 Good evening. Welcome. I'm calling to order this meeting of the Arlington Select Board on Monday, December 4th. I am Select Board Chair Eric Helmuth. Tonight's meeting is being conducted in a hybrid format consistent with provisions by the Massachusetts Legislature for remote participation in public meetings. Before we begin, please note the following. First, this meeting is being conducted in the Select Board chambers and over Zoom. It is being recorded and simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Second, persons wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. People participating either in person or by Zoom are reminded that you may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate, we ask you to provide your full name in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. Third, all participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment. Those persons are not asked to identify themselves. Both Zoom participants and people watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials found on the town's website, specifically the Select Board Agendas and Minutes page. Tonight meeting, there will be several opportunities for public comment. If you are participating by Zoom and you want to participate in that public comment period, at the time that I announce it, please raise your hand in Zoom when I announce the public comment is open. If you're in the room, obviously raise your hand. In the room it's even easier. If you do not know how to raise your hand in Zoom, now would be an excellent time to Google for how to do so. Let's see how much of the town's business we can get done tonight. Our first item on the agenda is to review and approve bond issue and related matters, specifically award the sale of the $18 million and $90,000 in general obligation municipal purpose loan and all related documents required to execute the sale. And we have with us Ms. Julie Wayman, our treasurer. Good evening. Good evening. So just last week we sold $18 million in bonds for a number of capital projects. I'm sure you all know that we work with Hilltop Securities and they work with us on this sale. They let us know that we had an excellent result. We had 11 bids. They were telling us that a number of municipalities have only had between three and five bids. So they were really pleased with our 11. And the result was we ended up Fidelity Capital Markets was the winning bidder and the interest rate is a 3.69% over the life of the bonds. So they were really pleased. Very happy for us. This borrowing includes $10 million in exempt debt. So that's for the high school project. And then about for a little over four and a half million for the DPW along with a number of smaller capital projects, a couple of trucks. We've got the Bishop School roof replacement. You know, we've got a number of smaller capital projects that are approved annually. You know, as you all know, we've got that annual capital plan. And so we've got a number of smaller projects. So for a total of a little over 8 million in non-exempt debt and then about 10 in exempt debt. So we're very, very pleased. Happy with the results. And we hope that you all will vote favorably for the sale. Thank you very much. We do have a proposed vote before us in our agenda materials. And I'll turn to the board for questions, comments and motions. Mrs. Mohan. I will make a motion. Just a tickle. Just a quick question. Are we voting the bonds of 1890 or the 1729? Let's vote the 1890 and then there's the 900,000 in premium. So yes, the ultimate cost to us will be 17 million. But we're going to vote the full. I think the language does suggest that full 18 million in that vote. Oh, it does. But I saw the 922,000, which brought it down to 17. It does. Yes. Yep. But we'd like to vote the full 18 million. Okay. Yep. Just wanted to check. Yes. If I could, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move approval of the sum of 18 million $90,000 in general obligation municipal purpose loans for our 2023 bonds. Second. I want you to question it. Yeah. Mr. Mayer, second. Okay. Yeah. No, thank you, Ms. Weiman. And congratulations on the triple A bond rating. And it is nice to see 11 bids because I think last year at this time there was only four bids for the issuance a year ago. And the interest rate effectively is a little bit less than it was a year ago, which is which is nice too. So that probably comes out of the bidding process. So 3.7 versus 3.77. But we'll take it. We'll take it. We're very happy with it. And I think we, you know, heard really positive feedback from Hilltop. So yeah, I think that was excellent. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Of course, they actually asked my question because I was wondering about the comparison and I'd heard that new needs were becoming well, being viewed favorably against this kind of evidence of that need. And so so the overall market is good for them. And I think we're benefiting, you know, from just our high bond rating. So so thank you very much. And I'm not going to ask the curiosity. I will I will call you directly. But I mean, my favorite part about this is seeing the S&P report. So money stays out there into a word cloud and see how they all compare. But great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Any for the discussion? Okay, on a motion to approve by Mrs. Mahana seconded by Mr. Herd. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed is unanimous. Thank you for your good work. Thank you for coming tonight. Thanks very much. Thank you, Reese. Thank you, Reese. Next item is for approval, special event request, a menorah lighting at Whittemore Park on December the 12th of this year. And I believe we have representative, we representative here or on zoom to address Ms. Mark and check zoom. Yeah, if you're in zoom and you are appearing on behalf of this, please raise your hand and zoom at this time. Okay. Well, I think we could either take this up later this evening or just approve it subject to the conditions in the permit. Mrs. Mahana. I'd like to move approval of the special event request for December 12 2023 subject to all conditions contained therein. I'll second it. And then if someone does come later. Yeah. Yeah, then they would welcome them to speak about and help promote their venture. Sorry, I see that they've just logged in. Okay, sure. Yeah, we'll give them a minute. Oh, yeah, there we go. Yes. Yes. Great. We moved with uncharacteristic speed in the first part of our meeting. Let's keep it going. That's right. So our board administrator is there we go. There we go. Good evening. You can unmute yourself and turn your camera on if you like. Ah, there we go. Good evening. Goodbye. Hi, how are you? Good to see you. Am I am I the first on the docket? You are nearly we after after we approved the sale of $18 million in bonds a small matter. Yeah, no, you're up. Of course, the community knows and appreciates you and your in your center's work very much. But if you'd like to briefly describe the event, the board would be happy to to consider it. Sure. So I know this is something new that we haven't approached the town officially yet with. But in light of current events and what's going on across the world and the impact that it's having on on many people in the in the Jewish community that have been impacted and affected personally. We were wondering we had the the holiday of Hanukkah is coming up and in a few days on this upcoming Thursday and it's a eight day holiday and we were wondering if we could ask permission from from you from the town of Arlington to have a menorah, which is a symbol of of light, lightness in in darkness and it's it's something that we believe is is beyond just you know just Jewish tradition, but it's more of a Jewish cultural symbol that that is that is beautiful and and warm that lights up the public on on these eight days of Hanukkah and we were hoping to see if that would be something that you may consider for us to set up a nine foot menorah. It will automatically with bulbs and will automatically each you know be each candle with each bulb would light up every 24 hours until the eighth day of Hanukkah and we were hoping that that would be something it could be on any public property. I don't have in front of me. I believe we asked we asked for it to be placed on the green that is in front of the the museum there on on on Mass Ave and Pleasant Street, but it's really it's just anywhere on Mass Ave in a convenient place. We thought that that might be something a nice a symbol of hope and light and so that's that's what I'm asking permission for and I would I would we would greatly appreciate if that's something that that could happen this year. Thank you very much and I neglected to ask you to introduce yourself even though we're you're well known to us if you would do that for the public please for the sure. Sure. My name is Avi Bukit. I am the the executive director and Rabbi at the Center for Jewish Life here in Arlington. We've been serving the Jewish community in Arlington for over 10 years. We have as many of you know we have experienced we've experienced a hate crime multiple times in 20 in 2019 from a from a white supremacist white supremacist group and then of course what has what has happened over the past couple of months many of our Jewish community members have been impacted many of our many of our teenagers who are in the community have been at school and and the remarks and the comments there's been a lot of a lot of sentiment anti-Semitic sentiment anti-Israel sentiment and I just I felt this was an appropriate time to come to the town and perhaps you know bring up this idea this proposal. Thank you very much. So I just I want to just to get some clarity on on the application so that the the event permit application that we have on our agenda that was published and before us now is just for a one day a one time event of three two or three hours on December the 12th. So I think that the board will have to contemplate you know if we would want to make any change to that to I think if I'm interpreting the request it would be you know not an attended event but would be an unintended display appearing you know over a period of time and that's you know probably that's a different kind of request I think then that we have here. Oh oh okay so I might be confused or so the the executive the the director of programming filled out the application that it could be that that that request was for we have we've been having an annual menorah lighting at the Arlington fire department. We have like a gelt drop and it's attended by hundreds of people in the community Jewish people and non-Jewish people alike and it's been a very big hit and the fire department has been amazing and we typically just we like the menorah with the fireman with the chief of the fire the fire chief for for an hour or so we take we we put the menorah together take it apart and we're done. So perhaps that was the original request what I'm what I'm asking is obviously for for something for something longer that we could just leave there and and and it could be shown it could be on you know in public display for for eight days. But you would still you're still asking for the for the permit to do the the initial event that's yeah was it has been at the fire near the fire station is now asked for and put in more park right. Yeah okay good yeah okay thank you for that for thank you for that clarity. I think I'm going to turn to attorney Cunningham because we did this was something that we we discussed and I think we wanted to be sure to kind of be prepared to help the board think through what the options were. So attorney Cunningham if you would like to offer some some context and some advice about these different requests I think the board would appreciate that before we begin deliberating. Absolutely Mr. Chair Michael Cunningham Council. This request the one we have before the board was part of the materials was just for the one night for two hours but to the extent there is a request before the board orally at this stage for something beyond that I could just go into briefly what that type of request involves. The first amendment is is plainly an issue here. This is an open form specifically the property in front of the Cutter House. So the public has some right to meet their express views yeah various other activities but the government can place reasonable time time place and manner restrictions on those activities subject to significant government interest and as long as it's narrowly tailored. The concern that I think that this might raise to the extent that it was an eight-day period with unattended menorah is that that may give the impression to a reasonable person that that's some sort of government speech that the establishment clause will be implicated in that case. It's similar to a case that the town of Lexington select board considered in 2001 where they had an application from the Knights of Columbus who wanted to set up a crash for a three-week period. The board after proving that for many years on the battle green decided that that was an appropriate amount of time and was going to allow them a one-day permit to construct the crash but not allow it to remain unattended. The Knights of Columbus didn't like that result they sued it went to the first circuit the town of town of Lexington's actions were affirmed by the by the district court in Massachusetts. That's still good law today. I think there are some legitimate concerns about any unattended structure for whatever whether religious or secular because the reason for that is not only a violent potential violation by the town the establishment clause but also these types of regulations have to be content-neutral so to the extent that this board were considered allowing an eight-day permit for one group that would that would have to apply to other groups that would come before this board. You cannot discriminate based on content but so in that case Lexington faced requests from various groups you know whether it was I think there was a Jewish faith group I think there was the Christian faith group there was a group related to the Sun God Ra that meant so there there would have been a collection of items unattended on that particular area which affected the aesthetic value of that public property and the court considered that one determined whether that was a significant government interest and that considered in conjunction with the concerns about the establishment clause the court determined that the select board action in Lexington was appropriate in denying that application so I think those those are the issues that the the board should consider as it looks at a prolonged period or an unattended item on this public ground. Thank you sir. I would ask the town manager if you had any further thoughts or comments on this before the board gets discussion. You know thank you Mr. Chair Jim Feeney town manager you know I would I think the board grappled with a related challenge pertaining to the flying of banners on this very building in the the near future so I think that you know in thinking back though I didn't sit in this chair at that time I understood that the board made a sort of hard decision to discontinue that practice at that time given the concerns that attorney Cunningham laid out as to setting you know locking yourself into future precedent with decisions that may be presented before the board so I just wanted to raise that as a somewhat related matter. Yeah thank you. I appreciate that. Oh sorry this is Mahad. Yes please. Thank you Mr. Chair. I just want to let you know that right before you zoomed in I did make a motion to approve the December 12th request and I that would remain my motion for the December 12th request. Everyone knows I'm a process person. I'm not going to repeat with town council or town managers said but I know approximately 15 or so years ago the board and this is before the last year policy statement made a policy that