to get. And obviously if you, if you're unlicensed. You know, you're not allowed to, to be working there. And does the affidavit process provide a wrap a wrap around so that it more work is done than planned that they also, that also gets captured. Yeah, that's correct. That's why it's only a final affidavit. That that's required. The initial cost is put on the permit application. And the final affidavit isn't submitted until the project is complete. Thank you very much, sir. That's a great update on the process there. Great progress. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jameson. And thank you, Mr. I say we have kept line. Let's take him next. Thank you more kept line precinct nine. Thank you, Mr. Champ. I, I look forward to a new. Level of integrity going forward. There's been a lot of problematic things in the past. Let's let's not cast this versions about, I don't know if that was directed at the previous director or if there's an incident. Let's try to keep it. No, can you, and there's also an article, somebody wants to hire an enforcement officer. Do you think that's necessary? I mean, I've seen again, there's a church with six signs and under the zoning bylaw, they're allowed to, and this has gone on for, I don't know, years or decades with no enforcement. And I've actually filed a complaint and the previous director refused to enforce the zoning bylaw. So is that going to change going forward? Thank you. Yeah. And just to be clear, I mean, there's a difference in integrity and which is about honesty versus strictness of enforcement of rules. And so let's just try to keep that clear. I said, Mr. Can you answer Mr. Kaplan's question? Yeah, sure. It would be stricter enforcement than there has been in the recent past. Yeah, my champ director of inspection services. Yes, of course. We've again, like I said, we, you know, we, we struggled with the, with staff shortages, but, you know, and we've done the best we can, but we're, you know, we're, we've filled it. We've filled the vacancies and moving forward. We'll be addressing even the issues in the past that we were unable to because of those staff, staff shortages. Okay. Thank you. Here's we have no more speakers and the speaking queue for in inspections budget. So let's now move on to the final item that was held, which is not a budget per se, but the enterprise fund for Arlington. This is a letter E. So it's, it's after all the numbered budgets. After 27 will go a through E or F I believe, and then the Arlington young Arlington Youth Counseling Center Enterprise Fund. Letter E. And Ms. Benedict was interested in holding that. So let's bring up as Benedict. Hi, Beth Benedict precinct 21. I'm interested, I have a question about the, this psychiatric nurse that has been hired, which I'm happy to see, but there is an increase from 45,000 to 99,000. From the year 2021 to 2022. And then that goes up to 123,000 in 2023. I'm just, but a lot above it is a psychiatrist that goes down to zero. So I'm just kind of wondering more, like more information about that. Anyone that can answer that question for me. Yeah, so let's see. Let's see, is anyone on the panel. Let's take. Great. We'll have Adam Chaplain. Do you have an answer for that? Hey, Mr. Moderator Adam Chaplain, town manager. I see. Miss bonjourno. I would actually defer to her if the moderator is okay with that. Absolutely. Director Bonjourno. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, thank you, Adam. This is Christine Bonjourno health and human services director. in the FINCOM report and I apologize for that. So the psychiatric nurse was a physician that we had a few, a number of years ago we had a psychiatrist who consulted and a psych nurse who provided direct treatment. That nurse and that psychiatrist's combo retired and we switched over to a psychiatrist. So the the the line, the amount is correct, but it actually should be up on the line above that. So it should be, it should read psychiatrist at 123. We increased the number of hours that that psychiatrist was working from the 99 to the 123, utilizing some extra resources that we were able to access for this upcoming year due to the increase in need. We're seeing a significant increase in mental health needs among our youth populations. So we were able to, because this is an enterprise fund which has run like a business, we were able to increase the services we offer and increase the revenue that comes in to address that. Okay, so Ms. Brazil, were you able to catch that change? I didn't entirely follow what Ms. Benjono was suggesting about changing in this enterprise fund. Ms. Brazil, did you take note of that? I have a note and I believe I understood it and I can certainly get that clarified to make an administrative correction. Okay, and yeah, I support that administrative change. Okay, let's see. And Ms. Benedict, did you have anything else? Yeah, I'm just wondering about this. Make sure I'm fair. So the psychiatric nurse, there will not be hard, you will not be hiring another one. You'll just be one psychiatrist. Are there any plans to hire more psychiatry nurses or psychologists? Ms. Benjono? Thank you, Christine Benjono, Health and Human Services Director. At the moment, we are sticking with just the psychiatrist. In order to have a psych nurse, we actually have to have a psychiatrist for our license from the state. So either way, we have to have a psychiatrist if we were able to secure a psych nurse, if we were able to find one. Again, this is a field that's very difficult to find individuals that are available. I mean, this is a very sought after position. And so it's hard to find people to fill these positions, particularly in centers like this. So we're very fortunate to have a psychiatrist. At this moment, the psych nurse position is not filled. We are only serving with the psychiatrist. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Benedict and Ms. Benjono. Seeing no other speakers in the queue for the Arlington Youth Counseling Center Enterprise Fund, that is the last held budget or fund. There was a question I saw briefly go by in the Q&A about did we hold budget number 24, Health and Human Services? No, that was not held. There was a question, there was a notice of reading consideration given at the end of last Wednesday's meeting, but that doesn't really apply here. So we have now concluded the debates on the budgets. It's 929, but let's go ahead now with a vote on, let's open voting on Article 50. This will just take a few minutes and then we'll take a break immediately after that, just so we can get this all wrapped up without having to interrupt our handling of Article 50. So, okay, so if you see, so voting is now open. If you see a message in your voting window saying that you are in Wave 3 or in the next Wave, just sit tight and your Wave will open up. And we're voting on Article 50, appropriation of the town budgets. So this is the entirety of all the budgets that we just discussed, plus the ones that we did not discuss that are in Appendix B of the Finance Committee's Report to Town Meeting. And so you vote yes if you approve of these budgets, vote no if you do not approve of these budgets. As the budgets fail, it means we essentially are unable to appropriate money for these budgets for the next fiscal year. Vote yes if you do wish to appropriate money for the budgets and the enterprise funds for the next next fiscal year. Over 200 votes in, it's going pretty quickly this time. So please vote as quickly as you can. Once voting opens up for you, which should be now, it should be open for everybody now, all three waves of precincts should now be open for voting. And this is a majority vote. Given the amount of money involved, I think it's okay if we spend a little bit more time voting, make sure we get more votes in because there's a lot of money at stake here. Okay, we just have a handful of folks left who've been recently active in the portal. So let's just give another 30 seconds and then we'll wrap up voting. And if you can't get your vote through in the portal, you could always use the Q&A or you can text or call Ms. Brazil. 