 Welcome, everybody, to the Board of Selection Meeting for Monday, February 10th. Before we get started, I wanted to call for a moment of silence for the passing of a major figure in Arlington's history. Ed Burns has passed away. Teacher, coach, husband, and father. 50 years of coaching in the High School Arlington High football and hockey. He was inducted into the Massachusetts High School hockey college famed, and he's considered the Dean of Hockey Coaches here in Massachusetts. And of course, we have our rink named after him because it recognizes contribution to the town. And he's going to be missed. So a moment of silence, please. Thank you all. First up on our agenda is the Consent Agenda. We have the minutes of the meeting of January 27th, 2014, and a reappointment of the Board of Youth Services, Joan Larrick. Let's see, Joan here. OK. Do we have a motion? Will the approval second? Motion is second. I do have one amendment for the minutes underneath Nuke. And I apologize for not catching this before the meeting to circulate. But under Duke Business, it was the Arlington Housing Corporation. Yeah. The manual meeting that I went to, and Mary Ann's got that. So the board. Yeah. With that amendment, are there any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right, next up is, oh no, sorry, is Michael Stern here? We're going to do that, I think, real quick before we talk about Miniman. So I'm pulling number three up. We have an appointment to the Vision 2020 Standing Committee. Michael, could you come on up to the microphone? And we've had your application or your resume and stuff like that. Could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're thankfully volunteering for this position? Yeah. I hope I can summarize it well. I have two kids at Brackett. I've lived in town for 13 years. Casual conversation amongst parents drew into the desire to start meeting. As we got together, we figured we'd want to talk a little bit more. Had another meeting last summer. Met with Jeff Thielman. Where should we go from here, Jeff? And he had a couple of ideas bumped into the co-chair of Vision 2020 Mary Harrison. Notice that there was not a Vision 2020 education group. She said, Mike, would you want to chair it? I said, sure. Made a presentation. Kathy Bote was there. Had a number of ideas that we wanted to pursue. People seemed to like it. And that's the genesis. Excellent. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Kevin? Thank you very much for your willingness to serve and take initiative. Makes a big difference. Thanks. Absolutely. Thank you. Is there a motion? I move approval. Second. Motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Thank you very much. Next up, we are going to go back to number two. We're going to talk about school regional agreement. We have a combination of myself, town manager, and Charlie Foskin. And so we have in our packets, just so we have the proposed, we have, of course, the existing regional agreement with the Minuteman. We have a red line version of what the changes are. And we have a two page summary of some of the changes. And in particular, so the Minuteman School Committee has recommended approval of this new regional agreement by a vote of 13 to 3, which is to say that it's coming before a town meeting for us to approve. And so we're going to hold an official hearing about that at a later date, like a warrant article hearing. However, Charlie served for Arlington on the regional agreement committee for many months through the summer and fall. And he's being asked to make public statements about this draft regional agreement. And what he asked, and I think made a lot of sense, was that he did not want to be out in front of us. And he didn't want to be saying things that, you know, Arlington wasn't likely to support as a whole. And so while we've had regular meetings with the town manager of groups, including Steve DeCorsi from the Finance Committee, Laura Morissette, who's our representative on Minuteman, we've had some conversations with Tony Lianetta, who's on the Minuteman School Building Committee, Charlie myself, Al Tosti, Adam. So there's been a lot of communication. In Charlie's opinion, and I completely agree, it was right for the board to consider, talk about it, make sure that, and then kind of give Charlie the green light to go do what he had to do. So that's all framing what I think we should talk about or what the changes are here. And I want, at the end, I would hope to take the board's temperature and get a general agreement that we've been proceeding in the right direction and we should continue to do so. So all that said, Adam or Charlie? I think I'll, if Charlie's comfortable, defer to Charlie to walk through the work of the Regional Agreement Task Force. Thank you for coming, Charlie. I know you're double booked. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the board, thank you, Adam. Just like to touch on three things here. First of all, a brief history of the agreement for those of you who may not remember it or may not have been around when it was first started. I'd like to briefly touch on five principal areas where the agreements proposed to be changed and then what the Regional Agreement Subcommittee has recommended and what the school committee has supported. First of all, you may recall that the agreement was first crafted in 1970, that's 44 years ago, and it's almost universally considered a very complex situation and sometimes described in somewhat worse terms. It's been modified three times, once changing the budget year, once permitting new members in 1979. And then in 1980, the school committee members' terms of office were adjusted. In the last three years, prompted by actions of the Arlington Town Meeting and the Board of Selectment related to the proposal to come up with a new capital project for the Minuteman School District, there has been a general movement and study towards revising the agreement. I believe that the board sent a letter to the school district requesting that the agreement be revised and improved. About a year ago, the Minuteman School Committee formed the Regional Agreement Amendment Subcommittee called RAS, R-A-A-S, and Laura Marset and I both served on that. We worked on this from about March until October. In October, the committee came up with a revised agreement. It was subsequently revised again, both by suggestions of the Minuteman School Committee and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, D-E-S-E, at the state. And that agreement, as revised, by recommended by the Minuteman School Committee and the D-E-S-E is what's before you in those packets tonight. The five areas where the agreement's been changed are generally in the subject of weighted voting, admitting new membership, the capital cost allocation, an exit path from the agreement, and incurring debt. These are all pretty complicated subjects. I'm not gonna go into all of the detail, but let me just say that the first one in the area of weighted voting, for most school committee matters now, it requires 50% of a weighted vote where the weighting is proportional to the student population in the district. And in budget matters, it requires two-thirds of the weighted vote. Now, since Arlington provides 33% or 35% of the students, this is actually a provision that's quite beneficial to Arlington in terms of influencing the committee. With respect to incurring debt, it requires two-thirds of the Minuteman School Committee plus following the general law, Chapter 71, Section 16D, and we'll talk about that in a minute, in three-quarters of the non-weighted vote to amend the agreement or to admit new members. And when I say, and also not just the three-quarters of the non-weighted vote of the school committee, but also three-quarters of the communities in the membership. With respect to new membership, and by the way, prior to the existing agreement requires unanimity on almost every subject. And consequently, it's very hard to get things done because there's 16 members in the district and they don't always agree. Under the proposed agreement, three-quarters of the member communities could accept new members into the district, which is good because we need new members to absorb the increasing costs of building and operations. And having more students in a building or in a district that was originally designed for 1,100 students and now has about 500 is an important consideration. And in the new agreement, the Minuteman School Committee can negotiate a ramp of capital costs with incoming members so that they ramp from zero to full capital burden over a period of about four years. And this was set up to encourage new members to enter the district agreement. The area of capital cost allocation is a major change and this has substantially benefited Arlington. First of all, in the recommended agreement, each community is supposed to pay 1% of the debt service for any capital costs. So that means that 16% of the cost is spread equally over all of the towns. Then 50% is based on student population derived from a four-year weighted average. And then the balance is based on something called combined effort yield, which is a state metric related to wealth population and the DESC foundation budget. So you have three components really, a fixed assessment for each town, population, and then something that's tied to wealth, which will tend to help communities that aren't quite as wealthy as other communities. Arlington, it turns out, comes out pretty well in this arrangement on a, if we assume something like a 35 or $40 million capital program, if that debt were to be incurred, Arlington would come out $200,000 or $300,000 a year better than under the prior arrangement. So that's a pretty good improvement. Okay, so now we have to get into the complicated part of this. First of all, one of the problems in the current, well, it depends on who you talk to, but some people think one of the problems in the current agreement is that there's no way for the town to exit the agreement. Arlington, unless this agreement is amended, Arlington is in it for life, unless 15 other towns agree that Arlington could leave. Under the proposed agreement, a town could exit based on a three-year notice. If the town, if its town meeting so votes, and if a majority of the members of the district do not disapprove, this is, in other words, 50% would have to hold, more than 50% would have to hold town meetings and disapprove of the exit. And also, the commissioner of education gets a veto so that if the commissioner of education does not approve, the town could also exit. And any community that withdraws from the district still has to pay its debt service from prior years. Whatever debt has been occurred, well, it has been an active member. So in principle, this benefits Arlington. But in practice, it probably doesn't because being the largest community in the district, it's unlikely that the other communities would allow Arlington to exit, and it's also unlikely that the commissioner of education would permit Arlington to exit because we're carrying so much of the operating cost. The last section is related to the exit strategy and this is the proposed new rules for incurring debt. These, by, this is where the education department got involved with respect to chapter 71, 16D and 16N. So in the agreement, first of all, the school committee, if it wants to incur debt, has to vote by a two-thirds vote to hold a petition under 16D. 16D requires the district to go out to all 16 towns and get each town meeting member to vote to incur the debt, say for a capital project. And it requires unanimous approval under the law. If one of the communities votes against it, then they can't go forward with the debt under 16D. But there's another provision under 16N where the school committee can call for a referendum throughout the entire district. And under that referendum, if a majority of the voters in the district who vote vote for the capital expenditure, it can be, it can go forward. Now, there is a way under the proposed agreement for a town to avoid these capital costs if it opposes the capital project for which the debt's being incurred. So, first of all, the town has to vote no under the 16D provision. In other words, veto the initial application. And secondly, the voters in the town, a majority of the voters in the town have to have voted against the incurring of the debt in the referendum. And under those conditions, if the town meeting, I told you this was complicated, if the town meeting votes to withdraw from the district, the town can then withdraw from the district, provided all the other towns don't oppose it, the majority of the other towns don't oppose it, or the commissioner doesn't oppose it. Here's the hook. If the other member towns refuse to let this town out, it's met all the previous conditions, or the commissioner refuses to let the town out. The town has to stay in the agreement, but it doesn't have to pay the capital's debt service costs. Now, I realize that's all pretty complicated, but it is a way for Arlington to meander through a very complicated pattern if we are forced to, or if it looks like we're gonna be forced to incur a capital expenditure that the town meeting, or the Board of Selection, or whoever in