 Good evening everyone welcome to the Board of Selected Meeting for Monday June 6th 2016 at 7 15 p.m First on our agenda is a vote to authorize and accept sale of bond anticipation note for six million dollars for construction at Straton school and Modular classrooms. We have our treasurer and collector of taxes here. Mr. Gilligan Thank You Madam Chairman members of the board. I'm here this evening to ask that you vote to Execute the bond anticipation notes for six million dollars. That is a partial borrowing of an appropriation authorized by town meeting. Four of the six million dollars is for construction up at Straton school. Two of the three point one million dollars appropriated for modular classrooms is also part of this note. The six million dollars is the principal amount. There are carrying costs and issuance costs included which are basically minimal. We're borrowing the money now so that we can have it in our coffers prior to the end of the fiscal year so that effective July 1st The shovel can be placed on the ground and we construct construction. It's a slightly new procedure in that we're having funds on hand prior to commencing construction for some of our projects. It's a way I've always liked to do business. Richard Viscay the Comptroller is in full agreement that we should do this. And when he called and said let's get it done I said absolutely. We will be permanently financing the six million dollars in the fall along with the remainder of the total authorization which is almost 11 million dollars along with the capital projects that were voted at the annual town meeting this past April. This vote that's before you was authorized at the special town meeting on January 25th. If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them. You didn't print my question already Steve. Why would I do that. But so it's 11 million total six now and then five is that correct. And how much did we save Steve because of our triple a bond rating. Well we're saving five thousand dollars per year per million because it's at least an improvement of a half a percentage point. But also by issuing this bond anticipation that we're saving on interest because we borrowed at two percent instead of anywhere from three to three and a half percent. So we'll be saving a little bit more money over the next six months. Awesome. Thank you. Is that a motion Mr. Grilly. Yes I move approval. Mr. Grilly seconded by Mr. Burn any further questions discussion if not all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed unanimous vote. Thank you Mr. I think the board for its time. Thank you. Next we have our consent agenda the minutes of the meeting May 26th and May 23rd 2016 establishment of the Vision 2020 gift account request for a special one day beer and wine license on June 17th 2016 at Robins Memorial Town Hall Auditorium for ACMI Awards Dinner a request special one day beer and wine license on June 18th 2016 at Robins Memorial Town Hall Auditorium for a private wedding. Two requests for contractor drain layer license costar and sun's construction inked to 17 rare New Boston Street Woobin mass and Tim Zanelli excavating LLC to 99 Main Street North Reading mass. And then we have appointment of new election workers Alan Kaccha 54 Medford Street Republican peace precinct 12 Modric Cronin 156 Wright Street unenrolled precinct 21 Elaine Denning 7 Crosby Street unenrolled precinct 11 and George Parsons 23 Brewster Road unenrolled precinct 20. Is there a motion to approve moved by Mr. Burn second seconded by Mr. Dunn any comments on the agenda items if not all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed unanimous vote. We now have a public hearing hearing underage sales and other alcohol license violations common ground 319 Broadway Bob McGuinn Jr. Manager. If with my colleague's permission I'd like to call on our town council attorney Hine. Good evening members of the board. The issue before the board tonight is whether or not common ground served alcohol to a person under the age of 21 on their premises in violation of chapter 138 section 34. In this specific circumstance by failing to require photo ID prior to service to find a violation in this instant there must be sufficient evidence that a person under 21 years of age was in fact serve alcohol at common ground on the night of January 23 2016. I paused to note just for clarification that the individual served was over 18 but under 21 and as such while I and other witnesses may refer to the underage person as FB instead of a full name we do so in the interest of privacy not because FB was a legal minor. Just to outline the process that will follow tonight I'll provide a brief summary of the case before the board. Then there will be a presentation of evidence which is essentially a testimony from inspector D Francisco from the Allington police department on his investigation and findings will allow time for any comment that the police chief is with us tonight may want to make any questions from the boards for the police department. Then we'll turn it over to common ground to present their their presentation on the matter and take any questions from the board before we open for discussion info. Are there any questions before I start. So there's two primary sources of evidence in this case one is going to be the testimony of Inspector Edward D Francisco of the police department I previously noted including his recollection of interviews review of common ground surveillance video and other information available to APD. The second is the police department incident report and supplemental investigation report which has previously been provided to the board as well as counsel for common ground. I respectfully submit to the board that the overwhelming majority of the facts derived from this evidence won't be in dispute summary of the incident is on January 23 2016 common ground employees call Darlington police seeking assistance with a disruptive customer upon arrival at approximately 1130 APD patrol officers were advised that an individual identified throughout his FB here had damaged their property in a bathroom and been generally disruptive upon arrival APD escorted FB off the property without further incident but noted that the only identification on his person was a bank card. Using the bank card they were able to confirm that FB at the time was 20 years old subsequent investigation primarily by Inspector D Francisco revealed that neither FB nor two companions who left prior to any disruption were carded prior prior to being served a handful of beers approximately one to two per person as such APD concluded that a person under 21 years of age was in fact serve alcohol and when this was not carded. But now I'd like to call Inspector Edward D Francisco to answer a few questions then put together his summary of his investigation in findings. Excuse me. Hey Don. So Inspector before you present your summary can you please tell the board about your general career with the Ellington police department. Been a police officer for 11 years with the Ellington police seven years as an inspector first four years as a patrol officer. And just to clarify for the record an inspector with the Ellington police department has the same duties and responsibilities as a detective in most other police departments. Yes. And how would you characterize those responsibilities. Just investigation. Most. And in terms of alcohol compliance could you provide the board a very brief description of your experience with alcohol compliance in Ellington. Up in our criminal investigations Bureau we're in charge of performing all the alcohol compliance checks with all the restaurants and bars and anyone who has a liquor license every year. So I've been part of that several times. And you've conducted and supervised a number of those compliance checks. Yes. Thank you. If you would please describe your investigation in findings and summary to the board if I have any follow up questions I'll go ahead and ask them after you're done. I was assigned the investigation I was not there on the initial evening assigned the investigation after that date. I went there I spoke with the manager as well as the bartender both. In agreement that they did the bartender did not ID these individuals. The comment was he thought they were 35 years old in their 30s. So we did not ID them was also confirmed that they were not IDed through the video which they were very cooperative. They handed over the video and I reviewed that video you know created a timeline everything in a number of drinks. Served and it does not show does any ID made when serving the alcohol. So that's the gist of the investigation so far. Inspector if I could ask a few follow up questions could identify the name of the bartender that evening. Yes it's Hode Mr. Hode. And did Mr. Hode provide any initial statement to police on the night in question that you can recall. Yeah well during that evening in the initial report he said he couldn't remember if he IDed them. Did he provide any other information that provided any explanation for why a violation might have occurred. It was busy. With respect to you mentioned there were other individuals there that night who were served along with this person FB is that correct. Yes. And did those were those individuals carded. No was APD ever able to identify those individuals or their age. No they left prior to that they were only there for about a half hour. So it's fair to say that we don't know whether those individuals were underage or weren't right. Thank you inspector with respect to sorry bear with me one moment. The identification the individual in question didn't provide identification photo identification on the night that he was served correct. Correct. But how did APD confirm his age that night. They they were able to speak with him get his ID from him verbally as well as through a bank card that he used to pay. OK so is it accurate to say that APD was able to confirm the night of the incident that he was under 21 years of age. Yes. And did you attempt to reach out to contact this individual FB. Yes several times. And did you get a response. No. Inspector were you ever able to see clearly a photo of this individual the underage person FB. Yes. And where were you able to see a photo of him. Well through the unit during that night they had run the individual photos that were found of him were attached to the report which I had printed up and viewed in our Allenton police system. And one of these is a driver's license correct. Yes. And in that. Inspector just to clarify you noted that you spoke with Mr. Hode who was the bartender. Do you recall the name of the manager that you spoke with at Common Ground. Yes. Who was that Mr. Kanzer Kanzer and is there anybody else you spoke to aside from Mr. Kanzer Mr. Hode or attempting to reach out to FB about the incident in order to complete your investigation. No those are the main. The material. Yes. Thank you. If the board has any questions and that would be the time to ask Inspector DeFrancisco before we give Chief Ryan an opportunity if he has any comments you'd like to make. Mr. Kuro. Thank you. Thank you Inspector and and Council. I did have one question. You stated that when the Mr. Hode was. Interviewed initially he said he couldn't remember if he had I did these three individuals and then in the police report he said that he does though regularly check identifications on a regular basis. I don't know if there was a review of the tape for other portions of the evening that would show whether or not anyone was ever ID during that evening. Through the video that I watched I did not see anybody. Anyone at all being ID. Right. There wasn't a tremendous amount of people at the bar. There was. You know seats seats were taken those a few empty seats so you would be able to see him if he you know was to ask ID and take ID from people from you know from across the bar and serve them so I I didn't notice any through the video that I watched. Yeah I just asked because the stretches and. Credibility for me to think that you wouldn't be able to remember whether you ID someone if you didn't ID anyone if you did ID anyone at all I could see there being confusion so thank you. Just to follow up that Mr. Grilly. Did Mr. Hode initially express that he thought he had or he had ID FB and then as the investigation went on he retracted that. Yeah so the night the initial incident that night that the offices went there his statement was he couldn't remember if you ID them then when I spoke with him he said he didn't ID them and because he thought they were in their 30s. Thank you Mr. Grilly. So thanks for your excellent work as always. So this young man he broke a mirror in the restroom. Was he arrested for vandalism or was was he given an alcohol test. I mean it seems like one beer is not enough to go and break up mirrors. Right. I can't speak to that. I wasn't there that night for the initial that I believe those three or four offices that responded there. I don't whatever their investigation was he wasn't there was no charges from there. I believe he would we were called while the officers were called to remove him from from there and that was it. Right. I mean I know he was only served one beer there but I was wondering whether in observing the video did they look rowdy or whatever. I mean it's they didn't did not. OK. Thank you. It was to to breaking up the restroom. No it was to to beverages on video that I saw for that one individual. Oh he had to not. Right. Well those three. Individually three a group of three. Right. Each one had to each one had to. Thank you. A follow up on the video. You said that common ground provided you with that. What was the duration. Was it the entire stay of these three individuals or was it an excerpted amount of time. No it was from when they entered till the officers cleared the scene escorting out FB. OK. It was a couple out. I have a timeline. I think it started approximately nine forty five and the incident was to eleven. And then you indicated that the party of three each had approximately two drinks. Did you happen to observe on the video any food being ordered or delivered to the table or to the bar. No. FB. Did he suffer any injuries that night requiring any medical attention or refused such attention. No. No. I think Mr. Greeley covered this regarding property damage from what I lean from this. It seemed to me there was quite a bit of property damage that occurred. I think it was just limited to the restroom. Yes. But it was from the way I saw and what was in the report in terms of the mannerisms of FB. It basically seemed to me like he was tearing the restroom apart and that may have caused the common ground to contact I went to police department. So it was a little bit more than the mirror. Yeah. I mean when I spoke with the manager there was no he didn't bring up to me any value anything that happened in the bathroom at all any damage or anything. And I believe you said this took place over 9 30 to approximately 11 p.m. Yeah. It was I mean technically it was 9 9 45 to 11 41. And you indicated from what you viewed on the videotape at least concerning the bar area. It wasn't if it was a busy night perhaps it wasn't there because I think you indicated some of the stools were unoccupied. Yes. Between 9 45 and 11 p.m. I know you have indicated and identified Mr. Hode that the bartender and the manager Mr. Kanz Eiger. I apologize if I say that incorrectly. Do you know was anyone else called and or did anyone else of higher authority the owner or general manager show up between 9 45 and 11 p.m. Not not that I saw in video. No. Did any of our officers suffer any sort of injuries that night. No. Did yourself afterwards or any of the officers who responded that knife had any other interactions with any other patrons. No. Same question for the same individuals especially the officers who showed up that night. Did they have any other interactions besides with Mr. Hode and Kanz Eiger. No. Did any employee of common ground voluntarily either give statements to the officers on the scene or yourself in terms of eyewitness account or was it basically your investigation and gathering the facts. Yes. Basically the initial report statements that were given to those officers and then my investigation after. And I think what I heard from yourself and attorney Heim the individual we're referring to as FB we've attempted to contact. Yes. I think we say him. I can say that. Sorry. I think I've been saying that. And is it my understanding that sort of the converse there are no claims or contact by FB to the town for anything that he might feel we bear some responsibility. Correct. I see we have the police chief here. If I could follow Chief Ryan please. Thank you Madam Chair. Frederick Ryan chief of police honorable members of the board or is it voter selectman or select board still selectman but definitely honorable. Yes sir. Thank you. I just want to briefly comment. I think the board knows that at your directive we take alcohol compliance very very seriously in the community. We go to extraordinary measures to work with our license holders to help them comply with the law and your regulations and we commit necessary police resources to do so. I'm concerned about the pattern at this particular establishment. I think that the the comment by the bartender about these young men looking over 30 doesn't pass the reasonable person standard. And I would ask you to include that in your deliberations and obviously welcome the available that answer any questions if you have any. I think I will. But I think at this point attorney Heim would call upon. Representative from the common ground and the manager or unless the board has any further questions of a factual nature for Chief Ryan or Inspector DeFrancisco at this point in time. I ask that the representatives of common ground present their version of events and any information they want to provide to the board. Thank you. Good evening. John Leone with Bob