any unattended events that that we would only do events one day events and there was quite a bit of concern because for many many years we had had a nativity scene at the exact same site and we directed that group to go to an appropriate church that had volunteered several had to host that so so it's a process question. I'd like to stay with that so I just stand by my motion to approve the December 12 2023 event request. Mr. Herder. I have a follow-up question for attorney Cunningham. Is there any open meeting law considerations for us even to consider something outside the four corners of the request that's in front of us? Potentially Mr. Herder but I think most likely the board has the discretion to edit its if they wanted to accept the edited request it could do so at this time because the issue related to the placement of menorah at this particular site although not for this time period was on the agenda appropriately within 48 hours of the meeting. However I think it's probably best practice for the board to not engage in that type of process as I think Mrs. Mahan is talking about. I think the best practice for the board and it's up to get it's up to the board not to me is to consider the materials it has before it at the time of the meeting. I'll certainly second the motion. I'm happy to support the event. You know we've been through this with I feel like a myriad of issues with the limited public forum in the past couple of years. We have a very proactive citizenship or residents that have a whole host of causes that are really important to people in this town and I think while I certainly support the putting up a menorah I would love to see I think it would be a beautiful site to see particularly in these times. I think it's really an important practice for this board to stick just allowing individual attended events and I would anticipate that if we approved leaving menorah up for eight days in our next meeting we'll have anywhere from 10 to 20 requests to put something else in Woodmore Plaza and as attorney Cunningham mentioned we really have no once we approve one we really have no discretion to say no to anything else. So I think as a best practice it just it's in the interest of the town to stick to our current practice of just approving limited engagements that are attended by individuals as opposed to permanent structures. So I will give Mr. Heard the second. And I'll add I see that no police detail is that box isn't checked you know I would say I'm sure that we are going to make sure it's a safe event me whether or not you know that box is checked me but to the extent we need to consider that a little more I mean then let's do so that's it thank you. Mr. Feeney. Thank you Jim Feeney town manager. Yes Mr. Diggins we would ensure that any and all necessary security was provided for the event and I know that the Arlington Police Department works closely with the rabbi and his team. Great thanks. Mr. Course thank you Mr. Chairman. Yeah I support Mrs. Mahan's motion and this was what was before us this evening and for the best practices that Attorney Cunningham spoke about as well. So I support the vote in a second. Thank you and you know I'll do the same and I want to be very clear that you know this really is the board's responsibilities to think about the big picture to think about the president to think about what could happen next and not to make these decisions because of any lack of of support and empathy for what the rabbis community is going through right now. That's the furthest thing from our minds I think that we just we have the responsibility to to really protect the entire community and think ahead about about the big context of these decisions. So I am also comfortable with that and also just just out of an abundance of caution given what we did notice on the agenda for this being a one-time event I think that's the better practice this year. So any further discussion from the board. Okay so we have a motion by Mrs. Mahan and an inherited second by Mr. Herd all in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed. Is unanimous. I look forward to the event. Good luck. Thank you very much. I appreciate your your consideration. Thank you very much sir. Good evening. That brings us to the consent agenda. We have items four through seven the minutes of the meetings of November 8th the Arlington Education Foundation 5k race on May 19th 2024 and I'll just note this is on this consent agenda because it's very similar if not identical to the conditions that we approved last year. Approval for winter banners from the chamber of commerce and a request for a contractor drain layer license Genesis Utilities Corporation in Brockton, Massachusetts specifically Declan Fitzpatrick. Turn to the board for any motions or comments. Move approval. Second. Any discussion on the consent agenda items. Seeing none all in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed. It is unanimous five zero. That brings us to our row of assessors. A property text classification so we have to figure out what we're doing with who's speaking and who's standing and who's sitting. ACMI asked that if they're standing move microphone up if we're sitting move it down. You all sort that out. I think we have the chair here in the director of assessments. So who's representing? Chair Jamison. Very well sir. Welcome. Good evening and thank you Mr. Chair and Mr. Helmleith. I'm Gordon Jamison. I'm the current chair of the board of assessors of Arlington and we are here for the annual tax classification hearing a meeting that I have attended many years before becoming a member of the board and it's I think one of the most important sessions that the board held, the boards together hold. Joining me tonight before the board are our talented director of assessments Dana Mann and the other two men and also equally talented members of the board William Sagina, Bill Sagina, and Mary Wynne Stanley O'Connor who you've all seen before in previous sessions. This is my time. This is my year to have to do this song and dance. So basically the end result of tonight's meeting is you'll be voting for a tax rate and for voting for a factor and we provided a the director has provided you with a the annual set of information and I'll leave it with Mr. Mann to take you through that and after he's concluded he and the board will be available for questions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Welcome, Mr. Mann. And yeah, I just bend the microphone down. Good evening, sir. Good evening, Dana Mann director of assessments. Thank you for your time this evening. Does everyone have a copy of the... Yes, thank you. If you wouldn't mind I'd like to start by recognizing the other three members of the assessing team. Our manager, Mary McMakin, Jennifer O'Rourke, and Mitchell Suarez. I couldn't do this without them. And hello to our town manager, town council, Ashley. We can we're going to start by discussing what what makes up the tax rate. We're going to go through some of the components. We're going to look at what the single tax rate is. We're going to discuss the options behind classification. We classification presents an opportunity to shift parts of the levy which would create different tax rates for different classes of property. We'll then go to discussing the two other options related to classification and then we'll look at the actual numbers for this year. The value of the of the town. And then we will conclude by looking at what changed from last year to this year. And please, if there are any questions, please don't hesitate to interrupt and I'm happy to address any of your questions. So starting on page one and the pages are numbered this year. It just gets better and better sir. So to calculate the the tax rate we look back to last year and we take the fiscal year 23 levy limit. We add to that two and a half percent for proposition two and a half. That's the 3,383,913 number. We add to that new growth. This is growth would be the value of new property to the town that we're taxing for the first time. We would then this year we don't have an override thanks to some proper budgeting. We'll push that to next year. And that develops a the fiscal year 2020 for levy limit. 140,020,933. We take that number and add the excluded debt. In this case it's school debt of 13,830,576 dollars. And that gives us what's called the maximum total to be raised. That's the 153,800, I'm sorry 153,851,509 number. And at the bottom we give the actual calculation for the tax rate. We take the amount to be raised. Actually we take the total taxable assessed value. That's 14,523,850,398. And we divide that by the amount to be raised the 153,807,575. And divided by 1,000 and that gives us a tax rate a single tax rate of $10.59. The difference between the maximum total to be raised and the amount to be raised is called the excess levy of $43,934. So moving to page two we look at the current makeup of the town in terms of class, class of property. And once again the town is significantly residential. The residential property comes in at 94.6555%. The total what's called CPI commercial industrial and personal property comes out to 5.3445%. And you can see the makeup of the individual classes there. Turning to the next page we are provided with some numbers by the DOR. Which gives us the target numbers where we're allowed to shift some of the tax levy either direction but generally it's increasing the CIP levy and decreasing the residential levy. But it's an option. So the number that we want to look at there is the minimum residential factor 97.4766. That lets us calculate the minimum residential sheer. That's the number below that 91.98. And from those numbers we move to page four. And this is what gives us the range within which amounts can be shifted. The what's called the CIP maximum sheer is calculated at 8.0168%. The single rate sheer is 5.3445. So that those are the two numbers within which we can shift. And on the next page at the bottom of the page we see the totals. These CIP sheer of levy. This is the amount of the tax levy that's born by the CIP. And the maximum CIP is the 12,330,510. So within that levy amount is the shift opportunity. And on page five we see what that shift would do to taxes and tax rates. So if we follow along at the top, the top line is what a single tax rate would do. And then if we were to move 5%, you can see the effect that that has on the tax rate. The tax rate moves on the residential side by $10.56 down to $10.56. And on the CIP side $11.12. And that would mean a difference, a reduction in the residential tax amount of $14.95 compared with a increase in the CIP tax. And this is per $500,000 of value. That increase would be $265 on the CIP side. So a significant disproportionality in that amount. And then you can follow down that chart the various other percentages. Any questions on that? Okay. Also within the classification options is what's called the residential exemption. This is an option that's used by cities and towns in the commonwealth that have a large percentage of non-owner occupied properties where they would see an advantage compared to owner occupied properties with higher values. I want to stress that the levy does not change in these circumstances. The difference in the tax rate is to bear the cost of providing the exemption to owner occupied properties. And it's generally done in communities where there's a large investment pool where investors are buying property and renting property or in properties or towns that have a large non-resident or second home property ownership. The DOR has allowed the maximum exemption amount of 35%. Very few communities move up to that level. I've provided some examples of what this exemption would look like at various exemption amounts. And it's in a percentage form here. You can see the 20% amount would create a tax rate for the entire residential class of $12.70. And that would be borne by a fairly small percentage of non-resident properties. We calculate that at about 17%. We also calculated what's called the break-even point. This is the home value where a qualified resident would see no impact on their tax bill. Values above that amount, even though they're qualified, would see an increase in their taxes. And properties under that would realize some discount. Any questions on the residential exemption? The small business exemption, which is another option under classification, would be very similar. The tax rate would be $10.85. I'm sorry, that's not in your booklet, but we did calculate that. Moving on to page seven, we see a history of the single tax rates for the town. And on page eight, often referred to as the LA-4, which has been submitted to the DOR and awaiting our certification. We see all of the values related to all of the different classes or property types on the left-hand side and their total values moving to the right of the form. And at the very bottom, in the bottom right corner, we see the real and personal property total value. This is the total taxable value of the town. $14,523,850,000,000. $850,398,000. On page nine, we have what's referred to as the LA-13. This describes and indicates the abatement amounts that were allowed by the board in the various property classes. And that would be column B. In column C, what we have is the new growth that was generated in each of those classes. And the totals are listed at the bottom of the page. Column E is the total growth amount for the town. That's that $1,280,500. We saw that on the first page. Okay, this is a little more fun, at least for me. Moving to page 10, we can see what we did in producing values for this year and how it is different from last year. So we start with the single-family class code 101. Values in that category increased by 11.26%. And I think we've all seen that in the sales. The assessing department looked at over 730 sales to develop these values within DOR standards. I say that just to indicate the amount of work that goes into producing these value numbers. We don't just look at Caldwell Banker and come up with a number. So I won't go through all of these numbers, but you'll see in total the all classes are up 9.1%. And you can see the residential is slightly higher at 9.29%. And then at the bottom of the page, it gives the actual goals for each class. Can I ask a quick question? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I know all the codes stand for various residential and commercial properties, and I wouldn't expect you to know this off the top of your head, but just all of them seem incrementally similar. I'm just curious, and it's close to 12%, so that's near the 9%. What code 504, 550 to 552 is? Sure. 504 is utilities that are actually valued by the state. Okay. So that would be things like NSTAR, electrical utilities, gas utilities, and 504, you said? Yes. Thank you. No, only because the rest I could see, what's commercial space, open space, residential, and that was the one percentage-wise that had sort of the biggest jump. And I was like, well, what the heck is that? Utilities, that's a big jump. Thank you. And it's also, we've always assessed the utilities, but recently the DOR has enacted a different method for calculating value. They're looking at it a little bit differently, and so far it has produced higher values. So we've seen, for the last three years, a significant growth in that area. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Sorry. Any other questions on that? So this page is similar to the first page, but it gives us some good percentages. This is page 11, and we can see year over year going back to fiscal year 2020, the various components of the tax rate. What I'd like to point out, you can see that under Proposition 2.5, the amount of that value and its effect on the tax rate has decreased, and that's due to the increase, the overall increase in values. So as values go up, we're spreading that amount over a larger value. The other thing I'd like to point out is the levy increase percentage. That's about in the middle of the page there. 