the town should be, might be opposing. So those are the five major changes. In very general terms, you can read the 12 or 15 pages of detail that you have there. After all of these meetings since last spring, the regional agreement amendment subcommittee voted in favor of the general proposal that I just described to you, and as Chairman Dunn mentioned a couple of minutes ago, the Minuteman School Committee also voted in favor of that. There are a couple of loose ends that are still being cleaned up in the documents, but I don't think there's anything that's substantial in the career. But we'll be going out to the various town meetings in the spring. It requires 100% vote of the 16 communities in order to get this agreement revised. So I hope that gives you a little bit of background information. I'm personally in favor of supporting this agreement, and I hope that there might be some consensus at least at this point before it goes to town meeting to support the district in this. I think it's not a perfect agreement. I think there are probably things that could be better, but it's a better agreement than we have now because there are some of these changes that I have just described to you. Thank you very much. Questions, Kevin? So thank you, Charlie, for your efforts on behalf of the town as always. When you said it takes two thirds of the committee, is that a weighted two thirds, or that's two thirds of the 16, and your answer's gonna be it varies depending on the issue? Yes. Are you referring with incurring debt? Right, I'm not sure. You had said two thirds of the committee. In the weighted vote for most matters before the committee, let's say paint the building or hire somebody or something like that, requires 50% of the weighted vote. For the budget approval, annual budget approval, it requires two thirds of a weighted vote. But incurring debt in other aspects are governed by state law and they require either two thirds or three quarters of the member vote. Number of communities. Okay, thank you. I move receipt and approval, was that the proper? Whatever is, the chairman's. I guess I would, if the board is comfortable, I know Joe has a question at least too, I get to die in two. If the board was comfortable, I think I'd prefer us to take a slightly more positive affirmation of the direction of this, but only if the board so chose. So that's what I saw move, and we'll come up with the wording of it at the end and see whether the rest of the board agrees. Okay, is there a second? Yeah, I'll second that. Thank you very much. This is one of the first rays of light that I've seen on this whole issue. I mean, I think we've all been, all of us have sat at town meeting and struggled with this over the years. I mean, we've recognized this as a problem, and as I've thought about it, it's a lot like the problem the country faced when we were first founded, the issue between large states and small states, and how do you fairly apportion representation, and as I thought about it, I thought, gee, a bicameral structure, that's how that was solved. That's why we have our Senate and our House of Representatives. That's obviously not practical in this case, but I think with the weighted votes and unweighted votes, depending on the situation, I think we've come pretty close to addressing that, and that's why I'm very excited about that, that it's a very creative approach to the problem. I think the approach to the capital costs, it actually has two benefits. One is not forcing a community to take on debt that it chooses not to take on, but also, I guess there is a hope, and you can confirm if this is correct or not, that there'll be a slight incentive potentially for some nonmember communities to sign up if they don't have to swallow all capital costs right from day one, because they're slid in over four years. That's why the regional agreements, giving the school committee the opportunity to negotiate with these potentially new members. Yeah, and that's great, and also the use of the four-year rolling enrollments also prevents large fluctuations. So these are some of the aspects of the agreement that I really like. One concern I have about what's transpired so far is, and I think we've discussed this a little bit at long-range planning, but three communities voted against this agreement. Is there a sense that they are going to go to their town meetings and ask that the town meetings vote it down, or is there a sense that they may seek to initiate exit from the district? I really can't answer that. I've heard that one of the votes against it was somewhat benevolent. I don't know about the other two. Okay. I would add, similarly maybe the same community I've heard that they would more than likely vote to try to approve the agreement and then move to withdraw based on the size, the number of students that they sent and that would be a better situation for them. The other two I'm not sure about. Right, and obviously the withdrawal would be easier once the agreement was approved. Great, thank you very much. Thank you. Just following up on that and then I have a different question. You may have said this and I apologize. The three communities who voted against are? Boxborough, Weston and Sudbury. Sudbury. Okay, I only have one question and I'm just trying to understand it, so I may misspeak along the way and I'm focusing around incurring debt and I'm mostly reading what's in section seven and what I'm looking for is solely on behalf of the town of Wellington in terms of incurring debt. I wanna make sure the steps that Mr. Fosk get outlined that I'm understanding correctly as well as do any of these steps trigger something else legally for us, Arlington Relief. From what I understand for incurring debt, we follow under Mass General Law 71, section 16D and then you cited section 16N and then the way I read it from that, the only other resource for us is to go up to section four which is to get out of the Man School District. My question is just on behalf of Arlington at the point of perhaps going along section D and saying no going along section N and saying no, is there any mediation, any step that we could take besides the fact that our last step is to try to get out of the Man School District which I don't see happening but is there anything legally that a saying no to D or to N, there's any recourse for us, there's any mediation or is that just not really charted? I'm probably not saying it correctly. I think the mediation takes place at the school committee level. I mean, we are a member of the district agreement and I'm sure that the subject is gonna be well debated at both steps. The agreement requires the school committee to first do 16D, if towns veto that, then I'm sure that will create additional discussion at the school committee level. So I think the subject will be well aired but I don't know that there's anything specifically with respect to mediation. I mean, I think that's a legal term. All right, I'll leave it to others. I'm seeing we have those two options, those two pathways and they end somewhere else. I was just wondering if sometimes in the legal world something triggers something else but it sounds like it's covered, it's going to be discussed extensively and again, if we go down those roads we may find some other avenue. But I'm in support of, I'm glad I don't have to represent this in all the forums and venues that Mr. Fosk has and I wanna thank Mr. Chappelline and Mr. Dunn for all the work they've done on this and I will look to the chairman's guidance in terms of a vote that you suggest and Mr. Grayley. Okay, Steve? Yeah, I just have a couple of quick questions. Again, thank you for everything you did on this, Charlie. So if we don't support this, we're essentially stuck with our former bad deal as opposed to this deal, that's a little bit better. If a single community doesn't support it, we have the existing deal. Yeah, so that right there, I state my support for this off the bat. And with the new process of maybe making it easier for new members to come in, under the old process were members being denied, do you know, or new members that would have potentially come into the district? Well, first of all, required unanimous vote to get new members in and secondly, required unanimous vote to get for someone to leave. Now, there was one of our meetings, one of our meetings was attended by superintendent from one of the local cities who were contemplating joining the district and the comment that that person made at the meeting was, would you join a country club that you couldn't get out of? Okay, I mean, in other words, that's a deterrent for joining if you could never make a decision for whatever reason to leave. Maybe your student population goes down, maybe you have some other choices or whatever. And essentially how I would see it that larger communities wouldn't wanna join the district because then they'd be like us stuck with a heavier cost of the capital costs and all the other. Well, if larger communities join the district, they won't have the same burden as Arlington because by definition, let's say there are three big towns there now, Arlington, Luxington, and... Belmont. If there's a fourth town that joins, instead of the burden being carried three ways, it's carried four ways. So the more, if we get two or three other communities to join, that will reduce the financial burden. We can hope. Thank you, Charlie. I just have one comment, which is I think related to your question, Dianne, about what the recourse would be during the noes. And I think, so Charlie walked us down very correctly the path of what if things aren't working, how does Arlington preserve its rights, which is to say no over and over again. And if we say no over and over again, then we do not have to pay. And so it's very important because under other proposals and like, for instance, in the current operational budget, we can say no as much as we want, but we're still obligated to pay. So, but I think it is good, I think, for us to think about like the rosy side of this and like if it actually, you know, so we passed this regional agreement, two or three towns drop out because it's not for them anymore because they're too small. We get two or three big towns or cities to come in. We get, we take the output of the feasibility study that's in progress right now. It's of a reasonable size. Arlington looks at it and the state's funding it on the right level. We put forward, you know, hypothetically, a debt exclusion override on the ballot. We get that approval because we know what's coming because the school committee's talking about us, they're talking to us about it. Then they put forth their proposal in under 16D. Arlington and the other towns approve it. You know, that's like the rosy scenario. That's where, you know, we have a good school, we've got a good process, we've got a good price and we're happy with it. And so that's where we hope we'll be. But if we're not there, and if you have 15 towns, we're trying to build a $500 million school, you know, I picked arbitrarily at the outrageous large number, then we have a way out. Did I say that fairly? Do you think Charlie? I think so. Yes, Joe. I did want to note one other thing that's a point that's in the grand scheme of this whole agreement, it's probably the most minor point that there is, but to my colleagues and all the moderators here, I do notice in the agreement that if this is adopted, the appointing authority for the school committee members of the Minuteman School Committee will shift from moderators to boards of select men. Did I read this correctly? Not exactly. It has to be so voted by town meeting. It's an option. Some towns express the interest. Okay, I guess I misread it. Unlike Arlington, some towns may not be satisfied with their moderators. You want to flip for it, Mr. Moderator? If I'm a community that only has one or two students in that school, I can't imagine why I would possibly vote for this. I'm just curious, what's the hook for them? That they can get out of it now? Well, okay, first of all, if they only have one or two students, because there's a 1% minimum capital allocation, they're gonna be paying, their cost per student's gonna go up. So with the right of exit, they could petition the school, the member towns to exit the agreement in, you know, if they have one or two students, probably most of the towns are not gonna object. And they could then exit the agreement and attend on a tuition basis. And so if their students go up, they could send a few more. If they don't have any students, they don't have to send them, and they don't have to be burdened with additional costs. But that 1% is part of this new agreement. Yes, correct. So again, why are they encouraged to increase their costs? Good salesmanship. I think the answer is, Kevin, because they need to be out of this as much as anything. They need a path forward and they know that Arlington and Belmont have made it quite clear that we're not gonna do capital. And so if you're sitting there sending one here, they know that this is a situation that doesn't work either. But I do think that you're right, that we run a real risk, that they won't say yes. Yeah, I wonder whether our side is presented at their town meeting, some stuff. I think the school district and Dr. McQuillan are making a reasonable attempt to educate all of the towns and they will be doing that over the next several months. So what's my motion, Mr. Chairman? I think you should say that we support this draft regional agreement going forward, which is different from the vote that we're gonna take for the, because we'll get a second bite at this when we actually have our public hearing, but for the purposes of this, I think we should vote to support this draft proposal. So moved. Second. So okay, Joe. Is there any further discussion? Just a, all right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Five-zero. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Citizens open forum is next. Except in unusual circumstances, any matter presented for consideration of the board shall neither be acted upon nor decision made the night of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which the open forum was established. It should be noted that there is a three minute time limit to present a concern or request. Before I actually even look at the audience, I will say that we, at the last meeting, I probably let the discussion under citizens open forum run longer than I would have chosen. I would have preferred to us to hear it and move it along faster. And so should that happen, should we get another one or something like that, I'm gonna make an effort as the chair to keep it shorter and move it along faster. And so I just wanted to acknowledge my error and tell you what I was planning should it happen again. So that said, is there anyone here? Come on down. Who wishes to speak? So many people and no one wanted to talk to us. For the hearings. They're safe. Maybe we need Mr. Leone's clock for this. All right, next up request. Two spaces on street overnight parking at 24 North Street from Tammy and Gary Collagian. Are they here? Could you come on up to the microphone please? And just so people know what we have in front of us. We have your application for the spaces. Related to you're on a dead end street and you've got a problem with the driveway and we have a positive recommendation from the police department on this. So just share us briefly what's in your application. Okay, we'll try to make it as quick as possible. I'm Gary Collagian, my wife Tammy. We built the house eight or 10 years ago. There was a lot of back and forth between conservation committee and the building department. They really didn't agree. Didn't really talk to each other very much. Where we wanted the garage, building department gave us permission to tear it down and build a new one. We tore it down and they said, oh, we sorry we made a mistake. Can't put it back. So conservation said, well, put it over there. They said put it over there and they did a lot of that for eight months while we paid our mortgage building department and zoning finally said put it underneath the house. We put it exactly where they want it. It put us six inches below the water table. Well, the new water table that FEMA put up. So now our flood insurance went from 400 to 4,000 a year. And we can't get our cars over the hump that they made us put in. So we took out her catalytic converter in the process of going over the hump that cost us 1,200 bucks. So when we parked the car, I've got pictures for you if you want to see them. We got them in the, we have them in our packet. Yeah. When we try to get the car over the hump, her car doesn't fit. My little orange one in the front of that fits because it's real small, but we get stuck in the driveway. So I've got a beautiful garage in a nice driveway that I can't really use. So we get ticketed. I maintain the end of the street. This is my contractor that helped us build the house. He came in, he was there when they gave us permission and then took it away. He's seen me out there. I take care of the street because the town, no offense, dumps pile of snow into the wetland, which is apparently against the law. So I go and shovel it out onto the sides. And we're stuck with, I don't know where to park. And when I come out in the morning and I've got $50 a day into parking tickets, it gets a little frustrating. And I don't know where to go. I didn't want the driveway there. I still don't want it there, but they didn't seem to really care too much. Move approval. We have a motion. Can I just be clear on what you are requesting? Yeah. I could cry. I'm so sorry. If I gave you the rest of the story, you would have put the first contractor in jail for five years. I'm ready to kill myself now. I'm sorry for the difficulties. But specifically for two spaces at this dead end, is that okay? And you were able to turn around and all of that. Oh yeah. Second. Motion to second. Further conversation discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. 5-0. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So this was easy at least, huh? Yeah, that was the first part of the process. Thank you. Good luck. Thanks for living in Arlington. Next up, we have a request for a stop sign at Longfellow Road and Highland Avenue. Highland is the more major street and the stop sign on Longfellow Westbound. It appears that perhaps it should have been there. Maybe it was there. No one knows for sure. And we have a request from parking to put it up. Move approved. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. 5-0. I would like to note that this request came from a web Q&A, which I like to know this as well. And I appreciate the time for holding that. That is a good one. Next up, Mystic Street Crosswalk. We received as a board an email from a citizen who was looking to have a crosswalk put up on Mystic Street, also known as Route 3. And we've circulated that to the Transportation Advisory Committee's leadership and the parking department, the Corrie Recall. And we got back negative recommendations from both of them specifically in relation to the Safe Roots to Schools map and how they had actually evaluated this already. And they felt that they'd made the right decision before and there wasn't a lot of appetite to bring it back up. So is there a motion? Yeah, or? Move no action. The motion of no action from Mrs. Mohan. And I think the chairman correctly, succinctly stated that TAC back in 2008 conducted extensive surveys over many days and supplied us with all sorts of data, which I would ask that we can get a copy of this too. Mr. David Bonchak, as well as our police departments. And I don't see any of their recommendations changing over the course of time. So I'll second the motion. Motion to second. Is there further discussion? I'm wondering if he was here. Good question. Oh, would you like to speak further? If you are, come on up to the mic and if you're, please, thank you. I apologize for not asking. I should have asked if you were here. That's okay. Yeah, my name is David Bonchak. So I just sent this email, obviously, board of directors. I was not aware of any earlier assessment, I guess. This came out of just normal neighborhood discussions. I walked the kids pretty much to school every day. We tried to not get killed up there and that's sometimes tough. People try every way to obviously hit us on that street. So that was pretty much the request. I talked to obviously lots of neighbors whose kids are also walk up there and they would be obviously very much in favor of it. But if there is an assessment already by the Transportation Advisory Committee, we'd love to see it, what their assessment was in 2008. If it all still holds up in 2014 today, then it is what it is. Great, I think that's right. Do you want to grab this, this is just, so Marianne would be happy to forward it to you electronically but now you've got the paper for the moment. Why don't I, I could just give you the whole phone. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Thank you for sending the letter. We appreciate it. Unfortunately, we don't always see, yes. Okay, so we've hit my favorite time of the whole year. Which is more article hearings for town meetings. Of course, this is the first time I've ever chaired this board while we're doing that. So any feedback or guidance about if I step on the other's toes or don't cover what we should, I'm definitely happy to listen. We have tonight, we're gonna talk about articles 11, 13, 14, 15, 19, 25 and 54. Though I know that our town manager has asked that we table article 25 which I think we should be okay with but at the same time we are on a deadline that we have to get our board printed so we can't table everything forever but at the same time this one just wasn't quite ready and it made it onto our list. So, first up is article 11, by-law amendment town meeting electronic voting. Our moderator, John Leone and Adam Oster who's a member of the electronic voting subcommittee. Committee? Yes. Welcome. Well, thank you. We are on behalf of the electronic voting subcommittee which consists of Adam, Eric, Eric Hellman, myself, Wes B. Aloli-Chaffet and Elizabeth Patton. This, who's first? We're doing 11. 11, that's the by-law amendment. We, Adam, discovered after we passed our by-laws last year how we're gonna display a technical issue that we may have to display too much and he's gonna explain the issue and our fix so we can make the meeting more like we envisioned when we vote by-law, so. Okay, thank you. As you probably know, there is still a provision for roll call votes in the electronic system where 30 members rise. Only instead of calling the roll, we display the vote precinct by precinct. We think it'll take minute, minute and a half to do. And that's so that people can verify to see that the vote was accurately recorded. We do the same thing when the vote's really close. And the purpose of that is to deter and detect error and fraud and also to sort of promote confidence in the integrity of the vote. The current definition of what a close vote is, is based on the difference between the yeses and the noes. So if you've got 51 yeses and 49 noes, it falls within that parameter and triggers this provision automatically. It's a pretty intuitive and clear definition and it happens to be wrong, unfortunately. The problem is that if that were the vote, 51 to 49, but it were a vote on a by-law amendment where two-thirds vote is required, so that's not remotely close, actually. But the provision, the way it's written, would still require this display, would still trigger this and it wouldn't actually kick in for votes that really are close. 6733, for example. So the correct definition is based not on the difference between the yeses and the noes, but on the margin of success of the prevailing side. The definition that we propose in the by-law amendment that's before you would flag the six closest votes that are clustered around and including the very closest outcomes. On the very last page of the handout that you have are sort of four hypothetical votes that I hope show that clearly, the closest possible outcomes are the very, very boldest and then clustered around each of them are six that would be flagged under this rule and the four cases show two-thirds votes and even numbers of votes and odd numbers of votes and we are confident this time that this new criteria for the rule would apply to any kind of majority that might come up. So this is a correction, it's not a change, we're not trying to do something new, we're trying to fix something. I hope my presentation's clear enough and I just wanted to suggest that whether it's through renumbering or some other mechanism that we might want to bring this up before the zoning by-laws which are the two-thirds votes that will be coming up. It wouldn't take effect on next year anyways. Sorry? Oh, it wouldn't take effect on next year anyways. Oh really, okay. It's approved by the AG. Oh, good point, thank you. Can we recommend favorable action? Second. Motion to second, Dan? Point of clarification or identification or whatever, I just want to make sure that if what's going from Attorney Hine to Town Meeting on Article 11, I just would ask at the bottom of page three where it says six-inch rule, I think that just should be six. You have the... No, it's not, that's a quote, the quote difference between the yes and no. If it's a quote, then you have quotes on both sides. How should that six appear? Right now it looks like six-inch rule. If somebody could just correct that in-house. What we're asking to do to make it clear is just delete the entire last sentence of the current by-law and substitute an entire new sentence instead of trying to amend what's in there, just throw the old one out, put this new one in, which you'll see. Okay, so what's... The individual vote shall always be displayed at the margin of success. For veiling side calculated by subtracting the smallest number needed, veiling side number, it's less than three. What page is that on? I'm sorry. That's page three. Page three at the bottom. Page three at the bottom. Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, sorry, as it says three. All right. If you want that. So everything from example on is up. Okay, all right. All right, no, no, I start there. It was... It was immediate look at that line. That's fine. If it's struck out then I... And then I'm just wondering, and maybe you said what this was. You talked to... Talks in here, and maybe this is also being struck out that rules defined in terms of a mathematical condition less than three in relation to a specific number. My question is, what is that formula right there? Is it if there's 100 to 101 vote, 67 to a 33 vote something is times three? No, no, think of it as a spread. Okay. We gotta beat the spread, which is less than three. Okay. If it's a spread is three or less, we're gonna display. All right. I get it. The spread of the vote is less than three displayed. All the three, we don't have to display. I only ask, because in case someone asked me to explain, that's the only reason. Thank you. I get that easy, because I usually beat the spread, so I can do that. That's how we have to think about it. Any further? Doug, do you have enough information? All right. And he, turning on, can call me and Adam, and we'll work it out with him. We're breaking him in, so I have to make sure that we give him all the information. Yeah. We'll treat him nice this year. Good. I've got enough. Thanks. Good. Any further discussion? All those in favor of favorable action on article, recommending favorable action article, I'm gonna say aye. Aye. Aye. Oh, did you know what? I screwed something up. Is there anybody else who wants to speak on this article? This is a public hearing. See, I told you I haven't done this before. No, you caught yourself. Yeah. All right, let's do this vote again. I apologize. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, five-zero. Thank you. Mr. Chair, could I suggest that we take 54 also? The Vice-Chair already suggested that. Oh, did he? You can catch me when I don't catch it. Let's talk about article 54. Well, again, on behalf of the electronic study voting committee, we got, last year we got approval for to rent the system for one year. We sent out a request for proposals. The town manager did it. They got back two proposals. The committee went over it. We made recommendations to the manager. He chose option technology and OTI. So we're gonna have OTIs guys this year to run the system. We got the approval last year to see if we like it. It's gonna be a beauty contest this year. So in order to judge the feel of the meeting, even though I hate resolutions, and I've said so many times, I wanted the resolution. So it'll give the meeting a chance to speak their mind. Do they like this? Do they think it's efficient? Do they like how it's working? Just get a good feel of the meeting and just give them a chance to speak up yes or no. That's the only format under which I thought we could do it. And then the next article, which is for the finance committee will be okay, you'll like it. Give us the money. Do you wanna buy it? Do you wanna rent it? What do you wanna do? So that was my reasoning for wanting to bring the resolution. Kevin. I assume you're gonna do it after. Yeah, that's why it's article 54, which is almost at the very end, if not the very end, and then we'll postpone the finance one until right after it. I recommend that we support the resolution, I guess, or is it a favorable action also, Doug? We're supporting the resolution or? I think we should just, we should not make a, like we should either report at town meeting or not report at all and let town meeting decide. I don't know what other people think. Are we required to make a recommended vote? You're not, no. You're not required to make a recommended vote. Oh, I don't. You're not required to. It's not as if you're taking no recommending the action item. We'll receive it. I think we can choose to print recommend, print language and then, you know what I mean? Like that someone could use to make a motion with and then let town meeting decide. All eyes are on me right now, I feel. So I move we report at town meeting because I want to support at the right end. I understand waiting. Yeah. Sounds good. We have a motion. Is there a second? Yeah, second. Hey, you okay with that, John? That's fine with me. Maybe we could just come up with some proposed language beforehand and I'd gladly help work that out if you wish. We'll be able to do it. So it's our resolution, John? Well, the electronic voting committee submitted the article, so I don't know if it's your resolution or ours. I don't think it really matters. That'd be one, I just didn't know. Yeah. If you want us. Possibly should go on to the committee. Yeah. The resolution and we can give a, our recommended vote was, we support the use of it in the future. I mean, obviously we, we're all in favor of it, but we haven't had a chance to play with it yet, so we'll find out. This be a public hearing. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak on this article? Not seeing anyone. We have a motion to report at town meeting and a recommendation for some language to go into the select ones report. Doug, do you have everything you need? Yes, I do. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Five is here. Thank you, John. My name's June. Excuse me. Our next article is article 13, a bylaw amendment poet laureate, Joe. Thank you. Friends, today we won a loss, a loss of one so dear. One I raised and taught, taught to aim always high. To emulate, no, surpass his father in all things. I trained him well, gave him the wings to soar, but could not restrain his youthful exuberance. Blinded by the sun, my warnings of the black, beast of hubris unheeded, he fell to his grave. Farewell, brave Icarus. May the gods pluck you up to their abode as I did once from your mother's arms. That's a poem that was written by Charles Schwab, who was a 91-year-old resident of our town. It's called My Fallen Son, and it seemed especially poignant given that we were remembering the fallen son of Arlington earlier this evening. And this was printed actually in a book that we received in our packets probably half a year ago, maybe three quarters of a year ago, called Getting There, that was put together by the Arlington Seniors Association. There was a program that was run introducing the seniors to poetry and the art of writing poetry, and there's some real gems in here. After reading this, and after hearing this to Schwab at some events, after hearing the incredible poetry that accompanied the second inauguration of the president, I had a little informal conversation with our library director this summer, and I asked him, I said, have you ever heard of a community appointing a poet laureate? And he said, I'm not sure. He said, I want to think about that, but I'm intrigued by the idea. And a few months went by, and he got back to me, Mr. Livergood, and said, I have found a number of communities, and I like it, and I'd like to pursue this. So I asked my colleagues to put this out here. Over the last few years, we've done a lot around promotion of the arts, particularly around the visual arts. We've, Tom meeting supported the Public Art Fund. We've resurrected the Cultural Commission. This body has supported a number of visual public arts projects with our own public art. But I was thinking, this is a way to kind of elevate the literary arts. Any of you have ever been to the Books and Bloom that the library does? There's always quite a few local authors, including poets who are on hand there. We have a lot of talent here in the town that's hidden. So I have put this before you. I put some supporting material as well. An example of something that was done in West Tisbury, for example, where they also had their town meeting designated a poet laureate. I'm envisioning this as kind of an honorific position. I'm not envisioning it as something that has an appropriation attached to it. Although, if this body does choose to put forward the recommendation to the town meeting, I would hope that we could structure it in a way that it would potentially be eligible for grant funding. If, for example, the schools in the past, for example, have had artists in residence programs, I'd love to be able to have someone who stepped forward, be able to participate in those and be eligible to participate in those. Unfortunately, some of my supporting material didn't make it into the packet, but I think you received electronically, it's on the desks. I put here something that I envisioned as a potential proposed vote around how this would work. I envisioned an honorary position that would have to be a resident of the town, possibly an appointment for a year, renewable up to three years, we could talk about that. And I laid out here what I think an appropriate process would be for the Board of Selection to appoint a poet laureate, but based on advice of a number of other stakeholders. The Library Board of Trustees, the Cultural Commission, the School Committee, I would designate the School Committee, perhaps they'd choose someone from English department or whatnot, and maybe the town manager, if there was a thought of potentially asking the poet laureate to submit something for the annual report or whatnot. I think we could discuss whether or not we would want the makeup of that process in here. I would see it working similar to the way that we've done the honor awards in the past. And so that's my proposal in a nutshell. I think you have Mr. Livergood's letter and support. I did receive correspondence from one of the Library Trustees today who was supportive and said that they were gonna be bringing it up at the Board tomorrow night as well. And I know that there's at least one person here to testify, but before I ask you to recognize, I did wanna recognize one. I was contacted by a sophomore Tufts University who actually heard of these initiatives and is actually here reporting on this for her advanced journalism project. So we're, even by having the discussion, we're getting some of the word out to some other areas around, so. Kevin? Roses are red and... Ha ha ha ha! Who I'm not going to be. In this warren article, Joe, I think I'm with you. Here's, I have just a slight issue with it, which is prepare a poem for publication in the annual report of the town and to present one work at the opening of the annual town meeting. I'm wondering, first of all, should we check with the moderator or not? And if we do do that, is not that being reported as town meeting minutes enough or is it a separate poem that needs to be for the annual report? And are we putting it in the budget section or do you know what I mean? To me, it's too specific. Yeah. Yeah. A requirement of a poet. What if he or she hasn't moved to writing a town meeting at home? Yeah, I hear you. And as I envision this as a volunteer position, I think that's a valid concern. As I've looked around some of the other communities that have done this, it looks like poet laureates have really made of this what they are able within their time, just like our other volunteer positions within their time. Would you be okay if we just removed those? Absolutely, I put this out for discussion. I'm not wed to this language. I'm not against it, I just think they're moved to do it. And I want, I'm glad we got a say in this and I'm gonna ask them for a sample of their poetry because obviously I do have a gift in that area. Not anyhow, so thank you, Joe. So just for the... So you moved to prove, right, Joe? I'm assuming both of us did. Oh, I moved to prove. Yeah, that's okay. Second. Further questions before I die in? Just where we took out the first two opening the town meeting and whatever. Just to cover it, were you gonna say something about that? I was actually, so I don't, I think that Kevin's sentiments are good. Let's not worry about the specific language because Doug's gonna come back to us with specific language. And what I would say to Doug is if we're left at and to conduct readings to participate in public events and school and library programs that we add the word town in there. Yeah, I'm sorry, can you clarify? Where you want to do town? Whatever verbiage you write, recognizing, we're taking out the annual town meeting and publication in the annual town report. What's left it says and to conduct readings and participate at public events in school and library programs. I would just ask that the word towns appear somewhere in there. Of course. School and town. I don't care the or, that's all. Of course, thank you. Public hearing, is there someone in the audience who wishes to speak? Come on up. Welcome, could you please introduce yourself and let us know what you think? My name is Lisa Halley and I live on Grafton Street. I'm an Arlington resident and a deep lover of poetry. I come to you knowing the transformative power of poetry both personally and also communally. I experienced the transformative power of poetry in the many years I spent facilitating writing workshops and training others to facilitate those workshops in low income housing sites, in medium security prisons, in domestic violence shelters with adults in a drop in program for mentally ill individuals and treatment programs with drug affected youth and in homeless shelters throughout the city of Portland, Oregon. I've seen people who have not had access to education become moved by, relate to and discuss in depth the writing of great poets like Wordsworth, Oliver Olds, Lee Yates, Pinsky and Huffees. I've seen the way poetry has brought diverse people together to celebrate, talk, think and transform their own lives and the lives of people around them. In my capacity right now, I'm