 Welcome, and I am calling the order of this meeting of the Arlington Select Board on Monday, August 22nd, 2022. I'm select board chair Leonard Diggins, and I will now confirm that all members and persons who participated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Name, huh? Here. John Hurd. Here. Steve DeCorsi. Here. Eric Helmuth. Yes. Staff, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Sandy Pooler. Here. Doug Hine. Here. Ashley Mahler. Here. Tonight's meeting of the Arlington Select Board is being conducted in a hybrid format, consisting of Chapter 107 of the Acts of 2022 signed into law on July 17, 2022, which further extends certain COVID-19 measures regarding remote participation. The act includes an extension until March 31, 2023, the remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's original March 12, 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. The governor's order, which is on the town's website and referenced with agenda materials for its meeting, allow public bodies to meet entirely remotely as long as there's reasonable access that allows the public to follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Before we begin, please note the following. First, this meeting is being conducted via Zoom. It is being recorded and is also being simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Second, persons wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. Persons participating by Zoom are reminded that you may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate, you're asked to provide your full name in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. Third, all participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment and those persons are not required to identify themselves. Both Zoom participants and persons watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials also found on the town's website using the Novus Agenda Platform. And finally, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call. So let's see how much of the town's business we can get done tonight. Next on the agenda is the land acknowledgement. I will read the land acknowledgement that the board supported in the spring of 2021 and that was adopted at the 2021 annual town meeting. We acknowledge that the town of Arlington is located on the ancestral lands of the Massachusetts tribe, the tribe of indigenous people from whom the colony, province, and Commonwealth have taken their names. We pay our respects to the ancestral broad line of the Massachusetts tribe and their descendants who still inhabit historic Massachusetts territories today. And now I'll turn to item three on the agenda. And that is the proclamation that September is childhood cancer awareness month. And I don't have a name associated with the proclamation. So we could go to that person and come or I have in person. Oh, so it's just. No, it's just a form. It was a kind of informal request. I got you. Okay. Fine. Fine. So, so then I open it up to move approval. Second. Okay. Great. So let me pull it up. So on a motion to approve by Mrs. Mahan and a second by Mr. Herd. Mr. Herd. Yes. Yes. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. So as I recall, they wanted to have the proclamation mailed to them. And so we'll do that and we'll also, yeah, we'll mail it to them. I guess they wanted an email version and a hard copy version. I've already emailed the copy. I was waiting for a formal approval to send it in the mail. Great. All right. Thank you very much. I mean, so next we'll go to a discussion and presentation regarding the Town Manager Act. And this is also going to explain the term of our current Town Manager and the search process for our next Town Manager. I mean, so I'll turn it over to Mr. Mahan. Thank you, Chairman Diggins. And I apologize for my slow on the uptake roll call vote. This is what vacation does do. So just to summarize where the board is for the public sort of benefit, the short version of, and I'm sorry, I just got back today. So I prepared a very brief reference memo primarily for the public's benefit. But the two sections of the Town Manager Act that really deal with the appointment of a Town Manager are sections 11 and 12. Section 11 primarily deals with the qualifications of a manager, but it also sets forth this sort of curiously high fidelity to a three-year term. It essentially says that managers are to be appointed for three-year terms. Section 12, however, goes on to describe what happens when a manager vacates their seat in the middle of a three-year term. As folks will recall, we had the previous manager, Mr. Chapter Lane, essentially vacate his term very, very early in the three-year term. The Manager Act sort of suggests that you have two different types of appointments. Appointment of a manager following the end of a term and any other type of appointment of a manager. For any other type of appointment of a manager, that would really be under Section 12. And it contemplates again this idea that you would appoint a manager for the balance of the remaining term. The other sort of really relevant timeline that's set forth in the Manager Act is that the board has 90 days to make an appointment. For a variety of reasons, I think the board is well aware that that 90 days is a fairly short window to recruit and retain a manager in a super comprehensive search. This board therefore voted to engage in a search process using a consultant that was going to give the board and by extension the community a sufficient timeline to engage in best practices to find a long-term manager who would fulfill a three-year term. In the meantime, the board also cognizant of its 90-day window of responsibility had to identify a qualified person to be the manager. So that's essentially what this board did in appointing Mr. Poole to serve as town manager pursuant to Section 12, given that there was a vacancy. So what the board has essentially done is appointed a manager while it is also engaging in the long-term search process for a manager who will serve a three-year term. Mr. Poole, who has extensive municipal management experience, certainly qualified to serve as manager under any of these sections of the Manager Act, but the board opted to essentially agree to a one-year contract with Mr. Poole, essentially the entirety of this 2022-2023 fiscal year, if I'm getting that right. And there may be some folks who note, well, hey, doesn't the Manager Act say that it has to be for the remainder of a term? It can't be shorter than that. And that's certainly what the Manager Act would suggest. However, without going into too much detail, the manager serves the pleasure of the board. So that's one legal dynamic that's also established by the Manager Act. The other important dynamic is, of course, in employment law, you can't force somebody to work longer than they want to. So the parties have mutually agreed to a one-year contract. It may be worth codifying this sort of reality in the Manager Act and an update at our next town meeting. So it sort of makes the Manager Act a little bit more consistent with the actual state of labor and employment law, contract law. The parties here, Mr. Poole or the manager and the select board have agreed to this one-year contract. And it's, in my, if I may, editorialized for a moment, a wonderful thing that we have capable and quality leadership for this coming year. So the board can take as much time as it wants to also find a long-term manager consistent with what my understanding is, the consultant's recommendations have been and best practices. So, Chair Diggins, I assume that's the sort of meat and potatoes of what you wanted, but I'm happy to answer any further questions about either section 11 or section 12. But again, just for the public certification, the board took a vote, I believe that was in May, to engage in a search process as recommended by your consultant. And then you obviously entered a contract with Mr. Poole that will run basically to the end of July of 2023. So that's the process the board has adopted. It's able to essentially have the