3.33%. That's before taking into account the exempted school debt. This is not in your booklets, but when you consider that increase after the debt exclusion, it's approximately 5.1%. So that 3.33 would be the 2.5% plus new growth? Yes. Thank you. And finally, I want to point out the average assessed value of the single family homes in Arlington. We've broken the million dollar mark, and the average single family home is now valued at $1,015,162. And you can see how that's grown from 2020 when we were at 825,000 significant growth in residential properties. Now how does that affect the average tax rate or tax bill? The average tax bill this year at the single tax rate of $10.59 is $10,751. That's an increase of $523 over the previous year. And just a reminder that all of these numbers are subject to rounding and DOR certification. On the next page, we get to compare that tax bill to what we call our peer communities. Unfortunately, I was not able to get the data for these communities as they only recently, Winchester, did have their rate approved on Friday. But I was unable to get that data into the report. But I will, as soon as we get that information, we'll get it into this form. And it's located on the assessor's website. So just pointing out quickly, the new average tax bill for the town is the $10,751. And just a note that does not include the CPA tax significantly lower than our three peer communities who last year were all over $16,000. For the benefit of people at home in the room, material, all these materials are available on the select board's agendas and minutes page, but I'll just name that the three comparable towns here are Belmont, Winchester, and they are all over $6,000 or $7,000 more than we were last year. Thank you. Mr. Dickens. Do you have a sense of how we compare for CIP? In other words, the average tax bill for commercial, industrial, we can look at that. For the other communities? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry, I don't have that information. Okay. All right. That's what I was going to have for the other communities. Okay. All right. Thank you. I can certainly get that information on the booklet and for future classification hearings. Okay. Great. Because it'd be interesting to have a sense of me whether or not we're competitive in what potential effects that have, because that could also mean, since the balance can be tipped in either direction, you could imagine that a very small increase in the property for non-CIP could have a really big effect on them, and if it was made it's more competitive. That could be an argument. That's why I asked. All right. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. It's always good to get these numbers once a year and get reminded why we don't have residential exemption, why we don't have a two tiered tax system. One question that came up early in the presentation, and after six presentations of this, I probably should have asked this five years ago, but what accounts for the excess levy in that, I understand we're asking for less than the maximum total that we can raise? Is that just a budgeting issue or where we always talk about the constraints of proposition two and a half, you would think that you would ask for the dollar figure exactly of what you're, what you can ask for. Sure. So if we look at page 11, we produce a number called the penny on the tax rate, and you see that amount is $145,235. If we were to increase our levy, it would, we can't have a tax rate with three decimal points. So we're actually levying as much as we can, and that excess means we can't add another penny to the tax rate. That makes sense. Again, thank you for presentation. I think every year, not only does it remind us why our taxes are what they are, it shows us, you know, what we need to do, no, Mr. Diggins likes to talk about new growth, and you know, new growth is really the key to stopping overrides, and these are the figures that show this to us, but it also does show, if you looked at the comparable towns, it shows that we've always said we get a lot of bang for a buck, you know, there, and I think some of these sounds of higher property values, but Arlington's certainly getting in the mix when it comes to property value, and they all have similar services. Interestingly, the same four towns that were in the Arlington Winter Classic, the hockey tournament last year, win just a one. I was going to say who, don't say who won, it wasn't Arlington McCoy. They just jumped off the page when I sell these four towns, but again, you know, we have significantly lower taxes for similar, if not better, services than the cities and towns around us, and that's something to be proud of, and that's good administration, good fiscal management from the top down, and you know, it's always good to look at that and make you feel a little bit better when as taxes go up, so thank you for all your work. Thank you to the board for all the work that goes in all year on these valuations, and it's all, you know, we like to say we take a lot of heat, but I know the Board of Assessors can take some heat from some residents as well. I mean, no one wants to go out and get taxed higher, but we do thank you for all the work that you do to put this together each year. Absolutely, and I'll remind the board as we continue our discussion at some point, we'll need a motion for setting the house right. Mr. Gorsi, did you want to go? Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Mann, for the presentation and to the members of the Board of Assessors for being here this evening, and as Mr. Hurd said, it's always very informative, and I really love to pour through all of this. Just a question, and maybe for an observation, I know your count on condominium units has gone up by about 82 units, the number two family units has gone down by about 40. Is that what you're seeing for conversions? Exactly. We had just that amount of conversions. I think there was also one three family that converted to two condominiums, but that's exactly what those numbers show. Okay, and then on the 112, or the 111 to 125, but 112 in particular, which is apartments, eight units, or greater, I see that's up by one. Is that the MIRAC, is that the beginning of the MIRAC development, and I don't know, it seems like we'll have some growth this year, but perhaps more in fiscal 25 from that project as well. Yeah, exactly. So we're required by the DOR to assess the percentage completion on projects like that as of July 31st. We have to have that percentage of completion, and we determine a full market value, and we take that percentage of completion as the assessment amount and the growth amount from that. Okay, and again, we don't know what growth is going to be like next year. It seems like you have a few things I know Mr. Feeney had said building permits are down more recently, and that usually gets reflected a year or two out, but you've actually achieved more than a million dollars in growth the past two years, and I know it's a lot of pressure. Hopefully you can find another similar amount or a little bit of growth there, but that's just encouragement and hopefully there's enough activity. Just two more comments if I could, Mr. Chairman. On the tax rate, and again this is reflective of values going up in Ellington, by the table you put in here, the 10.59 is the lowest tax rate I think we've ever had since it's been reported 10.61 back in 2004, so again that just shows that relationship between value in tax rates, because we're going to grow two and a half percent, but values are continuing to rise here, and the last thing I would say is on the exempt count, and thank you, it looks like there's been a real large increase in the value of exempt property, which we don't receive any revenue on, but it looks like it's about seven percent of the overall, which I think compared to some other communities is probably on the low side, but it's always helpful just to see that relationship, so thank you for the comprehensive presentation and for all the data. You want to make a motion? Yeah, I'd like to make a motion, Mr. Chairman, and I think correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Mann, but by adopting a single rate we will, what the motion would be is to adopt the residential factor of one, and we're not going to do anything on the resident, I'm not moving anything on the residential exemption, we don't have small business exemptions, so just that single vote, Mr. Chairman. Second. Mr. Jenkins. I had a couple questions, I mean I had my fingers up because I saw Mr. Mann leaving, and I was like there for him. So quickly, is there a pattern to the new growth? That's a difficult question. There are several factors, there's the general economy that you would consider, there's zoning issues can have an impact on growth, but yeah, we tend to follow a general pattern of the economy. People are investing in Arlington, they're adding to their homes, they're building new homes, and all of that generates growth. But it's individuals investing, not any corporations or anything like that? Well we do have growth in all of our class, well not all, but in in the commercial end as well as the residential side. Okay, and actually what I was getting at is in terms of the residential investment, that's from individuals opposed to companies. What I mean by investment in Arlington is the interest in in buying houses in Arlington is generating competition which raises the value of the homes and interest in the new homes that are being built and increasing those values which in turn increases growth. Gotcha, I mean the reason I was asking about that is I think MAPC just recently released a study on speculation, and for them I mean the speculation is they define that as investing or investors, so I was just trying to understand me if we're talking about the same type of thing. So I've just you get what I'm getting? Yeah I do, and I wouldn't classify it as I think we're using the same term a little bit differently. I know that was confusing when they did that, it's like people were like what do you mean? I mean so okay great, and I would be interested in the data on the small business exemptions. I mean that's is that on the website or is there something I have to ask you for? No, I think I can provide you with those figures, okay great, and then we'll look at incorporating it in the booklet in the coming years. Not to even remotely affect me, my feelings about the motion. All right thank you very much. Any for the discussion? Thank you very much, thank you to the board for your service to the community. It is extremely important and Mr. Mann your excellent work is known by reputation and demonstrated tonight, so thank you very much. So we have a motion to adopt is it? Is this a public hearing? Oh it is a public hearing. Sorry. All right thank you Mr. Mann. This is a public hearing, so if anyone would like to before we vote to set the tax rate make a public comment. If you're on Zoom raise your hand on this item or if you're in the room please your room raise your hand in the room. Okay I think we're good. So on a motion by Mr. Corsi to set the tax rate with a residential factor of one, seconded by Mr. Herd. On favor please say aye. Opposed to five-nothing unanimous vote. Thank you very much. Thanks for all. All right also on a public hearing we have the Montague Street Betterment Request to Repair Private Ways a Betterment Order and we've represented here in the room or on Zoom to briefly talk about that. Welcome. Come on up. Good evening. Just introduce yourself sir and give us a quick rundown. We have the documents in front of us. Sure, pretty much Karangesh resident in 99 Montague Street. Nice to meet you everyone. Representing our neighbors trying to fix our street as much as we can. We started the process, we followed all the procedures and now I think we're kind of in the last pages of getting the town's approval to fix at least short term or potholes and then long term the first part the lower part of Montague and then we're waiting for the technical for the towns to give us the technical details for the upper part of Montague to see if we can fix it as well. Gotcha. Thank you very much. Any questions, comments, motions from the board before we actually let's do public comment. Anyone do public comment first? Yeah. We'll go ahead to public hearing. It looks to me that we have there were no objections that I noted in this but nevertheless it was public hearing so if you are here wish in the room or on Zoom wish to comment on this betterment before the board discusses please raise your hand. Seeing none Mr. Herd. I'm happy to move approval. I just have a question for the town manager. Similar to the betterment request that we had a couple months ago do we have to make a motion subject to availability of funds? Thank you Mr. Herd. That would be correct if the project were to proceed before July 1st. Okay. But we would expect given town meetings action that as of July 1st that that would not be an issue. Okay. So I'll move approval subject to availability of funds if the project is to proceed prior to July 1st. Second, sorry. I don't know if for the applicant if the town manager just wants to briefly explain what the issue is with that. Sure. Sure. And thank you for raising that point. I actually you know have been in touch with some of the folks from Montague Street about exactly the same thing but given the large number of betterments that have processed through the board and as you know you know many folks choose to pay up front for that but there's you know at least a handful every time around that do not so we're not collecting those funds until quarterly payments are received over the course of five years so it takes we can tend to deplete the account faster than it replenishes with collections unless and until the town through town meeting takes an action to sort of seed that account with money and with the number of betterments that we processed and the size of some of those betterments this year we've sort of stretch beyond what we could afford in this fiscal year unless of course the residents were able to provide additional funding beyond the one third required upfront and as was done with the last betterment that approved so that it could proceed on a faster timeline. Thank you sir. Can I ask a question? Oh yes sir. So what we did that minimum threshold to get above that say it's like two-thirds 50 percent? As of today I calculated around 55 or 65 percent but that changes really almost on a daily basis as to when the board's office would receive payments via mail. Okay and I'm assuming nothing can be done before April even if the moratorium would be in effect through middle of April anyways. Thank you. We had a second from Mrs. Mohan. Mr. Corsi. Thank you Mr. Chairman and I will say and Mr. Hurd noted this it's nice to have a private way betterment request that's unanimous. It knows everybody who responded said yes as one person didn't but just for clarification what portion of the street you said it's not the entire street I'm just curious what what section will be done as a result of this. So it's we're trying to do everything but it's taking me a while to get my neighbors from let's call Upper Montague to say yes or approve the process in mind so it's from Madison sorry from Orient to Madison. Okay we do have the signatures to start the upper part of Montague but we're waiting for that from the engineering department to give us the technical details. Okay so we can send it to the paving companies for them to give us a quote. Okay if this only starts in April maybe by then we can have a full Montague fix because as my neighbor Anton is there you'll attest there's a huge problem coming from Upper Montague so to speak there's a potholder comes from underneath the water and creates like an ice rink in his house so we would like to have that fixed as soon as possible if we're going to cannot have the full