15 seconds until we close voting on Article 50, all the appropriation of town budgets, 10 seconds, five seconds, and let's close voting now on Article 50. Okay, and it passes 224 in the affirmative, seven in the negative, and three abstentions, 97%. So Article 50 passes. So we have appropriations for the town budgets. So we will cycle through all these screens because this is the main motion. We'll only skip these screens for votes on terminating debate. And once we've cycled through these screens, we will then take a 10 minute break. And when we come back, we will be looking at Article 51, which is the capital budget, which is separate from all these other budgets. Okay, so that's all the precincts with the voting displayed and all those precincts. So let's go ahead and take a break now for 10 minutes. We'll come back at 944, at which point we will take up the capital budget in Article 51. Thank you. Okay, so let's now bring up Article 51, capital budget. And to introduce this will be our Chair of the Capital Planning Committee, Dr. Yontar. So let's bring up Dr. Yontar to speak on the capital budget. And I believe he has slides too. Yes, I can hear you. Great. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Hi, everyone. I hope you and yours are all well. Introduce yourself, everyone. Yes, I'm Timor Coyote Yontar, Capital Planning Committee Chair, speaking on Article 51, the capital budget. Next slide, please. This evening, I'm going to cover the five points that are shown here. Next slide, please. First, thank you. The capital plan is a group effort. Many thanks to our partners throughout the town. But mostly this was months of hard work by the Capital Planning Committee. I've listed our members for you here. You're a combination of citizen appointees and school and town officials. If you're interested in our work, I invite you to attend our meetings, which are public. We also post notices from time to time asking for applicants when there are vacancies. And I especially want to call out the work of four members. Much gratitude to Kate Leary, Christopher Moore, Sandy Pooler, and Julie Wayman for their invaluable contributions of data organization, writing, editing, and production over the report to town meeting. I couldn't have done it without you. And a dedication to our former Vice Chair, Brian Rarig, who sadly passed away over the winter. He taught us all so much about public service. His capital plan and report are for him. Next slide, please. Okay, second, the content of the report. It has a purple cover, much like this slide header. And I hope you had a chance to read it. We lead off with an explanation of what you're voting on and that vote itself. This is on pages one through five. It's the capital budget for fiscal year 2023, starts on July 1st and runs through June 30th, 2023. It lists what capital items we'll buy in that year and what we'll pay in debt service. More detail on those in a minute. The report also talks about the full five-year plan with detail by department. It covers both fiscal 2023, which is the only part you're voting on, and projections for the out years. And in the appendix, we have several tables covering all the capital plan items. Next slide, please. Okay, third, our fiscal 23 acquisitions, which totaled $9.5 million. They're paid for with a combination of cash from general tax, other funds, and bonds. And they're listed in sections two, four, and five of article 51. We discussed it in the report. Here are the highlights. 62% of the capital budget is going to public works, mainly water and sewer maintenance and rehabilitation, also roadway and sidewalk repairs and improvements, as well as vehicle replacements. Another 16% goes to schools, including information technology for education. That sum covers facility repairs, academic IT, and vehicle replacements. Yet another 14% goes to community safety, fire, and police. That sum is mostly vehicles. In fact, about half of the total is paying for a replacement fire engine for one that is currently 20 years old. The remainder of the budget, about three quarters of a million dollars, goes to capital needs for town buildings, recreation, IT, libraries, and all the other departments. The portion that we've financed through bonds in section five comes to two and a quarter million dollars in total. I highlight these because they obligate future town meetings to pay their debt service. So they specifically require a two-thirds vote by this town meeting. Next slide, please. And that's a good segue to item four, debt service. For fiscal 23, it's 19.1 million dollars. This is an article 51, section three, and is mostly paid by cash from general tax. It covers principal and interest on all of the bonds that the town has issued in the past. With a few exceptions, our debt is non-exempt. It fits in the capital plan approved by town meeting. Exempt debt is outside the capital plan. It's authorized by townwide debt exclusion referenda. These are big ticket items. The clearest example is Arlington High School. We have to pay interest on both non-exempt and exempt debt. And here's where we pay it. Next slide, please. Apart from debt exclusions, though, the town keeps within the capital plan. And that's my fifth point. Its size in fiscal 23 is 9.1 million dollars. You see it in this table shown here. It is also in your reports. The 5% rule limits the capital budget to, you guessed it, 5% of the town budget. We target that level in both fiscal 23 and in the out years. And we've achieved it in all years of this plan. This rule constrains the town to live within its means. And thus, to make room for some new high priority item, something else has to give. Next slide, please. And so in conclusion, I hope you've had the chance to read the full report. The committee and I are available to take your questions. Please vote yes on 51. And please stay safe. Thank you all very much for your time and attention. That concludes the capital planning committee's presentation to town meeting. Great. Thank you, Dr. Yantar. So let's take Mr. Leone now from the speaking queue. John Leone, Precinct 8. I have two questions concerning question 5, number 9, additional classrooms for the peer school. Are we building additional classrooms on this peer school or what are we doing with our $100,000? Yeah. So Dr. Yantar, do you have an answer for where the $100,000 is going for the additional classrooms on the peer school? Is Mr. Mason available from the school department? I don't believe we asked Mr. Mason here for that. Is there someone else who might know the answer to that? All right. I'll try to cover it in his absence. So there is the need to do a bit of reconfiguring of peers in order to make room for additional students and so this is a small payment