Robert Gwynne the owner of common ground and Liz Martin. He wanted the new assistant managers. First of all they are very chagrin and saddened that this actually happened so soon after we had our prior meeting with you folks. Just to let you know Eugene Hode was terminated within a week or two after the incident occurred as were the two other assistant managers who are on Angel Smith and Steven Ramsdale. They have both also been terminated because of a general perceived lack of due diligence in managing the bar appropriately. Ms. Martin was then brought on who had been a server there since they opened as the new assistant manager. Bob is also there approximately 50 hours a week now and Liz is at the bar 50 as well as Rodney King's Kessinger who is the general manager and was on that night. So he did speak to the officers and Detective Defrancisco as the general manager. So he was the highest authority present that night and most of the time they were after whenever the police came. Now there were two items I had with Detective Defrancisco's statement that contradicted the written report of the police and I wonder if they could clarify that. One there was no broken mirror. They'll both testify that that did not occur. There wasn't a broken mirror in the bathroom. There's no property damage on the on the premises. And also the police report and it states in the materials you were given showed on the video that the gentleman was only served one drink. He wasn't served two drinks and it also states that as they came in they were offered menus for food. The other thing that I did notice in the reports that were given to us was that common ground has passed all prior underage alcohol compliance tests that came in they have not failed any of those. What happened this evening is very unfortunate. What as Liz will tell you she was there that evening. They call the police as FB had left the restaurant very inappropriate out front and then kept trying to come back into the restaurant. And they kept telling him no he's not going to be allowed to come back in because of his inappropriateness. That's when they called the police. It's almost a shot themselves in the foot because they called the police. But I think it was the right thing for them to do and they agree it was the right thing to do because we didn't want this person out roaming roaming the streets out there potentially causing trouble to other people as it turned out. It was the wrong thing for them to do it. The guy hadn't been carded they admit it. They have now and I've turned over to Doug Tony Han the handbook that all the employees had sir had signed passed. I'm not sure Doug did that get to distribute it to this one. OK. Well I don't know if it was distributed the board. Oh yes the handbook was was signed by all of the employees prior to the incident occurring. Hode actually was tip certified. There was just no excuse for what he did. They recognize that and they that's why he was let go. He had signed the book. He knew what the deal was and he was let go. They do take alcohol compliance seriously may not seem like it at this incident and as a result of the prior incident. But they sense the incident this incident. There has been a total change of culture in the restaurant. There's this will tell you their signs throughout the restaurant card everybody even if they don't look like they're 35 to drinks maximum without food. So they really change the whole culture of the restaurant since this incident in order to try and bring it back up to a place where it'll satisfy them as the providers and the town's rules. So if you have any questions of them will gladly answer them. Love to address your questions and thoughts. Can I just clarify one point. Through attorney Heim to the chief or the inspector. Is my understanding when the call came to dispatch and I'm just I don't know this for a fact at all. But and officers arrived that most of the encounter and or initial confrontation with FB was inside the premises of common ground in the bathroom. I'm sorry if you can get in here. It was in the inside the restaurant not in the bathroom and was the attention of the responding officers either drawn to the restroom or was it reported to the officers regarding any activity physical or otherwise it went on in the restroom. I'm not sure I know through viewing the video that most of the conversation was directly right next to the bar in the the seating adjacent to the bar area. Thank you. Mr. So were you inspector. Will you clarify. Did I understand. I thought you said on the video you saw he was served two beers. They're saying it's one. So yes it was two. He he FB was served two beers not one. Yes. And was there damage in the restroom and according to the police report. Yes. There was there was broken glass in the in the bathroom but not a mirror. I guess it doesn't specifically say mirror in there. Just I don't know if it was a glass that he might might have brought in there again. I wasn't there that night but accurate. OK. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify that and I'll say if I have to pick who's. Rendition of what happened that evening. Since you seem to want to contradict the police. I haven't finished the sentence. My teacher always said see the punctuation. I certainly would lean towards the report from the Wellington Police Department from the officers on seeing our inspector and our police chief. So I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree on that as well as your own video that you said you voluntarily provided would bear out the same. I was just going by the police report which states one drink. How was it. I'm going by the. Do you really want to quibble back and forth. No no no I'm just. All right. Well you are. You are. I just I know but I'm going by. We're having the hearing tonight. Yes. And the testimony testimony is coming to the board through town council and others tonight. And that's what we're going by. So as well as any backup police reports. I don't know what squabbling over one or two beers to an underage especially myself. You know what the last hearing when we were here. I was the dissenting vote. I stated that I thought this establishment would make it until the end of August that they would reoffend. I felt very confident about that. I expressed that to my colleagues. I even said it at the public hearing. So I wasn't chagrined or anything like that. I was just surprised at how soon it did happen. But before we go any further I am sort of taking more time and not allowing any of my colleagues would like to Mr. Curell. Thank you very much. I want to probe a little bit on the well the two things. First of all I guess in the testimony you said that the police were actually called the establishment to the establishment to prevent this individual from going out and causing trouble. And I heard from the police department that actually the establishment just wanted the individual removed. He was trying to regain entrance in. Yeah. So he was getting very belligerent. And that's when they called. Okay. So. Yeah. Yeah. It's. And I want to probe a little bit also on the question of the establishment taking alcohol seriously and taking this issue seriously. I guess my first question is. You know we had a very serious incident that we that we levied a punishment for our sanction for. And we hadn't even we hadn't even completely finalized it. And then this this incident came down the pike. But my question is after that incident and after the results of our hearing and our decision was there a discussion with all of the employees at common ground about what had happened and what measures had to be taken to prevent issues with alcohol service in the establishment. So just to give everyone a little background I was in the car that night with Jim and Kaylee. Okay. So please remember that. With that I have been just let you know I have been working for Bob and Alston as a server and then I came over in Arlington. Second day it was open. I have been working with them pretty much full time and then I became a manager recently from being a server. So I know a majority of people in this town and I absolutely understand where you guys are coming from for sure. More than you guys can probably even imagine. I'm not justifying it by any means. I totally understand. As far as that when it happened I believe it was in December. Yes there was a lot. I'm sorry January there was a lot of discussion about what happened. And we had some new employees. We had some employees that were still there. Myself and Kaylee and we're still working there. So obviously we were talking about it and it was not taken lightly by any means and managers would just walk up to you and be like did you card them. Did you card them. So I understand absolutely where you guys are coming from and I do want to let you know that it was taken seriously. It was. Thank you. And first of all you know I'm sorry that you had to you know witness and be part of such a tragedy but my question wasn't whether it was taken seriously and whether there were ad hoc measures to ask what were the employees brought together and were all of the rules around alcohol regulation reiterated and did Mr. Hode participate in those? I'm sorry I confused the event. The event with Mr. McLaughlin or the with Hode the bartender after that incident I was confusing. After this board voted to sanction common ground for the first incident. For the January 15th. 20. Yes. Were the employees brought together formally and were the rules around alcohol serving service compliance formally. I don't mean ad hoc a manager comes up here and there were the rules reviewed with everyone and did Mr. Hode participate in that review. Yes. Absolutely. Because I will tell you I was a manager during that time and we have pre meal every day before lunch and dinner. And I can tell you that in manager notes it said please go over liquor liquor rules every single pre meal. I will tell you that I know that. Okay. Thank you. And is that done. Is that done. Have we done that. Yes. Oh yes. And with Mr. Hode. Yes. Mr. Hode was there. And he also. It's also in that handbook and I even brought all the handbooks back and said this is what you guys signed when you came on and we even opened it up and looked right at our alcohol policy. It's serious. Absolutely 100%. Okay. So as I'm probing further about the idea of taking alcohol serious I want to just if I might madam chair check with council. We permitted to ask about certain other conditions we put on other permits that we've issued to this establishment. Does that play in at all. I think that if the select and want to inquire about general conditions I think that that's fine. Okay. I just did the condition I asked about I think the last permit that we issued to this establishment was for sidewalk furniture and I think that was about month and a half ago or so. And I believe that there was a condition was placed on that permit. Asking that the alcohol advertising on the outdoor umbrellas be removed. And was that done. That was not done. I didn't see that part. Mr. Carol could Mrs. Kruppalka was there any communication from the select man's office. I the verbal and writing email otherwise. And it was sent. I want to tell you either last July because we were there in my soft head feels. It's still there again. Someone on your establishment. I haven't finished someone on your establishment signed and there was return receipt. So and I do know I in others have made inquiries of the board of select man's office regarding that outdoor furniture. So I know you're saying you weren't notified. But you were talking about all these managers you have in place and veteran managers and etc. To me that's a sort of testament or testimony in terms of you know taking things seriously from this board of select. I'm sorry Mr. Carol. That's fine. And I think I would just follow up with just a similar thing. I think we all know how difficult it is to enforce sandwich boards in this town. But I so you have one. We know we know that a lot of establishments do it's very difficult to enforce. But what's a bit of an insult to me is that there are drink specials I see on occasion on the sandwich board out in front of the building. And I feel that that that just speaks to how seriously the establishment is taking it. I mean don't get me wrong. I think a lot of people in town enjoy your restaurant. You have a nice family atmosphere on one side. But if you're leading with that I think it's just sending a message. So on one level I think I'm not surprised that we're having some incidents like this. And I think that's all I have for now. And what I've seen on the sandwich board outside are two different. Sometimes I just see advertisement of signature drinks. And sometimes I see advertisement of what I would call pairing. If you're highlighting a particular dish and a suggestion for again what I would call a signature drink that would go hand in hand that I've never been in common ground. I've probably been in any restaurants just because my family situation. I've heard really great things in terms of people who have died there. So I'm not saying because I didn't go there that you don't serve good food. I just anybody who knows me knows how hard it is. I'm lucky to get to these meetings so I don't want to. Mr. Carol. That's all I have. Mr. Dunn. Did I have any? Mr. Leonie. I just want to make sure. So do I understand that largely the narrative that we heard is correct. And that someone under 21 was served. Correct. Okay. Thank you. There's no denying it. All right. Council Hyme. Just want to double check my recollection is right. This we've had one infraction from common ground. They're the one that we're talking about like you know that the or sorry one previous infraction which was we decided in January of this year. And that's the only one before that is the one. So you made a decision in December 7th December. Thank you. December 7th was when the board voted on decision. This January was when the written formal decision was issued. Okay. But that's the only violation that common ground has on record. That's correct. Thank you. Could I just call on the police chief? I think there was something in it. Mr. Burn. Thank you Madam Chair. Just a point of clarification. Our staff was able to do a chronological audit of the transcript of the video. And while it's really irrelevant whether you serve one or two beers but for the credibility of the other side. FB was served at 945 and a second drink at 1029 p.m. two drinks. Thank you. Thank you chief. Mr. Burn. Yeah. So it is unfortunate that you're all back here. And I do want to thank the police department for all of their work in town. Now, was there any relationship previous between the bartender and FB that you know about? You know, was this a friend of his that came in and maybe he was trying to bend the rule for? You know? Eugene has worked for me for like 20 years for you for. And I was very, we followed by the fact that he did what he did because he's usually very at here. So all the rules and laws of what we do. So immediately it was like he basically he turned around and he said, I know I'm not going to come back. I apologize and he left. The rules, if you don't know anybody, check our IDs. If they don't look like they're at least as old as me, check our IDs. It makes no if ands and buts about it. So there's nothing else we can say except for he messed up and the rest of us had to pay. Just for my going forward, if you could also use the individual's last name, because I'm assuming Eugene is Hode. Yeah, yes. And I don't know who Jim and but Mr. Burn has a floor. Sorry. I just write last name. No, that's, you know, I mean, and we've heard a lot about policies, but it doesn't seem like really the policies are really working. So, you know, I think that it really has to be considered moving forward and how to actually implement what's being written down on paper and what's being said here. And the other question I have is, you know, you said that there were two assistant managers who have since moved on from common ground who are working that night. Yeah, they were part of the policies and being a little bit too laxie daisy on following it through on procedures. But the general manager, Mr. Kessner, but he's still employed there. He was suspended for two weeks without pay for that. Two weeks without pay for that. Okay. And so, you know, would that be like, is that pretty common and that's a penalty that you will have in the books? Right. He's relying on his employees to do what the rules say and he stands behind them. Like, you know, he goes out to not going to go check everybody at the bar. He assumes and makes assumptions that everybody's IDs have been checked. And there were no other, you know, say in the staff training that night, there's nothing that the general manager seemed to skip over. Or did he, you know, go through kind of the, thought all the T's across the T's? Yeah, I wasn't there, but the rules are basically you just step through every procedure, like make sure you check everybody's IDs. Make sure you know more than two drinks. Maybe you're always out in front before you serve them. Just to make sure. Okay. But did I, I thought I heard earlier that there were, you know, nightly meetings about, and that, and the general manager held that meeting and, you know, was responsible for talking to all the employees that night. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Just a few questions. I'm sorry. I didn't get you. Oh, Mr. I just get your last name. So when I do. Marston. Okay. Mr. Greeley. Yeah, I was going to ask the same question about the general manager, but I am curious. Was Mr. Hold the bartender on New Year's Eve 2015? No. Okay. No. And, but you were also not there on New Year's Eve 2015 and you were not there this night as well. Correct. Okay. So, but you do work there 50 hours a week. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday night, Saturday night. Okay. Okay. After this latest incident. Okay. Good. Wipe to clean. Follow my rules. One of them with me behind you. Good. Okay. Sorry. Madam chair. Mr. Curell. Thank you. I just wanted to follow up and just clarify one thing. At first, I guess I misunderstood that Mr. Hoad had been terminated one or two weeks after. After the incident. Now it sounds like he actually quit his own volition. He wanted to, he was basically leaving. I said, let's see what happens. This is finding out exactly the truth behind everything else. And once I came back with the facts of the police report, then it was like, you had to go. And I, I'm sorry. I didn't get Ms. Marsden's title at common ground now. I'm a manager. Manager. And from what I understand, um, or I'm going to ask individually, was Mr. Hoad fired or did he quit? He was fired. Was, uh, is it Mr. Angel Smith? Was that individual fired or did they quit? He basically left. Yeah. He left on his own reconnaissance. So he quit. Um, and Mr. Stephen Ramsdale, was he fired or did he quit? He was fired. He was fired. Um, I'm kind of, uh, curious. Curious with the, um, Mr. How do you say his name? Mr. Ken Geiser. Ken. Ken Ziger. Ken Ziger. Um, he was on that night. Correct. And, uh, you made a statement that he was saying, he was assuming that things were happening. And I understand Ms. Marsden was also on that night. And you indicated that many times, um, you'll go over and check to make sure everybody had been carted. Um, what was the breakdown? How did you identify it? And I still haven't heard how you rectified it with the, uh, manager on site, assuming things had been done that hadn't, and it didn't verify it. And perhaps what Ms. Marsden, in, uh, contradiction to what you say your, your, uh, usual, uh, custom and practice would be to make sure everyone got, um, carted. How did these three individuals somehow escape that, um, practice? Is it okay if I speak? So I just wanted to clarify. Oh, can you just go to the microphone? I'm sorry. I just want to clarify. I guess I'm not a good communicator tonight. Um, and I wanted to interrupt him, but I couldn't. Uh, I was not there the night. That was my, that was from looking at the video myself and also talking with the general manager the next day when I came in and found out about the incident as was, um, that he was trying to leave. And that, I mean, Kessender, we don't even call him that. Ronan Kessender was, um, wanted him to leave and he kept coming back in. He did call the police because he wanted him to leave and then they did move to the front. Um, so I just wanted to clarify that first part of your question. And then could you just remind me, and then I think you wanted more information about the interaction between, uh, the manager, the GM Kessender and that, um, and the individual that night. However, I was not there. So I wanted to clarify that to you. That was my conversation with the GM the next day that I knew that that had happened. Um, as far as, uh, carding everyone that is ongoing, I meant that like ongoing daily, you know, since then. Okay. Um, and I guess if I could ask a few questions. Is Mr. Oguin, how do I, Oguin, I'm sorry, I think I said Oguin before and I apologize. I go by what? I should have put my glasses on. Um, after the first incident, um, New Year's of last year, when we had a hearing, um, you had indicated that you were going to step up reviewing policy and procedures as well as making sure your managers and the like, um, were, uh, reeducated in terms of their responsibilities as well as the fact that you indicated that you would be, um, paying more attention and spending more hours there. I'm wondering if you could tell me, um, what your hour, you know, how many hours you were in common ground pre the first incident, New Year's Eve, uh, 2016? Right? Yeah. Um, and then what you're always leading up to this event are what I'm looking at this event occurred on a Thursday night. If January 28th is a Thursday night, I believe it is. Um, what, what nights were you in pre first incident, post first incident and now and to equate to 60. I'm not asking you, I work 12 to 12, you know, I'm just asking you the days. No, I basically, beforehand I would be coming in and out and spend about two or three hours usually on average every day. Just check it out and come in the evening saying hi to everybody. See what's going on. Make sure everybody's doing what they're supposed to be doing from the, mostly on the kitchen side. Uh, I made assumptions that my general manager was handling it very well in front of the house. Then after that incident, I started spending actual couple of shifts as hosting on the door on Friday and Saturday nights, working from four until about 10, 11 o'clock at night, couple of nights a week. And now after the last incident, I just, I worked, I pulled three manager shifts and then a two hostess shifts. And then I also come in and out throughout the day. So basically I'm, I'm there seven days a week. I've just five of the days. I'm just pulling at least eight to 10 hour shifts. Okay. Um, a few other questions. I'm not sending my colleagues. I don't want to, um, since it seems like you're going to be there more. Um, I was concerned that I heard you now have changed your attitude and culture regarding, um, alcohol service of it, not just the carding, but, um, concerning food. It's this board's, um, directive that once that second drink is in, food has to be ordered. Correct. Um, and you're saying now that you now are putting that policy in place. Now the policy has always been in place. The new policy is to put them in front of people before they even ordered the drink now. It's always been that you had no choice. But second, um, that's why we have appetizers that are fairly reasonable in price. So that at the time you ordered a second drink, you have to order a food item. Okay. Um, well, I would say that there was a big gap in that, um, policy that you have because this individual, according to the video records had ordered a second drink and had not ordered any food yet. Um, who do you hold responsible for, um, this second incident not following that policy after the first hearing where you said you were going to take all the guidelines very seriously and make sure they are instituted? Right. The bartender, he felled on all levels. And, and, you know, once he was brought to the management's attention, by that time the gentleman's already trying to leave. It's too late. He, he doesn't know anything else that's going on. The bartender's attention, I mean, two drinks minimum before you had to order, uh, an item of food. Main use were placed in front of the guy in the beginning and you don't know how many drinks are going to happen when they get to order the second drink because they, you had to order food if you're going to continue on. So that would be Mr. Hold, when you said bartender. Who is still, he has the same position he had before. He's not there anymore. Oh, he's not there. Mr. Ken Zeiger, that's who I was thinking of. I'm sorry. Okay. Um, the other questions I have was Mr. Kiro, um, sort of touched on before is that, um, regarding the outdoor seating and the like. Um, I must tell you probably two, three weeks before this particular incident happened. Um, I had been getting calls from different citizens and the like because you are in a central location. You're near a high school and an elementary school as well as it's downtown center. And I did not see this with my own eyes, but I got calls from people because of my family circumstances. I couldn't come down that, um, it appeared and this is second hand. Um, but I'm going to do my best next time I get a call to get down there that there was a particularly, I think there were two very warm days in, uh, March or something end of March, early April where the outdoor seating by most establishments was utilized, which it should be. That's one of the things that, you know, people like and are attractive in Arlington. And I just got anecdotally that of the six tables on this particular afternoon. Um, and I got three different calls from three different sort of people in terms of I'm not going to identify them who said, you know, of the six, they only saw one that had food and they were calling because they were concerned. It looked like, um, the outdoor seating was turning into sort of what you're having happen in the bar outside. Um, I'd like to know what it is your, uh, policy is for the outdoor seating. Um, who's received that training and how do you sort of manage that to make sure it's actually happening because you've had two breakdowns already inside. It's exactly the same as inside. It comes in and have something to eat and then they're having to finish off the glass of wine. We clear the plates. They're still having a glass of wine in front of them after they eaten. I mean, I don't know what else to say. I mean, it's the same as the inside to drink minimum. Then you have to have something to eat. No excuses. I mean, I mean, how many times have you had something to eat and then you had a glass of wine afterwards and then all your plates are clear. You know, I can't just take the glasses away or throw something else in front of you. It's, you know, just handling it the way it's supposed to be done according to your policies. And then I'm only kind of picking away at this because from the last hearing, I really didn't get that for myself personally that to the level of seriousness that I felt you should take this that you were not. Um, as well as you're even saying here tonight, people made assumptions and how can you make sure people order food? I'm not hearing like other restaurant establishments and, you know, I don't own a restaurant, but I'm very familiar with, you know, restaurants from my family. They have a very hard and fast rule. I mean, I've been a waitress myself. You know, when people are ordering a second drink, you say, I'm sorry, you have to put your food order now. I'm not hearing anything like that. Right. It's a to drink minimum then food. Am I correct? That's your rule. With the second drink, you order food. Right. The second drink before you can have the third one, you got to have something to eat. That's your rule. Right. Right. So I know my rule. I'm asking you what you're doing. I'm hearing you're saying the exact same thing. It's to drink minimum. And if you want to order something else, so you had to have something to eat, no matter what. Um, that's, that's your rules. We stand by it. We take it very seriously. We're not disputing anything. We're 100% we own up to what we did wrong. And we 100% we follow your rules. I mean, and I, people pay the price for it. And the rest of our staff and us, we're paying price for it. So. And regardless of, um, I apologize. I cut you off. Regardless of any, um, penalty fine or whatever that may be imposed here tonight. Can I get a commitment, which we've been asking since last July. And if you suggest that that didn't happen, I'm going to be extremely insulted because I know I've had conversations with Mrs. Krupalka, who's related him to, um, uh, the board of health and others about, um, uh, conforming with the outdoor seating requirements, which means getting rid of those Guinness umbrellas. Yeah. 100%. I told you I'd do it tonight. I'll go in there. Throw them away. Okay. That's fine. Those will make sure I do it too. So, uh, I guess we could say by, uh, the end of business Wednesday, they should be down. Tonight. If for some reason you encounter a situation that they can't, could you notify the select ones? No, they're going to be gone tonight. But if, would you agree to that? If for some reason. What I'm saying, I guarantee they'll be done tonight. Okay. But if for some reason they're not, will you notify the board of select ones office? They're going to be done tonight. Yes. Is that a yes or no? Yes, yes. So for some reason they're not done by the end of business on Wednesday, you'll notify the board of select ones office with an explanation. Yes. Okay. Um, and now your increased hours down at common ground, um, particularly around, I'm just concerned around with the outdoor seating. Um, hours as well as what I consider sort of the, uh, uh, peak nights, which are, you know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Um, what parts of those shifts are you actually there now? I'm there Friday and Saturday night all night. Thursday I'm there during the day all the way up until like five. And who is the, uh, and they're all night too. Okay. And who is the, um, general manager currently on Thursday nights? Is it still Mr. Keienzinger? Yeah. And now I'm on the weekends. They're on the weekends. Okay. Um, any, Mr. Carol? Um, yeah, this might be a minor thing, but I'm just curious because it seems to be a discrepancy. Um, some of the, the testimony of the bartender was that it was a very busy night on, on, on that night. Although it sounds like it was not very busy night from the tapes. Was there an event going on in the back room? No, I don't think it was busy at all. Was not. Okay. That's why we're, we're, I'm, I was, I was, we thought about the whole fact that how it happened. Thank you. Has there been any retraining or, uh, further education? Everybody's been, all new handbooks have been handed out again. We signed again, safe serve. Everybody's been retrained on all aspects of it. And again, we still go through every night, uh, pre-mail. Okay. Um, the first part of my question would be concerning Mr. Keienzinger. Um, who is still one of your general managers and who, um, was involved with this incident. What, um, steps were taken to reeducate him or provide him with further education? And by whom? He had, we take the classes again, safe serve. He was suspended for two weeks without pay. And, and basically he was, he's been stepped down a level. Um, he still represents as a general manager, but he's actually been drawn back. And this has been taken over, and I've been taken over and we're hiring a new manager as well. So he's been brought down a couple of levels. And besides, um, retraining and reeducating and passing out those handbooks again, have you done anything beyond that? Because I know, again, working in the food service industry, you work for different owners and establishments and working for the ABCC for over 20 years myself, um, as a court reporter. I'm not a commissioner. Oh, you know what? You don't mess with a court reporter. Um, sometimes they know more than others. I know that certain establishments, sometimes when they went through this, they'd say, oh yes, we retrained everyone, we gave them a copy of the handbook and had them sign it, and that was it. No. But that's what I'm hearing right now. Okay, could you tell me, uh, individual called, you know, three different shift meetings, uh, had an approximately 15, 30 minute training on whatever and whatever it is to get rid of the assumptions that your general manager made, as well as whatever difficulties people have with making sure food gets on that table after the second drink. Can you? May? Yeah. So just like, you know, I, I mean, my number one thing in this, uh, in this establishment is obviously it's just being on the floor. And that's Bob and me, that's why things have changed so much, is that we're on the floor. So while I absolutely understand, serve safe, but remember Eugene wants serve safe. He's been doing this 20 years, you know, so that's, and saying like, this is how we do it, this is how we do it. Meetings are not always effective. What I have found to be very effective is just monitoring. Like if I know, I know what's going on in the restaurant almost all the time. I know it sounds crazy, but if I have a one, I'm looking and I'm seeing if I'm aware, I know they've had two drinks or I'm going up to the computer and I'm seeing two drinks. So I'm immediately going up to one of my servers and you should say, where's the food menu? What's going on? So I hear what you're saying you need, you need more training, you need that, but you also just need to be active and like on it and take it very seriously. And obviously that's important. So that's where I feel we are. And Bob will tell you the same thing. Bob has no problem walking in the middle of the restaurant being like, did your card 401? I'm like, not everyone had to hear that Bob. I promise you like things are changing. Things are totally different and I, I get it. And you understand where I'm a little bit hesitant because you had a very serious incident in New Year's Eve by someone that what we heard from the testimony was a very cherished and well known to some employees and well loved in his picture. I'm told is still hanging somewhere in there. And I would have thought after that incident and especially being an owner proprietor that again, I know working for, for different individuals in the food industry that you see how owners sort of respond to an incident. I would think after that incident, everything that you said both you are not here, Ms. Marsden, but Mr. Owen and Attorney Leone was, we were told all the same things and we're going to stay on top of it and we've learned from this and you know, the hot strings were plugged in terms of this individual unfortunately and his family, the loss they suffered as well as Attorney Leone cited, you know, some of his own personal feelings and experiences which, you know, I didn't really take into account either way because I just don't think that's appropriate. So I'm kind of hearing, you know, same old song again. So I just want to say, you know, respectfully, that's the reason why. And even with the thing with the, you know, outdoor seating with the Guinness, I know I've been on that for a long time and I know I bug Mrs. Kruppelka. And to me, if you let a little thing like that, which is so, as Mr. Owen said, that baby's down tonight and it probably will be. I just wanted to get the court reporter of me on the record to say if for some reason you didn't do it. But to me, if you're even sliding something like that, but then