Montague at least 50% of Montague fixed. Okay thank you and if I could based on that answer Mr. Chairman the main question for Attorney Cunningham is on the order should we be putting the parameters of the work in terms of what portion of the street? Yes okay all right so um and we've already had the motion from maybe as a friendly amendment to to add Montague Street between right for right now between Orient and in Madison. So thank you Mr. Dickens. So I'll notice that the the one person that's missing lives at zero Montague so I think I think it's the title so I was just I was thinking I've never seen a zero for an address you know. It's an empty lot. Somebody trustee or trust fund tried to reach them no reply so. All right well that explains that then. I was wondering that myself. All right yeah I couldn't resist I said it wasn't like I couldn't resist that one. Okay any further discussion so we have a motion by Mr. Herd as amended by Mr. Corsi and seconded by Mrs. Mahon to approve between Orient and Madison. All in favor please say yes. Yes yes and opposed. It was unanimous. Perhaps well the pleasure of seeing you again in the coming months. Thank you very much for your service to your neighbors and community. I know how hard it is and I know that they appreciate it. I thank them. Thank you very much. Thank you. Brings us to item 10. Appointments so we have first up we have three appointments this evening. We have the Arlington Commission on Arts and Culture Grants Committee formally known as the Arlington Cultural Council and we have the appointee is Shelley Shabra. We have Shelley coming in on Zoom. Good evening. Hi good evening. If you just introduce yourself and just make a brief statement about your interest in service. My name is Shelley Shabra. I've been in Arlington residence since 2010. I have two children in the school system and I have had experience as I guess on the other side where I was applying for grants as a cultural arts educator and that brings me to wanting to volunteer my time in this town to help promote public art and immersion in cultural arts education. Splendid. Thank you very much for your willingness to serve. I will turn to the board for any questions comments or motions. I'll make a motion to approve and thank you very much. So and as you said you've been on the other end me so so of the the grant process to me so I am sure that you will understand me what goes into making a good grant and then approving that so thank you very much. Wait a second. Second. Mr. Herd. Always happy to welcome fellow jumbos to the service of the town of Arlington. Thank you. We just missed each other. Excellent. Okay I think we're good to go. Thank you again for your willingness. This is an important function and I think Arlington is one of Arlington's great one of Arlington's many strengths is our commitment to investing in arts and culture and cultivating that engagement with the whole community and I look forward to the good work that you and your other commissioners will be doing on the committee. So on a motion to appoint by Mr. Diggins and seconded by Mr. Decorsi all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed. As unanimous. Thank you again. Thank you. We have item 11 appointment to the elderly and disabled tax relief fund committee. Applicant is Michael Quinn who is also in zoom. So let's bring Mr. Quinn in. Mr. Quinn when you're here he comes. Can unmute yourself and go in camera if you wish. I don't have a camera hooked up but I do have a microphone. That's all right. Good evening. Thank you very much for your willingness to serve. Just tell us introduce yourself and express your interest in serving. Sure. My name is Michael Quinn. I live in Precinct 10. I've been a town meeting member since 2003. Two kids who went through the Arlington school system. I currently serve on the board of the Council on Aging. I'm in the board chair for the last few years. I've also previously worked on the tax aid program doing taxes on a volunteer basis for low income elderly in Arlington. And I'm familiar with the work from a distance of the elderly and disabled tax aid relief fund committee because it's something that the Council on Aging and the Board are aware of from that. Previously, Rick Fenton who was on our committee on the board served on that committee. He passed away earlier this summer and I've been getting to learn a little bit more about some of the processes and things from him for that. But I'm looking to serve on that committee and I'm hoping to continue along in the work that's been done there. Thank you very much sir. If you can do town meeting for 20 years I bet you can manage this. Mr. Corsi. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I'd like to move approval and thank Mr. Quinn for his willingness to serve but also thank him as he mentioned he's the chair of the Council on Aging or the board of the Council on Aging and his term is up actually this year till he'll be stepping down from that. But Michael I want to thank you for the important work that you've done in leading the board and attended a number of meetings and you do a wonderful job in that position. I'm happy to support you for this role. You're here. Thank you. Mr. Hard. Just second that motion. Just continue down my toughs path here. I was actually an economics major at Tufts. I don't think we were there at the same time but I'm looking at a few of the courses that you teach at Tufts and it's bringing me back. Whether they go to bad memories I won't say in a public forum but again thank you for your willingness to serve in any capacity in Arlington and I appreciate anybody that steps up and especially you know everyone is busy schedule and fit in time and to serve is not easy and we know from experience so thank you. It's not just a select board meeting it's also a trip down memory lane right. I was trying to get Mr. Hard to get the motion because I can't tell that he wanted it. We got you both in. Yes thank you Mr. Quinn and I know the challenge is to get people to avail themselves of this relief. I remember you forget what forum it was and you said that. A lot of people just don't utilize this resource and it's important that they realize it's there and that they use it so hopefully you can help with that so thank you. Any further comments? Mr. Quinn thank you for your exemplary service to the town as Mr. Decorsi said and we do appreciate you stepping up to fill this role as well. So on a motion to appoint by Mr. Decorsi and seconded by Mr. Heard. All in favor please say aye. Opposed. As you need to miss a vote. Thank you sir. Thank you. Finally we have a nominee for the appointment to the LGBTQIA plus rainbow commission by Fiona Perry. Oh welcome. So could you please introduce yourself and tell us about your interests. Hello I'm Fiona Perry. I've been in Arlington residence since 2019. For the entire time I have been here. I have benefited from the rainbow commission through their various works educating the community making sure that people like myself are welcome and feel so we can present ourselves authentically. And I want to continue that tradition and help make this community a more inclusive better place for people like myself. Beautifully said. Thank you. I'll turn to the board for any questions comments and motions. Mrs. Mohan. I'd like to move approval and say thank you to Ms. Perry. We've said this many many times we probably couldn't afford you but thankfully we're getting you as many other people. One of the core characters of the town of Arlington are the volunteers in the citizenry and willing to take time their personal time family time work time in that order to you know work on making Arlington continue to be welcoming but we can always do better and sometimes the way we can do better is things that we just don't have a perspective on so I do appreciate you stepping forward and doing this and the rainbow coalition has many events to which we all come to but we also always say if there's anything that the board as a combined board or any one of us individually we're here also as a resource and we look forward to working with you and the commission in the future. Mr. Herd. Second and thank you for your willingness to step up and serve. I don't see any tough connection but that's okay. She's signing up. I mean since its inception the rainbow coalition has been one of the most active commissions that we have and one of the most important I think it is time intensive which I'm sure you're aware of but it really is very important to you know for the community that we create for the kids that are in schools and the partnerships that we have it really is an important commission that we rely on a lot so thank you for your willingness to serve. And not only more inclusive but more fabulous right? It goes without saying I know and we've actually seen of you in action on the commission already so thank you immensely. Well I hardly endorse everything my colleagues have said and I think we are ready for a vote. So on a motion to appoint by Mrs. Mahana seconded by Mr. Herd. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed is unanimous. Thank you thank you for coming tonight. All right this moves us to item 13 licenses and permits. We have four approval common virtual or license the mill cafe at 14 mill street and good evening Andrew Hunter. Yeah introduce yourself and thank you for your patience sir. Oh absolutely. I'm Drew Hunter I serve as the executive director for Hyrock Church and the mill cafe. Your question about what 504 was and his ability to answer just like without even looking down at his page was absolutely amazing. I wish he was here to like hear that but that was incredible. I'm meeting with him on reclassifications. Okay well you let him know. That was a jaw-dropping moment and somebody who's produced a lot and tried to defend them in public I'm just like whoa that was amazing. Anyway be sure to pass that on thank you thank you. We'll send in the video clip. Great great. Attempts to curry favor by flattering the director of assessments will be favorably looked upon. Oh there you go there you go it's a sincere moment. So let me talk about the mill cafe and just cast a little vision about it. So Hyrock redeveloped the property at 14 mill street from the garage and the sporting goods store and the auto body repair on the second floor and the auto parts on the first floor. We're talking about that space that was the auto parts on the first floor which we've opened up all the windows as you've probably driven by or walked by and you can see into this space that is the lobby of the church on Sunday and what we're what we've been developing over the last few months since we opened on Mother's Day in that space for our first service is to have a cafe that's open to the public in that front space that looks out onto mill street. So the cafe is going to be open ideally we're going to open it for five days a week but we can't staff that yet so we're opening initially in our soft launch for Thursday Friday Saturday and we'll be open to public and normal business hours. We're trying to make a space for the community so we have a large space there that's kind of unique in Arlington and we've bought a chess board with two foot pieces and you know big connect four and we've made a corner that it has space for kids to play in but it's not really about that it's about the fact that parents and caregivers need space to connect one another and the high school students seem to have a hard time having a space they can just be after school or do work or hang out with each other and we have enough space for that to happen but we want to be hospitable in that so we need to have great drinks and so we have partnered with counterculture coffee and we are offering espresso drinks and some basic baked goods and some pre-made sandwiches and a pretty much a grab-and-go menu for people to come in and to enjoy to stay or to go. I think it's a really great space for that I'm really excited about what that can do for the community. In addition to that we've been partnering with the high school and talking to them about their disability program the way that they're serving the students with disabilities we have several in our community that are part of that program we want to see what's the need there and their need has been for job placement and so we've got two students lined up that we would like to hire in January and the cafe offers that space that they can get a job outside of the high school and get something on their resume so that they can then get the next job. I don't think they'll work for us forever but that we could be that interim step and as we've talked with them now we've talked with other organizations in the kind of surrounding communities and this need is huge and so initially we're staffing it with with our team to learn because we've never opened a cafe before but come January we're going to begin employing people with disabilities and making this a space that creates community for Arlington but also is a community serving and we're excited about that it's a non-profit we're not looking to make money all the profits from the cafe will actually go to support other nonprofits including so the way we're doing that to tell people understand that is that every time you buy something at the cafe you get a vote and we'll have three opportunities for you to vote where our profits go to should we make profit I know a lot of cafes don't but if we do then what are we going to do with that I think it's important because if you're going to come into a church like ours and you're going to go to a cafe you might have reservation about whether we're we're what am I supporting here so let's be really transparent about it and let you have a choice in that so we've had a food link in our basement for a long time we've helped support them and they've been a partner for us for years so we're going to have that be one of our options and then we have an option that serves families on the border of Mexico the United States and an option that's international and you can choose where do you where would you like and we'll just divide any profits we get among them so I I've not seen anything like this which is just fun for me as a dreamer and an entrepreneur in this space to to bring this to you and so I'm asking for approval thank you very much yeah mr. Dickens so yes I mean I'd like to motion approval and and be that creative idea about the participatory element of determining where the profits go that that's good that's really good I really I really really like that so I and also I like that you are trying to help be those who are disabled get employment and so I mean I don't know if that also includes me you know people with Down syndrome being but they tend to be very good good workers meet up my one concern is on the pest management yeah you know you indicate that you're using first strike which is a it's a SGR you know and so so those are kind of bad for for raptors you know and so so we actually passed the we we had an article in our last warrant me that really is trying to discourage the town from using them okay and so on the town side need which we can control you know we are no longer using them or at least we're transitioning to to not using them we can't really affect me businesses me but we can let you know me that that it is a big concern you know yeah town and so so um but me I really appreciate the transparency me well not transparency but that you letting us know me that you do have pest management you know but I just wanted to um flag that all right that's great all right we're just dependent on what they tell us we need so any any direction like that it's super helpful yeah okay great thank you you're welcome thank you mr herd second the motion this is exciting I like to say and I have to say this is probably most enthusiastic common Vic presentation we have we have a lot of you know new businesses coming in that so it clearly you are put a lot of