for that reconfiguration. We're not building an additional, you know, we're not building an addition onto peer school. We're doing some reconfiguration within the building. Within the current building envelope? Correct. Okay. What rooms would we be losing? We're making other rooms smaller. I'm afraid I don't have the answer to that one. Okay, thank you. How about number 11, Hardy School roof replacement? Is the roof defective and is there anything we haven't had to Hardy School online for too many years, I remember, since it was rebuilt? What's going on with that? Yeah, the Hardy School is actually one of our older rebuilt schools. It's the second oldest after Barakat. It was renovated in 2001 and this is actually an issue that we are now experiencing which is that after the successful rebuild of all of our elementary schools, the ones that were done first are getting, you know, out of their teenage years and they're starting to need some further work. And that's one of the things that we're facing right now both in terms of envelope, so roofs, also things like HVAC. We were fortunate to have HVAC money in the form of some of the Federal ARPA aid to address that need. But yeah, the roofs and it's not only at Hardy, but it's happening in a few of the buildings that we're looking at doing roof work to prevent further infiltration. So it's a normal common maintenance. I'm glad to see there's a plan to maintain the buildings after we spent a bunch of money building them. Thank you, Mr. Yontar. Thank you, Mr. Lowney. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Smallerator. Thank you. Okay, let's take Mr. Harrelson next. Is Mr. Harrelson able to speak? Let's say. Name and precinct, please. Mr. Harrelson, it appears that you're allowed to speak at this point. Is it possible you're muted from your end? Let me try a different microphone. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes, I can. Go ahead. Name and precinct. Yes, Brooks Harrelson, precinct 16. Thank you. This is a minor curiosity only. Section 2, item 11, the town microcomputer program. Could I find some explanation of what that is? Oh, sure. For the moderator, I'd like to ask our town CIO, Ms. Shepherd, to address that. Yeah, Ms. Shepherd, can I answer Mr. Harrelson's question? Good evening, everyone, and thank you, Mr. Moderator. So for the town microcomputer program, it actually covers quite a few things, is to refresh first and foremost. I'm sorry, name and title, please. Oh, I'm so sorry, Patricia Shepherd, Chief Information Officer. So for the town microcomputer program, we cover first and foremost all of the administrative laptops and desktops for the staff, but also it also will include any switches that might be end of life, servers that we might need to get, and then obviously printers for the staff as well. Oh, thank you. I wouldn't have called all of the microcomputers, I think, of things like Arduino's, et cetera. So, but thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Great, thank you. Okay, let's take Mr. Benson next. I don't think we've heard from him before. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Eugene Benson, precinct 10, and I have a question about item, paragraph five, item three, the engine pumper to replace number 1025. And my question is whether the fire department looked to purchase an all-electric pumper, the Los Angeles fire department recently brought on its first all-electric pumper. And with our town aiming toward zero net emissions and our town bylaw, separate bylaw, requiring us to purchase the most fuel-efficient vehicle when appropriate, I wonder if the fire department could comment on whether it had looked or will look at purchasing an electric pumper. Thank you. Okay, do we have anyone from the fire department who can answer that question, please? Mr. Moderator, since I don't see Chief Kelly, let me take a shot at this, and then we'll see where we get from there. So, sure. Mr. Chapterland is also offered to answer, but Dr. Yanchai, you can go ahead if you want. I'll just start by saying that I was part of the subcommittee that reviewed the fire department's requests. We did not discuss an all-electric engine. I am pleased to hear that they are becoming available. I didn't know that they were available, that they were being used in large cities such as Los Angeles. That's great news. The issue with large heavy-duty vehicles like engines, like public works equipment, and so forth is that they do require a lot of more engine power, and so they're a little bit further back on the adoption frontier of electric vehicles. I know that we didn't discuss that. I don't know if there's an issue in terms of availability or price point. Certainly, there is the need to replace this pumper. It's been in service for 20 years, and that's the life cycle for these vehicles, and it's been in the planning process to purchase this on this timeframe for the last few years. I would be happy to defer also to the town manager if he gets the item to add. Sure. Mr. Chaplain, did anything to add to that? I thank you, Mr. Moderator. Adam Chaplain, town manager. I would only add I just quickly looked it up after Mr. Benson raised it. I think that news literally broke in Los Angeles today of that pumper being purchased. I think we'll have to research that technology more deeply. I did quickly see that the price tag for that particular unit was nearly 50% more than what's budgeted for this pumper. I think we'd have to understand the range and the impact of winter temperatures on that range. Any of us who drive EVs, I think we know the range goes down by about 50% in a winter climate. I think we'd have to kick the proverbial tires before we would be able to determine if that technology was feasible here in its current state, but it's certainly something we want to look at as time goes forward. Yeah, thank you. I mean, I think what I read about the pumper that the Los Angeles fight apartment brought on is that it's the first electric one in the United States. It is the leading edge of the technology, but I just hope that when the next pumper needs to be replaced that there'll be a serious look at moving toward electric vehicles from what I've read about the LAPD one, it seems like it would be a good choice. Although, as you know, it is more expensive, but over the life cycle it might not be. That said, thank you so much. Great. Thank you. Let's take Mr. Jamison next. Name and precinct, please. Thank you, Mr. moderator Gordon Jamison, precinct 12. I noted earlier in the meeting that there's some concerns were raised by a bracket parent during our precinct meetings earlier this spring, and the second one was about the bracket school playgrounds, which are now closed and neither fenced in or tied off with the danger tape. As I understand it, and Mr. Moore kindly reached out after I asked the first question, there's some information that the $80,000 budgeted will provide for a short-term fix. I want to have, I would like to get confirmation of that, and that's especially important because I'm very pleased to see, but simultaneous to this issue at the school, Robin's Farm and Playground has a rebuild structure through the Community Preservation Act. So obviously the bracket playgrounds are going to get a higher use level while the Robin's Farm playground is obviously out of school hours, but while the Robin's Farm is under construction. So can we get some security that the bracket