manager needs right now and also engage in a process in the long run that will have fealty to that three-year term that the Manager Act suggests. I would also note that you can always adjust other pieces of the Manager Act with respect to how you want to deal with qualification terms and vacancies. But I do think it would probably be a good idea, again, to better how the Manager Act reflect the reality, which is that when someone leaves or there's a vacancy for any reason, it could be incapacity, it could be something tragic like death or whatever, that you wouldn't have this sort of weird situation where it would seem to suggest that somebody could start and I'm with two years and 264 days left, you'd have to only appoint someone for that exact period of time. I don't know if there are any questions or if there's any comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Attorney Heim. And I agree with everything you said and I appreciate the summary. And I do think having just gone through this process with Mr. Poole or upon Mr. Chapter Lane leaving the town or announcing he's going to leave only a month into his contract really is essential for us next year to look to amend sections 11 and 12 of the Town Manager Act and whether it's adding an interim period, certainly doing something to deal with this 90-day period, both in terms of the end of the term as well as if there's a vacancy during the term and maybe not being tying it in so much, as you said, to this three-year period that goes on. And I know there's been some exceptions over the years. And the other thing I will say, and you did a nice job summarizing it, the key term here is mutual agreement. Mr. Poole agreed to the period of time. We agreed that it would be a year. We appreciate him coming in for this period, but it was agreement of the parties as well as you said. We can't stress that enough, so we appreciate that as well. Thank you. Anyone else? Just two points. I think I know the answers, but I'm not sure. So as we move into this process, there's two points. I think the board, I know the board will be discussing in the future with the consultant and or the human resources director. So I just wanted to put it on the table to my colleagues, two colleagues that sort of our interface designate with that. The first would be I'm assuming the department head questionnaire, which the board, select board will see in advance or I'm asking if you know or can find out if that will, we'll see that so we can approve it, as well as I think we need to update it, having been through this several times, and whether that's the consultant that does that with us or whether that's Ms. Malloy, our human resource director. So if the board could just get a copy of that. And we may not have no comments, but I think we... And then the second thing, question that same thing, when appropriate, I'm not sure if it's the consultant and or human resources director, the membership of the screening committee, the makeup with the fact that we've added a couple of new positions in the town. And I haven't really paid attention to the school side, but it's mostly in the town. If we could get a copy of when appropriate, maybe this is a little too soon, but maybe by like December, if we're doing our appointments in January. And if I'm incorrect about those dates, adjust. But the four to six weeks before the board has to do their one, and I'm assuming that's going to be what we need to discuss that. Each board member gets one appointee. If we could see what was done at the last town manager search, what the makeup of that committee is, I know like a position that diversity, inclusion, and equity, that's not on there. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. So if we can get a copy of that, see what's on there. I'm pretty sure it's just one. I know I think when we first did it at the board, we got two appointees, but I think we're down to one. I think two is too many with the other voices that you need on the screening committee. And then the third thing, just historic anecdotal. And it's something the board should discuss, because just because we did it before doesn't mean it should go. But when I first got on the board and did the first, I'm when Mr. Marquis was retiring, there was a caveat that if any board member, and I'm not looking for a decision on this tonight, if any board member, if they saw somebody that submitted a resume or a CV and didn't make it through that first cut, that they could forward that name on. I don't know that that actually happened once. Mr. Lyons did it with a gentleman from Watertown. But so if you all could think about that, I'm not like I'm going to die in front of my desk for that to be a continuing role, but that's something that was done before. So if you can find out about the department heads questionnaire, the screening committee membership makeup, and then if think about, and when we get to that point, if the board wants to continue on with that practice of if your person, he or she didn't make the first cut, you can advance their name or maybe not. So that's it. Thank you. That sounds like the golden buzzer from America's Got Talent. Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to expand very shortly on briefly on something Mr. Heim said about the Justice in Town Manager Act. And I think reflecting the reality, this was implied, but I just want to make explicit to the public choosing the Town Manager is probably the most important thing this board does. We do a lot of important things, but to me, I think that's the most crucial decision. And the community, I think rightly expects that we will take our time doing that and do a really good job of it. And I think that the Town Manager Act as with all the best of intentions may not have anticipated this particular sequence of circumstances in which we found ourselves. So this was, I think, a good opportunity to do that, recognizing that the reason for this tweak that I also would like to make and ask town meeting to make is so that regardless of the circumstances, the board has a very clear path to due diligence and listening hard to the community and listening hard to our town employees and doing the work that we need to do to make this really important decision for the community's leader. Thank you so much. I mean, so a couple of questions on this time. So when assuming town meeting makes a change, I mean, this will be a home run petition, right? That's correct. So that implies what implies. And so I guess the other question is, are there other things maybe we should look at? Potentially changing me. So that's maybe not something to answer now, but we can just think about because if we're going to have to go before the legislature to ask them to change things. If I may, Mr. Chair, I would certainly welcome any thoughts that board members have. This is your authority in charge and really there's nobody else who quite understands the position that you're in. Some of these things are legacies of a different time. Once upon a time, the town manager had to live in Arlington if my memory serves me correctly. So the pool of candidates was thought about very differently. He would want somebody who is a member of the community to service town manager. And so a 90 day provision to sort of gather all the potential candidates, interview them, and sort of make a choice probably makes a lot, it made a lot of sense at the time. Today you presumably are looking for a manager statewide, if not more than that, to get the best possible pool of candidates you can. And even if you end up hiring somebody who has a lot of familiarity and is local to Arlington, you would have wanted to engage in that process anyway to make sure that you've got the best candidate. So I think the times have changed a lot. And I think it's the five of you that would have wisdom or maybe some of your former colleagues might have wisdom about it as well. But the five of you are have the unique perspective that I certainly don't have. So if there's anything that you folks would like to consider in that I would be open to hearing about it so that we can develop a warrant article that would be sufficiently open for that purpose. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you very much. And I think we're just talking about all of this topic at once as opposed to just having Doug talk with us and then talk about the schedule meeting. So I would ask you, Mr. Helmets, me to think about the end of the process and whether or not you would like it to be accelerated or maybe decelerated a bit because right now what we have is the negotiation happening pretty much between the election and the beginning of the town meeting. I mean, and given your new circumstances, I mean, that'll be April, so if you want some adjustments made, just let us know. Because I think there's a little bit of slack built in and we can maybe pull some things forward. I don't think there's too much we can do before the beginning of the year, but at that point, I mean, then I think there are some things we can pull forward. There's some optional things, I mean, that we can maybe change that, could then maybe have us wrap up the negotiation before the election. So just think about that. We won't get started. Maybe a little bit before town day, it has us starting the process, the 26th meeting, but maybe pull things forward a little bit. But I think what you'll find, as is my style, there'll be a lot to check in with you. So maybe too many, I'll air on checking in with you all too much rather than too little. And so as we think about doing things made of, you'll get to chime in. And if there's something you want done differently, then we'll certainly more than entertain the notion, probably take that advice. So I don't think we need a vote on this. I mean, it's just a discussion. And actually, Mr. Hynes, my apologies for not giving you the cue. I had a different process in mind for the proclamation and when the person wasn't here, he just kind of threw me off a little bit. So that's on me. And so next we'll move to the consent agenda, which has the minutes of meeting for July 18, 2022. And act number six is a request for a contractor drain layer license by Greg's landscaping. Seven, a request for contractor drain layer license, MSR Utility Management Corps. Eighth, a request for contractor drain layer license by North Heritage Construction Corporation. Number nine, a request for contractor drain layer license by Mink and Construction LLC. Number 10, a request for contractor drain layer license. Mendez Masonry and Construction Corporation. Number 11, a time change for Beer Garden on Town Day on September 17, 2022 by Brian Burke. And number 12, a request for special one-day beer and license on September 9, 2022, Ravens Memorial Town Hall for a private event that's from Suzanne Hammer and Evan Bauer. And number 13, a request October Fest at the Old Schwann Mill on October 1st, 2022 from noon to four, PM by Eric Orton, Director of Museum Programs at Old Schwann Mill. And under that we have sub A, special one-day beer and wine license, and sub B, milling between Moll Street and Bridge over Mill, the street closing for that. So with that, Mr. Helmets, I move approval. Second. So on a motion by Mr. Helmets. And a second by Mr. Herd. Mr. Heim. Mr. Herd? Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Helmets. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Dickens. Yes. She's on this phone. Thank you. So moving on, item number 14, licenses and permits for approval, wine and multi-license. We have Makalu, Nepali, and Nepali, and Indian cuisine, 352A, Massachusetts Avenue, Roshan Dango. Hello. Hi. How you doing? Hi. Hi, so you can, I'm doing fine. So you can help me and tell me if I pronounce the name of the restaurant correctly and then your name? Yes. So it's Makalu. Yes, it's Makalu. Okay, great. And you're Roshan Dango. Yes. Okay, great. Excellent. Well, thank you. You just want to tell us, me, about your request? Yeah. Over here, like we bought the place where there was a, it was a Sub-Zipiqo, and they have a beer and wine license. So, and we want to carry the same thing. So beer and wine license for our customer. So, I'll turn my colleagues. Mr. D'Horsage. Yeah, move approval. Subject to the conditions contained in the reports from the department heads. All right. Second. So any comments? Mr. D'Horsage. I just have a question for Attorney Hyman. I don't know if this is a silly question or not, but usually I think it says beer and wine or malt liquor. Is there a difference between beer, wine, malt liquor application, or is it all-encompassing? Just because it says wine and malt liquor in the applicant just said beer and wine. I just want to make sure that we're approving if they want to serve beer that they can. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. If it's a beer and wine license, it should say beer and wine. Yeah. So if they wanted to serve beer, they couldn't? It is. A malt beverage is a beer. Oh, okay. But on the ABC website, it's not considered beer and wine. It's considered wine and malt. Okay. But it's the same. I guess it was the same question. Thank you. I'm an even sillier question. I'm sort of operated under the premise all these years is beer, wine, beer, wine, and malt. And the second one meant you could also serve vodka. No, that's all alcohol. All alcohol is considered like vodka, whiskey, anything more than malt. I got to brush up on my drinking. Sorry. No problem. I don't know if that's a good or bad, then I know that, but. Second. Actually, we have the second from Ms. Mahan. Oh. That's all right. So, Mr. Helman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question for our applicant. Thank you very much for doing business in Arlington. I just wanted to ask you what you've done for server training, what program they've been enrolled in and what your plans are if they haven't yet. This is for alcoholic beverage service. Yeah. And I used to work in the Mexican restaurant. I do like a bar back. And so we have just a beer and wine. So no, any cocktail, anything. So just a bottle of beer and wine, glass of wine. So it's very easy. Yeah, yeah, thank you. Thank you. Specifically, I was asking if your employees, all employees who will be serving alcohol will be enrolled and complete the tips server program offered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Yes. So I'm only the one who's gonna be here every day. So, and all the employees right now, there isn't any other employee right now. So when we're gonna hire, we're gonna train them too. Great. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. I know that that's a condition of the approval. And I just wanted to underline as I frequently do for our applicants that the select board considers this very important, that each person who will be serving alcohol undergo the tips training and complete that successfully as a good public health measure. So we're glad to have your experience. And once again, very glad to have you doing business here in Arlington. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, well, thank you for that. And as one of our colleagues would point out, it's just when things are unusual, it's just when things tend to go wrong. So if you're not there, if you change, you have a new employee come on, it's at those points mean that a violation can happen. And so we just want you to watch out for that because if my colleague points out, we can take it seriously. So thank you. And I have gotten food from there and it's spectacular. It's really quite good. The momos and the salmon teacum salad, I'm a goodness, really good. So on a motion by Mr. Corsi and a second by Mr. Mahan. I'll also brush up on the difference between malt and beer, which apparently there is no. No, thank goodness you were here. I'm like, good to see beer. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmeth. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Nansfo. Thank you. So thank you, Mr. Dengel. And good luck. So we will now move on to item number 15. Thank you. Actually, I got ahead of myself. We're going to do open forum next. So if you want to participate in an open forum, please raise your hand now. Oh, thank you. So the preamble to open forum is accepted in usual circumstances. Any matter presented for consideration of the board shall neither be active on 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 current concern or request. So we have Jordan Weinstein. So we're going to take the lineup, the list of participants now, and then there'll be the list in the order in which it's called. So we'll give you another few seconds. All right. So we're going to move on now. Are you seeing anyone, Mr. Mahan? There's Ms. Dry. So I have just promoted Jordan Weinstein. And then, oh, Ms. Dry. So that'll be a list. Thank you. I don't see Jordan in there yet. Yeah, it looks like it's trying to promote him. OK. But it's taking a few seconds. Yeah, no problem. No problem. In the meantime, I can also do Ms. Dry and see which one comes first. Sure. OK. Yeah, it looks like she's going to promote him. I'm going to work on Mr. Weinstein. Ms. Dry. Good evening. Elizabeth Dry, 10. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I know that the select work will be discussing the town hall and light hold banner policy. And I urge you to be brave and lift up the voices of the people who need to be lifted up right now. And please do not vote to ban all banners from the town hall. I feel like there is a compromise in there somewhere. And I urge you to find it. Thank you. So Mr. Weinstein is all set. He is choosing not to speak. All right. Great. Thank you, folks. And so we'll now move on to item number 15. And that's for approval pickup drop-off signs at Arlington High School. We have Jim Feeney, deputy town manager. Good evening. Hi, Jim. Mr. Feeney. Hold on. Sorry, Jim. Don't worry. It's fine. Good evening. Hi. Am I all set? Yeah. Yeah. You're all set. That's it. All right. Good evening, everyone. So I'm here tonight on behalf of the high school building project to formally request permission for a certain number of spots directly adjacent to the new front entrance of the Arlington High School be designated now as pickup drop-off only spots during school hours on weekdays. Meaning that after 4 PM, those spots would revert to standard parking spots where any existing parking rules for that block or stretch would apply. And these spots would flank what will be a new and lengthy fire lane as required by the fire code given that the entrance to the building now abuts the public way. So this is a matter of procedure and formal request for what I understand was a plan developed some time ago, but is only now ready to come to fruition now that the sidewalk has been completed, that the barriers have been removed and with the school year fast approaching. So this would entail blackout paint on all of the existing pavement markings, introducing new pavement markings, as well as the signage shown in your packets this evening. So that is the extent of the request at present. And I thank you for your consideration. Move or pull? Second. OK. Any questions, comments? Yes, Ms. Ma. I have a take advantage question. Yes. Since we're discussing the front of the high school, and I have noticed one, I would like to ask the deputy town manager if you know and or if you could find out in the decision may not have been made yet. But the board has heard this several times since the beginning of this project. Since the front side of the building, what I'm calling the front side that faces Mass Ave, it's pretty much near completion. And I believe one of them has been restored. There were like five or six different areas that had memoriams from different classes, et cetera. And I know that the schools, I believe the schools took all those and sort of tallyed them there in a book. So do you know or can you find out if the five or six different memorial, memoriam sites, and it appears one is back, it's a bench, if those are going to go back into the front of the high school and if not, where they will go? Sure, thank you for making this possible. I do know there was a memorial subcommittee. I do not sit on that particular subcommittee, but as you alluded to, they did document and catalog all existing memorials on site and those that had previously been a part of a bench are being reintroduced into new benches. And contact has been made by the memorial subcommittee with family members of many of those prior memorial holders. So I can't speak to any specific memorials, but I'm happy to report back if they have made strides as to where some of those may be returned to. But I do know it's something that is on the top of mind for at least one of the various subcommittees. OK, thank you. If you could, when appropriate, if you could just touch base to say whatever the amount throughout the whole school, but especially on the outside, if all the individuals have been contacted and if they have, then we'll just leave that to the school side and that committee to flush out. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, Mr. Corsi. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Feeney. Just a question for clarification. I was looking at the plan that was submitted as part of our agenda. And you'd mentioned that outside of school hours, some of these parking spaces outside of the fire lane would revert back to regular parking. But as I look at the plan, is there some areas on either side of the fire lane that the intent was to keep those as drop-off areas all the time? Because it seems like there's a different language in the two areas on just on either side of the fire line there, within 65 feet of the fire line on either side. I do see what you're referring to in the plan. And that my read of the plan is the same as your read of the plan, that there will be some spots that do not revert. And perhaps we can make that signage a bit clearer when we actually go into production. Thank you. Anyone else? I don't have any questions for myself. Thank you, everyone. So on a motion by Ms. Mahan and a second by Mr. Herd. Any further approval of the pickup and drop-off signs? Mr. Heim. Mr. Herd? Yes. Mr. DeCourson? Yes. Mr. Helmut? Yes. Mrs. Mahan? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Janet Ms. Foe? Thank you. Thank you, Svene. Good night. Good night, man. Moving on to item number 16, a summary of the Dowlands Safe School Arrival Dismissal Schools Street Pilot Program. And we have principals at Dingham of the Dowland Elementary School. Good evening, everybody. Good evening. Hello. Did we hear me OK? You're just fine. So we're looking forward to the summary, Mr. Dingham. Yeah, so hopefully Slick Board has had an opportunity to review the summary or the memorandum that we put together. At the end of our June 2022 pilot, I think we came to this group for approval to move forward on our Safe Roots to School Arrival and Dismissal Plan in the spring of, well, I'd say, the late winter, early spring of 2022. Since then, our Arrival and Dismissal Program has been fully in place. With what I would say is a lot of success based on the feedback that we've collected from our community. So we were able to follow up with a survey for not just community members, but also local residents who are abutting the school. And so they're experiencing this a little bit differently. And pretty overwhelmingly, we have positive response and some feedback that we'd like to explore more fully for the new school year. I guess really tonight, what I want to do is direct everyone's attention really to some of the proposed updates and a phase to implementation of those updates after experiencing the changes that we made and the traffic patterns that were pretty quickly learned or adapted to, I guess I would say, by our community with a lot of support. So in the upcoming school year, we are going to look for some signage updates and changes and also potentially adding some additional sign. The school week and our school day for elementary schools in the district are changing, so we would ask for support in from DPW and updating those signs to reflect the new school day times in the morning and the afternoon. And we've moved our early release