the librarian at the Thompson School and I just have to say that this is all serendipitous because in January, I did a whole month of poetry with the students because I hate that it's only just April when you do a poetry month, so I did it in January. But I taught the kindergarten and first graders all about that we have a children's poet laureate in the United States that's not nominated and then I think it's like a two or three year appointment and we talked about why that's important and who they are since 2006. So then all of a sudden I saw the article about Joe wanting a snipe, I was like so excited, but anyway, so I helped initiate a poem a day project at the Thompson School. The principal reads either a published poem or poems written by Thompson students every morning during morning announcements. Think about the way this sets the tone for the day. When the day begins with six short poems written by second graders all describing their unique idea of what the moon is, how it moves them, how it looks and adds wonder to their lives. We're all asked as we listen for the precious few moments each morning to stop, to pay attention, to awaken our senses and to listen to those around us, to laugh and to think seriously at times about things outside our daily lives and to reach higher. Sorry. I am thrilled that Joe Currow presented the idea of a poet laureate for the town of Arlington to you all. How amazing to live in a town where even the thought has been voiced. Many towns across the Commonwealth and across the country honor poets, I mean poetry and poets enough to nominate poet laureates. In Duluth, Minnesota, for example, the poet laureate is expected to raise public awareness through readings, appearances, workshops and other public displays. Arrange for poet in school appearances, write monthly poetry columns with reviews of books and poems, organize poetry workshops at local libraries, create poems for specific occasions, help organize an annual city-wide poetry event, select poems for display in local city buses, billboards and postcards and be available for a meal a month in a local restaurant. I don't know, I know I don't want to take up a lot of your time, but let me just take a moment to share or I think a poet laureate can enhance the lives of the Thompson kids and my own fellow citizens in Arlington. The poet laureate could visit schools and classrooms, sharing his or her love for poetry with Arlington students, maybe even getting students to write their own poems, help bring in other poets into the schools to share their words and writing advice, serve as a resource for teachers and administrators hoping to bolster their own initiatives, poetry initiatives in schools and share meaningful, moving or even hilarious poems at public events and at meetings throughout the city. And I do think there should be an ode to the finance committee as one of the things. Anyway. A board of selectmen. A board of, wait, no, right, first the board of selectmen. Then anyway, and then they could help, he or she could help coordinate a series of poetry readings throughout the town to bring poetry to the people, go into the senior center and senior housing to bring people together to celebrate the written word. The ideas are just beginning to flow. I have many more, but ultimately as an ambassador for poetry, the poet laureate's presence would send a strong message to our town that no matter who you are or which part of town you live in that we all need to tap into the power poetry the power poetry has to offer. We need to take a moment to open our senses to make connections with the big issues we all face as humans and with the snapshots of daily life that poetry not only matters, but it's essential. Kevin. Thank you for that excellent presentation. I was for it before, I'm doubly for it now. Are you a poet? I am a poet also. Okay, you better apply for this. Yeah, but I'm not very, I haven't published very much, so probably you're gonna want somebody who's published more than I have. But anyway, I still love writing poetry. Thank you, it matters. Is there anyone else in the audience who wishes to speak on this article? Any other members of the board who wish to speak? All those, oh Doug, sorry. I just wanna clarify something. There was a little bit of discussion as to the appointment process and the recommendations of the screening committee. Joe, you had mentioned a couple of different things on that. Is there any further sort of thought or discussion on that specific point? I don't know what the sense of the board was on what's here. Go ahead, I just have the five. No, I confess that when I read the first draft my initial reaction was let it be the select one or let it be the recommendation committee and not do both. But then the more I thought about it I did think that the proposal here was a good one. And so I personally think that this draft is good. If it came out in your discussion, if someone gave you more feedback that says that there's a different set of people that maybe should be appropriate, I'd be listening, but I thought that this list was fine. I should. Kevin. Well, now that we're talking about that think of the problems of pulling together this entire board with this committee to do some sort of an evaluation process. I wonder whether we should consider appointing Joe Curo and the rest of this library, one designated library board of trustees, et cetera, as a committee that would do the search and then make a recommendation board. That is the intent, that is the intent. It's just based on the recommendation of the screening committee. So we are only approval. Is that it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, excuse me. Sorry. I think my only question to Doug is this issue that did come up when I was discussing this with some folks this weekend about the possibility if we were to identify, for example, foundation funding or something for a stipender or an honorarium, is there anything legally that would prevent that from being permissible? It's a little bit of a broad question, but I can't think of anything at the moment that would prevent you from doing that. I will certainly take that under advisement and try to scrutinize whether or not that there'd be any concern with respect to that. But as it stands, I don't see a specific. Yeah, because the only question, the question just arose to me because as I was doing some research this weekend, I see that there's legislation pending in the commonwealth for a poet laureate of the commonwealth and there is actually a clause there that says that this individual is not considered public employee, et cetera. Right, I think that the way this is drafted would not, I don't think we'd run into a specific problem with that that we couldn't deal with without having to specify something more in the bylaws. Just along that vein, I think what town council is saying is, A, if town meeting recommends favorable action, and this is a town meeting vote and act of its legislature, that it will be able to apply under the umbrella of the town and schools. If not, it might rise to the caveat similar to what we do with Arlington Arts Council and other groups where the Board of Selectment takes an additional step. So I guess I would leave it to Mr. Carrow and town council to find out if just by the sheer virtue of the town meeting vote that legally everything is covered that they can apply for grants, whether it's town, school, otherwise. And if not, if we have to take that second step that we take with other arts, cultural commission, and not just arts, there are some other groups in town that we do that. But I'll leave it to Mr. Carrow in deterrence. But I think we're okay to proceed with it as is. Thank you, thank you. Kevin, do you have anything else? No. Is there anything for the discussion? All those, Doug, you're okay? Yes, thank you. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Recommended, favor, action. Next, bylaw amendment of public music, Joe. Thank you very much. And I want to thank the Board again for placing this on the warrant. I bring this to the Board. I think this was a matter of discussion at town meeting last year. That we have a very short one line bylaw currently that says that public, let's see. No person shall sing, play on, or operate any musical instrument in any public way or solicit or receive compensation, therefore, from bystanders of the public without first having obtained a license from the selectmen who are hereby empowered to grant such licenses with such restrictions as they may deem necessary. I'm asking the Board to refine the bylaw, first and foremost, to make clear that the bylaw applies not only to public music, but also applies to other types of public performance. And to recraft it in a way that does not appear to be as, how can I say this? Not restrictive or dissuading folks from going through this, from participating. This was raised at town meeting last year that there is an inferred prohibition, although we do have the ability to grant these licenses. And we have a number of other requests that have come up not only for, not only around busking, and this isn't just around busking, but it's also with street festivals we've had requests. We know that the Visitor Information Center will be going in with a performance plaza and we don't really have a framework to handle that. I'm recommending a relatively short, but longer bylaw change than we have right now on the books to cover street performances and make clear that we do encourage artistic expression. And I'm asking that should this be approved that at a later date the Board adopts some more specific regulations and procedures around this so that people understand the rules of the game. I have a model policy that I did include here for you. I'm not asking for approval or debate about the specifics around that because I would expect that would be a separate hearing around policy and regulations. I will only say that what is here was something that I had kind of an amalgam of three different communities that I found in the Commonwealth that do regulate this type of performance. They all seem to be coming from a common root as so often happens. I think we had discussed this, we had actually put this in the court of the Cultural Commission and said that we did support moving forward on this, but I want to take the advantage of having Tom meeting to move the ball forward. And that's why I bring this to you. And I did want to thank Mr. Heim who had helped me with looking at some of this language up front. And I also know that there's at least somebody, at least one person here to testify in this as well. And you move. And I move. I'm assuming you will. I move favorable action subject to the final approval of language brought forth by the town council. Steve? Yeah, one quick question. So there's really no policy change. This is just a softening of tone? Correct. Well it's a softening of tone but it also is making clear that we're not referring only to public music but other performance, dance or spoken word or... Okay. I will second. It sounds nice. Kevin? So I just want to be clear. We will at a further date go through each of these regulations or this is what will be put before town meeting? No, I'm recommending that just this first page or something approximating this first page or on proposed vote which simply has the purpose and definitions and the fact that a permit is required laid out that we put that before town meeting to make clear. Then I'm recommending that at a future, assuming town meeting goes along that at a future date that we have a hearing around regulations, something like what I've put here as a model. Okay, so I support that. I just wanted to point out one thing on the regulations under amplification which is on the bottom of the third page, number eight, right? They can't use any amplification equipment after 9 p.m. but you're allowing performances until 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Yeah, I would think that we should, we could debate. I'm not looking to debate the specifics on that right now. All right, okay. I'm just trying to know whether you're gonna go down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My favor. Okay. Recognizing that we're just right now starting off to vote page one, which is a joke Mr. Carroll said, purpose definition and permit. Just for, I know Mrs. Bonjournals here in town council, I would just add into when we have a future conversation language around enforcement. I know it has language in here that a police officer may enforce crowds that are obstructing at the request of the performer. I'd probably want that magnified a little bit more, seek some guidance either from Mrs. Bonjournals or town council or the police department, what they feel should be the proper verbiage for them when they're their authorizing agent or appointing an authority. Similar to when we have events here in town hall. The other thing that I didn't see in there is, and again we're gonna discuss this as a future meeting, so I just wanna sort of give a heads up if we have any discussion in there regarding preclusion of collecting monies or anything around that type. Whether we are gonna allow the performer to do that, whether we're not gonna allow the performer to do