thought into this and I always like homemade waffles so when they see that on the menu that's that's a keeper for me so I look forward to it and good luck thank you as he told me I could come and talk about whatever I wanted to and I was like well then I'm bringing it she's been really helpful by the way I have no idea what to do and she's been very good at guiding me mrs mahan thank you mr chair I wish I had a pref code 504 question to ask you everything's pretty explanatory here and and I do appreciate as my colleague mr diggan said about having employees with disabilities but it not only as you know and not only helps the individual it definitely helps the community to you know see you know everyone says oh diversity and transparency and I'm not saying that in a sarcastic or negative way but first and foremost their actions and I think it's I like it to be able to see it here in our allington community versus a you know a facebook story out of norwood or bend or again I'm going to get my town wrong or anything like that but it really is is reciprocal as someone who you know deals with that is as we all do to varying degrees in my family life so I thank you for the opportunity that you're giving to those individuals in future but even more so for the allington community high school all the way up to if you can make it to 110 120 years old god bless you you've got a place to sit and hope your backpack's not that heavy so thank you so much thanks mr diggan thank you mr chairman and thank thank you mr dr for the presentation for elaborating beyond the application in terms of the the plans for the the proceeds and and giving the consumer choice so I'm excited to support this as well great wish you the best of luck thank you you know likewise I love the community vision for this I think that something that we hear often in the town government is that the residents in general want more community gathering spaces and you know more cafes and I think we have not begun to saturate that that market and I think this is a really unique vision um with some really good ideas for staffing and for community space so I wish you the best of luck great so on a motion to approve by mr diggins and seconded by mr herd on favor say hi hi rose unanimous thank you thank you good luck good to see you we look forward to the waffles all kinds of interesting stirrups too and all the syrup's yes all right now we brings us to open forum so except this is the part where I said get ready to raise your hands in zoom except in unusual circumstances any matter can present it for consideration of the board should neither be acted on nor decision made the night of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which the open forum was established there is a three-minute time limit to present a concern or request so if you are in zoom you want to participate in open forum please raise your hand there if you're in the room do the same thing only in real life IRL as the kids say okay is mar do we have anybody raising their hand in zoom seeing no hands all right shortest open forum ever all right let's move on to traffic orders rules orders and other business and item 14 this will be a discussion and a potential vote regarding house bill 886 and act relative to combine sewer sewer overflows and I need I'm going to step away for a moment before I do if we have a couple if we have two proponents I just ask that you move the microphone to the middle of the table I am I do need to recuse myself from this because of my employment by the Massachusetts Senate and I cannot participate as an official of the town and in a way that would petition the legislature to be formed on Arlington's behalf so I will turn this portion of the meeting over to my trustee vice-chair Mr. Hurd and thank you so we will start with a presentation on this item we have a few individuals here from save the ill life brook if you can both just identify yourselves for the record and then we can start your presentation my name is Kristen Anderson and I live at 12 upland road west my name is David staff and I live at 88 Fairmont street all right and you can proceed with your presentation tonight I'm presenting on behalf of gene Benson and save the wife brook gene is unable to be here and he asked me to speak on his behalf gene Benson and David saw staff drafted the language for house bill 886 the bill was filed by representative Dave Rogers and representative Adrienne Medaro and co-sponsored by representative Sean Garbley and seven others we were extremely appreciative that they filed this legislation as you know Dave Rogers represents Arlington and Cambridge residents along a wife brook representative Medaro represents a neighborhood in east Boston and his family lives very close to a CSO this legislation addresses the CSO pollution problem head on if passed it would require CSO treatment or a higher level of CSO control what the Massachusetts water resources authority refers to as economically achievable virtual elimination this would affect not just the L wife CSOs but all CSOs in the MWRA system and to be clear this legislation CSOs would either receive disinfection and screening or they would be engineered to discharge only in large 25-year storms and 10 years is more than enough time to implement either or both of these changes next slide please so why is this legislation necessary it is because 38 years after the legislature created the Massachusetts water resources authority to end the dumping of sewage and sludge into Boston Harbor in 25 years after the deer island treatment plant started treating the region sewage to end Boston Harbor pollution dumping of untreated sewage continues 50 combined sewer overflows discharge many hundreds of millions of gallons of sewage which is human and industrial waste annually into Boston area rivers streams brooks water channels and the Boston Harbor and 40 CSOs dump untreated human and industrial waste into our waterways in larger and smaller storms without any treatment whatsoever six of them are in the small flood prone L wife brook this legislation would affect the 40 CSOs in the MWRA system which have no treatment next slide please this slide shows CSOs in the MWRA system and highlights that in 2021 1 billion gallons of CSO sewage was discharged L wife brook is treated very unfair fairly but this is a regional problem and Boston must do better next slide please um so will federal law fix the CSO problem the answer is no federal standards allow CSOs to continue to dump untreated sewage and MWRA has made it very clear to us that it has no intention of doing anything beyond the bare minimum as required by law this legislation is necessary and essential to ensure that the CSO entities do more than is minimally required by federal and state requirements for CSO control without it very little is likely to improve with the L wife CSOs and we will certainly not see a 25-year storm level of CSO control and last slide please so now is the time for the legislature to act and together we can address the unfinished business of the Boston Harbor cleanup we ask for your support of H886 an act relative to combined sewer overflows thank you thank you for the presentation turn to the board for any questions comments motions shocking miss Zaman thank you mr chair acting chair um and thank you miss Anderson mr. Stoff who's been at this for decades I want to thank the save the L wife Brooke for this work and other work that you've been working in concert with the town and um whether it's Nip D's permanent MWRA CSO etc um we've gotten invaluable um comments and expertise and insight from you individually Kristen and David as well as others and I do appreciate that um I would like to move approval of house 8886 in the 23-24 year uh session um and Kristen already outlined the reasons you know why this is important but basically um as was stated MWRA is going to do the minimum and nothing more and um yes there are protections under the clean water act but um the town council can correct me if if I'm incorrect on this but there's nothing um uh forbidding us or preempting us from uh requiring through the state that its entities whether it's other cities towns or authorities um um don't do just the bare minimum um but do more and especially when we're talking about combined sewer overflows um this is something that um I think will go a long way and where we do have momentum at various agencies and in the state house um I think this is worthwhile and it's not just a exercise not that anybody has expressed this of just spinning the wheels and doing something um this is something that will definitely I think be looked at very seriously and has a really um good chance of success and I would ask that uh along with our support if we vote that way uh on on the motion that uh a letter from this board addressed to the co-chairs of the joint committee on environmental and natural resources copied to the senate president house speaker our delegation um at the state house and as well as uh the governor governor Healy um I think would be a worthwhile endeavor because it would also give the people that are continuing to work on this whether it's our legislative delegation our citizen activists our town manager town council um something when they go seek an audience with those various individual vigils themselves or collectively that um they'll they'll already have sort of noticed that we're on our way in so thank you I apologize for being so wordy Mr. Quincy thank you Mr. Herd now second this is Mahan's motion and thank you for all the work that you both have uh been doing all along throughout these years and and uh you certainly when you the more we learn about this and the more we hear about it and we spoke last meeting about just what happened on august 8th 2023 and and you know relatively short rainstorm the amount of untreated sewage that that enterdale life brook and into the walkways I mean it's just something that's that's that's unacceptable in this day and age and and um so happy to support it and and um I would support as well a lot of coming from the board uh as Mrs. Mahan outlined and and we'll keep talking about this and and and try to get it done right so thank you so I'm fine with supporting a letter from the board if it's signed the board you know I support the initiative me I do have a kind of philosophical position mean about you know bringing these kinds of issues not issues on supportive legislation mean to the board as you have heard me say several times you know I did this mean I think in my second year me in supporting the real estate transfer fee you know bill uh and and as I said I regret it doing so and I did so because the group that I was working with the real estate transfer fee coalition asked me to do so and we had passed an article in support of that but in retrospect I felt that it wasn't the right thing to do because I didn't have a reason for the doing it for the bill I supported versus me any other bill mean like like this one and also mean um I felt that there were more effective ways to go about getting that support mean and I'll give you an example because it's interesting that one of the sponsors or the the main proponents of the bill is uh senator Maduro uh uh uh uh tell me any member um your mayoral uh not pronouncing it correctly you know he brought before us being an article where he wanted support me for um high school no I think it was community college um the ability for any high school student even if they're a migrant need to be able to attend a community college mean and and the board made decided to vote no action on that article because we felt it was kind of out of the scope mean for for Arlington's town meeting you know and I said that I would I told him I really supported that idea and I would come back to him mean and see what I could do to help um with that he I got back to him after special time meeting asked him how things were going and he said it is part of it was part of the governor's budget you know and so so now they're getting that support I was curious as to how how that happened you know and so I went to the legislation and I saw the exact language be that was in Maduro's bill uh in that budget it is what I try and back same so what was the mechanism by which that happened he hasn't gotten back to me but now Maduro I mean I think knows my whole point is that I mean I think there are ways to really get the what you want meet up and and I'm willing to work to see how we can we can move this along meet up and so I'm going to reach out to Representative Rogers and Garberley and also Senator Friedman because I mean see what her take is on this I mean I didn't see her sign up for it I mean so I'm kind of curious yeah well actually it's not for me to direct it to you but we can redirect me down but so I really want to work this from some other angles you know and and see you know what can be done to really help it get get past me or at least probably become part of another bill you know and I think there's going to need to be monies behind this you know so so either whether that becomes part of another budget me or maybe part of a bond bill you know I don't know but I'm willing to buy my abstaining on this doesn't mean that I'm not supporting it I'm just explaining my kind of philosophical position and also I have to add what are the elements to this is that I know that the new coalition being for real estate experience for fee me is wanting me to do the same thing again and I've already told them I'm not going to do that you know and so I just need to be kind of consistent in across that all right that's it thank you thank you um I'm happy to support this I you know I think a letter of support can be very persuasive I think we've done a number of times with the MBTA assessment and a whole other host of issues and it certainly doesn't preclude all the other avenues that are available to get um this legislation passed so I think it is very worthwhile I know we'll have some good language to work off of that we can grip from our own work of recently letters recent letters that we've drafted um so just for clarity up from the board is the intention that I work with town council to just come up with the basic letter send it or do we want to come up with the draft presented at a further meeting to the four members of the board voting in order to approve that letter I'm comfortable with you just working with town council and the entities that I outlined and I guess it will be the three members I'm really sad that Mr. Dickens is going to abstain on this because the CSO issue is really important and when people ask um you know what can we do and what are you doing this isn't just a letter on a piece of paper and I'm not going to comment on when you asked for it we gave it to you on the real estate issue um but this is one of the main issues in East Darlington and um your uh abstention meaning not supporting it you know will be noted in um but I know that others of us that are supporting it will make sure we contact not not only our legislative delegation but also the other reps representatives and senators that uh we have interactions with and I'm really uh dismayed that we can't speak with a common voice on this I'm sure MWRA is kicking up their heels and as well as um and I understand you're on different boards and in the state with MAPC and MBTA and others and um it's probably good that for you that you abstain on this but I'm really upset that you're doing that and um I would say this is something you should be doing as a member of the board and to not do it is is my personal experience and we'll be friends when we walk out of here but I think it's negligent of your duties to this very important issue thank you so I think I will be more effective you know this way because I will come back me to to probably everyone that you all uh well you all the the board will contact me and to the extent that they that they notice that I'm not there being when I come back and make communications