you're saying please take us, take my veracity, my truthfulness that on this more serious stuff where we've had two major lapses and violations, but now we're going to get it right. So that's sort of where some of my, you know, questioning in terms of what I'm hearing from the microphone comes from. Just one other thing. I mean, I thought we had got it right after that first incident. And then that's the reason why we end up cleaning the house with all the managers. And we're changing up the whole procedure because I thought we did it right the first time. And apparently we didn't. And now we were on top of it. I was there, like she said, monitoring is like hall monitoring, you're there on time and just watching all the tables more so. And we just changed the style and management that came in. So, and I thought I got it right the first time, but apparently we didn't on being very adamant on doing what we're supposed to do. So, again, I apologize about that. We'll probably get to the second part, but I just wanted one last thing. I know after the last hearing and I dissented and I did my thing where I say, we're going to go out in the Bible. They're going to be back before us. They're going to violate by summertime. And then when it happened, a couple of my colleagues said, can you believe this happened? I said, yes, I can. And so just from me to you in terms of the fact that I believe if the current practice is that I believe to be happening concerning your outdoor seating and alcohol and food are lack thereof being served or not served. If that isn't really re-examined and you re-implement some other standards out there, I think you'll be back before us again. If, you know, irregardless of whatever punishment may come forward, I think I can pretty much guarantee it. I say it with the same strength that I had when I assumed you. I really thought you were going to re-offend in the summer because I had been hearing about, you know, outdoor seating and things like that. So I would just say word of advice. I'm not telling you it's anything you have to do, but I think if I was advising you as a friend or a co-owner, I'd say I think you really should take a look at the outdoor seating, the policies out there, and just make sure everybody's really clear. And especially because you're right in Arlington Center. And I've had people who aren't really looking for nitpicky things, you know, for a person like that to call me. And I am going to, you know, talk with the town manager and find out what's appropriate. I haven't gone down when I've gotten the phone calls because I don't know that that's necessarily appropriate. But I just want to bring it to your attention. I haven't seen it myself personally. So I'm not saying, you know, it happened because I didn't see it. You know, it's all hearsay, but I'm telling you the same reason I guaranteed you'd be in before I said the summer. I didn't think it would be even sooner than that, and you were. I'm just telling you on that, you know. You're welcome down anytime. No, thank you. No, thank you. I just want to say the reason we brought Ms. Martin in is it wasn't just Bob saying how the cultures change and how they're changing is that the actual other floor managers, the new managers who are running, helping him run the place are able to testify as to what's the change of atmosphere and the change of supervision of the staff at this point as opposed to when we were here last. That's why we brought Liz along this evening. And if you could, when you have a chance on the next day or two, if you could just call Mrs. Kopalka at the Selectman's Office and just provide her. I think you said you're there Friday, Saturday nights, and something else. So I don't want to come down, pop in a time that you're not there. That would be on Saturday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Tuesday day, Thursday day, Sunday afternoon. Okay. Mr. Curell. Madam Chair, our policies, you know, dictate a guideline of three to five days suspension for a first offense on an underage service. And so I feel pretty comfortable at this point moving that we suspend the license for five days, send suspension to commence within a month after the completion of any other suspensions which may be triggered by this violation. Just to put that in layman's terms, we know that we have, there was a fairly hefty sanction was placed down, but placed in abeyance for the other incident which was not related to underage serving of two weeks and that any incident automatically triggered that. As far as I'm concerned, there's no discussion here about that. That's triggered. That was already the best decision. Understanding that was by mutual, after long mutual discussions. So that is triggered. I feel that we should commence the penalty that's specifically associated with this violation within a month and after the completion of that. Otherwise we're actually, in effect, putting down a 19-day consecutive which seems rather long by the same token. I know that this board, since I've been here for violations of service to minors, we've tended to err on the low side with three days for our compliance checks where there's been a good faith effort shown to comply with our laws. I feel like this rises to another level where we really have to exercise the discretion under that policy on the greater side. I haven't been here for a violation hearing for service to minors where the chief felt that it was serious enough to come himself, certainly your officers have represented the department well, but to express his concerns with a pattern and an establishment. I think that we have to take this very seriously. That's my motion, but I'm open to discussion. So your motion is, first and foremost, we have the automatic two-week suspension, which was voted at the last fraction, and you now have put on the table an additional three to five days. Within the next 30... To be commenced within a month after the completion of any other... So in other words, we know that we're going to have a two-week suspension that's triggered by this. Within a month after that's completed, the five-day suspension begins. And as our policy states on the same day of the week. It's going to ask that. So it would be commencing on a Thursday. And I see the chief, as far as I hope I didn't put words in your mouth. Thank you. Just if I may, Madam Chair, before you begin your deliberations. I was concerned about a statement made by Council of Leone that they shot themselves in the foot by calling the police. I'm really concerned moving forward. You know, our priority at any disturbance call at a licensed establishment is public safety and make sure people get EMS and the services that they need. I'm very concerned that there be some hesitation on the part of this staff should there be an incident moving forward to access police services and to the extent through the chair that you could have monist this license holder that that would be completely unacceptable to me as the chief of police. I'd appreciate that. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to say we will always make sure the safety of our patrons are first, no matter what. We will. Even if you feel like you're probably going to shoot yourself in the foot again. Which is probably a poor choice of words. Yes, and I've done it multiple times. But it's for the safety. I'd rather see someone safe and secure and me get punished for it if I made a mistake. That's just my mistake. I'm one that got to live up to my own mistakes. I understand. Okay. So the initial hesitancy, I kind of heard sort of remorse for, you know, we kind of did the right thing and we shot ourselves in the foot. You're going to be able to change that culture of thinking in terms of anything in the future? It wasn't a hesitancy. It was, they didn't hesitate to call. I'm saying that their actions, even knowing that something in the future will harm them, they still intend to call. We didn't mean to say at Paul Chief or any of the board members that they're going to hesitate to call the police if there's a necessity to do so. I'm just saying, you know what, maybe go back and review this tape because the statement was made that, you know, we kind of shot ourselves in the foot. I know what I said, but I didn't mean it to mean they're not going to take seriousness of someone who's in need of the police services, their need of the police, or if they see something else. There, as Bob just said, it's the safety of the community and the safety of the individuals first, even if it harms its own restaurant. But I think Mr. O'Quinn, you understand the Chief and the board's concern regarding that. Oh, I 100%, but I, like I always tell my managers, even if you think you did wrong, I don't want to see it because I got cameras. I will find out myself. I go, it's always about the safety of the patrons. It's always. Okay. Mr. Greerly, did you have your hand up? There's a motion by Mr. Curell. Is there a second for discussion? Was it seconded? Not yet. Seconded. Seconded by Mr. Dunn. Mr. Greerly. Yes. I don't want to see this restaurant close, but I want to see them conform better. I would, I believe Ms. Marston and Mr. O'Quinn, this has woken them up. I'm sorry. I took two incidents to wake them up. I don't believe we're going to see them here again, Madam Chair. God willing. So I would be personally, I would like to amend Mr. Curell's motion that the five-day suspension he recommends maybe serve concurrently with the 14-day suspension at the same time. Am I saying that right concurrently? Yes. But I would further add that if there is any further violation, we will pull the license period. So I don't know if anybody wants to second that amendment or Bueller? Bueller? Anybody? No. Well, Mr. Dunn. I'm going to second it for the purpose of discussion. Okay. Any comments regarding, our discussion regarding either Mr. Curell's motion or Mr. Greeley's motion? Mr. Dunn? I definitely understand Mr. Greeley's proposal. And it has, I look at it and I say, I look at what's happened when I look at it and I say that it's very hard for me sitting here to tell the difference between the two incidents, like in terms of what the reaction is. And I mean, I understand that we have, we brought Ms. Marsden, but at the same time, you know, who knows what's actually going to happen and what will happen and what did happen. All that you can really look at is like, we don't have a great lens into, you know, into the restaurants day-to-day. So the nice thing about Mr. Greeley's motion is that it does have a, it has a, it even further increases the risks that the establishment would be under if it were to go forward with that. And they would, you know, be playing with fire indeed if they weren't being very, very, it would be perfectly careful, frankly. But at the same time, I'm not going to, I don't think, unless there's a large sentiment here to support it, I'd rather go with the direction that Mr. Greeley, that Mr. Currow is going. I would, I would support if there was an amendment instead to make it three days on the first because we did that even with, and I also understand why you're after five. And I would, so I can, so I guess what I'm saying is that I could support Mr. Currow's motion. I could support Mr. Greeley's though. I won't, but in the end I will get there. But I could also get to a three in the back of that. I'm not thinking the motion. Mr. Brown. I think I'm aligned with Mr. Dunn's sentiment here. I'm not quite ready to, I don't want, I'd like to review any and all facts before actually pulling someone's license at a future meeting. So I don't want to have that stipulation involved right now. And I do think that I would be more aligned with going three days instead of five due to the fact that there's already a 14-day penalty and that, you know, that we agreed upon and I understand that that is, you know, there are no ifs ands or buts there. But I think that, you know, 17 days is a, you know, I think that's a sufficient penalty here. I'm amenable to the three days, but not concurrently versus the five. I'm thinking of other hearings that we've had. I know there were some, just the tips program where nobody died and the police weren't called in to respond to someone who was an underage drinker having been served two alcohol drinks. It's one that we do the typical, send in the underage kids with the $20 bills that are mocked and everything like that. And I know we had two establishments that I think by lodge it was a language barrier and we came right down on them five days right away. And because they didn't come in similar to a very well established, in my opinion, chain here in Arlington who pulled out books and binders and all these things that they've had and they've had focus groups and charrettes and this and that, well they had the same violation and so that's why I wouldn't go for the concurrent. Mr. Dunn. I will point out that in that situation we did change our minds and we went to three. I know because I brought it back up because I thought it was vastly unfair to hear that night, but I always watched the Selections meetings from home and I was screaming at my TV. It's good to know that we agree on what the end result was. Exactly, exactly. So Mr. Curell, would you, since you left it three to five days, the initial automatic? I didn't leave it three to five days. I said five. I'm hearing the sentiment of the board and I am willing to move that to three with the other stipulations as I put out there. But I'm not in favor of the other tenet of Mr. Greerly. I'm not. With all due respect, the concurrent feature of it. Mr. Greerly. Oh, but I hear, you know, that clearly the four of you, but so I'm curious how the first 14 days work. I understand you're saying in the minutes of the three, the three days have to be done within a month after the 14 have been served. By when do the 14 have to be served? I think we stipulated that. Within the next 30 days. Mr. Heimann. We didn't stipulate with specificity in the decision. So I think the board has considerable attitude. It's up to the board to decide, you know, how it wants to impose that. Are they, is it 14 contiguous? Yes. Two weeks. That's what it was. Okay. I'm just asking. So I think we need to stipulate when that needs to be served by. And then the three days has to be done within a month of that. At the risk of making this incredibly complicated. I really don't want to go. I don't really want to go there. But, but, but picking up on, on part of what Mr. Greerly, the idea he floated of concurrency. I'm wondering this board to be amenable to having to sticking with the five days that I put out with two of them serve concurrently so that we're at least on record as having voted for a, a stricter penalty in this case. But we've taken into account some of the potential impacts and that there is a trigger that you was put in place. As a result of the first incident. The effect is still, it's 14 days. 14 days plus an additional five. And it's three, but we're on the record as, as, as recognizing that there is a degree of more seriousness. Because remember the 14 days is, is a sanction for that first incident. It's not a sanction for this. It's just triggered by this. So the only way that we can signal that the, the seriousness with, with which we take this specific incident is through the, the, it's somewhat symbolic. I recognize. And I have somewhat messy also. I don't know that you're what you, I can't discern any difference between what you said and what Mr. Greeley's proposal was. Matt, Matt. Yeah. I think what Mr. Currow is proposing is that you would issue a five day license suspension for this violation and that two of those days shall run concurrent. Correct. With the 14 day suspension, which is essentially a violation of probation terms. Correct. So that would be a total of 17 days actual served, but two days would have symbolically as Mr. Currow suggested. So the actual impact on, on the establishment is still the 14 plus three. Well, yeah. But, but for the record, we have recognized the, the relative seriousness of the practice. I know. Sorry, can I? Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I really like, I understand the symbolism, but I mean, if it makes you feel better, I will support it, but I really don't see it as being necessary. Okay. So the only other point we have to determine, whether it's Mr. Greeley's motion or Mr. Currow's motion is amended 14 plus five by two concurrent Mr. Dunn. I'm going to recommend that without feeling passionately about it, that we say to start within four, or within four weeks of our finalizing our decision. Because we're going to vote a decision tonight. Mr. Heim's going to write it up for us. We will then vote and finalize. And I'm going to say that the two week should start within four weeks of that date. That's fine. Do you take that as a friendly amendment? I do. And four weeks of our final voting and discussing voting and approving this final decision. Okay. Is, Attorney Heim, is that comport with? Yes, Madam Chairman. In terms of when this will begin. So my understanding is that from the date of, not the board's decision tonight, but the date of the formal written decision, within 14 weeks the establishment shall, I'm sorry, four weeks, the establishment shall serve its initial 14-day suspension. Shall start. Shall start its initial 14-day suspension. And that within 30 days of that suspension being completed, that a three-day suspension shall be served. And that my understanding from the board is that all of these suspensions are to run, sorry, a contiguous consecutive, essentially, 14 consecutive days, then 30 days, and then three consecutive days after that. Yes, I understand. Okay. Mr. Gurley, is your motion still on the table? Four to one. No, I, I, I mean, I still believe in it, but I'm not going to get anywhere. So, Mr. Koehler's motion we vote on first. I won't call for a vote on that. And before I call for a vote, I will say, which will not be part of this decision, but I share Mr. Gurley's sentiments if I'm interpreting them correctly. A third event similar to this nature, I would be looking at revocation, but hopefully that doesn't happen. Mr. Dunn. Thank you. Mr. Gurley, I really appreciate what you said about the safety being the most important, because I absolutely agree that's true. And I had been planning on bringing it up at this particular point, and the chief got there before I did. It's my experience, one of my other lives is I'm really involved in my fraternity. And so we have underage people there, and there has been times when there's underage drinking, and sometimes things that led to unsafe things. And our lesson, we tell them, is that they absolutely have to keep safety first. And I really am very glad to hear you say that. Any final comments? When will the final decision be made? I'll have it ready for the board's next meeting. June 20th. June 20th. So it would be 30 days after June 20th. It has to start. Within four weeks. Could he do it the first two weeks of August? So it can plan with schedules for his vacations and schedule the employees to have that time off? Would you do all 17 days in a row? Do all 17 days in a row. For 17 days of August? Personally, I'm willing to say that, which is to say that I would propose that we amend the start date to be within six weeks of our written decision. Second. Thank you. Appreciate it. I floated my variation. I wasn't feeling a lot of love or attraction for that. So I guess we should just keep it clean. I'm fine with the three-day suspension. Would be as stipulated here. I guess I'll begrudgingly go along with that for the sake of your employees. I really do hope you take this seriously. I know, you know, all the right things to say, you know, but your actions will speak louder than words. And perhaps you can utilize some of that time in terms of really going over your staff. I don't know. I can't advise you on who should be your general manager. But if you have a manager who assumes and some of the other things that we heard, that's for you to sort of decide how that goes. But to me, a wake-up call would be, you really, and I'm pro-work, union, everything. I don't want to see anybody lose their job. But if you have somebody in a position that perhaps they're not at this point sort of competent or able to perform that for whatever reason, you know, sometimes it's a personality. Inside they know I should do this. But, you know, for whatever particular reason, whatever, I won't go into it. So, but I'll let you reevaluate that. But I would just make sure that, you know, your managers and Ms. Marston looks like she means business over there. So I don't know if I want to take her off right away, but we'll see. So I will go along with that. I do feel like we're sort of giving you some latitude in terms of softening the blow. But where I fall down on agreeing with that, I feel the large hiddenness besides the monetary to the owner are the employees. So that's the one thing that would sway me to agree to this, because I really would like to throw the book at you really, really hard three times. But, okay. So as amended on a motion by Mr. Kerro, seconded by Mr. Dunn, Mr. Attorney Heim, you have everything from us that you need. So I want to just make sure that I understand the motion correctly. The motion is that within six weeks of the final written decision, which should align with the schedule as discussed by Council Leone, the two weeks suspension shall be served consecutive days. It's my understanding that the license holder intends to serve all 17 days, but consecutively, but that the board's motion is still to serve within 30 days of the completion of the 14 days. So that flexibility will be, I understand the motion now, that flexibility will be there if something changes, but it's my understanding that the license holder intends to serve them all consecutively. That actually reflects the board's understanding, then I'm ready for the three-cord your vote. And you're lucky Allington goes away for the summer, so. On a motion by Mr. Kerro is amended by various of my colleagues, seconded by Mr. Dunn, Mr. Attorney Heim. I'm curious. So I'm just wondering, you're going to close down for 17 days? Yep. Okay. Cut costs, employees lose, everybody loses. Thank you. And this gives more lead time. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, unanimous vote. Guinness. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hope we don't see you on this again. Yes, hopefully. Okay. Thank you, Inspector. Apologize. Thank you. Thank you, Inspector. Thank you for. We'll now go to appointments. Agenda item 10, Allington Cultural Council. Gabrielle Marag. Is Gabrielle here? Was she coming tonight? Yes. She was. Do you wanna move approval pending her appearing? So we'll. Move by Mr. Greily, seconded by Mr. Dunn? By Mr. Kerro. Did you have a comment, Mr. Dunn? There have been unusual occasions where we felt like approving someone who wasn't here. And I think in a couple of recent meetings, we've moved it to being a little bit more customary. And I would actually rather wait till they're here. Okay, I would draw. I would draw. I would draw. I would draw. If there's a specific reason, there's an event that we need them on the board, but they can't be here that night. Fine, let's do it. That makes sense. Okay, motion by Mr. Dunn to table, seconded by. Second. Mr. Byrne, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Yes. Perhaps she was here and then saw an hour and a half long hearing. Oh no. Is that how long we were? Oh Lord. I understand. Item 11, under licenses and permits, a request for food, a vendor license at 1215 Massav La Familia, Pizzeria, Osmali Bento Lombardi. Mr. Lombardi, you're his representative here. Hiya. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for your patience. I'm Osmali's husband. And with the board's permission, I'll speak for her because she believes her English isn't appropriate to be standing here. She can bring her up anyway. Is her English good when she's yelling at you? Yeah, I think it's fine. Anyway, I want to start off with don't live in Arlington now, but I've lived in Arlington for 40 years, went to Hardy School, Junior High East, which I heard was opening up again. Yep. And all three of my children went through the Arlington school system, and I'm a static for the opportunity to open a business in the town. And basically we want to rejuvenate that corner. And I know the people that I don't know personally, but I've eaten there many times. And I know some of you may think another pizza joint in Arlington. But that's where you can go to 15 pizza joints and have 15 different pizzas. So I think that's where choice comes in. And I'm sure everyone's thankful that we have that freedom of choice and let the best pizza win. That's what I say. Mr. Grilly. Move approval subject to our conditions is set forth. But you know the best way for me to test your pizza. It comes as samples. Are there any samples here this evening? No, unfortunately not. We don't have our oven yet. The oven is still coming. I still want you to get this license. Thanks for coming back to Arlington to do this. Thank you. Mr. Byrne. I just want to say I'm really happy that someone's utilizing that corner again. It's very welcome. So thank you. Mr. Donner. I'm curious. What's your role in the restaurant? Business manager. Thank you for coming. Thank you. And I'm just the house keeping knit. In your application, you have Sunday through Thursday 11 a to 10 p Friday, Saturday 11 a to 11 p. But on your menu and your brochures, you have opened seven days a week 11 a to 11 p. Oh, it's up to you. Is it is it the original closing at 10 Sunday? Or do you want to stay open to 11 all seven days? The way you have it in your application, you're closing at 10 Sunday through Thursday. But the way you have it in all your other stuff, your menu and all that, it's seven days a week 11 to 11. It's your call. Right. 11 to 11 is if that's what you want. So can we make that change administratively? So on your application, it'll just say Sunday through Saturday 11 a to 11 p. Great. Okay. I'm not being a stickler. If for insurance purposes, it's good. You know, you want to have that clarified on a motion by Mr. Kuro. Any further questions or comments? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed unanimous vote. Great. Thank you. Thank you for waiting. You know, it's funny. I've always watched this on cable for years, you know, and I always thought it was bigger. Thank you. Thank you. Have you noticed that I'm actually thinner than I appear on cable? Thank you. Perfect. I move to reconsider. Okay. Agenda item 12, a request for a sidewalk cafe permit at 138 Mass Ave. Zah restaurant. Jeff Broden, general manager. Thank you for your patience. Of course. Fire away, buddy. Any brief synopsis of what it is you're requesting? I mean, we have all the materials before us, but people watching at home. So we have to put five tables outside of our restaurant at 138 Mass Ave. And take advantage of the renovation to the avenue over in East Arlington and the capital square. And, you know, open up the outdoors to, you know, to our patrons. Move approval. Second. Seconded by Mr. Grilly. Mr. Dunn. Can we attach a condition that you never change the cucumber salad? Yes. I just have a question. East Arlington Mass Ave. redesign was reaping all the benefits from it. I would say the sort of only one downfall, if I wanted to call it that, would be because of various plantings and in favor of this, not in favor of it, but in terms of handicap accessibility as well as I noticed, and I'm going to drive by again, not your establishment because you haven't started yet. But I noticed a couple of the outdoor cafes that when I went down because I had received calls, if I was in a wheelchair or pushing a stroller, I would not be able to get through there. So my question to you would be upon approval by this board, what steps would you take implement in terms of educating your employees and or your staff that sets up the outdoor seating to ensure that is it 36 inches? The handicap accessibility. I think it's 42 inches. 42 inches that that's not infringed upon. Are you going to have markings? Like how are you going to make sure they know that? Because I've already seen some restaurants that we just previously. Okay. And I'm going to have to follow up. Well, we're planning to put the tables near the wall, abutting the wall, the from wall of our restaurant, and the cafe seating is going to come out eight feet from the wall and then 30 feet down and eight feet back. I think there's five and a half feet between the beginning of the curb and the cafe seating, which I believe is more than adequate. But, you know, I mean, if there are lots of crowds and so forth, we will be out there and we will make sure that the traffic is, you know, the flow of traffic is maintained. I hope there's a lot of traffic. I hope there's a lot of crowds and all that. I'm just saying whatever you think is appropriate in terms of I've never managed a restaurant without door seating or managed a restaurant, but whatever you think is appropriate for that staff whoever sets up that outdoor seating, even if it's a little note where they have to go and pick up all that stuff that says don't forget 42 inch handicap or whatever. I don't know that that's the thing, but I just wanted to impart that upon you. Sure thing. And I will do that in the future for anybody else who comes before us as well as follow up on the other ones. Mr. Greerly. I just wanted to point out I was at Adam and my hair salon recently and Olivos has the tables out and I was over there looking at them and honestly, coincidentally, both a wheelchair and a woman with a baby carriage passed right now. Now there wasn't a crowd out the tables or anything, but just in terms of the way that one's been set up. I was impressed. Any further discussion? Questions? I hear someone. By Mr. Burns. Seconded by Mr. Greerly. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed unanimously vote. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Next we have Citizens Open Forum. Did anyone sign in Mrs. Krupalka? Because we passed it now. We voted for it. We voted. I can sign it now. And who? Our colleague. Mr. Herd. John Herd. 38 spypong parkway. I came up to share with the board a few concerns. And then I thought of a couple more while I was here, but maybe I heard it was going to be a short meeting. Oh, sorry. Oh, my God. No, that's all right. I have some correspondence. This is about two traffic issues. Right. What's new about that? I tried to meet the owner unsuccessfully to Mr. Krupalka, but if the board, but I, my goal is to have these concerns refer to the attack if possible. There's two in particular on Lake street, the bumper to bumper traffic in the morning and in the evening on Lake street in the evening. There's one. I think a major problem as well as many of my neighbors and I don't know how in manner. There's a new route for many vehicles that are trying to avoid the traffic. They, they take a left on colonial drive. They take a right on Elliott. They basically do a circle. They go back out onto Lake down Wilson down Mary. When I wrote it out today, I was actually almost chuckling. There were multiple turns. And again, it's in an effort to go through the street down Mary street. It's my understanding in the afternoon. It's about 250 cars. Your neighbors that are counting them. The turn on to Elliott road and Kellen manna is about 200 cars. And it's basically becomes a traffic jam on Elliott to take their turn to do their loop. Right. So I mean, I think obviously we'd like some direction from the tack. If we were making Wilson road or do not enter at a specified time four to seven would prevent that from happening. The other issue. I was just trying to get in line. Go ahead. Okay. See how I'm following the rules. The other issue that I like to, I like to bring before the board is in the morning. Very similar issue. I go up Lake street every morning. I see the town manager. Looking over East Allenton. When he's walking out there. And same thing. They're taking a right on Wilson. Heading. I think rather quickly down Mary street. Now left on Margaret back out onto Lake and. And all it's doing is compounding the situation by people that don't want to be courteous and wait like everybody else. So. That's the other issue that I would like to refer to the tack for their deliberation and to bring back to the board. And I would certainly participate in that discussion with some of the neighbors. And it's really, as you know, it's bumping a bumper down there. You just have to wait and not be patient. And it's not fair that people are willing to do that. And more importantly, it's unsafe. They come around the corner on to Elliott. Very quickly. They're very impatient. There was actually an accident down there a couple of weeks ago. I think someone was backing out. And actually hit a car. So that's what I want. I. Wrote up quickly this after so. Maybe there's a couple of punctuation errors there, but I saw the board was meeting. And there's many neighbors that are concerned about it. And. That's what I was. Concernable. Mr. Brown. And then Mr. Chaplin. I guess I have one. Two questions. One. Mr. Thank you for this. Now, how do you think the residents would feel about not being able to turn down those streets at that time as well? I mean, because we, you know, that. You hear it on Lake street with coming the other way, you know, we hear from some residents who don't like that change. The do not enter. The do not enter would prevent the Mary. Street access. But already, as you know, from four to seven, there's no right turn on the first three streets. I think up to homestead. So what would happen? Some of those on Mary may not like the fact that they have to go up to homestead to backtrack back. But I tend to believe that it would be very pleased that 250 cars aren't coming by. I think, and that's a good question. It wouldn't be all the way up to Margaret. It would be the first two. And after that, it becomes inefficient to actually turn off and come back. So that's sort of the thinking on that. And the tech may, you know, have another idea around that. And same thing in the morning. You know, the signs are already up the four to seven. Basically, it'd be a matter of putting seven to nine. Again, on the first three streets, Wilson, little John and homestead. And there's still two additional streets that have neighbors or people that live there could turn up. And, you know, so it's, again, trying to keep them on Lake and Wait their turn. Wait their turn. I mean, that's when I've seen that. And that Elliott doesn't like one that is. It's amazing. I have some neighbors that are actually doing video for you folks if you like to see them. Because now there's a traffic jam on Elliott just to do a loop. So it's a problem. I guess the only other question at being, I know that there's a lot of history on this board is this ever gone before attack before, do you know, you know, we have a history of sending things to tech several different times. And I want to know if they have already conducted any sort of study on this. Not that I know of. I think they're aware of it. You talk about the Elliott load, load, loop. Not sure. I think what's happened is more and more people become, they start following the three cars in front of them. They say, okay. We still have an issue in. I mean, I'm on spike on Parkway. We still have the issue of them coming down spike on Parkway cutting back up, you know, on pond view. And I think internally in our neighborhood, we're working on some, you know, speed bumps and other mitigating obstacles that we can think about. But that would be for another day. Mr. Chapter Lane and then Mr. Thank you, Madam Chair. So a couple of thoughts. First, I believe that the most significant way that will help mitigate this problem is by putting in the coordinated light at the bikeway intersection