days to Wednesdays. So that's one piece of it. What we also have observed and what we heard from our community is that the opposite side of Florence during our morning arrival times can be congested when we have parking on those sides. So we would be requesting to pilot a parking restrictions on both sides of Florence Avenue for the times that we are recommending, 7.30 to 8.15 in the morning, and 12.45 to 1.15, excuse me, 2.15 to 2.45 PM. Most school days the exception being on our early release Wednesdays. We received feedback from our safety school consultants and from the community, just around tightening up some of the language on our signs to avoid confusion and some suggestions for better signage. Really what we noticed was confusing for drivers. The beginning of our pilot was to take that left hand turn when we're coming towards the school on Florence Field or a right hand turn from the opposite side. Without clear language, it took some volunteer and staff to be around and actually directing traffic at times to make sure that people understood what they meant. So you can see those recommendations in our memorandum. And then also what we want to do is extend our drop-off zone. We, at the start of our pilot, modified what the Safe Fruits to School folks had suggested. And we used our drop-off from Florence Field up to Waverly. The original Safe Fruits to School proposal suggested that we extend our drop-off all the way to Wichita, but we thought we would try it just for one block to see if that worked. What we learned particularly on trickier weather days when there tends to be more drivers, the backup realistically is moving all the way up to Wichita. So what's happening is people are figuring out what they're using as a drop-off regardless. We'd like to extend our drop-off all the way up the side of Florence Field so that folks have that. So we're formalizing what actually is already happening, regardless of all that space on a given day. I'll tell you on a sunny day, that's likely not the case. But for safety purposes, and again, back to the original recommendations, where we are requesting to extend our drop-off zone all the way across those two blocks of Florence Field to Wichita. And then the last piece is, and I think this is probably maybe one of the more important parts that we've noticed, is some support from DPW first to repaint some of the no parking areas around the school. So I'm not sure how familiar with some of those intersections, but there are no parking areas that there are some signage, but they're not as visible to drivers and maybe not as adhered to at times. And so we would ask that we would add to, in addition to signage, some painting those intersections where there's no parking to increase the visibility. And then the last piece, and this is harder to describe, so hopefully the pictures can give folks if you are familiar with the area around town school with a sense of what we're asking. We do have a crosswalk from Renfrew to Florence, but it's on the opposite side of where the majority of our traffic is, or it's actually cutting through where most of our traffic is taking a left-hand turn. What we would like to do is to add a parallel crosswalk from Renfrew to Florence Field on the other side of Renfrew so that students can more safely cross Florence. And so what they would be doing actually, they'd be crossing the street right in front of where we have barriers and where we are directing traffic away from the school. So by the time the buses are in there in the morning, that area is blocked off. We'd like students to cross on that side as opposed to the other side of that intersection where most of the traffic is taking left-hand turns if they're taking advantage of our drop-off program. So that's our, so we've had a lot of success. We have some areas that we think could be improved upon, the sports like Gordon D. Puget. And our next phase would be to implement those updates and also continue to work with TAC. I think TAC has received these recommendations and they've also written a letter of support. We work with TAC, we work with the Massachusetts Safe Roots to School Connect Darlington advisory groups in our community to see if there is anything that we're gonna learn from these new changes that we'd also wanna recommend and we'll come back and ask for approval for those as well. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Dingman. And so I'll turn to my colleagues, Mr. Hurd. We'll move receipt. And then as I guess, Mr. DeCorsi said last time, the resident Dallin parent on the board. I said this before at a new business, but I mean, I think that what we've done has been a wild success compared to what it was, both from a safety standpoint and an ease standpoint. So I'm certainly happy to support the continuation of the program. And it just, it flows traffic, better traffic is slower. And it has done wonders for the egregious illegal parking that we see sometimes in that area. So I'm happy to see positive feedback on the program and see it move forward. I think, I mean, I agree with everything that Mr. Dingman said. Particularly that, I've been talking about that sidewalk for three years. And what Mr. Dingman didn't mention is the reason most people cross are where there's no sidewalk is because all of Renfrew has a sidewalk on one side and not on the other side. So people are walking down the sidewalk, then they have to cross the street to go across. So I think we should, I don't know if we'd put a parallel sidewalk crossing crosswalk, or just move the crosswalk altogether. And it's gonna take some engineering because there's two concrete posts that prevent people from walking through it. But I certainly would agree with that. And the implement, I think you're very, very cautious as a principle should be about whether people can see the signs. I think everyone can see the signs. There's just a lot of people who ignore the signs and so we talked to the police department before about some potential striping of the areas right near the beginning of Renfrew and Florence that we really need cars to not park in. And so I would definitely support looking at what we can come up with with the police department and the DPW to add some more striping or painting on the street there to show people that they're not parking where they're supposed to be. But overall, like I said, it's been a success. It's been a lot of help from parent volunteers and school staff that are out there in the morning working with the kids to get out of the cars. I think a lot of the students like to participate, they come and open the doors for students that are coming and getting dropped off. So it's almost a fun little event in the morning for as you start your school day. So I certainly appreciate all the work on this and look forward to the continuation of the program. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome. Mr. Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll second Mr. Herd's motion and thank you Mr. Dingman for your comprehensive this second time report to the board. I mean, I really think this is a model for other elementary schools that haven't done this yet to follow. And we've had received a couple inquiries. And I wondered, Mr. Herd mentioned the issue on rent-through street and that's a public way. I don't know if that last stretch of rent-through, if there's anything that town can do as a goal to pave that part of the sidewalk alongside that house. I know on the Florence side, there is not a sidewalk, but maybe on the rent-through side, maybe that's a long-term goal as well. Maybe we can try to work through that. And the other thing I would say, I like the idea that you're looking ahead too to phase two and I see a reference there to the intersection of what you sit in Appleton, which has been a major concern for the board and a major concern for Dallin families for a very long time. So thank you very much. Well, I will say that I was impressed by the stat that there was a significant shift away from driving. So not only was there an increase in safety, but there was a pretty big increase from 3.4 to 4.5. The statistician in me would like to see the spread on the early polling, but that's fine. It's still impressive, but the most shift. I mean, I think that's really people kind of putting, well, voting with their feet, almost literally. So if they are now feeling safer with me walking, they're showing it by actually doing it. So, and I had a sense of this because I sit on tax. So, yeah, this is great, I mean, so more power to you and hopefully the next improvements will be beneficial to me, you know? So, yeah, we're moving in that direction. I mean, the safe routes to school are really interested in walking to school. And that is a big part of what they're about. So, there's the data that we collected and then also just being there in the mornings and the afternoons and really feel a shift in the amount of families that are walking to school and it just feels great. It's wonderful to see everybody out there in the morning. And that's something that's a little harder to measure, but it's also the value added of having a community school and that's what Arlington is about. Yes, that's right. And there's some real data that, you know, active transportation really makes a big difference with health and if you get people thinking and in the habit of doing active transportation, when they're younger and continue doing it, it'll pay off for their health and not, of course, for the environment. So, great. So, on a motion by Mr. Hurd, to accept and second by Mr. D'Corsi and Mr. Heim. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. D'Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. This is Mahan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Take care. Appreciate everyone's time. Welcome. So, moving on, you know, we have appeal of tree warden decision regarding the non-removal of Honey Wilkis Tree at 261 Hillside Avenue. We have Rob and Eileen Gameforth. Hello. Hi, Eileen. Hi. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having us. You're welcome. So, let's hear the appeal. Yeah. So, we are trying to have a tree that's in front of our house. It's a town tree. It's a Honey Wilkis removed. So, we've had some damage from the tree, just from it leaves the pods and branches falling. But the main reason is because we've got one of those very slanted driveways. So, sometimes it's hard to park our cars there. So, we're hoping to expand that with some impervious favors. Pervious favors. Pervious favors, the rain one. And so, we're hoping to get that tree out. You know, since we moved here, we planted maybe six trees in our yard. So, we'd be happy to have some more town trees or other trees. It's just the location and this particular type of tree that we'd love to have it removed. If I could add that as well. We've had problems with the underground, under house garage, which caused some serious damage to the train. The original train was a clay train. And we had it probed and honked out from the scene. It completely clogged and the roof system has completely cracked the existing train. It also has, the roof itself have lifted the asphalt. And you can see it was repaired or moving in just, you know, two or more than 13 years ago. Sorry for the blurriness. So, we're having a, we've had nothing but problems with it. And this was prior to our desire to have additional parking with a pervious concrete and more, you know, green driveway. So, yeah, it's been very difficult. And it's also caused a lot of trouble with gutters and our neighbors gutters as well. So, sorry for the long winded panther. Yeah. And we're hoping that with the removal of the tree, we could then have the sidewalk be passable. You know, it's right now. It's one of those pumps that's underneath the tree. I understand. Thank you. And that's fine. I mean, your next relation wasn't too long winded or anything. So, thank you very much. You know, I'll turn to my colleagues. Thank you. Tree ward. I don't see him. Do we have the tree ward? I think he was on vacation. Okay. He provided the information beforehand. Yeah, so the letters. And on the reference of the attached cracked. Yeah. Okay. You know. Yeah, we did meet with the tree heading. You know, that's why we're here. So. Okay. I don't have the reference of that. You know, so if anyone wants to say anything? If not, you know, I'll jump in. You know, so. Well, I'm glad it's gonna be an impervious. And if you're gonna do a driveway, I'm not impervious to a driveway because I mean, one of the things that we have heard me because we're walking, working through some parking issues. I mean, of our own. I mean, that's a way of putting it. And one of the things I have heard or is that in favor of allowing more parking on the street is that it would give people an incentive not to put in a driveway. And I noticed that one of the things you had said that you wanted, you wanted to get rid of the tree to put it in a driveway because you can't do overnight parking. And so I was wondering if overnight parking became less restrictive, would that take away your desire you need to put in a driveway? You know, I think just for us, I am. Sorry. I'm sorry. I thought of parking. He'll be in the fog. So I am, I'm an architect and I study green design so I'm very much into sustainable building. So I think, I mean, I've on-street, off-street parking I think it's sort of a different issue. I think this one, you know, we're able to get it off the road more room for kids for their bike and their basketball mats. You know, I think we have a large enough block that it's sort of warrant to have, you know, just a small driveway that would be there. So I think in this particular case is at a large front yard so it's not really taking over a lot of the green space that's already there. It's adjacent to our neighbor's driveway currently. So it's already sort of an area that has some seating. So I don't know if on-street, I mean, it would make our lives simpler now where we're sort of shuffling things around. But I think overall, I think the driveway would be the way to go here. But we're hoping to have something that's not gonna, you know, increase run-off. Gotcha, okay. So I'm seeing a couple of questions. I'm not sure who went first. But I saw the system first. It was on the first day. Okay, first I would say that both of the four takes is, I'm just envisioning if we vote to overrule the Tree Wardens recommendation in order to allow someone to put in a driveway. To remove a town tree. Then we need to afford that same opportunity to bomb anybody else who may come in with that exact same reason. And then the second thing is, and someone can correct me on this, regarding commercial vehicles. And has the town bylaw been changed? Isn't there a bylaw that we do not allow commercial vehicles to be parked in my just imagining this? I think that might be correct. Ms. Mahon, I'm not sure that we're saying that commercial vehicles can't be parked where on the street or in a driveway. I thought I also in the driveway, but maybe not. Okay, but definitely not in the street. I know there's something about commercial vehicles in our town bylaw and I'm just not recalling it off the top of my head. So right now I don't see anything before me to overrule the ruling by Archery Warden, but I'd definitely be interested in hearing what my colleagues have to say if anyone disagrees with that. Sir? Yeah, I mean, not to comment from the other head. But I mean, I've, that's, they live right across through from me, sort of adjacent. I had a similar situation a few years ago. I didn't have to remove a tree, but the, there was a time when the underground, I think garages worked for people and I don't think they work anymore. When we had the underground garage, it just wasn't sufficient and I mean, I know we're working on a parking pilot, but I mean, this is a long-term solution that they're seeking. I don't know if all of a sudden this is, I mean, it's a pretty significant expense to put a driveway in. So I don't know if that's gonna cause, you know, a flurry of applications, but it is, you know, certainly a