school playgrounds will be operable next fall? Sure. Dr. Yontar, yeah. Yeah, so yes, there are funds that the public schools are tapping to make immediate fixes to the bracket playground, and those will take place over this summer 2022 to be ready for fall 2022. And as you noted, Mr. Jamison, those are intended to be short-term fixes to last a few years. And that should at least relieve the being roped off as they are currently and being able to be used. At the same time, as you also noted, if the Community Preservation Act funds are approved, then that has budget for the Robin's Farm Park playground across the street from the bracket playground. So that would be also a benefit to the students at bracket. Now, longer term, our fiscal 23 capital budget includes $80,000 for the study of the bracket playground. It will take place over the fiscal year, that is to say the same as the school year 2022 through 2023. That would then figure out the long-term fix. We will see what the study tells us in a better cost estimate, et cetera. And then we will reexamine that in the next capital plan. We currently have a hold of $800,000 of capacity for fiscal 25, but we also reexamine the capital plan every year because things do change. And if there is room and if the study tells us what can be done and what it will cost, we will certainly be able to consider putting that in in fiscal 24. But in the meantime, the short-term fixes should be lasting for a few years and taking care of that. One quick clarification if I may. Who is funding the short-term fixes? That's the Arlington Public Schools. I would defer to their representatives, but I think they're here tonight. I'm fine. Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. Just want to know who's doing it. Thank you. Okay, so we do have, there was a request for Dr. Holman to connect, we'll see if we can actually get her on to potentially answer that question. Dr. Holman being the superintendent of schools. So maybe we'll circle back to that if we're able to get Dr. Holman to connect to the meeting in the meantime. Is there anything else, Mr. Jamison? Okay, so let's move on to Mr. Tremblay. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, and Tremblay Freezing 19. Under Section 2, well, sorry about item 6. I was just curious, how much we wound up spending on the steps and patio, the heated steps and patio in front of Town Hall? Dr. Yontar, do you have an answer? How much have we spent on the heated steps and patio in front of Town Hall? I mean, it looks beautiful. How much did we spend for that? I was just curious. Is that within this budget or was that prior budget? I have to look it up. I don't have it at my fingertips. Okay, if it's not in this budget, I'm going to call that out of scope. Never mind. Item 14, bike rack installation. Where are these bike racks? One rack? Multiple racks? What's that about? Yeah, Dr. Yontar. It's multiple racks. Is Director Rait available? I don't believe we have... I am here. Oh, Ms. Rait, go ahead, please. Jennifer Rait, Director of Planning and Community Development. Yes, there are many racks and they're being installed in consultation with the Parks and Rec Commission and the Parks Department at various places across Town at Playgrounds, and we've been able to purchase a number of racks and are planning to get them installed this spring. Thank you. So this has nothing to do with blue bikes? That's correct. Okay, thank you. How about 16 and 17? What are we getting for our engineering consulting services? Dr. Yontar, can you answer that? This is also under planning, the design engineering consultants at Ms. Rait. This is still under the section 2, line 16 and 17. Jennifer Rait, Director of Planning and Community Development. Yes, we are planning on using those funds in order to hire consultants when we need them for assistance with engineering or consulting to help us to start new projects. We often have different requests that come into our department to research things that are well beyond the skill set of the individuals who are staffed in the department and also beyond the capacity of our engineering department. So we've requested these funds in order to be able to hire people on occasion if we need that additional assistance. Thank you. Will this be MAPC or will it be hiring MAPC for any of these? I'm not sure what you're referring to, Dr. Yontar. I'm not sure he's referring to Reader. Metropolitan Area Planning Council. We would be issuing a request for proposals from consultants, not specifically Metropolitan Area Planning Council. They may apply, but it would be open to any consultant to apply for these services. Thank you. Okay, in line 17, roadway consulting services. We do have a town engineer. Is he able to do any of this design work? Dr. Yontar? That's very directed to Mr. Rodemacher if he's available. Mr. Rodemacher, can you answer that? Like if our staffed engineer could handle that? Michael Rodemacher, Director of Public Works. Similar to Planning Department, there are times when work we need is beyond our ability to say, for example, maybe a detailed survey or other engineering work that we don't have the capacity in-house. We use this to supplement. Okay, and how about line 20, traffic signal upgrades? Mr. Rodemacher? Mike Rodemacher, Director of Public Works. I'll try and understand if there's a question there. Oh, I think I got that, Mr. Temel. We're going to spend $60,000 on traffic signal upgrades. What are we upgrading? We have a fairly aged traffic signal system, and it's used to upgrade signal boxes or pedestrian push button actuators or the lights themselves. Can we do something about the light timing and some of the intersections in or areas in town that are problematic, like in front of the stop and shop or in our Lincoln Center with Swan Place or maybe down by Bates Road in Linwood, where the traffic signals seem to have nothing to do with each other, except that they're frequently read? That would probably be more of an engineering study to look at the timing and not a capital issue. Okay, so there's nobody for that, are there? Big Belly Solar Power Trash Compact is line 34. I'm just curious how much if we save enough in collection fees or collection expenses to justify $75,000 for a trash can? Mr. Chaplain? Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Adam Chaplain, Town Manager. First off, it's not one trash can for $75,000. There are about $5,000 each. Really, the main priority or the main impetus for pursuing this is with outdoor dining. There was a major change in workflow that occurred over the course of the pandemic, which we expect to continue going forward with many restaurants and many residents really liking outdoor dining. And that workflow is items that used to be thrown out in a restaurant in a private dumpster picked up by a private hauler, were now being thrown in waste receptacles along Mass Ave and in some cases on Broadway. And our staffing isn't enough to keep up with that pretty significantly increased trash load by installing these Big Belly trash compactors in those high traffic areas where there is outdoor dining. Not only will we be able to better address that workload issue because these containers can keep much more trash to the compaction, but will also help keep the neighborhoods and the business districts cleaner not having overflowing trash cans rather having it all contained within these devices. And that's good. Does this include maintenance expenses? I have seen those things break. We are coming up just on the seven-minute mark here. Adam Chaplain, Town Manager, I'll quickly say my understanding is the price we would pay would include a somewhat long-term warranty that would cover maintenance for some period of time. All right, very good. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you. We do have Dr. Homan on the panel now. So let's bring her up. I know she was trying to connect earlier. Was there a question previously that Dr. Yontar, or that was like- I think the question was from Mr. Jamison. It was the question around the source of the $80,000 that would be used to perform short-term repairs on the bracket playground over this summer. Dr. Homan, do you have an answer to that question? Sure. I believe that the intention was to use some of the revolving funds that we receive from building rentals to perform some of the short-term adjustments to the playground while we await those funds to be available via capital planning in future years as planned previously. Great. Well, thank you for joining us to answer that question. Appreciate it. No problem. Let's see. Was there a question also about the Pierce School, or did we cover that? Dr. Yontar? Perhaps if you'd be able to, Dr. Homan, the question was regarding the Pierce School additional classrooms. My understanding is that it's certainly not an addition. That would be far more money than $100,000, but it is a reconfiguration of classrooms in order to accommodate the needs in the school. Do you have any more information about that? Certainly. Also, good evening town meeting members. It's no problem jumping on to answer a few questions. The Pierce School is in a situation where they have a little bit of a turnover of space. They have part of our daycare, which is available for staff members, children to attend, and that space is used very differently from what it will be used for next year, which will be one of our regular classrooms because they're expanding to have a fifth grade classroom. We are re-outfitting that space so that it is accommodating for instructional purposes is what is necessary, so it's not a rebuild or an addition or anything. It's just re-outfitting a space so that it's appropriate for the use that it will be put to. Thank you again, Dr. Homan. So let's take Mr. McCabe next. We're at the half an hour mark into this article. So let's bring up Mr. McCabe. Name and precinct, please. On article 51 and all matters before. All right, so Mr. McCabe is moving to terminate debate on article 51. Do we have a second? We have a second from Mr. Siano. So let's bring up a vote on terminating debate on article 51, the capital budget. So if you're in favor of terminating debate on article 51, the capital budget, vote yes. If you want to continue debate on the capital budget, vote no. The waves of voting are still opening up, so they should be, I believe they should all be opened now, so please get your votes in, and this is a two-thirds vote to terminate debate on article 51. Okay, so among recently active time meeting members on the portal, there's only a handful that have not voted yet. Let's get another 15 seconds before we close voting on terminating debate. 10 seconds, five seconds. Okay, let's close voting, and debate is terminated with 189 votes in the affirmative 31, negative, and three abstentions. So we are not going to cycle through the screens. We're going to go, we're going to proceed directly to voting on the main motion, which is the capital budget. And Dr. Yachto, do you have the, is there a single figure that we could cite for the entirety of the capital budget? If not, folks can just look through the Capital Planning Committee report. Sorry, the size of the capital budget through acquisition expense, this is what the total cost of what the town is buying in the coming fiscal year is $9,484,877. Okay, so I think it's fair to say that this is for appropriating roughly nine and a half million dollars for the capital budget. So if you're in favor of that appropriation, you would vote yes. If you're against that appropriation, then you would vote no. And this is a two-thirds vote, and plus the debt service. Thank you, Mr. Jamison. So if you're in favor of the capital budget that's been presented here, and then the Capital Planning Committee's report to town meeting, then you vote yes. If you are against that budget, and you don't want to appropriate that money, then vote no. This is a two-thirds vote. Most folks have voted. I'm still waiting for several more folks. So all the waves of voting should be open by now, so please get your votes in for Article 51, the capital budget. If you're having trouble voting in the portal, you can send your vote in through the Q&A in Zoom. It's just a handful of recently active members who have not voted yet, so let's give another 30 seconds. 20 seconds until we close voting on Article 51, capital budget, 15 seconds, 10 seconds, 5 seconds. Okay, let's close voting, and capital budget passes. Article 51 passes 222 votes in the affirmative, 3 in the negative, 2 abstentions, and we will wait to cycle through the screens. Once we've seen votes for all precincts, we will proceed to Article 53, because Article 52 was already covered in the consent agenda. Just a couple more screens. Okay, so let's now proceed to Article 53. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. What's that? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Hey, thank you, Dr. Yontar. So Article 53 appropriation related to financing of construction or of sewers and sewerage facilities. So this was in the Finance Committee Report. We're continuing with the financial articles. Mr. Foskett, did you want to speak to the Finance Committee Report on this? Charles, thank you, Mr. Moderator. Charles Foskett, Precinct 10, and Chair of the Finance Committee. These are articles. This and the next article are similar articles that we vote every town meeting. It is to enable a town to borrow interest-free money from the MWRA to improve the water and sewer infrastructure, and the loans get repaid via the user fees in the Water Sewer Enterprise Fund. So we have a couple of speakers in the queue. Let's take Ms. Anderson. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Kristen Anderson, Precinct 11. I pulled Article 53 appropriation financing of construction or of sewers and sewerage facilities from the consent agenda in order to raise awareness about the reconstruction of our sanitary sewer lines. Like all area municipalities, Arlington has aging sewer infrastructure. Arlington has sanitary sewer pipes where groundwater and storm water enter our sanitary sewer lines through what is called I&I, or infiltration and inflow. Infiltration means there are cracks in the sanitary sewer pipes that allow groundwater into the sanitary sewer lines. Inflow means illegal hookups like basement sump pups or foundation drains that are hooked up to the sanitary sewer. This additional sewer flow from infiltration and inflow occurs when it rains. Additional flow from groundwater and storm water in our sanitary sewer lines can add to the existing capacity problems throughout the MWRA's regional sewer system. Capacity problems in the MWRA's regional sewer system can result in untreated combined sewage discharges into the ill wife Brooke. I want to thank the town meeting for giving me a few moments to raise awareness about this. And I ask that you please vote in favor of this article. Thank you. Thank you. Let's take Mr. Leone next. Good evening, Mr. Moderate. I have questions that pertain to both articles 53 and 54. So I'm going to address them to the chair and to Mr. Automaker. And if please, as the chair, I would like to have him answer questions on both. The same questions applied to both articles. So if he could just address both and save us a little time. Sure. I'll allow that. Yeah. The first question is how many miles or feet of pipe does this cover for each year? And how does that compare to the past years? Mr. Automaker. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Michael Automaker, Director of Public Works. On the water side, the funding that we looking to borrow allows us to replace approximately one mile of a water main annually. On the sewer side, it's not so much a linear feet of pipe standard that we look to repair. We have set up a program where we divided the town into about 13 sections and every year we look to make improvements to one of those 13 sections of town. We do televised inspections. We do, we look for the worst situations of groundwater infiltration or structural defects. We design repairs and then construct them. So the funding we receive allows us to maintain one of those 13 sections in town and annually we rotate through those over a 13-year period and then start again. So second question is what's the overall plan for replacement of the entire system? How many feet per year or how many years? Mr. Automaker. Thank you, Michael Automaker, Director of Public Works. As I stated on the water side, we're currently replacing a mile a year, but that's something I've, in the engineering department, I've been discussing. We would like to ramp that up to two miles a year. We have about 130 miles of pipe in the town and I believe it would be a much better goal to have pipe that's about 70 years old if we were able to replace two miles a year rather than 130 years old. On the sewer side, it'll just be a ongoing annual inspection and maintenance throughout the town. We don't necessarily replace the sewer pipe when possible. We line it or repair it in place. Okay, the last question is we've been budgeting the same amount for as many years as I can remember, more or less, with minimal increases for inflation and higher costs. Is this amount adequate to complete the plan with these higher costs factored in? Thank you, Michael Automaker, Director of Public Works. On the water side, we have been bumping that number up a little bit just to be able to maintain the one-mile replacement goals. Obviously, if we wanted to bump that to two miles, that number would need to be significantly increased. On the sewer side, the number has actually come down a little bit as because we're entering into the end of that first 13-year cycle and we don't need to do inspections or design as much because we know where our problems are. But as we start program over again, and as you've mentioned, costs are increasing, I imagine those costs will start to creep up over years as well. Is there a plan to ask the Finance Committee for more money? Mr. Automaker? Well, we will be looking at that for future budget cycles, yes. Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Automaker. Thank you, Mr. Automaker. Wait, thank you, Mr. Leone. Let's take Ms. Murray next. Caroline Murray, Precinct 12. I move that we terminate debate. Okay, we have motion to terminate debate. Do we have a second? We have a second for Mr. Hamlin. So let's take, let's open voting for termination of debate of Article 53. Okay, so voting at least is starting to open in waves. If you are in favor of terminating debate on Article 53, vote yes. If you want to continue debate on Article 53, vote no. The waves are still opening up. So if you see a message that your voting controls will be enabled in the next wave or in two more waves, just sit tight. And within several seconds, that will open up for you. All waves of voting should now be open. This is a vote on terminating debate on Article 53. If you're in favor of terminating debate, vote yes. If you want to continue debate, vote no. And this is a two-thirds vote. 216 votes cast now. Just wait a little bit longer. So several folks who have been active in the portal have not voted yet. So if you haven't voted, please get your votes in. And if you're having trouble in the portal, although there haven't been any, I haven't seen any widespread complaints or any complaints about voting in the portal tonight. But if you're having trouble, you can always use the Q&A to submit your vote. Let's just wait another, let's just wait another 15 seconds, 10 seconds, until we close voting on termination and debate on Article 53. Five seconds. Okay, let's close voting. Okay, debate is terminated. 209 votes in the affirmative, 11 in the negative, three abstentions. Let's go straight to voting on the main motion for Article 53 appropriation for financing of construction of sewers and sewerage facilities. And this is a two-thirds vote on the main motion. Voting should be opening up in waves. And just the vote language is while we're waiting for votes to come in, vote yes. If you're in favor of the sum of $800,000 being appropriated for the purpose of financing the construction or reconstruction of sewers and sewerage facilities, inflow or infiltration reduction or system rehabilitation, including costs incidental and related thereto. There's more, but you can read that in the annotated warrant under Article 53 for the details. Okay, all waves of voting should be open and we have 218 votes in. We're still missing about 15 from recently active members. So this is a little bit longer. If you have not been able to get your vote in yet, please get it in. And if you have trouble in the portal, you can always use the Q&A to submit your vote that way. Or you can contact Ms. Brazil. Okay, so another 30 seconds until we close voting on Article 53. 20 seconds is the main motion. It is a two-thirds vote. 10 seconds until we close voting on Article 53. Five seconds. And let's close voting. And it passes with, wow, 100% of the vote, 223 in the affirmative. And that's all. Okay, so we'll just wait to cycle through the screens here. And then after we're done seeing, displaying all the votes across all the precincts, we'll move on to Article 54. Okay, so let's open up Article 54, appropriation for financing of construction or reconstruction of water mains and water facilities. This article was on the consent agenda initially. It was removed by Ms. Band. So if Ms. Band is interested in speaking on this, happy to bring her up. So if we're not able to bring her up right away, we can at least we can bring up someone who is waiting in the speaking queue. Let's bring up Mr. Jockett. He's no longer in the queue. Let's take Mr. Kepline. Hi, thank you. Mark Kepline, precinct nine. I got a communication from a concerned resident about discrepancies he's seen in water bills amongst residents. And there's a few people, including a member of town meeting who've got showing virtually no water usage. And so he's curious how that could be, you know, and for a long period of time, I don't know if they're using bottled water to shower or bathe, but they're not showing up as using hardly any water at all. And I've got a copy of a water bill that I can share. Yeah, I'm not sure if town meetings can be the best place to kind of try