with them I think it'll make an even greater impact means so so I mean there are multiple ways to support things meaning so I'm making it clear that I do support this effort being and and I intend to be visible on it but I do have me my philosophical position which I'm going to stick with for now you know I mean it could change but also I do want to make it clear that me even though you all did support that request on the real estate transfer fee I have said numerous times I regret asking for it you know because I felt it was the wrong thing to do you know and and so and that's for me on this one you know but like I said have a position and I appreciate you saying that we'll be friends after this and I also appreciate your expression of your disappointment that means a lot to me and I will take it to into account in future oh I understand what you're saying you asked for you got it and you're not reciprocating that's fine thank you all right all right I'll work with town council and we'll come up with the appropriate letter and we'll get that sound signed and sent so we have a motion to approve of the legislation and direct me as chair to work with town council to send the letter of the board support from mrs. Mahan seconded by mr. decorcy I don't have been writing them down like our normal chair um all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed any abstentions me plan hi that is a three zero vote with one abstention with that I will step back into my vice chair shadows thank you welcome you have to get to practice so you don't forget how to do it all right am I still chair okay that brings us to item 15 oh we have some very patient people in the room request for an on-stream daytime on-street daytime parking waiver William Andrew brickwalt you will will break well very very it is very good that we'll do hi i'm alana westwater hi great so we do have your application in front of us but for the public record introduce yourself and summarize your request please sure will break waltz uh both of us moved in to tolbrooks in august so our link to residents for just a few months um yeah alana westwater 12 berks as resident and she owns the car so and car owner yes yeah and uh I guess the situation is um we are renters our landlord lives above us we have tandem parking and so uh and we have a two hour limit nine to five money through friday so essentially we are kind of constantly shuffling cars so folks can go to work or the gym or wherever um and just to dodge this two hour window or else we make it a ticket and we've gotten a ticket for going five minutes over before so it's it's kind of a real threat um and from what we've seen living there a few years even though there's soccer games and things going on there's not a lot of cars parked there it's a pretty quiet end of brooks out it's not that close to the school it's far in from that so um it's not unreasonable to expect that there's gonna be a parking spot maybe nice to use it so I just um I think uh with us working from home it would be very helpful with um I don't have we don't have a place to put the car when we move it out um we don't like drive off premises so the shuffling will happen and it's a very common place to be in meetings for both of us from probably eight to eleven oh ten and then you get a ticket um so it would be nice to have a little bit of flexibility and that's really what we're looking for out of this thank you very much um I think I will see if there's anybody in the public on zoom or in the room that wanted to comment on this application before we turn to the board so if you're in zoom you want to make any comments please raise your hand at this time I'm not currently in the zoom meeting so I'll rely on Ms. Mar as always see no hands raised at this time and I will further note in researching this that credit to the applicants for reading our parking policies very carefully because we're not sure that we've ever uh considered one of these and I won't be ashamed to admit that I didn't even know about it um so um so that's a compliment and I think now we have to decide what to do so um I will now turn to the board for any questions comments motions mr herd well my first question is this is this you guys on google maps remade it yes for that to happen we uh we saw the because work from home so at the window we saw the google car drive by they turned out the end of the block until we ran out just for a minute and we got on all maps so I guess because I'm gonna ask town council because I'm not I also not familiar with the this particular area of art now is there a quest essentially to create a space stick specifically for their vehicle or is it just to repeal to our parking in front of their property I would interpret mr herd as for their vehicle okay yeah I mean you know I think a couple years ago I would have said no to this application just because but we've been going through this whole you know kind of change and you know how we had thought of our parking policies you know the next item if you want to stick around talks about overnight parking um the you know the two are parking is in place there at the request of many residents because of commuter parking um I don't it sounds like that's not an issue where you are um I mean I would be more comfortable and I don't know if it's within the quest or if there's a way to even carve this out in our traffic rules in order to just repeal the two-hour parking in front of the one particular resident but I don't know if that's the the right avenue for this I think you know it's in the rules so I mean if we're allowed to create a parking space for one individual then great I think but I don't know there's something about that that gives me a little bit of pause where I think while you were were the individuals that found the rule that was already in place I think when others here that they're going to say that they want well hey that's the solution to the commuter parking is to just create a parking space in front of my particular house just from my car um again I don't know if town council has any thoughts on whether or not as an alternative we can just repeal to our parking in front of this one particular house or I mean that might be a enforcement nightmare for police it just I mean it does give me a little bit of pause to just designate one portion of the public way for one individual through the chair as always thank you thank you I'm not a bad suggestion Mr. Herd I think that in consistency with the Ms. Mahon's comments of a procedure earlier on I think it probably best practice if the board was going to take such an action or consider such an action for it to do it at a future meeting when that has been noticed more clearly I think this individual application pertains to this individual not necessarily the the street itself okay Mr. Thank you Mr. Chairman um I was going to congratulate you as well I noticed that seeing you here tonight I realized it was the two of you I almost looked at this not so much as the spot in front of the house and I realized attorney Cunningham said that right seems to me that anywhere on Brooks as long as that two are you don't necessarily have to be in front of your house do you I mean so what was the one so in other words there's a stretch of Brooks Avenue I'm just concerned at some point people are going to start going back to ale life to get into town and that's going to become a problem in terms of parking yes I would be reluctant to remove that restriction because I I see that as an area that people gonna the red line never becomes more reliable you're going to see more people and more people going into town so I see that potentially is a problem you might find what what's going to happen is going to cars in front of your house before you even pull out of the driveway because that was the experience that's what led that restriction to go in prior to the pandemic and and so just asking you if if you had you know ideally you'd like to be in front of your house but if it was a sticker for for daytime use would you care if it was anywhere on the street yeah I mean we really weren't thinking of removing the two-hour parking in front of the house the way it's written I don't know exactly how to interpret it but yeah if it's a sticker and if we had to park a few houses down there okay like it yeah it may not be an issue now but that would be my concern to do something tonight to remove that because I think we might be creating another problem yeah I think we're really kind of focusing on like one vehicle yeah that's that is the limited scope yeah well I mean I was I see mr. Tom manager I mean yeah of course oh thank you mr. thank you mr. Dickens thank you mr. chair yet to be clear when we evaluated this request it was uh this would be interpreted as what we call a dash pass so you would be getting an eight and a half eleven piece of paper that lists your license plate and exempts you from two-hour parking on Brooks Ave so this would not be consideration of a physical parking spot located in a specific space on the street hopefully that's helpful thank you mr. attorney coming in mr. chair just to back that up and I think mr. heard alluded to it earlier I think that to do something otherwise and why my interpretation is what it is is it really creates an enforcement nightmare so I think that that's that factors into how I interpreted this particular regulation I don't want to jump in in front of people so I given new information you know we learn something new every time of these meetings you know we try to be prepared but it's hard with everything that we have on our plates so as you know I I guess I had in my mind envision this like a reserved handicapped space in front of somebody's house and if that's not the case then it is you know it's definitely more palatable for me because you know it essentially someone is parked in front of you know just can't go out and knock on the door and say hey get out of here this is my spot it does create issues of you know other neighbors that might say this car has been parked in my house in front of my house for eight hours so I would if we do approve this I would recommend you know kind of spreading out the burden a little bit if you can't be in front of your house but I mean I guess my suggestion with the to our parking was just relative to the an idea that we're putting it specifically in your house and kind of granting you a little piece of town property all to yourselves so I mean with that I would withdraw any requests to explore you know repealing to our parking just in one particular location yeah I think from from the discussion it's sounding like this you know referring to the parking policy that this sounds like an on-street daytime parking permit parenthesis permanent you know with a fee structure that's mentioned in the policy and that does seem to apply just to one vehicle or to one owner. Mrs. Mahon. My process and all the p words that I'd like to talk about but I definitely stand by it to me you'd have to demonstrate a hot ship and when you say your hot ship is you know having to shuffle in and out of the driveway to me that's not a hot ship that's an inconvenience and what you have to understand is your neighbors came before the board and said because of the commuter parking please put this two hour in effect and we understand the sacrifice of that including having people come over to visit if it's more than two hours but because of the situation there they asked that and I know there are other streets I'm thinking of precedent what would happen here if we approve this which I'm not inclined to do honestly if the request was you know it's a temporary thing and you know say I had a medical issue and I have a caregiver coming for two weeks two months whatever yes but because of the shuffle and not wanting to do that and being out on the street I know there are other streets and I've spoken to neighbors on Lafayette and Boulevard because they go nuts in the morning go down there by 6 30 in the morning completely packed with commuter parking and and people like I can't even get out of my driveway we've had to have police come down and try to and you can't find the owners because they're on the owl wife so but they haven't taken the step to put up the two hour parking because they don't want to give up the rare opportunity that they can park on their street so I think for this particular request I would not be in favor of it I would not support it because you do have an option you can shuffle your cars around I know it's a pain you can come by my house 23 Howard Street I have two adult disabled people who live there and I do the shuffle and I have a hill like this which really stinks in the winter time because you've got to sand and plot and shovel otherwise you go into the backyard on Hagen Street so I totally get that but we have to be mindful of what we do here I mean maybe if you go out and canvass your neighbors and say will you support us to repeal the request of Brooks Ave Paolo Maranelli and others which I don't think they'll be in favor of to say to get rid of two hour parking so that we can do that but to have this one individual so that you don't have to do the shuffle out of your driveway I think it I think it's a really it's a precedent that I'm very leery of so I I'll wait to see what the rest of the board does but I wouldn't support it and I can only imagine what it would open. Mr. Hurd? I guess it would be for Attorney Cunningham. If we grant this what's the is it in perpetuity we're granting it forever is it something that has to be renewed is it something that we can take back if we don't want to? Renewable yearly okay renewed annually Mr. Hurd yeah okay I I mean I hear all that and I think that's a consideration that we've had I think that's a consideration we had with overnight parking and there wasn't a whole lot of I mean we had the pilot and there was I think a lot fewer people that requested overnight parking permits and I think in the past we've not granted or not particularly we talk a lot about overnight parking clearly this is a a new issue that we've dealt with the daytime parking but you know I think we granted it we were hesitant because we thought it would create this influx of people parking overnight and it hasn't so I guess my met mentality is kind of get going towards not saying no to something because of what could you know relative to parking you know to say all you know all these people could come out of the woodwork and ask for the same thing I think I mean would it be within our discretion if all of a sudden you know 400 people in East Arlington said I want to do that get one of these passes too that to start denying passes and then just say you know when they come up for a renewal say you know we kind of open a can of worms and we're not going to renew any of them that we have out there and then we're going to go to Tom meeting and ask Mendar zoning bylaws to take out this like do we have wide discretion I guess in this area or is it something that if we if we approve one we have to approve a similar application Mr. I think Mr. Heard you would have that discretion the board would have that discretion and I think that the applications would be considered a case by case basis anyway pursuant to the the hardship evaluation that Mrs. Mahan talked about traditionally that's that's the type of analysis I've seen the board undertake on these types of applications so there could be applications that the board might deem more or less of a hardship than others but to the extent that there was a wave of applications that it created a problem and the board wanted to reconsider its position at that point and begin denying those applications and then not renewing applications as they came up at the end of a year that would be within the board's discretion okay I mean I ask a couple questions that I'll turn to my my colleagues to the town manager if you are aware can you give us an idea of how many of these two are parking streets there are