concern if you have two cars and especially in the winter, trying to use the slanted down driveway in the underground driveway. I mean, that being said, I think we've said this for overnight purpose, parking permits in general that, I mean, you buy a property as it is, but I think as the application said, these particular applicants have added, I think even the objection letters have mentioned that they put significant new trees in the property over the course of their ownership. So I mean, I think the tree warden is coming from perspective of is this a healthy tree and he made a determination that it's a healthy tree and there's a reason why there's a process to appeal to the slack board. The slack board looks at more of the global issues as to what's being presented to us. I think, I mean, my inclination is to, I wouldn't, I don't wanna say overrule the tree warden, but to look at what's being asked of us and the totality of the property. And I think that what they're asking for is reasonable. Mrs. Mahoney is correct that you can't park a commercial plate in a driveway, but I think there's a practice in Arlington to go to the zoning board of appeals in certain situations. You can't park a massive truck, but if it's a reasonably sized vehicle and I think those tend to hinge on whether or not your neighbor's object, but there is a process to do that. You're not by right able to park a commercial vehicle, but I mean, my inclination on this is to allow the petition, but I'm certainly open to thoughts by my colleagues. Mr. D'Corsi? Yeah, I have a couple of questions. Just on the hearing that took place back in April before the tree warden, did the tree warden, and unfortunately I'm not here this evening, did he open the hearing, receive objections, and then close the hearing, or did he take a position on the health of the tree, and maybe that's something we need to follow up here, but if you could maybe give us a little information as to what happened at the tree hearing, because I know there is a procedure, if there is an objection, he loses his discretion, so I don't know how far that went. You need to unmute yourself. We're going to speak on behalf, but the Zoom meeting was not open, but he had a couple of objection letters, so that was the blank date. He said, as long as you have objection letters, then you have to go get it repealed. So it wasn't his personal discretion. You know, it was just based on the fact that there were objection letters from the procedure, yeah. Excuse me, I didn't hear what she said about, once there were objection letters, then why? I think what I heard is he opened the meeting, said there were objection letters, and said at that point you have to appeal to the select board, is that right? Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, the meeting lasted about five minutes. Okay, all right, and then as far as the tree committee, because we have received at least one letter, I think two letters from members of the tree committee, did you say you met with them or? No, they were the total objection during the meeting, was from the tree committee, those letters that you have. Okay, and then just in terms of, so you never really got anywhere, I don't know if there's been anything that you propose, I know this is, there's no dispute, this is a public shade tree, it's, I don't think there's a dispute that the tree's healthy, not withstanding the difficulties it may be causing to your house, and I guess you haven't gotten this far, but I don't know if there's been any talk about, and I'll call it mitigation, putting other trees, I know in front of your house on hillside, there's one tree, there's room between the existing tree and hillside, but again, that's a public way, did you ever get anywhere talking to anybody who objected us to try to find a compromise here? No, we would love to add more trees and we would definitely be unopposed to that, truly. Okay. Yeah, and there's been no objection or conversation about that. Okay, and in looking at your house on the George Street side, do you have an option of going to the right side of your driveway? Unfortunately not. Okay, and why is that? Oh, I'm sorry, no, we don't. If you're looking at the driveway, I mean, it would park us right in front of the, I'm not sure it would work with the slope and the grade, and I think it would park us right in front of our dining room. Yeah, so we would be parallel to George on the corner of the hillside of George, so it would also possibly obstruct any walkway that exists. All right, that's all I have for questions right now. Okay, no, those are good questions. Thank you. Mr. Chair? Yes, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to confirm that Ms. Mons correct, there's a zoning bylaw provision that prohibits open air parking of commercial vehicles without a special permit, which I believe Mr. Hurd also alluded to. Thank you. Yeah, you know, we've actually worked, like just with the two cars, it's not, this has never been really about the commercial vehicle that we're gonna find another spot to park that in some point. This has just been about like us in the driveway and you know, a couple of years we might have, you know, anytime anybody's coming or we always have to do this switch out. So it's not, it's not dependent on commercial vehicles. Thank you. Mr. Thomas? Thank you. Mr. Chair, I have a question. I think for town council, if we were to approve the removal, is there a binding way that we could make as a condition of that, the installation of permeable pavement in the driveway and or mitigation in the, by you know, adding another tree in an existing location? Is there a mechanism for it to do that? Thank you, Mr. Helmuth, Mr. Chair Mayer. Yes, please. So chapter 87 doesn't necessarily provide that level of detail. It basically says that you can grant permission over the objection of residents for removal of a tree. Technically a public shade tree is planted by the town and it's within the public way. So there are certainly our mechanisms for us to add additional trees, but I frankly not sure whether or not you can make a grant of an appeal contingent on a specific set of things. I would think that the concern I would have would be that particularly with respect to the previous material is what would be the enforcement mechanism. Once the tree's gone, there's no real way of ensuring that. I mean, when you remove a tree without permission, there's a $500 fine and actually there can be even more stiff penalties. So I wouldn't recommend anybody do it, but I would be concerned that I'm not sure what the enforcement mechanism would be. You can always try to hammer out an agreement and essentially say that the town, you know, made a sort of contract if you will, but the specific performance of that contract might be tricky. So I'm all in favor of creative solutions, which is not sure whether or not chapter 87 specifically offers some sort of contingent approval on if you do act, you must do why. So are you saying that would like preclude us from doing like a memorandum of understanding? If the board were interested in pursuing that type of contingency, I want to let the board know that I would do everything I could to support it. I'm just being frank with the board that I don't know whether or not, let's say we said, yes, the tree can be removed, but you must plant a tree in the public way or pay for a tree to be planted in the public way. If, and I'm sure these folks are honorable folks, if they didn't end up doing that, I don't know what the recourse would necessarily be. But if the board was so inclined to do that, I'm sure that I could come up with a way that would be the best version of that, I believe. I don't mean to talk over and around the gain forts, so I apologize for that, but if this is something brand new, so we're sort of charting the course, if it is something that we do, would you all be amenable, would you need more time to think about if we did enter into a memorandum of understanding with you all, if that's something that you would be receptive towards? And if you don't have