that, if we are gonna allow one of the caveats, one of the steps that go to that. And then the only other thing that I would just add for our future discussion is I know when, and I believe Christine's been involved with this with Joe Conley, when we did the lights and the sound system over at the Warnay Pierce field, along with the school committee, we came up with certain guidelines, not only around decibels, but also around performance language. And I raise that with the Dilboy situation that we've had where they played certain of their performers and certain of their songs have been played and there is language you can put in there that says basically you have to, if you're going to amplify or not amplify, you have to live to a certain standard. So you're not getting certain words, I remember standing over by the Fox Library School and you could hear a song coming out with some really strong language. But we have that already that Christine, Joe, and others have done for the Warnay Pierce field. So whatever language you all, along with Town Council, feel is appropriate around that. Not that these performers are gonna do it, but when we get to that discussion, that's the only things I would add. Joe. I would just say, I think that's precisely why I'm suggesting that the bulk of this be moved into regulation, so we have that flexibility to have those conversations and make those decisions just as we've done with hack knees and other licensing matters before this board, it seems to be consistent. Oh, and my only other thing was to make sure we put whatever, I don't wanna say protection, but whatever we need in there regarding town day events, I know different people find different ways to try to get in. So I guess my question is, is there anything under A, B, or C, which is essentially the meat of what we're talking about that you have, that we should be talking about? I just wanna make sure that we're, but that's really working. No, no, okay, no, I was just saying, I thought that Town Council was gonna draw up a remarks of when we come back and talk about policy regulations. See, I don't think, yeah, see if Joe's motion, as understood, unless we choose to modify it, is that this part where it says model regulations is just for us to look at right now, and obviously the public document, anyone can see, but what we actually are gonna put in the packet for the Selections Report is gonna be something like this, whatever the language that Doug comes up with that we then approve, that's just the bylaw amendment, and we will make a reference in our note to the fact that we will write regulations, which may look like this, but we're not gonna actually put these regulations or anything like them in the packet. That's what Joe's, that is the agenda. I'm trying not to have a third meeting on this. What I'm understanding is I read this when I got it in my packet. We're only voting on page one tonight. We're gonna have a second meeting. If you don't hear my thoughts now, then we're gonna have to have a third meeting. I think that's, so if we have- So I've already read this, and those were the things I would put before, and I'm not saying I'm gonna get three, four, or five of my colleagues degree and all five of those points. I'm just trying to limit it so there's another meeting on this. If Town Meeting have to approve this, we will have another meeting on this. I don't wanna have a meeting after that. Okay, all right, good. That's what I'm trying to get rid of the big mouth for. That makes sense, okay. Is there anyone in the audience who wishes to speak on this? Roli, if you could introduce yourself to the millions of people watching at home, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. I really hadn't intended to speak on this, but when Joe Curell mentioned the Arlington Cultural Commission of light bulb went off, and so I suggest that I see a copy of what has been written so that we can work together with Joe and other folks in coming up with some solutions on this issue. Putting on my Robin's farm hat, the whole issue about money and major events becomes a problem because we do hold a very large event July 4th, and we don't charge for that. We collect money, pass the hat, and we sell refreshments and what have you, but it's something we need to look at, and so both of those concerns that I have, I think you need to know about, and we're more than happy to work together to get a result. Joe. I did wanna note that I had forwarded an earlier draft of this to the Chair, to the Cultural Commission Chair, but I'll forward the updated materials as I understand there's a change. I understand there's a change going on, and I also just to reassure you, the by-law that we seek to change only covers the public ways. It's not dealing with the parks. Oh, okay, that's fine. That's under the jurisdiction of the park. That's good, that's good. Actually, it does mean, I actually did have a similar question, and so Doug, when you write this, definitions B under public areas, the more we can clarify what this does and doesn't apply to it, because that will be a point of confusion. Oh, yeah, I think there is a mistake there. Yeah, that's a copy. That's a playground. Yeah, that's wrong, that's wrong. It may be, do we want it to include, so public ways, yes. Do we think that it includes other areas that are under, for instance, the Selectment of the Town Manager? I don't know, so the parks would be under Parks and Rec. The school would be under school. Yeah, Mr. Chairman, if I may, just please. Because it's an amendment to the public ways bylaws, technically speaking, we would have to reformat the article itself to notice something beyond that. At this point, it's just limited to public ways, which covers a lot. I mean, it covers all sidewalks and streets, basically, in Arlington that are considered public ways. There might be some issue with some private ways, but I think those are gonna be residential streets where you wouldn't have this type of thing anywhere, or it'd be very unlikely, too. So with respect to the public areas, I think that's the only thing that needs to be clarified. I think Mr. Currow had actually clarified that in a previous version of the warrant article, but not this proposed vote. But I have an understanding of the board's intention. It can't be paced error from another ordinance. That's why we get to vote with the final language. Mr. Chairman, are you saying that three of the public ways are public ways? I will leave it to the Town Council for the Crafts, but it's going to be public ways, and in effect, it will be public ways, and I'm sure that he'll provide language that says that. And I just want to note for the board that there would be separate processes that would make it available, this type of thing available for public areas or areas within the control of the town manager, something like that. So I'll just say that this type of thing would be forbidden there, per se, saying this process affects basically sidewalks and streets, which is basically what most busking is oriented towards, I think. So, really, my interpretation of that is that this proposal is not going to affect what happens at Robbins Park in any way, shape, or form, except for if somebody is out on the sidewalk. Yeah, I'll report that tomorrow night with our regular meeting, but I still say that we would be more than happy as the commission to work with Joe and coming up with some proper language. Okay, I think at this point it's Joe and Town Council. Okay, fine. All right. Yep, thank you. Thank you. Further comment? Please, come on up. Welcome. My name is Ted Sharp, and I am a busker. I don't do it very often, and never in Arlington. But from time to time, I will go out on a street corner, take out my violin, leave the case open, play a few tunes, and hope that somebody throws in a buck. Not proud of it. Oh, heck, come on, shocks, I am proud of it. It's really fun. It's a great opportunity to hone your performance skills in a low-key, non-threatening kind of way. I'd also like you to think just for a second about, think of the places that just accrued you off the top of your head where street performers, where you might go and hear public music. Austin comes to mind, New Orleans comes to mind, Boston comes to mind, Harvard Square comes to mind. These are all places people love to go and shop and dine and hang out. It's a good thing for the community. It's fun for everybody. The tourists love it. It's a good thing. My saga with this starts about six years ago, and I had started to do a little busking in Harvard Square, and I said, you know, sometimes I don't feel like going all the way down, you know, getting on the 77 and going all the way down to the square. I'd like to go out to Broadway Plaza and just kinda hack around a little bit. And so I said, oh, there's probably a permit or something I have to get, and I went and I looked up the bylaw and it said, oh, oh, I just got a license from the selectman. Okay, no problem. I went by town hall as Ms. Kruppelka about it, and she said, you wanna do what? A license? So the problem was, of course, that the bylaw said I had to get a license and the selectman weren't about to offer me one. There wasn't any process or procedure, and this does, in fact, change the status quo. If you approve this language, which I hardly hope you do, you're kinda committing to actually put something in gear so that you actually honor what the intent of the bylaw was to allow people to do this thing. Right now, I'm prohibited from doing it. I'll point out that in a number of surrounding towns, I don't know, you have all, you already have this in your packets about the surrounding towns. So a lot of towns just don't regulate it at all. Winchester, Belmont, I couldn't find a thing about it. I'm pretty sure that they don't regulate it at all. Boston did, for a while, they tried to regulate it, and you may remember that there was a federal case in 2004 which Boston tried to defend for a while and then eventually just sort of gave up and said, you know what, forget it. If anybody has the bad enough taste to play a banjo or an accordion or a bagpipe or something, we got plenty of laws that we can use to harrass them without having something specifically about street performances. So they just let it go. Boston doesn't regulate it. Private property, if you wanna go play in one of the really prime pitches like Quincy Market, you gotta get a permit. In fact, you gotta audition for them. Cambridge, you just go down and give them 40 bucks and they give you your permit in the list of rules which are regulations not in the Cambridge town laws. Anyway, the point is a lot of communities don't even feel like it's worth worrying about. There are plenty of laws about public nuisance and vagrancy and this and that and the other thing that they can adequately allow the police to regulate the situation. I fully support this idea that we have a permitting process that you folks come up with a reasonable set of rules and I'm fully in support of Joe's rules. They seem well thought out and perfectly reasonable to me as a performer. I can live with that framework easily. So I recommend that you establish a framework that you say you are gonna issue permits and you actually do issue permits and I want permit number one. Six years I've been waiting. But I very much endorse this idea. I'm eager to have you all just sort of get it going. I don't overthink this. This is not a cowboy field. You don't have to worry about 120 decibel. You know, we're talking about low key stuff here and there are plenty of other regulations that cover those sort of egregious kinds of things that you may be thinking about. Don't overthink it. Just let's get this done. It's been too long that you have been in violation of the First Amendment. Every time busking comes up, the courts just say, you can't do it. This is freedom of expression. You gotta let people do this. You actually kinda also more or less have to let them pass the hat too. But that's for another night. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else who wishes to speak, come on up. We've spent time on this issue. So I'll be very brief, but since I'm up next anyway, I just thought I would get in on this article. I'm Stephanie Marlin Curiel and I'm from the Arlington Cultural Commission. And I just want to, of course, lend our support to both of the past proposals and to Liz's point about poetry touching us in our everyday lives and thinking about the way in which we can enhance culture in our town and enhance cultural experience. I think this Busker's law or bylaw or whatever it will be is very important because of the access it gives people to cultural expression and spontaneous cultural expression, which opens up a sense of freedom that is not the same as when you have to go to a performance and sit still. This is a town with a lot of families and families with young children and I'm a parent of children. And so to go and to sit somewhere that can sometimes be limiting for the cultural experience of both the parent and of course the child because they don't like sitting still in a seat. So this is a chance to just encounter artists just in your midst and experience the town in a new way. One of the assets that Arlington has is its walkability and if people are walking the streets more than they would in other places and they have an opportunity to experience performance and cultural expression along the way and that will only enhance life more in Arlington and bring more attention and traffic and interest to the town. Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who should speak on this issue? Diane. I just have a question. Have we or should we refer this also to the Disability Commission for their remarks? I'm not unclear on the relation. You know what? I'll talk to you one-on-one about it. I'm just thinking about when they appeared before us and said things that might affect that we could refer them to them also. But what I'll do is I have a conversation with the chairman and then with the town council to address it in the future. Steve. Actually I have a question for Doug. So we're gonna say we'll vote on this night and we'll go to town meeting and then after we have these meetings for further changes will that also have to go to town meeting? No. We can make those changes ourselves? I don't believe so. No, I think what you're voting to do is to amend the bylaw to put what you're voting to support the reaction with respect to. Amending the bylaw to put in Mr. Currow's language here about street performances. And I think that what everybody's saying is that further regulation which would be under the purview of the selection without a bylaw amendment or putting it into the bylaws at all would naturally flow from that. Okay, thank you. So I'll just say I'm very much in support of this and in particular Joe I'm really happy with like some of the first draft he passed out was longer and this is stripped down and I really love that because I think it's the way we should do. You put the minimum that you need to in the bylaws and then you take the rest of it and you put it in the discretion of people who can, you know, make, look, and so I'm really excited to, I think it's the right thing to do and it's the right way to do it. So I'm really happy about it. Thank you. Is there any further discussion? Doug, do you have anything you need? I've got everything I need. Thank you. All right. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Five, zero. Mr. Chairman. Yes. This is a related matter on this if I may to two town council. So if I understand correctly, Mr. Sharp would like to perform and the bylaw tells him he needs a license. Am I mistaken? Okay. And that license comes from the Board of Selectment. At present the license comes from the Board of Selectment's office. Therefore I would like to move that this board licensed Mr. Sharp at this point in time. Of course, obviously this goes before this town meeting then has to be approved. And so we're not going to affect until next year. I would like to move a subject to all current bylaws that would be related to this matter that this board here by license, Mr. Sharp to start performing. And I'd like to hear that myself. I think we have to issue them a permit. Yeah. That says license. License, but. And we don't have a licensing procedure, but we are authorized to provide a license. That's why I'm putting this to God. Yeah. We can make sure that he gets a license. I, the process as it is could be more detailed with respect to what's required for license, but we'll make sure he gets a license. Yeah. I think so. I'll second assuming that the motion is in order. I don't think it is, but Kevin, I completely agree with you. Do all of you agree with me that Mr. Sharp should get a license? Can I, the only caveat on it is that under this structure or any other structure is usually you'd get a license for a specific period of time. It's not like a, unless the board wants to take an extraordinary measure. Okay. Well, do you agree with me? It's not a formal vote that until this bylaw goes into effect, we would like to see Mr. Sharp. Mr. Really, I think that we should see that I will place under consent agenda at the next week an approval for an appropriate license. Okay. Yeah. And if you could define the parameters. Yes. Yes. You're railing. The guy has waited six years. I hope you have an album or something. Do you guys, people could buy? No, I'm just thinking about the streets. A lot of the streets. Mr. Really, I'm just satisfied with the streets. Sorry? If I consent to get the agenda, I could not. Yes, so that is fine with me. Next up, article 15, bylaw amendment cultural commission. And this is a ten registered voter articles. Stephanie. Rename. So I'm Stephanie Marlin. Curiel again. Thank you for hearing this article under consideration. I'm here because as you are aware, we have an Arlington cultural council and we now have an Arlington cultural commission. And the two names are extremely close in nature and have already been confused. Even by commissioners and council members themselves, but also in the media and I'm sure by any of you and anyone else who tries to talk about those two distinct bodies. So the cultural council has requested often that we bring this article up to be able to change this bylaw. So out of respect to them and ourselves, I bring that to you. And since our January meeting was canceled due to snow, we were not able to have an official meeting to discuss the name. So the name is not exactly decided upon yet, but I believe that we have a, and it's not going to be anything radical because we are a commission of the town and it should be descriptive and as clear as possible. We simply wanna change the acronym so it's not ACC, just like the cultural council is ACC. So we have some top contenders, but I can save that for our report. I believe that we're scheduled to deliver our report to you on March 10th. And so I would like to be able to bring the name to you as part of that report at that time. What's this, I'm not, what's the scheduled report I'm not familiar with? Well, we were either asked or we decided that we ought to report to you at some point on what we've been doing. It's a requirement of the, okay. By January 15th of each year, that's on the books. Oh dear, then I guess we're late. We have already requested an offer to spot on March 10th. I'll move approval. And I agree that I find that very confusing as well. So it'll be helpful to me. All right. We have a motion, we have a second, which I must admit that this is one of the lowest information yeses that I will ever cast. I was gonna say, it seems like this should have just been the March 10th meeting. Yeah. So we need to tighten that up. Yeah, Doug. Just to clarify this scope of this, this is purely just to vote whether or not the board believes that we should take action with respect to renaming the cultural commission. We don't even have a name yet. We won't tell March 10th. But they're gonna come up with a name. That's right. We're gonna like it. And then you're gonna put it in the final language and it's gonna come to us for our final approval. And at that moment, if we don't like it, then we're in trouble. Understood. It's not the best way that we've ever done this. I know. You know I'm just kidding. Yeah. If it helps the top contender now is like cultural permission of Arlington. You might say they want the same. The alternative we could do is just a table. Why don't we table it to March 10th? They give us the name and then we vote it all once. So Steve. I'll pull mine. But I think that we don't necessarily need to because I'm comfortable with how this would go anyway. Yeah. I'm fine with that. So, if I can just, there's two sort of options before you would be to table it and to take the very small amount of time at a future meeting to be comfortable with what the recommendation is. The other thing would basically to be craft to vote that would basically be to change it to whatever is recommended by the cultural nation. I would personally, I'm much more comfortable with making a specific recommendation about a specific work personally. We're there on the March 10th agenda for that very reason to tell us what the name change. Let's do it all at once. All right. I'm sorry, one moment. We're just on March 6th that has to go to the printer. It has to go to the print the language. We can't wait that late. And that's why we do put in the application on that people have to be prepared for hearings because we. April 6th, not much. The warrant has to be in by March 6th. We're sending it to the printer around the 6th. We could have Weigel room with a few days, but the warrant is going to be in the advocate because we've arranged a mass mailing that would be. Maryann, this isn't, we're talking about what the printing the Selectman's report. Selectman's report. Right. But is the warrant, I guess, if it were to be tabled or something is the warrant language fine? The warrant language, oh yeah, okay. Okay, thanks. All right. So, Steve, we're feeling a little guilty about twisting your arm on this one, but that's fine. That's fine. Okay, thank you. Consider it twisted. And so we have a motion from Diana. Is there a second to table? Second. We have a second to table. Is there any further discussion about table? So I think we have a, we have sent them to the board that we, I personally will be supporting it. So I think we're gonna get to, we'll be able to count to three when we get there. We have a motion table. All those in favor of the motion table, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? That carries. I'm abstaining. Thank you. Kevin is abstaining. Well, because I agree. It should be changed. So, but I hear what all of you are saying. So, we'll come back. We'll come back. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. This does indeed trigger what the mayor is trying to say, which I completely agree with, which is we have a schedule of hearings. So we have, we shared it with, we should make sure that we should share that schedule of hearings and then make sure that everyone is ready because we're ready so that then we can move through them so that we can get the report done and Doug isn't staying up late writing. We do. Our process is like tomorrow I release for the next meeting. Yeah. And that way people don't get confused on, because we have departments that issue comments and stuff. If you want it all at once, I'd be happy to do it. We've just found historically this is what works. But I already have the emails waited. They're already drafted and waiting to be sent. Okay. Joe? I want to take some of the blame for some of this confusion myself because I knew that Stephanie brought this issue to me and I knew that the cultural commission had not been able to meet and I recommended that in order to get it in under the wire that she bring it as a 10 registered voter article to get it in under the wire, but I didn't realize it was going to be scheduled for the first meeting. So I apologize. Okay. I hope you enjoyed the rest of the discussion. All right. So moving on to article 19, we have junk, cars, enforcement, and a memo from Doug, which is right. Adam, who's the question? Yeah, Christine's out here to speak. Excellent. Christine, welcome. Sorry. Thank you. So before you is a proposal to amend the enforcement of the junk car bylaw. This proposal would allow the board of health to enforce in addition to the police department. So as it stands currently, the health department office is typically called out for dilapidated properties, for properties where there may be a lot of debris and possibly junk cars stored. This bylaw would allow the health department staff to cite the property owner for that violation, rather than having to call the police department each day that the violation exists. Move for a little action. Second. Well, should I second those very questions? This is a public hearing. Are there any comment from the audience on junk car enforcement? Anyone else? Doug, you OK? Got it. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Five there. We should have Christine in the cultural commission. Maybe. Article 25, move to table. Second. Could I just ask why? Isn't that a routine? The manager asked us to. I understand. I'm asking him why. Is that right? So last year, a town meeting at the board's request, there was sort of a greater level of detail requested to back up the revolving funds, and there was not time to prepare that material. OK, sorry. I'm sorry. No, that's all right, but revolving funds is a routine article for it. But I understand that you've got more detail. Thank you, Eric. So we have a motion to table. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All right, correspondence received. Sherry Barron Bates Road, Janice Bakey, Public Spaces, Phil McCarthy, Public Spaces. It's basically both those related to the charges. And a Department of Telecommunication and Cable about the expiring license for our Comcasts, or cable providers, I should say, in general. Diane? I guess first move receipt. And then I just had a question on the notification for the license expiration notice. I believe we are now working with the time running date of March 26 of this year. So what I'd like to know either tonight or at a future meeting, what it is we need to start doing between now and March 26 of this year. Because I know we've had people from the Cable Advisory Committee over the past year before us saying, hey, it's coming up soon. You've got to hire a consultant. You've got to do a study. I'm just picking out phrases. They're not saying that. So I just want to make sure that we now have the clock running, which we do. And is it the town manager or town council that will sort of guide us through that? Probably cooperatively. And I think I already have on my schedule a meeting with John Marr from the Cable Advisory Committee. I can confirm that. But I think by the next board meeting we can have a rough schedule for how we have to submit a letter by March 26 of this year. I think actually March 26 is the first day that we can do it. And then we have six because we have to start between 36 and 30 months. And 36 months starts on March 26. So March 26 is when we are eligible to fire the starting gun. And we must fire that gun within six months. Well, whatever. I know John Marr was advocating for whatever you all say. I've also had preliminary discussions with Mr. Marr about this and confirmed Mr. Dunn's statement about that. That basically we want to try to have our negotiations on this simultaneously on the three contracts that we have. And they'll all be coming into play basically this spring. So we'll run on top of it. Can I also suggest that we refer the letter from Sherry Barron to the planning department? To me, as all correspondents and all conversations about the MADSAV project and the rebuild associated with that, they're the right place to receive that conversation and hear the conversation. Well, if so, then I need to write a response since I'm the one she talks about in there and misquotes what I said. So if you want to read for it, I ask you to wait until I respond. Oh, really? OK. It's cologne what she said I claim. Well, OK. So if you're going to refer it, that's how I just ask that I be able to write a response to it. It's why these people won't give up, I don't know. OK. Certainly, obviously, I have no problem with you writing a response. I just frankly didn't anticipate it would be controversial. You're referring it. That's why if you're referring it somewhere else, I want to. OK. All right, then I'm not. It's up to the board. That would be what I would recommend. Further conversation on other items on there? All those in favor of the motion as made by Mrs. Hopper? Wait, wait, sorry. So on another one. Which is from Phil McCarthy? It's just related to you were going to talk about this on the new business. So I think addressing the issue of the fees being charged at the central school and Jefferson Cutter House, this is a good time to address that. So at the board's last meeting, there was a discussion also on the correspondence received of concern by some community groups or we'll call them community stewardship groups in regards to the newly implemented fee schedule. So I've really spent a good portion of the last two weeks working with Carol Kowalski, some members of my own staff as well as Mike Kerr from the ARB looking at this issue. And one thing that sort of remains clear is that it is a very complex issue and there are remaining concerns about personal safety and property safety in using those buildings as they're currently used. It's also clear that the original intention of the use of that building as having some private tenants renting and then also providing a community space has evolved over time. The use has changed and it's become more complex. So it's not what it was 30 some years ago and it was created. With that said, the implementation of the fees to create a system of better management had an unintended consequence of creating a feeling of alienation or non-appreciation among our community stewardship groups. So finalized this in conversation today with Mike Kerr, Chairman of the ARB and Carol Kowalski. We're going to freeze all fees for these community stewardship groups. And go back to the drawing board on how we want to better manage the property. So from today forward, that will be frozen. We will keep the building monitors in place in terms of being able to open and close the building and better arbitrate who has rooms scheduled. So there probably will be some changes going forward in how we use the space and better manage the rooms and make sure that the tenants are being treated fairly. But again, as of today for those community groups that use the space, there will be no fees. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so we have a motion. I don't think we actually, we've got a second on Mrs. Mohan. Second. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Five, zero. Thank you. Okay, new business. Mrs. Sullivan. Hey, thanks. There was an email that was sent out from Meals on Wheels campaign. I think to the slackment, I have not seen it. And I received a call today asking on are any of you intending to go? And it could be on the course of an hour to an hour and a half if you want to attend the whole Meals for Wheels for Meals rides. Or you could just show up, meet the driver, maybe go to one home or, you know, one place and have a picture taken that sort of thing. So she needs to, the woman who called really needs to have an idea. So if you could get in touch with me by tomorrow morning, I'd love to say nobody's coming, or you know, these three people will come and he has that contact information. Okay, thank you. Okay, all righty. The next thing, the managers review, we're still waiting for a couple to show up in the office. So if you could take care of that as soon as possible. And I did get a call from Human Resources, which I think they're going, you know, Karen's going to be working with you all to put that together, okay? Mine's done. I don't know, it's been so many hours. I know. There's a lot of reading enjoyment for you, Mr. Chappell. You'll get it first thing in the morning. The more serious thing of this is that you've got a request for the selectmen to take a look at for this year in the wand. Possibly increasing our alcohol licenses, the number. We currently have 15 in a set. For restaurants. For restaurants, right, it's a section 12. I left, I put a piece of paper on your desk tonight. And the timing is right, you know, historically you can add a warrant article. The process takes a year to year and a half. So it's a long process. We've had no issues with the 15. It was an arbitrary number that was picked at 15. The state says for sure we can offer more. So I'm putting it out to you if you wanna take a look at it at the next meeting or whenever. It is an open warrant day for the special town meeting tomorrow, which is the other thing we wanted to announce for me to pour tomorrow. Kevin? This is for full, correct? This is all alcohol, of course. Yeah, I'd like to move that we instruct our excellent town council to draft a warrant article that would increase the current number from 15 to 20. Okay. Second. We have, so for the purposes of open meeting law and notification and stuff like that, I definitely, I agree with the sentiment, but let's put it on the agenda for two weeks from now and get it there. So procedurally, the special town meeting is open tomorrow. So it could be placed there. Otherwise, I would defer to Doug, but I believe the board would need to vote to reopen the warrant at some point to place. If it was going to go on the annual time. That's the place on the special. And then we'd have a hearing. No, don't we have until March 6th we can start a warrant article into our regular. Hasn't that always been? Historically, the select many in the town manager's office have had leeway on that, but. Yeah. So Doug, how about this? I think I see a way for us to do what we want, which is Doug figure out whether we can add an article to the warrant or not to the regular warrant or not. And if not, Adam, I suspect that it would be wonderful the town manager were to request putting on the special town meeting a warrant article. And then we can, the select one can have a hearing on that, you know what I'm saying. I got it. Is in general, or what you said, Diane? And can I just say procedurally that we're all referencing a piece of correspondence that was received today by the selectments office, February 20th. I mean, February 10th at 3.54 PM by a Mr. Golden. And that's from where the beginning of this conversation came. Good point. So for the purposes of the meeting, why it is an unanticipated matter that came up, but also I'll look into the procedure by which we can do what my understanding is a historical president for adding an article. It may just be that we need to technically open the article. If we don't, I won't make it any more complicated. That's great, yeah. And also from the point of the open meeting, I have absolutely no, I feel very comfortable with this because the actual substance of what we will be voting on is at a future meeting. And we're really only putting it on the agenda, which is something that we can do without notification. Of course, because it's the agenda. Very, yeah, more. Yes, could I just ask one thing on while Doug's doing that? Could he check if it's okay with Mr. Greeley to see if unlimited instead of going up in about the five increment because it is a lengthy process. If that's good to the board, if it's not, that's fine. You know. Doug, if you could tell us what our options are. I will. Thank you. Where in? Do you have any other? That's it. You know, thank you very much. Thank you. Doug, no new business. Adam. So only one additional piece of new business. I emailed the board today with a memo in regards to a solid waste disposal proposal and also put a paper copy on the board's desk tonight. No need for action tonight, but I asked the board to review it and just give me any feedback that they have. I know some board members already have and I appreciate that very much. It's a very positive financial proposal for the town. I think we're heading in the right direction. And again, if you have feedback, we'd love to hear it. Anything else? So I have. Kevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two things. One is a draft of a letter that I put on your desk just to know if the board is okay with me sending that along to the public memorial committee. This is a matter related to the hearing room named after Charles Lyons. Yeah, we took a vote at our last meeting in this. Right. So I just want your approval on the wording if that's okay. Yes. It's good to me. Okay. Anybody else? No. Okay. Thank you. The other one is we were copied on a letter that was sent, that was in our packets. And it had to do with a particular landlord and a renter. And I won't get into any names. I just would like the board to know I looked into it. And this matter has been both before the attorney general, small claims court, mediator settlement has been determined and signed and a release by the author of that. So in essence, I've been well-built here. Thank you, sir. Sam. Oops. I'm so sorry. We, you know, unfortunately talked about Coach Ed Burns and I just would like to ask people, you know, when you say your prayers tonight to put one in for Paul Gallagher, passed away this past week, an original member of the Select Ones. Also sang very well. Yeah. Do you know what's great? I like someone that's current. So an unusual member of the Select Ones. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. That's not it, Kevin. No, no business. Thank you. Thank you. Joe. I just want to let everyone know that the next round of the master plan public forums will be taking place this Thursday. I believe at the senior center, the subject this month will be public facilities and recreation that's open to the public. And I believe the working papers are up on the website. If they aren't yet, they will be very soon. And they'll, I'm sure like the last time that the town announcement list will carry all of the deadlines for feedback on those. Also, it's too bad that Ms. Bungiwano is no longer here. I just wanted to give a shout out to the Health and Human Services and the police department and some of our volunteer service, volunteer and non-governmental service agencies that conducted the Domestic Violence Forum here. But last week it was very timely and very interesting. And I definitely learned a lot. And it's great to see the way that our various departments cooperate so well on these matters. And we have a police department that really sees itself as a human services agency as much as anything. And it was very timely. And I think it was filmed for ACMI. So anyone who wasn't able to catch it should look that up and try to catch it for sure. No further business. Thank you, Joe. Steve? Yeah, just one thing quickly. Our good friend on the Transpiration Advisory Committee, Richard Turcott, just had his first book released today, the TREDIAC agenda. You can find it on Amazon, Amazon or Smash words, I believe is what he said in the email. But I haven't really yet obviously came out today, but I just wanted to give him a quick plug and I hope everyone enjoys it. Do you have the description there because the description I read was something about an insidious group of government officials seeking to increase their power on such a thing. I did send him a question about whether he was inspired. Anyone in particular? I have no new business today. Move to adjourn. Move to adjourn. Second. Second. All those fair places. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.