like I'm thinking about it potential expansion you know I wouldn't say a precedent because this is already in our parking policies but if you had more people aware of this what would what we'd be looking at thank you Mr. Chair I apologize but I do not have that information well this is why in a town meeting the moderator always says transmit your questions ahead of time we don't try to spring them on town officials so there's your lesson for that so I think that's something for us to generally keep in mind I guess that was my only question I have some comments but I will reserve those to after my colleagues are finished I think that list is available in our parking policies I mean yes at the end of it mean there's a list of the streets and it tells you what the restrictions are oh great so I might be able to scan that quickly and get a sense I was aware of this you know and so so because I kind of like rewrote you know the the the the the parking policy part made of when we were planning to do or considering doing overnight parking pilot because I wanted to knew I wanted to put that in as our policy so that people had a sense and I saw it and was like wow that's a whole another discussion you know and and perhaps we'll get some insights as to how we want whether we want to change policy and how if we do how we do it based on the overnight parking trial you know and so so a one of the things I don't like about the discretionary element of it is that it is discretionary you know and and so I realized that gives us me the ability to choose and make me hopefully good decisions and hopefully consistent ones mean but I think I mean a policy that kind of me does that work for us is better and I'd like to see us develop that policy if we want to go down that road and then and then apply it mean so I can see us setting up potentially for another trial I mean that what made the overnight parking trial easier was that mean we had a place for people to go mean when they need to get their cars off the road that option isn't there in daytime because I mean the lots that we use for the storing cars at nighttime or being used in the daytime so we'd have to come up with a potentially another solution if we you know say like okay you need to get your car off the road there's a snow emergency and it's in the daytime you know and so I would like to see us work through being a new policy you know and and and so I mean if this were the more of a health issue you know and had elevated sense of urgency and need and I would be supportive of it I certainly understand me and the issues with work mean and and the conflict when you have two people on a call at the time as you work related and you need to to move things I certainly get that you know but it's it's not unique I'm sure you know and it's just there's a level of discomfort with granting this me that I just can't get over now to get to a yes on it so that's where I am thank you mr. course thank you mr. chairman yeah I am comfortable with another else I why I I view this as a special situation because of where you live being close to ill life one two both applicants here work at home and that to me is the condition for us granting you the permit so if your job situation changed or something like that that might come up at renewal time but that to me is the precedent the other thing when I look at our parking policies we have hardship in the overnight parking section this section doesn't mention hardship it just mentions that someone can come in so I view that again I didn't create the policy but I fall try to follow the policy that to me gives us discretion in terms of the the special circumstance so I think proximity to ill life and it is part of a larger problem that we may be looking at in terms of what type of enforcement we have but I think you're in a unique situation and other parts of town you wouldn't have that worry you could just park all day but because of where you are and because of the issues there I think it makes sense that the two hour but because you find yourself in jobs that are at home I personally am comfortable based on our on the language of our policy and approving this so on that basis I'm going to move approval thank you um I guess I'll make a few remarks as well I would also I'll also support that motion um if nobody else second said I'll second it out of uh second Mr. Hurt um you know I think that I also feel that I'm mindful of of the newness of this and you know it's a some of the risks that come with with new um but I think the policy is there I think Mr. Corsi makes a really fair point that you know that it doesn't mention hardship and and um I think the the residents did their homework and you know and made a case for why that might be a fair thing to do I'm also mindful that the purpose of the two hour parking in that location is to prevent commuter parking in ill life and by definition this would you know this is not not a concern that wouldn't that wouldn't dilute or weaken that in any way if we do get other requests I think we would need to uh subject to the discretion but err on the side of being understanding of those and I think you know what would happen would be there may or may not be room on the street you know if they were to fill up with other daytime permits and I'm not necessarily encouraging that I think the board should retain some discretion about if we were to vote to do this um about about doing that but I'm just kind of pointing out in my in my thinking that I think it's a reasonable um you know there's some reasonable parameters that that would allow us to do this if the if we uh if we have boarded that so I think we do have a um motion by Mr. Dacorsi and Mr. Hurd and I'll second the motion um again similar to when Mr. Dacorsi and Ms. Helman said is I mean the language is pretty clear and um you know we've had a lot of experience with overnight parking permits in six years this is the first one of these that's come up and I think you you know what if you get the request approved just know that if all of a sudden 2,000 of your friends and neighbors find out about this and they ask for it as well it could next year it might not happen um but for now we have relief that's in our traffic policies and I don't see a reason to not grant what's laid out before us. Any further discussion? I would just maybe this is out of scope for now but I would like us to kind of maybe review the policy at some point soon you know and and then um yeah and maybe keep it me change it or whatever you know so because because we um it maybe also look at the other streets me that have these time limits and see you know if if let's say me folks aren't working me from home me but they're in made a dense building lots of cars mean and they want to avail themselves of this mean will we say yes or no mean because right now if the threshold is that you're working well let's maybe they're unemployed or whatever you know and now you know they they have two cars and they don't want the hardship of having to shuffle around you know we just I think we need some way that we are applying this consistently so that it's not looking like we are biased in some way that is less palatable you know so that's it thanks thank you um I appreciate that I think for me it's um thinking back to I mean if it's not posted otherwise you can park on the street during the day in Arlington you know that that's the default condition um and I think from if I were looking at a future permit I would look at the intended that what's the reason behind that two hour prohibition you know so so anyway I think it's it's a worthwhile discussion and I think it's good that we were careful with it but I think we're ready for a vote. Mr. Feeney. Mr. Chair I would just add that I completed reviewing your parking policies and can give you a listing of roads that have some semblance of a two-hour parking restriction. Very impressive I would not deny you that opportunity. You also have a number of one-hour parking restrictions which I did not include. I hadn't even imagined but there are portions of and this is all segmented by like you know points 170 feet northlily or southerly but roads that do contain at least some portion under a two-hour parking restriction would be Bailey Road, Broadway, Brooks, Davis Road, Fairmont, sections of Mass Ave, Milton, sections of Park Ave, Rosson, Russell Street, Russell Terrace, Thorndike and Varnum. So there are a number of East Arlington streets. Very impressive. I promise we were not vamping in order to give the town manager time to do that but it worked out. But he appreciates it nonetheless. Any time, glad to help. Okay. Mr. Chairman I just want to say I can see count to three. Yes. So this is something I will support but I will tell you that I do anticipate lots of people coming in and I will vote for each and every one of those and I think anyone who doesn't do that is doing a disservice because to me I want to be able to park when all my neighbors have asked for two-hour parking for a commuter and maybe as Mr. Diggins says we start to address that issue because it's inconvenient to move cars out of the driveway. Does it make sense? But I can count to three and I'll go to that but I'm going to as a neighborhood activist let everybody know down there this is an option that's available to them and they should go for it and we should vote for each and every one of them that come in. Do you want to be laborless and keep you here until our meeting has to end by 11? I would just know this. Just globally the two-hour parking restrictions there because to prevent commuters it's not there because it doesn't want people to be able to park out in front of the house just like I can do in front of my house. So it almost you know I guess if everyone in that neighborhood comes out and is granted one of these permits it's like two problems you know you're able to still solve the commuter parking problem that was the original reason that you had the two-hour parking and allow people to park in front of their house just like people are in other parts of town. So I guess as Mrs. Mahan said that it actually makes me even feel better about this request even if in the instance more people come out and ask for for permits under this section. Okay. That's it. It's done. You sure? Any other discussion? We have another hour and a half. I'm resisting so I mean I talked my piece about the policy review and so I'm gonna stick with that. That's a thanks. Admiral Bull straight. All right so on a motion to approve by Mr. D'Corsi and seconded by Mr. Hurd. All in favor please say aye. Opposed? No. So it is four to one vote. Who said you can't make a difference in local government? I feel like I've seen you at the State House. I worked at the State House for four years. Oh yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay we have item 16 discussion of potential vote on the overnight parking pilot program and I will note that there's some public correspondence that we've had for members of the public regarding the potential extension of this that is in the agenda items and is on select board agendas and minutes page online for the public. So I'll turn this over to my colleague the dear Mr. Dickens. And because the world runs or the universe runs on irony this would come up. It certainly does. I'm sure you gotta know how I'm gonna go on this but I hope you have the data in front of you. So when the last time I presented this data we had 60 people who had availed themselves being of the trial. I mean it went up to 70. Just a data point that really means nothing other than to say that we have 70 people that have are part of the trial. Counting East Arlington as precincts one through seven and the rest of Arlington is 8 to 21. We have 38 in East Arlington and 32 in the rest of Arlington which amounts to 54% in the east and 46% elsewhere. This is fairly even split. So I asked the chief to give me data that she thought would be helpful in helping us assess the impact of this. I asked her that or I said tell me what data you have and then I will make the request. I was hoping I'd get the latter but I got the form. So for her that was the number tickets that have been issued and the complaint number. Now these numbers are townwide and she says the complaint number you really have to take it with a grain of salt because they aren't entered consistently. I think anecdotally for us getting emails I got only one that was against it before during the trial and that was really based on me someone who lived on Mass Ave and was apparently parking on another street. I imagine that's because you can't park on Mass Ave and also I think one of the things that we did which I think is a source of tension for me is that we told people that they need to park me like in front of their place or as close to their place as possible which I think creates this sense of me that space in front of my house is mine and it's like well it's not. But nonetheless I understand why we did that and I would say if we will if we review things me later in a positive light we might want to take that into consideration and so I have talked with the town manager, I've talked with Mr. Corsi and I've talked with the chief me and chief especially has said that she would be fine if we froze the number of participants and then carried this through the spring as another trial to see me how this works during winter because we need to see how people behave when we tell them that they need to get off the street mean during a snow emergency and that would give us a chance to come up with maybe a secondary warning system because right now we send town-wide email to folks letting them know they have to get off the street but the manager said he thinks it would be not burdensome to create us another layer of warning to people meaning to let them know that they really do need to get their cars off the street and that they have a space mean that their sticker that they bought gave them a space mean and a lot so so so I feel that freezingness would be in the spirit mean of what we told people in regarding the pilot and that we're not going to continue the trial and allow more people and we're just going to now take the 70 we have and and based on the trial offer that to see how the system works in the wintertime because I think that's what people are most concerned about and so if we were to do that me and I'm thankful that you put potential vote on because I told you I didn't want people to feel that need to make a decision now about whether we do this additional trial later on is that we'd have to determine how long it would last was it was through March April or longer you know but what I would like if we needed to vote on it it is that we would say no more people need in the trial now because we don't want a rush you know into the trial given that this would be potentially new information that we're going to allow people who are who have already signed up need to they'll have to pay you know more but to continue through the winter as another trial that's it thanks so just to clarify are you suggesting that we would freeze at the number of current permit holders or at the number of potential spaces slots for permits that we create a good question know the number of current permit holders such it now mr herd well I will say in full disclosure there's now 71 72 72 as of today and there's one sole permit holder in prec 18 you know I I actually I think I'd be supportive of letting it continue and I'm almost hesitant to cap it and the reason when I look at these complaints these complaints aren't about the 70 cars because in a given night if there's 70 people that have permits there's 500 cars parked throughout Arlington if you drive around there's a lot of areas in Arlington that just don't get ticketed and I it seems almost inequitable especially since now I'm in that group of beneficiaries of this that I mean when we put these permits out we didn't get a rush and I don't think there's any evidence that if