to debug what happened in that particular case, but we'll bring up Mr. Rodamarker briefly if this is something that you've seen as a widespread issue or might have some insights into. Thank you. Michael Rodamarker, director of public works. We do from time to time see weird things at properties with water use and friends. And we do look to contact those residences and get in the house and look at the meters. We also are going through a meter replacement project. So if there are meters, we will be getting those. Yeah, this sounds like a like residents should be contacting the director of public works, Mr. Rodamarker for further questions or the town manager who can send those questions. Okay, I can email that to you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, seeing no one else in the speaking queue, let's proceed to voting on article 54. Okay, so if your wave is up and active for voting, please go ahead and vote. This is the main motion. This is not a termination of debate vote. We're just going straight to voting on the main motion because we exhausted our speaker queue. So if you are in favor of the main motion of article 54, the appropriation for financing of construction or reconstruction of water mains and water facilities vote yes if you are not in favor of that appropriation vote no. And just a reminder that the as we're waiting for the votes to roll in, this was an article that was on the consent agenda. If you held an article so that it was removed from the consent agenda, please try to be available to speak on it. So we can understand why it was not handled in a more efficient way through the consent agenda. Thank you. Okay, we have 215 votes in still waiting for about 16 recently active members in the portal. This is a two-thirds vote for this appropriation. The number of votes cast is starting to taper off. Let's just give another 20 seconds. Do you have trouble voting in the portal? You could always, 15 seconds, you could always vote through the Q&A. 10 seconds until we close voting on article 54. Five seconds. Okay, let's close voting. And article 54 passes with 100% of the vote, 218 in the affirmative, which is wait for these screens to cycle through. And when that's done, we will move ahead to article 57. Still waiting for the display of the voting screens across precincts. And while we're waiting for that, article 57 was also on the consent agenda. It was held by Mr. Wagner. So if Mr. Wagner wants to get on the speaker queue, we can get ready to queue him up when we take on article 57. This is an appropriation for town celebrations and events. Actually, before we take Mr. Wagner, I do want to give Mr. Foskett an opportunity to speak to the vote, the finance committee report vote on article 57. And then we'll go to Mr. Wagner. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Charles Foskett, precinct 10 and chair of the finance committee. This is a vote for celebrations and honorifics that we have. We haven't had town day in a couple of years because of COVID. There's nothing exceptional in this article. So let's take Mr. Wagner now to speak on this article. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Carl Wagner, precinct 15, can you hear me okay? Yes, I can. Go ahead, please. Thank you very much. I wanted to make two points here. One of them is the town day is actually September 13th, 1766, commemoration of Uncle Sam's birthday. Uncle Sam was born in Arlington. And I hope that we'll consider putting his name back on our town day. The second point I'd like to make is all the time that I lived in the town when I was young, and then since I moved back in the 90s, we had a fireworks display on town day in the evening, which people loved. And I hope that we will consider putting that back. At one point, we raised funds from the community, and we seem to have completely ceased. And perhaps in celebration of coming back from COVID, we could start having the fireworks with our town day slash Uncle Sam day. Thank you. Great. Thank you. And we have no more speakers. So let's proceed directly to voting on article 57. So it's open voting. And this is a majority vote on appropriating funds for town celebrations and events such as town day. And while you're waiting to vote or waiting after having voted, I'll just point out that Samuel Wilson is not only the namesake for the inspiration for Uncle Sam, but also Sam Wilson of the Avengers Falcon and later the Captain America. So this is article 57, appropriation for town celebrations and events such as town day. Or as Mr. Wagner points out, Samuel Wilson, town day. Okay, we have about 200 votes in. Still waiting for several more. If you haven't voted yet, please try to get your vote in. All waves of precincts should be able to vote now. We have some votes coming into the Q and A. Okay, so let's just wait another 20 seconds until we close voting on article 57, appropriation for town celebrations and events. 15 seconds, 10 seconds, five seconds until we close voting. And let's go ahead and close voting. And article 57 passes. 218 votes in the affirmative, one in the negative. And we will wait for all the display of all the precincts votes, since this is the main motion. After this, we will take up article 60, appropriation for blue bites. I will note that it is 1049 p.m. Let's see how far we can get into article 60. Okay, so let's go to article 60. This is also a finance committee article at the request of the Department of Planning and Community Development. So let's start with Mr. Fosca and see if he wants to speak to the finance committee report on this. And then maybe we can bring up Ms. Rait, Director of the Planning and Community Development Department, Mr. Fosca. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Andy LaCorte, member of the Finance Committee and a town meeting member, Charles Fosca, precinct 10. And a town meeting member will speak for the Finance Committee on this article. Okay. Who did you want to bring up for that? I'm sorry, Andy LaCorte, former select. Oh, okay. Where's Amber? Ms. LaCorte. Andy LaCorte, precinct 15. Can you hear me, Greg? Yes, I can. Go ahead. So the majority of the committee, the Finance Committee were persuaded that this is an appropriate investment in an important mode of transportation that serves as an alternative to cars and fits in with the town's effort to combat climate change. The request is for funds to support the continuation of the blue bike program and expand the number of bikes and locations. Although this program has seen extensive use, the 10K or so trips don't reach the volume necessary to eliminate all costs to the town. The request is for funds to subsidize ridership for the next two years. At the end of that two years, the program will be evaluated again. The expectation is that with the additional bikes available, the program will meet the trip threshold required to eliminate the cost to the town under the contract with lift subsidiary motivate. In any case, this is a one-time allocation and not a permanent increase in the budget. Okay. Thank you, Ms. LaCorte. And so this was on the consent agenda originally. It was removed by Mr. Kepline, and Mr. Kepline is also in the poll position in the speaker queue. So let's take Mr. Kepline next. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Mark Kepline, precinct nine. There's no shame and failure, unlike pouring good money after bad. 20% of businesses fail within one year, half within five years. A lime exited from the Boston market should have been a red flag to people as their shift to motorized bikes and scooters only. So this is not going to be a sustained adventure. It's going to cost more money. Initially, we were told just $20,000 two years ago, and we would have six stations forever, thanks to $180,000 from the state. Now it's back to the well for $100,000 for two more years. I think it's best to cut our losses, sell the stations, and maybe reinvest later with e-bikes, which is what the market is heading towards. In fact, Lime only offers e-bikes and scooters, New York City is on their second generation of e-bikes, and we should get some money for these obsolete stations while we can. Also, I have a problem with these bikes because there's no accommodation for disabled people. Here's public money being spent on something specifically for able-bodied people, and there's no trikes, no electrified bikes, or anything to support the disabled. I sent out an email to members of the town meeting, and I hope they had a chance to look at it, and I feel there's many other ways that $100,000 could better serve residents, like additional street lighting and pedestrian crosswalks, on-demand pedestrian crossing lights. These would all improve safety. And the other issue is there's some funny stuff with the federal government. So a lot of the funding is under the CMAC program, which is for congestion mitigation and air quality improvement. That money is for transportation that replaces motorized fuel transport. And in fact, a lot of these bikes are getting used for recreational use, which is not covered under CO2 reduction funding. And also, even the recent bike path expansions, again, they're recreational. They don't serve much residents as like the Greenway and the proposed Mystic Valley path. The original Minuteman bikeway is fantastic. It serves residents. It serves schools. It serves going to businesses. But we're getting farther and farther afield from that. So I'm going to suggest... We're also getting a bit far afield from the scope as well. So I hope we can just cut our losses. And the people all over want e-bikes. They want motorized transportation. And these bikes are not going to get any more popular going forward. They're going to get less popular. People in Arlington have enough money to buy their own bikes. In fact, the yearly annual fee for these bikes are $120 a year. You can buy a brand new bike at Walmart for that or get any number of used bikes or even free bikes in a bike lock and satisfy the need for two-wheeled transportation. So thank you for your concern and interest. I hope people vote no on this. All right. Thank you. It's like Mr. McNeil next. And we are getting close to 11 boxes. This may be the last speaker of the night. Mr. McNeil, naming precinct please. Hi. Adam McNeil, precinct six. So I'm a member of the Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee, which was asked to vote on this. And I was actually possibly surprisingly a fairly bit hesitant at this at first, even though it has some undeniable societal benefits. And we actually had a quite a long discussion. And I eventually changed my mind for a few reasons that I think are important now that it's been pulled off the consent agenda. First, something that held me wrap my head around this a little bit is that I think it's rather misleading to consider this as a subsidy. As Boo Bikes, first off, it provides a direct service to the town, and it doesn't make a profit off of Arlington, which is the reason we're doing this in the first place. As it currently stands, it's money back into the pocket of working of the production of the maintenance of these. There's no profit margin on this $100,000 that we'd be putting in over the next two years. And I kind of, I do think of this now as payment for services rendered to town, very similar to how the town pays a contract for external printer maintenance. Then, of course, we have the question, well, now that it establishes a service, is it actually useful? Is it actually something we're using? Is it increasing in use? Is this something for which we should be paying a contract? And the answer to that is, yes, it's being used. Last year, we averaged about 1.3 rides per bike per day, which is a slight increase over the year before, which is the first year. That's a good trend. There's also a fairly substantial portion of those rides that either started or ended in a neighboring town, especially Cambridge. That's either indicating, probably, either commuting or day trips that happen to bring people into Arlington Center. You can see that if you're standing out there and looking on the bike path or around, you can see how the bikes move around. So for reference, two trips per day is when blue bike breaks even. So we're approaching that, although we are obviously a bit away still. And as Ms. LaCorte mentioned, when the two years are up, we evaluate based on, hey, have we actually reached those two trips per day? And if the trends go, we'll be pretty close to that. And then we don't have to subsidize more or a lot less. Or as I would say, pay more, not necessarily subsidize. And then, yeah, so that's the two main points that changed my mind. I'd also like to bring up that there's a fundamental difference between the quite well-established blue bikes that have done successfully for a decade plus in some of our neighboring municipalities and Lyme, which obviously had a shifting business model and was not as... It was also fundamentally different being dockless for stock. There's different costs involved with that. So I do want to say I urge people to support this. It has some good societal benefits in reducing traffic and emissions and opening up exercise and things like that. But also it's not a waste of money on the town's part in that regard. It's a service that is being provided, and a service that's useful to the residents. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. McNeil. We do have a point of order from Ms. Weber. Let's take that before we close things up for the night. Ma'am, in precinct, please, and your point of order? You get to terminate debate other than point of order. That's what I wanted to do, is motion to adjourn, actually, is what I wanted to do. But I don't know where you do that, so I had to do point of order. Okay. Okay. So before we entertain that motion to adjourn, do we have any notices of reconsideration for any articles that we voted on tonight? If you voted on the prevailing side of an article, but you'd like to give notice of reconsideration, if there might be new information that we should take up in the future to reconsider that article? Any notices? Mr. Foster? Yes. Charles Foskett, precinct 10, chair of finance committee, having voted on the prevailing side on articles 50, 51, 53, 54, and 57, I would like to serve notice of reconsideration of those articles. Okay. Noted. I'm sure Ms. Brazell can take note of those. And any other notices of reconsidered that's enabled raise hands in Zoom for any notices of reconsideration on any of the articles that we voted on tonight. And seeing none, let's get back to Ms. Weber's motion to adjourn. We have a second from Mr. Foster. Any raised, please raise your hand in Zoom if you object to adjourning. It is 1101 p.m. And seeing none, it's unanimous. And so we are now adjourned. We will reconvene on Wednesday, May 18th at 8 p.m. Thanks, everyone.