in Brooks Ave, which this board has already voted approval on moving forward. So we are working with TAC and put together a design committee and have that move forward. I mean, I think the number one way, again, is give people less of a reason to want to get off the industry. That said, the week before last, I actually met with about a dozen residents down on Mary Street during the AM commute with myself, Corey Riteau, Officer Riteau from APD, which were another town engineer, Kurt Kelly from Highway. We certainly witnessed, as you've described and as they've described to us, a very high volume. Officer Riteau did do some speed monitoring with one of the machines that we have later in the week or actually maybe even later that day. As we had predicted and like in a lot of situations, the speed is not necessarily as bad as it's perceived because it's just hard to get going that fast in some of the narrow side streets. That said, I would ask for the board's indulgence before referring us to TAC. We've already been having some discussions about actually some of the recommendations that you've made here. If you let us shop it around internally a little bit, then we can come back for a recommendation. If we feel like TAC needs to take a deeper look, we'll certainly recommend that. But before making that referral, let us see if we can make a quick recommendation. Motion by Mr. Burns, seconded by Mr. Cure. I'll second it, but I had something to say. Mr. Carroll? I just wanted to state, first I wanted to plead guilty to doing that funky loop and I'll tell you why it's happening. It's happening because the GPS is sending people that way. Some of the GPS programs have figured out that that is the quickest way to get through. I mean, specifically Waze will send you through that specific way. So I doubt it was referred to TAC in the past because it's kind of a new development. So while we're deliberating what to do physically, Council might shut me up. Any of your technically savvy neighbors could engage in some technical civil disobedience and keep reporting the road is closed on the GPS program, which you can do, and then it will compute and send them somewhere else. Well, we've talked about closing the road, having it the our private ways, but of course we require it to allow passages. You could just virtually close it and just tell them. I know some of the neighbors that have young children, you know, park a couple of cars, there's cones out there. They're doing a lot of creative mitigation, but it's not getting it done. All right, on a motion. Oh, Mr. Grilly. Yes. Well, just I certainly wanted to welcome Mr. Hurd back here, having sat here 15 years, I believe. And I believe you were chairman when we enforced that rule on Lake Street. Am I right? The no right hand turns. Yes, guilty. And also he is the first member of this board who served to initialize the East Allenton Corridor Project and did many great things. And I'd like to, if I could, if I have another minute to comment on the East Allenton Project. Only if you're saying something good. It's outstanding. I knew it would be. I want to commend the board on their patience. I know we all, when I was on the board and you folks continued to have quite a bit of discussion and hearings. And I think the results are, it's a fantastic project. And most, and I know some people that are friends of mine that weren't in agreement to that now are because proof is in the pudding and it's outstanding. And I'm glad I live down there. I could tell you property values in that area went up a notch as a result. So thank you for your help. On a motion by Mr. Burns, seconded by Mr. Curell. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed. And if we could either Mr. Chapter Lane or Mr. Cropelka, keep Mr. Hardjack apprised of, because he obviously also has a lot of people that he's networking with whether it's a meeting or it appears on this agenda again. Okay. All right. And as far as the. Pull me over in the morning. You know what. One other thing on the traffic signal, I fully absolutely support that. It's the only solution. I know the board voted that and I look forward. I certainly will be willing to participate on the committee if needed, but it's the only answer. I look forward to that. That project. All right. Everyone heard him volunteer, right? Because I see Adam right here. I'm making a note of that. Okay. All right. So noted. Thanks, Jack. Good to see you. Thank you. Sorry you had to wait so long. Say hi to Dale. Select tone. He was a very loyal select tone. Unlike someone. I didn't let him stand anyone near the microphone. Okay. Moving on. Anyone else signed up for Citizens Open Forum? If not, I'll go to agenda item 13. Presentation. East Arlington corridor project spring and summer. We have the public art consultant, Cecily Miller and from Arlington public art. Adrian. Adrian. I apologize. That's okay. Actually. Adrian couldn't make it today in her co-chair. Jill Monca is here. So, and I have to say that both of these women have been totally fabulous to work with as has the whole Arlington public art group. And really engage group of people with a lot of positive energy. So I thank them. So I, you have a packet that I submitted in advance. I was going to do some presentation that summarizes some of that material and has some new material. If we can see it on the, yeah. And thank you very much for your time tonight. I really appreciate you're putting us on the agenda and looking forward to sharing with you what we're doing and hearing any feedback you have. I think you're projecting, but your Mac went into two monitor mode. So you actually, the black screen was actually a real truly representation of what was coming. Yes. So the projector is right, but the computer isn't. Unfortunately, I don't know how to fix it from there. I've just seen it before. Looks like gather windows. Yeah. I am the only person at Quantopia and who uses windows operating system. Really? Everybody else is either. Mac. Or Linux. They're what? They're Mac or Linux. Turn this a little bit so I can. Okay. All right. So I thought I would start with, these are the goals that we had when we began working on new public art initiative for East Arlington back in September. And the, the first goal in the sort of the prompt, the catalyst for this was to cap the street improvements completed in Capitol Square and along Massachusetts Avenue. A second goal is to enhance the sense of identity, community and place in East Arlington. And a third to build on Arlington Public Arts past successes and keep a sense of momentum and growth going. And fourth to create a cementing of the townwide art scene, which is something that's been steadily expanding. And I know from my own circle of friends and colleagues, there's been a real sense that things are happening in Arlington in the arts. Just a couple of constraints to be aware of. One is that, of course, as you know, the design and construction was already completed when we started thinking about public art, including the purchase of street furniture, so we couldn't really contribute a sort of functional art piece to, to the landscape. Also, we have a pretty modest budget. Arlington Public Art is raising all of the funds for implementation. We held three community meetings and I also went door to door in Capitol Square and talked to a lot of the small businesses there, met with some community groups like Mothers Out Front, which is a group doing climate change, people from some of the local public schools, a number of artists, both in Arlington and outside of Arlington. And this highlights some of the themes that came up that have informed our thinking about how to go forward. So one was the, and I won't, I'm sure, be telling you anything new. But I hope that you'll be happy to see the things that we're highlighting and trying to incorporate into our project. So people talked a lot about the diverse, independent small businesses of the neighborhood of Capitol Square. They're really, citizens are really pleased that there are not chain stores, that they know the owners of their local stores. And consider it part of the character of the neighborhood. Also, East Arlington has been home to waves of immigrants and people asked, is there a way that we can tell their stories? It came up numerous times that it would be wonderful if whatever we did could engage kids and families. And that was something people said that they loved about the sculpture, the past sculpture shows at Spipond and Monotomy Rocks. And in terms of, if you say to people, how would you describe the character of your neighborhood? Friendly, diverse, it feels like a small town. You know your neighbors. One thing that came up as a challenge is that there can be a disconnect sometimes between old and new residents and are there ways that we can sort of bring people together through an art project? It came up that there was a need to define the physical transitions along Massachusetts Avenue to strengthen sense of place. So, for example, the gateway to Arlington at Route 16. Unfortunately, that would be a little ambitious for us to tackle ourselves right now, but it's something to think about. You know, what do you want that gateway to be like? And then the transition sort of residential into commercial and then back into residential. It was clear that the Fox Library is a much-loved place, a community-gathering place, and one person put it as the Fox Library is the face of government in East Arlington. And then certainly something I think is so wonderful about this community is the incredible green spaces you have, and that came up. How can we steward the natural environment here? Our natural resources are critical. So we decided to do two pop-up art projects that would be a more modest budget that would experiment with different art forms that would keep the momentum going while we planned for a larger project and raised money for a larger project. One of these is completed. We called it It's Your Move, and it was an afternoon of play-themed public art at Spipond. And the second is coming up on June 18th, and we're calling it the Fox Festival. It's a celebration of the Fox Library, of Neighborhood Spirit, of creativity, and also of urban wildlife. And we're holding it at the Feast of the East, and it's been totally wonderful also working with the businesses that are organizing the Feast of the East. I've joined that committee, and I'm really impressed by how much work everyone does to keep that as a vital celebration. So our partners for this are the Fox Library, the Friends of the Fox, the Thompson School, the Capital Square Business Association, and the artist is a woman named Sarah Petey who has created puppets with different communities for probably about 40 years. If you've seen puppets in the First Night Parade in Boston, she's the force behind those puppets. So this was the little card that we distributed about It's Your Move. We can look at the next one. It was all kind of inspired by this giant chess set that was designed by an artist named John T'Jurie. He created it while he was an artist in residence and it was sponsored by the Somerville Arts Council when I was the executive director there and we actually built the chess set at Somerville High School. So we can take a look at the next slides. And this was put together by kids in the metal shop and painted by kids in the auto body shop. And it kind of is a different take on public art, can be something playful, educational, made by the community. We could do something like this with the Minuteman High School. Arlington could end up owning a chess set like this if you wanted to to bring out once a month and celebrate the intellectual game of chess. So, next. And these kids really got into this. We can just go through these pretty quickly and wait, back to the little guy because we did have to keep an eye on some of those pieces. And here, there were games that kids played and then here, this was a pretty serious game between the two guys in the back and the guy on the right is, you can remember him because he's the artist we're going to be working with on our big project but there was some tension around that game. And one of the things I noticed was that people love the movement which is just something to think about when we're thinking about public permanent pieces because the kinetic quality is something that a lot of people enjoy. Another activity at this same afternoon was we used these build-it discs. Next slide. And this was another resourceful low-cost, I have a relationship with some people at the Boston Society for Architects and so they loaned us these discs and people built these great structures with them. People of all ages, a couple kids stopped by after their game and they, you can see it got bigger and bigger. And we, another I think pretty resourceful thing, we borrowed blocks from the Little Fox resale shop at the library. They get these beautiful wooden blocks so we said, can you just set some aside for us and we'll have a huge table of blocks to build with. And finally, we made flags for our Fox Festival Parade. So these were made with stencils by anyone who stopped by. A birthday party at one point stopped by. There were all these kids in little cone, spotted cone hats. And this, you'll see a reveal that there's what the stencils look like once they've been painted on. That's a little bird. And here's a fox. So for our next initiative, the Fox Festival, we are running five after-school workshops at the Thompson School with Sarah and two family workshops at the Fox Library and one flag-making table at Porch Fest. And we're going to have a temporary art installation at Spipon Park of a little family of foxes, which we've gotten our permits for from the parks and recreation. And it culminates in this parade with the community-made puppets and a brass band kicking off the 18th annual Feast of the East Parade. So I hope you're all going to come. Thank you. And this is the card for that. And here you can see some of the puppets. This is a multicolored fox. I'm not sure if this is a fox or a rabbit, actually. A zombie fox. Yes. Zombies are everywhere. Well, if we go back to the zombie, the message of this is partly like, if you want your kids back from those video game zombie kids, put them in a puppet-making workshop because, you know, it's hands-on and very creative and fun. And this is the band that's going to lead the way. It won't be the whole band, but a contingent of this band. So now we get to our, quote, big project. And I think when I talked to you for the first time, I said, we don't really know what we're going to do. We just know it'll be bigger than a bread box. So what we've come up with is the idea, is something we're calling East Arlington Stories. And again, the goals and these echo both what you heard in the neighborhood input and sort of our original goals, our overarching goals. We want to celebrate the diversity and character of the neighborhood by capturing the stories of local businesses. In terms of that suggestion that came up, you know, can we tell the stories of some of the immigrants who live in Arlington? One way to do that is through these very diverse local businesses where there are restaurants that serve cuisine from different places and owners that come from sort of all over the world. So it's a nice way to capture that sense of cross-section. We wanted to create something large-scale on our modest budget, something that would landmark the Capital Square area. We want to encourage public participation. A lot of our materials said, be the public in public art. And that's something we feel pretty strongly about. We're not less interested in putting a sculpture down that there it is, it's done, and more interested in people being able to get involved. So in this case, what we want to do is have a process where people nominate their favorite businesses. And this isn't really meant to be a popularity contest. It isn't really meant to be a quality ranking. It's more a collecting of stories and memories. And finally, it came up in meetings. It would be great if you could create some art that makes the pedestrian experiencing more engaged experience more engaging. So kind of slows people down. Maybe there's something new each, you know, every couple weeks. So next slide. So it is really notable that walking less than a mile along Massachusetts Avenue in East Arlington, you can shop, eat, run into friends, gather for coffee, make, buy art, go to the movies, and get help with some of the challenges of daily life. And I love this range, ranging from renewing your home insurance to getting a 100-year-old typewriter fixed. I don't think there are very many places left in the country where you can do that. So Arlington stories will pay tribute to these locally owned businesses that make the neighborhood so distinctive, and in so doing uncover the history of the community that's unfolded in their storefronts between the stories of the people and the stories that citizens give us with their nominations. So here we see Zaz Pizza's wall and here is a conceptual sketch by our artist Cedric Cedric Douglas. This isn't a real person in Arlington yet, but this is kind of the idea that we create these portraits, we play with scale, these portraits are going to be made out of paper. Next. So we're planning to try to do 10 to 15, if we can, that's a stretch, life-size or larger portraits of local business owners, employees, and or customers. These would be composed from photographs on paper, printed Xerox to actually onto paper, that would be wheat pasted onto the walls, the advantage of wheat pasting, numerous advantages. One is you know, someone's not it's hopefully a less time intensive so that we can have more walls addressed, but it can be removed, so after a month power wash it and it's gone. We're going to interview the same people and the recorded stories will be available either on the web or by a smart phone app, but there will be a way that people