we continue it that there's going to be a rush for additional applicants I think everyone when it snows we all know we get pinged and we have to get not just overnight we have to get up for a snow emergency we have to get our cars off during the day to get your cars off the street if there's a snow emergency so I I mean I think just in general there is sufficient notice I mean I don't want to go against the recommendation of the chief and what the you know what the overwhelming what the board thinks I just my inclination was just to kind of let it roll because I don't anticipate that whether we open up the number of applications or keep capping 71 that there's going to be an influx of requests but I mean I think what I've learned from the from the pilot program is that there's not an overwhelming desire for people to go out and get the the permits and and I don't say that as a as a negative towards the program I think it shows us that in the past where people you know we've thought that you know if we open this up beyond when we used to only grant overnight parking permits in very limited situations that our streets would be flooded with permitted overnight parking vehicles I I just don't think that that's what we've seen since the inception of this pilot program and like I said you know up in my neighborhood people park on the street all the time every street all around and clearly given that on this list precinct 18 has zero permits the parking without permits and periodically you'll get ticketed and then you know the cars will come off and they go back out so I guess I mean the sum of what I'm saying is that the people that are participating in the program are aren't nearly all the the streets all the cars are parked overnight on our streets and certainly don't account for the complaints that we see listed there. Thank you Mr. Chairman. In Mr. Diggins' administration he and I had had some discussions about bringing something to the board extending the program and I can I understand what you're saying Mr. Diggins in terms of take the number that are in place right now in December but we did approve 125 permits so I I'm just as comfortable saying up to 125 permits that gets extended over the next several months because I don't think we're going to have much more activity we did set that as an upper limit back in over the summer so I could I might even be leaning towards going up to the 125 but I I do think it makes sense to continue through the winter the feedback I've received has been overwhelmingly positive with one or two exceptions and and I think we did set that number I know we set it it for summer type fall type use overnight but I think Mr. Herd makes a good point and and we've had a few people added recently and and as long as that spot is tied to a spot in the municipal lot which the 125 allows us I'm comfortable with it so I don't know if you feel like the difference between 70 and 125 becomes problematic. Well I feel that I need to circle back mean to the town manager but especially mean the the chief mean to see how she feels about it you know I will say look I'm happy to lose this argument but I need to defend it you know and that is the I don't know to what extent mean we have a good sense of the demand because I feel I have just some anecdotal evidence mean that the people didn't avail themselves of this because it was limited mean and they mean just didn't want to mean in one case mean I know the person felt that they were paying for someone else mean paying someone else like a neighbor attempted for a spot in or something that they would lose it if they took this and they weren't sure that they'd be able to get it back I don't know how many people in that that case but I mean it would be an experiment right if we if we we said at this meeting you know that you haven't tell up all you can you can sign up mean and we have the cap at 125 mean and that's our experiment you know 125 and then we see how this goes and then it goes well we can open it up to a hiring them up to the up to the limit of people up to the limits lots that we have in our in in our various lots mean so so um so as I said I'm happy to lose the argument but I feel that I really do need to check back you know with Tom the manager and chief yeah I just would say I almost interpreted your comments in favor of what I and I say that because you mentioned that we don't have have a sense of the demand well if we cap it we're not going to have a sense of the demand either and we're not getting any additional data if we leave additional say I'm comfortable leaving out the 125 that and if all of a sudden we have 15 new applicants then we'll know that there's more demand but if we tell people there's no more the applicant that there's no more permits available that we're not going to know whether or not somebody would come come out so I think just from a perspective of knowing what the demand is and trying to see if post pilot you know the words out and more people are going to to go avail themselves of the permits I think we need to have some I think the 125 is the correct number because now we'll know if more people come out next week and say you know we we want the overnight parking and if it's 200 people it's going to be the first you know 50 people to come out to get them and then well we can assess the data in the spring from there if we want to expand it or contract it or get rid of it just to me the win is extending the program that the scope whether it's 71 25 getting it through the winter that's the win so and and so I you wanted to ask you about you know feeling comfortable about 71 25 but when we first started talking about this we talked about we want data we want to learn more and and I think Mr. Hurd makes a good point that if we do have that additional capacity that we can offer and it is a number that we selected previously perhaps that gives us more information so I still stand where I am but I when you said lose the argument you won the argument I I feel like you've done a great job with this and extending the program that's a win yeah well I meant is lose this argument yeah on the scope yeah yeah so so by the way I said I just I just have to defend it just for the integrity my sense of integrity since since part of the scope suggests to keep from my report of the police chief I wonder if the telemanager knowledge about that's fine but did you have any thoughts about or advice to us about the scope if we extend this thank you mr. chair I mean though I didn't speak with the chief directly about this given that mr. Dickens had engaged the chief in a conversation I do not believe there would be a significantly meaningful difference between 75 and 125 especially given that 125 at this point is sort of a theoretical figure we don't know what our actual figure would be my you know chief concern was just finding a way to make it a requirement that these permit holders enroll in Arlington alerts so that there could be no such excuse that folks did not know but it requires folks to opt in with their cell phone numbers so that we could call text email and let folks know that now is the time to get your vehicles off the road in hopes of making making it so there were no issues during the winter and I think if I could ask a question while I have the opportunity is just understanding exactly what date we would be extending that's what I think we're through December 31st now but just to know what that date would be yeah that would that's a thing a note to my colleagues is similar to make a motion we would need to discuss that and you know figure that out so good question how much further how much longer yeah you know well I would say minimum of April 30th just because I was here in 1997 I remember April 1st so it would be easy to say like three months in March 31st but that doesn't get us through April 1st so that's why I say April 30th but then we're in the throes of Tom meeting yeah man and so so then do we go I mean for me it's either three four or six months five is just a little odd I mean we did five for the pilot for the pilot trial because it just took us a while to get to yes you know but but so um so either I mean my thought about this is is um I'm happy to do this and speaking of irony I was one of the I think most reluctant to go for this and I'm glad it's going well um I would like to make sure that we I mean to me we should extend this long enough to get a good experience but also to give ourselves some time in space to really evaluate this and I think for me that includes soliciting a resident feedback you know that if we do this for a significant period of time and then we go back to the neighborhoods and say how did this go because right now we're relying on anecdotal complaints and there's value in that but they may not be the complete story um I would also suggest that that would give us some time to do some more rigorous data analysis that um ideally some cross-tabbing to cross tabulations of the complaints with the density and the locations of the permits I mean that would be a GIS exercise but that's certainly potentially theoretically possible more work you know do not have time to do that here but you know if we if we allow if we give it enough time you know maybe kick this past town meeting where we're going to be too busy to really you know really evaluate this then we could do ask for resident input we could do more serious data analysis we could see what it's like through the entire season so I'm kind of in for a penny in for a pound I guess that sets us up for six months then gets us locked in with the fiscal year you know we get out of town meeting you know sometime in May you know so so that would go through June 30 yeah all right okay I think we need a motion I'll make yeah Chairman I see I don't miss my or miss to be oh sorry we're just looking for clarity thank you of course yeah before we go so the the date is helpful with the same fee structure apply just so we know you know sort of applying this moving forward yeah dollar day okay dollar the dollar day approach thank you has a nice ring to it you know dollar night it's a night well yeah check and you just gave them out yeah okay so who's going to put this together in a motion well I will make a motion that we extend the trial made of through this through June 30th of next year the same rate pricing mean and that yeah it's because the yeah and the limit is 125 mean slots second okay so it's June 30th 2024 what did I say the pool is 2025 yeah we've learned to be very careful about the dates these days it's great sorry I had to jump that and that was a second from Mr. DeCorsi here any further discussion with the board on a motion from Mr. Diggins and a seconded by Mr. DeCorsi all in favor say aye opposed is unanimous thank you for your work Mr. okay now we go to future select board meetings and a couple of other things so we currently only have a meeting for December 18th now on regarding the time of that though we need to do six o'clock on the 18th unless the board thinks that it's going to be a longer meeting yeah maybe set it earlier so the intent of that is to have a pretty much a consent agenda kind of very quick meeting for that day for the purposes of licensing rules yeah I'm I'm fine with that all right and then so we need to start then we don't have any meeting scheduled in January so we should pick right up obviously New Year's is January the first Monday is January the first do we want to go that first week and go on the Wednesday or just wait till the 8th we should go to that Wednesday I think for the office sake we need that first week I don't know no okay it's up to the voice you guys decide then I'll probably do appreciate advice I'm gonna be fine for us if that I was gonna be probably out of town on the second into the third okay yeah yeah I mean that is a cut yeah so it's a eighth center okay yeah all right I prefer Mondays but I can yeah yeah no I did too I can mark not work around it yeah okay so we have the eighth and then how about the 22nd yes that's good because we have MLK day in the 15th so that works out pretty well crime and then two weeks after that would be February the 5th and then now two weeks after that is is a holiday that's uh the president's day so we'd have to figure out how does 21 look 21 was fine for me no all right so we'll do the 20th 21st then and that takes us through February do you want to do March yes to March please all right and so then March every Monday should be put aside because we might need it but you'll probably oh because we won't be in war miracles yeah you just don't know I mean so what we regardless of what we choose I'll just put aside every Monday yeah that's that's true let I like that I like Mr. Hertz thinking here all right so I'm sorry the latest one in February was the 21st all right so how about March 4th and the 18th sounds good I'll just be by myself about the days we have to do the April 1st yeah I mean we have to because that's may as well but you know we're gonna have to do uh we have to do April the 8th because that's the right after the town elections yeah oh yeah boy come on quick all right okay we good on those thank you colleagues okay so now we have uh items 18 new business correspondence received crosswork cross for that crosswalk request and Broadway near the MBTA bus stop any motions or discussion so I will make a motion yes please to send the bus stop me to the town manager and I will just let the town manager know that we have dealt with that issue and I'm in the last three or four years so there's probably some history of it you know and I can maybe get that to you but just it's not new you know as I said second all right any discussion further discussion so we have a motion to refer to the town manager by Mr. Diggins a second and Mr. Hurd all in favor say aye opposed thank you very much okay new business accepting cases of emergency the board will neither deliberate nor act upon topics presented in new business mismar thank you that's Ernie Coney no new business thank you mr. Mr. Feeney nothing to report thank you mismar I've had my fun no new business Mr. Hurd no new business Mr. Deglauer sorry I'm breaking the streak I have to do it because of timing so it's it's I have the latest double pole figures and we had 80 on May 1 we're now down to 58 in November of 2020 there were 149 in town so down to 58 I do still have some questions on the completeness of the list and I talked to mr. Feeney several months ago and follow up with him again to perhaps schedule a meeting with Verizon but if this this certainly is a is a is a is a very positive trend I will note I did receive words from mr. Schlickman about a pull a double pole on Chestnut Street that he says is a doozy so we'll be sure to follow up on that but down to 58 so that's that's progress I would congratulate you if that did not constitute deliberation but I think it doesn't mind the judgment of the chair mr. Dickens and I do not have any new business that concludes our regular business we now are going to move to executive session to discuss strategy with respect to litigation against Eltron Incorporated and I solicit a motion and suggest perhaps that that motion include the provision to adjourn this meeting at the end of the effective session a traditional nominator I'd like to move that we go into executive session to discuss strategy with respect to litigation such a discussion in public would be detrimental to the select board in the town and that when we adjourn out of executive session we will come out into public sex session to also adjourn I can't talk does that work it does thank you but you need a second for that a second okay and it's a roll call vote for this ring yes all right so a motion to move to executive session and then to adjourn there too um by mrs. Mahan a second by mr. Dickens mr attorney coming in if you would call the roll mr. Hurdon yes mr. Ducorsi yes is it Mahan yes mr. Dickens yes mr. Talmouth yes 5-0 unanimous we are in executive session