can listen as well as see. So this is one of our artist teams, one of the lead members of our artist team Cedric Douglas, and here he's working on a project that helped inspire our idea. This was a project that an international artist JR from France, the guy who did that mysterious giant image on the Hancock building. Same artist did a neighborhood project in Roxbury where portraits of people were taken in a big community. He has a huge truck that is a huge camera and took all of these portraits of people and they wheat pasted them up onto the library. And Neeloo Muchala is another member of our artist team and she's an Arlington resident and she is bringing sort of that point of view of the story. So Cedric has worked with images. Neeloo had done a project with Arlington Cultural Commission funding with excerpts of interviews and historic images of Arlington to kind of give a sense of place of Arlington. And the third lead artist is Julia Roth and she and Cedric together founded a truck called the Uptruck which will also be at the Feast of the East and it's a mobile art lab that does art projects on the street. So we hope that walls like this will be and the next one will be enlivened with this kind of playful interesting imagery and the stories behind this imagery will be submitted through the nomination. So this sense of there are stories everywhere. So the next slide. These were just sort of my thoughts but you know someone might tell us a happy memory of making a gift with their kids at Clay Dreams or at Artbeat. Going on a first date at ZAZ, celebrating an anniversary at Oliva Lo's, getting together with friends after a bike ride at Pizza. My favorite. Decide it wouldn't be so bad to go vegan after eating at zoos. Just a plug for the animals. And so this last slide is just some of our acknowledging our supporters the town of Arlington, the Arlington Cultural Council. Friends of the Fox Library has been really generous helping us with the workshops. Vision 2020 has helped us with some printing. The Capital Square Business Association has been so gracious to really let us join in with the to the Feast of the East. And the Arlington Advocate has been great at giving us coverage and we're talking about ways that they can hopefully include some of the content of our Arlington Stories project. And then we're announcing here publicly that we just heard that the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Fund for the Arts has just awarded us $5,000. Congratulations. Thanks. It's very competitive and so we feel really good about that. We were up against a lot of prestigious projects. It's a real vote of confidence. So we'll still be looking for some additional money. We know that and some of you I'm sure have been I've been to that event and hopefully this year we'll come and purchase chairs. That's one way that we raise money and also probably be looking for some additional private contributions. So now how can you help? One is if you can help us spread the word to your constituents both about the Fox Festival Parade but also about the East Arlington Stories this project will be more robust if more people share their memories and their stories that's what will make it really meaningful. You yourselves could nominate a local business that you need to. You can do it anonymously. And another issue is we are going to have to Zaz is the only business that we've really talked to about securing a wall because in part we were waiting to hear if we would get the grant and if we would definitely be able to go forward but we may need some help convincing people to share their walls and the final thing is help us any way you can in raising matching funds. So that's the vision that's the bigger than the bread box we're hoping this will infiltrate or unfold in the landscape so if you were driving from if you're driving up Mass Ave from Cambridge you cross Route 16 and you're starting to enter into the town of Arlington you might see one image over here to the right and wonder what's that and another over to the left and then clustered in Capital Square and then thinning out again. Thank you. Mr. Curell. Thank you. And thank you Cecily and all of the Arlington Public Art folks. I know how hard you've worked at all of this. I have to say I was able to attend one of the visioning sessions and feedback sessions and what was kind of interesting about it is I think we've all been to a lot of feedback sessions and you know they tend to be charats or breakouts and those are fine and great but in true Arlington Public Art fashion you know Cecily and the crew brought in actually one of our local groups the True Story Theatre who actually helped to solicit the stories through improv and really got people to dig down deep into you know stories about how their neighbors have been so helpful to them and just real you know personal highlights and I think it's a great transition from Nilu Muchala's project I am Arlington I'm sitting here tonight and I'm thinking about some of the things that we're doing tonight but just tonight we're we're going to be endorsing the cultural district I hope application. We just approved a new sidewalk cafe in East Arlington we you know we're hearing about this we're going to approve the Feast of the East again I hope the yeah I see Diana's back there she's waiting the Feast of the East again and I see this and so many cool family friendly activities and we wonder why so many young families are flocking into East Arlington right now and we're happy for that I think we're all quite pleased with that East Arlington's been cut on the nexus it struck me you didn't point it out but one of those pictures of the giant chess set in the back you could see the mural on the Boys and Girls Club and just last week I know that the Park and Rec Commission approved the permanent installation of Kevin Duffy's sculpture he has a swan sculpture that was placed temporarily in spy pond park and the kids all love it and such and all these things you mentioned transitions are going to be so important because part of what we'll be taking up I think in two agenda items with the cultural district is trying to find a way to put Arlington's best foot forward in our face forward for tourism for the creative economy but also to try to knit together in a way the east and the center and create those transitions and make it one continuous experience and pedestrian friendly and such so thank you very much for all of that and I'm sorry to elaborate on but that's a kind of perspective yeah I mean that was it's fantastic but I was like when are you moving to the heights you said Arlington's story so can you talk about any can you nominate any business in Arlington or only east Arlington businesses well you know this whole project was intended to be about east Arlington so in this case it is east Arlington you can bring us back next year we'll do one for the heights sounds like a good show okay well thank yes you want to leave them with Mrs. Kruppelka right in front of Marie Kruppelka's yes and Joe I want to thank you for citing True Story Theater that was really no mission on my part they were also wonderful partners and there was one session that they did where we made the theme what do you what do you care enough about to volunteer for it that was one of the ways we kind of look to dig a little deeper and some very moving stories came out of that they're a wonderful resource thank you see you at the Feast of the East okay thank you that's a good sort of segue if I may agenda item 14 for approval the 18th annual Feast of the East is Diane hi how are you my name is Diane Buxton I own Love and Other Gifts at 189 Mass Ave and I'm here Jen Whitted actually sent you a letter she's out of town so I'm representing Feast of the East tonight this is a sample of one of our posters that we're having put up not just in Arlington but in surrounding towns we're thrilled to have Porchfest coming on the 11th and followed up by the Feast so basically we're looking for the same setup as we've had in previous years where we'd like to use Mass Ave between the Capitol Theatre Block and Trinity Church and we would place barriers and yellow tape along the streets where the parking is just for the the length of the festival to give us a little bit more space for our vendors and then we'd also like to close down Cleveland Street where it meets Mass Ave to create a little island for entertainment and the Fox Parade will be there but residents will still have access to Cleveland via Broadway and Waldo and then what else oh we'd like to put up signs at Route 16 Orvis Street the corner of Lake and the corner of Winter there will be a police detail for pedestrian safety and we're looking forward to showing off our new streetscape and we will join us any questions? Mr. Byrne I do have a question about Cleveland Street being a one way would we have to you know is there anything we have to consider with this you know yeah so my understanding is with that in years past do you know do we lock off do we have someone posted at the intersection of Broadway in Cleveland City? I don't think so I think we just block it off with barriers all the way down down to Waldo yeah not even that far just enough space so we can safely have the brass bands there and some other family activities I'll talk with APD to make sure cause we don't want cars coming all the way up and realizing they can't get out to Mass Ave so subject to all conditions but no approval second this is great seconded by Mr. Grilly any further questions? if not all those in favor say aye all those opposed unanimous vote so this Saturday we have Porchfest and next Saturday you I'm saying we you have Porchfest I have a band for Porchfest too so I can come down for that that's gonna be fun thank you next item 15, sign request ravine street this is from Rebecca and Doug Perlow of Irving Street it was tabled from April 11th meeting we have various pieces of correspondence some we have already received some are new and recent including the most recent comments from Officer Corey Ritchell Mr. Perlow well thanks folks I know that after all the important things you've been doing tonight this is probably the last thing you need to spend time on I want to say I think we have some a few fundamental misunderstandings and I mean I don't need to fight with you about what sign is valid or not valid but in 96 when Rebecca came before the board as it was then to ask for a sign it was because we had great difficulty getting into and out of our drive people parked right up to the edge and whatever the minutes say the what she asked for and what they presumably were giving us was one space to the right of our driveway as you exit the driveway I know that the minutes are not clear about that when the sign went in that said no parking here to corner 20 years ago it didn't work and I think that it's taken my little brain a long time to figure this out but the word corner doesn't people look at it and they don't see driveway they see corner and they think it means down to Irving Street rather than up to our driveway and it was an Arlington officer who at one point came to ticket someone who would parked in the space who said why don't you paint the curb yellow and put an arrow on the sign and we did that and it worked for 20 years until for whatever reason the sign got taken away we're not trying to clear out the whole block in front of our house those are valid spaces people use them for the school we just want that one space open now Mr. Currow and I had a couple of interesting emails back and forth and I don't know if he shared them with you but I looked through the uniform manual of traffic control devices maybe not all the way beginning to end but through a lot of it and it's true that I didn't find a sign that said no parking here to driveway I do think there's some room for judgment here but I did find a sign that I suggest would solve the problem and is valid it's actually two signs you have no parking between signs and you have one uphill of the driveway with an arrow toward the other one and the other one downhill of the driveway with the arrow back toward the first one and that would be perfectly clear no parking between signs so I understand your reluctance to give us a no parking here to driveway sign and perhaps you're disdain with our having modified the sign to our own needs in years past but the modifications worked and what's there now doesn't work and if you can see from the pictures people pick a park in the one spot that they're not supposed to park in and leave the rest free so it clearly what's there now doesn't work so I would at this point request no parking between signs one just uphill of the driveway one downhill of the driveway and that would make it very clear where you can and where you can't park I think this is going to be a repetition for Mr. because you know we did have some extensive back and forth you know what I read the minutes from 1996 and it's really black and white and the fact that it actually specifies from the sign to Irving Street tells me that apparently and I'm not questioning what was asked for but what was granted according to those minutes is a no parking here to the corner of Irving Street I'm very uncomfortable giving you know specific signage either parking here at a driveway or two signs to say when we know that the bylaws that we have already prohibit that if we do that in this case then I fear that we're setting a precedent we're going to have a lot of folks coming in here I understand there are a line of sight issues I did look at some of the pictures I mean this is obviously you make your own judgment whether some of the fencing and shrubs are creating issues as well getting out so I mean that's obviously something you have to take into account but I just don't feel comfortable with it I mean my understanding is that the no parking from here to corner sign could be moved closer to the driveway so that it wouldn't be possible to fit a vehicle in there I wouldn't have a problem with that I guess but I guess one of my questions is is there a reason to believe that by and large the folks who are parking next to your driveway are associated with the school? I think so because it's during the daytime when I'm usually not around it's mostly the school and I understand if you put a sign closer to the driveway to the parking here to corner it would eliminate the whole block from our driveway to Irving Street it's okay with me they ought to be able to but it would solve the problem and it would go a little further see this is where we have a fundamental disagreement because in my view in reading the vote that already is eliminated so we have a fundamental disagreement on that my reading is that it's no parking to the corner with Irving Street so they're not supposed to be parking there in the first place so we're not eliminating it seems to me that if this board wants to take any action on this short of asking the sign be placed closer to the driveway one thing I guess that we could do is we are the landlords of the Department of School we could just contact our two tenants and ask them to notify their teachers and students and ask them not to park close to the driveways and as a courtesy I don't know if there's been any communication to the school asking that that over the years there has been from a lot of people in the neighborhood however I don't know that it's always the teachers I think it's a lot of the parents picking up kids last minute they park wherever they can fit I understand but we could at least we can't enforce that as landlords but we could ask them as a courtesy to notify the parent communities and notify their staff and I would just say that parking that close to your driveway or any driveway is illegal and I know photographic evidence of a lot of people doing it I really emphasize that I think the police department has expressed their readiness to come and enforce it if they're called and I think if that's done enough people start to get the message I don't know one of the can you let me call on my colleagues and then I'll come back to you again okay so read the 1996 that's they're interesting and they have bearing but at the same time I don't feel bound by them we can do we can take whatever vote we want we're not being capricious if we're changing our minds 20 years later second thought is that the the sign I think of the sign in its current form is problematic and I would definitely be supportive of a change and there's a whole range of things that I would be supportive of and I will just say as my observational comment that I that I guess I'll give two one is definitely I interpret here to corner as being here to ravine which me like as a common reader I would read it as here to ravine which I do interpret that as being implied and I would say hey there's a legal space here between this and the driveway and I'll tell you my car doesn't fit in that legal space without touching the driveway and I do not have a big car so that's kind of where that's where my thoughts are but I'm open but I don't have a very specific proposal that I'd like to make and I just excuse Adam my only concern sort of piggyback before I call on the town manager is anyone who lives in East Arlington welcome to our world if I'm not in favor of anything that says no parking from here to driveway I'd like whatever signage that goes up there it is contained in our traffic rules and order and issues like that especially with that kind of a thing because I could see all of East Arlington for community traffic parking some people just can't get into their driveways from eight to five every single day in East Arlington I know Officer Roteau has made a suggestion in here in terms of signage which is from I read it really, really quickly he said the original wording that he suggested to us that he did the research on and then I agree with Mr. Kuro regarding enforcement sort of the same belief in East Arlington we don't give anybody signs we either do a study and say no parking enforcement or we just tell them to get a call and have them come down but since there was a pre-existing sign there for many years I think this gives me the latitude that something should be up there but I'm definitely not in favor of the no parking here to driveway driver to corner I just want to say that Mr. Chapter Lane thank you Madam Chair just in the spirit of trying to problem solve and then Mr. Dunn said something that Mr. Perlos picture brought to my mind it seems like from the placement of the no parking here to corner sign people are interpreting as no parking here to Irving and they're trying to shoehorn themselves in that one not quite remaining spot and thereby pinning themselves up against your driveway so maybe keeping the no parking here to corner as was originally intended by the vote of the board the predecessor board and potentially by this board tonight maybe just moving the no parking here to corner three, four, six feet whatever that right amount is down towards the corner giving people that natural behavior to park right up to the sign and thereby leaving the proper three feet I'm not saying that's a perfect solution but it could be an interim attempt to see if it solves you said move it in which direction closer to Irving Street so that people actually have the right amount of space to park correctly you want to create one space effectively and I think that stays consistent with not giving special treatment just enforcing existing one plus the requisite three feet or so whatever that measurement would come out to so I agree with that and I think I said the last one that I am against any sign that is not by the books like you mentioned earlier and I am also very against vandalizing signs so please don't ever do that again that's just wrong but other than that I think that that solution could be an effective solution and I think that's why I'm here that kind of checks all the boxes in my mind along with enforcement yes, yes, of course motion by Mr. Verne seconded by Mr. Curell having been on the board in 1996 I have no idea what we did back then I don't know what we did but I did ask that we table this and I appreciate the extra time but I can see it's legitimate the concern and I hope that this recommendation no parking here to corner will take care of it so all those in favor say aye aye those opposed unanimous vote good to see you again thank you for your patience agenda item 16 is there anything Mr. Manager you want to take out of order I see Mr. Fields here or should I just continue on thank you for seeing oh he's for the next one okay I thought maybe he might be 18 okay agenda item 16 vote and approval cultural district resolution attorney Heim or Mr. Chapter Mr. Fields do you want to go first I'm sure perfect thank you Madam Chair thank you Ted Fields economic development planner the proposed managing partnership for the Arlington cultural district I formally request that the Board approve the resolution here before you endorsing the town's application to the Massachusetts Cultural Council for cultural district designation encompassing a stretch of land from along Mass Ave from Arlington Center to Capitol Square Mr. Carroll I would like to move to endorse the resolution and to authorize the chair to sign a cover letter to accompany this for the application packet second by second and if I could speak to it this is I think we all know what this is and this has been underway for a while and both our library director and our planning director have been involved now in this process there is on the tables there's a draft of the application it's almost complete Mr. Fields has done a lot of work on helping to gather the map coordinates the list of cultural attractions businesses etc etc so once that's pulled together to incorporate some of the public input that does have to be sent to the state that this board does need to also just include a cover letter which would just generally state the benefits which I'm more than willing to help draft if that's amenable and that's really just what I wanted to say I think you know that the three leads on the managing partnership for this are the libraries, the chamber of commerce and the Arlington Center for the arts but there are a number of other organizations that have been at the table as well both public and private for profit and non-profit it's been a great community effort and I think it's consistent with a lot of the other things that we've been efforts we've been doing here it's very exciting Mr. Grayley it's from one end of town to the next is there what's the specifics it's from I think it's from Jason Street down to Marathon I think the rough boundaries it basically runs from Mill Street and the rail trail down to Trowbridge Street down to where that more or less hits the rail trail so it encompasses Capital Square and the center up to Mill Street in spy pond park right and so a portion of the bikeway and the civic block as well yeah so you get our friends of the drama right but let me again ask why can't we include the heights well the the main criteria for designating a district is to locate or have within the district as many cultural attractions as possible in Arlington right now most of the cultural attractions are located either in the center or around Capital Square so this proposed district captures most of the town's cultural assets that doesn't mean in later years we can't designate a second district around the heights that's focused on the cultural attractions there but the mass cultural council that adjudicates these districts they generally don't like very very large districts that would encompass an entire town they want districts that are subsets of a town so in this case we went for Arlington center and Capital Square at this time and with the thought of going for a smaller heights district in later years I was there during the initial discussions this was discussed only actually as an Arlington center district because it's not just the number of cultural institutions it's also the walkability and that transition is there and that you have enough things within that space this is much larger than what mass cultural council typically approves but some of the conversations with them said that knowing our community and discussions I know that one of the people who comes out assesses because they're going to do a walking tour for this as well at some point felt that we could probably get this in so it's almost we're almost pushing the limits right now that's one thing but the other thing to note is when a cultural district application is made you can take into account activities and institutions that are outside of the district if they're contributing to what's going on within it so for example we have partnered with old Schwann Mill they have come in that actually hosted some of the initial meetings on this so it does incorporate the rest of the community and the actual bounds of the map are within a distinct area so Conker just got their second one just sorry Mr. Gurley my only question would be when it talks about appointing a town official or officials to work with the what is it managing partnership with the cultural district do you envision that individual or individuals to be current staff or is this something that we would need additional staff and if so have we already kind of considered that in the budget or I'd consider to be current staff existing staff okay any further questions if not an emotion by Mr. Curel made by Mr. Dunn and then I heard Mr. Burns sorry all those in favor say aye all those opposed unanimous vote thank you thanks for being so patient with us agenda item 17 I said I'm twice there endorsement of the scenic byway grant Mr. Chapter Lang thank you Madam Chair this is simply asking the board to endorse the scenic byway committee which is the partnership between Lexington Concord Lincoln and the Minuteman National Park accepting this $5,000 grant and signing on to the MOU that was attached to the agenda item in the heritage area discussed it with actually Ted and Clarissa Rowe who's the town's representative on the scenic byway committee and just thought it would be appropriate to both bring it to the board's attention and ask for endorsement of accepting the grant and signing on to the MOU so moved moved by Mr. Burns second by Mr. Dunn any further discussion or questions if not all those in favor say aye all those unanimous vote our colleague Mr. Curell request use of Jefferson Cutter House Lawn oh okay this is pretty straight forward as you know the tourism economic development committee has the visitor center however because of the Arlington Safe travel project that area Uncle Sam Plaza is fenced off for the summer until September so you'll call that before the visitor center building was there that a Ted had actually on some weekends had a tent set up in the Jefferson Cutter Lawn and run a smaller operation they're requesting permission during the summer to do the same they typically operate Sundays and Sundays from 10 to 4 when there's not a conflict with another event that we have approved so moved moved by Mr. Burns seconded by Mr. Greely discussion if not all those in favor say aye those opposed unanimous vote thank you Mr. Curell agenda item 19 discussing regarding block party applications Mr. Dunn I've got an interested constituent who was persistent in getting this one onto my radar to get it onto the agenda they run an annual block party and they can simply never get 100% of the people to sign because of summer travel that so I actually there's a proposal in there that says 90% I'm actually going to make the motion right now I'm going to actually move 80% approval and so I would note that I did see that officer was concerned about it I guess I'm not sure that he noted some of the details of it because he said he was concerned that not everyone would be notified the intent of this is that it's 100% notification and the way we're going to affect that is we're going to change the application the application used to be just a list of all applicants and now what it's going to be a list of all butters must sign it now what I'm saying is we're going to have one person who is like the designated leader of the block party who's seeking the approval and they have to promise that they have tried to reach everybody and they have to get signatures from 80% I just want to explore what that means a little bit and so that means if you're trying to do a dead end street where there's five houses you'll be able to sign it if it's seven so six out of seven seven out of eight eight out of ten and that means nine out of eleven so on and so forth all the way through 12 out of 14 and so I think about my dead end street which has 15 houses we don't do a block party but if we were one of my neighbors literally leaves a memorial day and doesn't come back to a labor day they don't care whether or not there's one this manages the fairness aspects of the neighbors but I'm so moved by Mr. Dunn, seconded by Mr. Curell, Mr. Byrne so I think I do understand the intent here of this change one thing that did stick out in Officer Ratau's letter to me where say someone is moving or there is they already have like a family graduation party plan that's going to take up however much it's like, you know, something like that I've been trying to find I don't know if I had the exact thing but adding some sort of line about extenuating circumstances that would be you know, potentially that's one neighbor who doesn't sign off and that's because they have they have something else going on in their property that day would that be covered in this new policy it definitely the intent certainly was just to say that the person who's organizing it has to certify that there were no objections and so hypothetically that person in my mind the way it would work is that person says look you can't do it that day and as soon as one of the neighbors says you can't do it that day that does still serve as an effective veto because I'm asking the leader to say I have no objections and I talk to everybody and if we want to beef that language up to make that a little bit stronger so that's a little bit clearer I'm totally fine with that because it's putting it another way that thing that you're saying about if there is a neighbor who doesn't want it to be that day because they're moving because they're doing family party whatever that person has the right to stop the party under both the old policy and the proposed and we would still under this new we the board like our office would still be notifying and getting in touch with the neighbors like after because we don't sign off on these right so in my mind the way this works is that the leader someone walks in and they say hey I want to do a block party and then Marie and Marianne and Fran say okay here's your application you have to talk to absolutely every single person and you have to get signatures you have to try to get signatures from all of them and they're going to come back with 80% or 90% of the signatures and Marie and Marianne are going to say so no one said no right and you talked to every single person right they're going to say yes and then they're going to say okay make sure you sign and say that you said that and then it's going to go forward and in my mind that process is going to work just fine we're very trustworthy here yeah well yeah Mr. Greeley then Attorney Hyatt I was just going to so let's say it was on your dead end street for permission to block the street or you can you get permission to do the party the way we've been running block party so far is that it doesn't actually come to the board it gets improved in the office no I know I'm wondering whether you're I wasn't planning on trying to change that now okay thank you Attorney Hyatt and then did you want to go first? I just wanted to note that your experience negotiating the minute man agreement comes through here Attorney Hyatt I just want to note that Mr. Dunn's proposal creates two separate conditions first is the 100% of budding residents in the street area have been notified and none objected and then the second is 90% of the budding residents in the street area affirm positively their support 80 so I do think as it's written I do agree with Mr. Dunn it's a matter of making sure that it's communicated that these are two separate requirements that one is everybody's been notified none of those folks objected and then secondly as an additional condition that 80% have also said not only do we not object we support it so with those two separate conditions needed to be met I think that you've satisfied the concern of that one person saying I really don't we can't do it this weekend I am comfortable with that but reading through that I just wanted to make sure here okay an emotion by Mr. Dunn seconded by Mr. Carroll and changing and number 4 90 to 80% all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed unanimously vote thank you all correspondence received notice of MEPA common extension period is there a motion to receive by Mr. Burns seconded by Mr. Curell any questions comments if not all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed we now will go to new business Mrs. Cropelka Attorney Hyme no new business just two brief pieces of new business Madam Chair first Chief Ryan who was with us tonight has actually been asked to testify at Homeland Security and Government Affairs on a hearing the topic of which is called America's insatiable demand for drugs examining potential solutions so with his work and the department's work on Arlington acts and all of the various anti-opiate initiatives that they've undertaken it's actually risen to the level of the Chief Testifying before U.S. Senate so I was blown away and impressed and I thought it was worth sharing with the Board of Selectments to go to Washington to do that so I thought that was again noteworthy also wanted to mention some of you have probably been tuned in and I think some of you may have attended the first meeting Mass Ave Phase 2 conceptual design moves forward we had the visioning session in town hall we then did the walk shop along Mass Ave several weeks ago and the initial report out will be on June 16th so just not much longer at all here in town hall we'll do a report out on everything that the consultants have heard put that into a conceptual plan they'll tend to take more feedback from those attendance and come back in the fall with a final conceptual plan so it's been well participated, well attended so far and I think it's pretty exciting of what we can do in Arlington Center so if you're able to make it on the 16th I think that would be a nice event and that's all I have for new business Mr. Barre? Nothing too crazy I do just want to congratulate all of the high school seniors at both AC and Arlington High and wish them well in all their future endeavors in particular two of my little cousins who graduated from Arlington High and we're very proud of them so thank you I was going to say can you still call them No I can't particularly because one of them was about six inches tall Mr. Carroll? I was also going to congratulate the high school graduates and just make another one last plea that for the sake of future classes at Arlington High and Minuteman that voters come out a week from tomorrow June 14th and give affirmative votes on the three dead exclusion questions that will be before them Mr. Dunn I'm going to say the same thing as Joe and say that we are aggressively looking for volunteers for the get out the vote campaign as Madam Chair knows full well so buildarlingtonfuture.org and please sign up we need a lot of volunteers to get out the vote to get these questions approved That's right and that will be June 14th polls open at 7am 8pm our next meeting will be June 20th I believe 2016 with that it will take a motion to adjourn by Mr. Carroll seconded by Mr. Burn all those in favor say aye those opposed unanimously vote good night Arlington