an answer tonight, that's fine, sorry. No, definitely. Absolutely. Yeah, we would actually like to put another knee up. We would, yeah. After we lost one of our neighbors fell the 12 trees on their property, so that's their right, but it definitely changed the situation. No, I saw that in your letter. They took down 12, you put up six, and I only brought up the commercial vehicle because that was one of the points in favor of doing this, so I'm certainly willing to be open and be creative in terms of allowing this with a memorandum of understanding. So that's where I'm at. I think that's that's it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sure, sure. Yeah, Mr. Heim. Just sort of given what the board seems to be talking about, another option while we don't have a specific bylaw about this yet, and the tree committee has, I believe, discussed it to my recollection, there is something called a setback tree and a setback tree agreement, wherein the owners of property essentially agree to plant a tree within the setbacks when they're private property with certain conditions. I don't want to speak for anybody. I know that oftentimes the concern of the tree committee and others in town is the relative size of a sapling versus a mature public shade tree. Looking at this site and location, one possibility would be a large, you might be able to plant a larger setback tree that might entail more cost for these folks, though, and we might be able to develop a setback tree agreement. So I don't want to put anybody on the spot, but not without the benefit of Mr. Laquieve and these folks getting an opportunity to think about it. But another option might be if we were going to explore sort of contingent approval, might be to see if we can enter into a setback tree agreement prior to the authorizations that you would try to have a more equal one-for-one relationship with the diameter breast height of the tree. I don't think you'll ever get a one-to-one without massive expense and difficulty, but looking at the site, it does seem like the only kinds of trees that would be likely within the public way would probably be a smaller tree that would eventually mature. But you could potentially have an agreement for a setback tree if the parties were so inclined. I could explore that option as well. All right. Mr. Hurd. Mr. Hallman. Mr. Hallman. Alternate, Mr. Hurd. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question for our residents, which has now just gone out of my mind. It's just been that kind of week. Oh, sorry. I'm just tracking you with the... I have some questions as to when it comes, you can just jump in and let's... Go ahead and maybe you'll ask my... Yeah, no, well, when you get it, just let me know and I'll stop. So, you mentioned about the 12 trees that were felled in, you said that it just changed everything for you and your neighbors. Can you just explain more about what you mean by it changed everything for you? I can comment on that too. Yeah, along, it was in our backyard, so there were two budding yards. So they were planted right along what the property line is, so we've got a retaining wall. So we always kind of thought of them as our trees a bit, because they, you know, they're going as far enough over our house in some ways. It was a shade for our lawn, it was a shade for everything, which is again, not our property, so not our... Yeah, so there was their right to take down the trees, but they were, you know, really once the tree was up, it was 50-50 as far as the shading goes on our yard. But then it was just a visibility issue as well, you know, like some of the very large trees, you know, from our windows or backyard, you know, you went from seeing maybe five houses to seeing 20 houses, it's based on the visibility with the trees down. So it was a big, you know, it was a big adjustment. I'll, everybody remember. I think everyone in the neighborhood remember. But we, yeah, sorry, we decided to then plant the trees in order to try to bring back that same kind of coverage. Yeah, and we had tried planting, you know, some smaller saplings, but we actually did opt to build for some larger, you know, they obviously weren't huge, but they kind of had a head start. I think they were 15-16 foot trees. And they're all indigenous in New England, so there's nothing exact what was possibly there. No folks, unfortunately. Gotcha, and hopefully, you know, more resilient me to what are probably gonna be more extreme conditions for me, both to protect precipitation and storage. Mr. Hear, you want to say something? No. Well, you said, you said because them and their neighbors, I lived diagonally across from the house, it took all the trees down, and those trees used to provide shade from my backyard. So I can't imagine the loss of shade that they're experiencing. Gotcha. It's been a very great person, he's fine. He's fine. So, did you get your question? I did, but go ahead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I don't want you to forget it again. Yeah, just a question for you, and I'm looking over at this direction because that's where the screen is that you're appearing on. Must look very strange to the public. Do you have a specific timeline? I mean, I know that you want to get this moving, but if we were to, I would also, I would say to my colleagues, I favor some kind of a novel conditional approval just based on good faith and get it on trust. And I think that you've demonstrated that in your letter, in your actions with planning, planning the six trees, that you have the professional knowledge that you, and values that you've espoused. So I'd be a favorite to go for this. I think I'm just trying to think about the best way to get it done. Is it acceptable to you if we take some time, suggest that you maybe work possibly with the tree warden or other members of the town staff to kind of, and maybe the town council to hammer out some kind of, you know, not more complicated than it needs to be, but some kind of an agreement that might, that would involve a promise to do the pervious pavement if you do a driveway and maybe a setback tree or another tree. But is that timeline, if that took another month, you know, another few weeks another month, would that work out for you? 100%. Yeah. I think that's, I think that's, I think that's a good point. But yeah, we would like to get it done, you know, if we could get it done before the winter, it would be great, you know. But again, yeah. That's something to keep the good amount of work there just so we can get everything off the road for no plows. Yeah. But yeah. That's a good point. But yeah, you know, definitely. We've been wanting that tree down for a year, so we can definitely make it a little louder. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I think, you know, I'll let somebody else make a motion, but I think if we need one, but that's, I'd support that direction. I think that there's good argument for the circumstances warranting this, if you look at the totality of it. So I think I saw Mr. D'Corsi first then. No, no, no. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Helmuth, for those comments. What I was thinking, and I'm glad to hear you say you'd be willing to try to work towards something. I think maybe a motion to continue the hearing until our next meeting might be in order, because the other thing I think Attorney Hyme needs to look at is what the extent of authority is under chapter 87 in terms of what type of approval we could give. And, you know, no guarantees, but we like the, you know, even in one of the objection letters from Ms. Burden, she said that you're to be commended for the work that you did. And I think where you've waited a while here, we don't need to decide this up or down tonight. I think there may be a way to find a solution here. And again, it's not 100%. We don't know what's gonna come back, but I think it's worth giving you the time to have some discussions and come back. So on that basis, unless Attorney Hyme tells me another motion might be in more order, I would move to continue the hearing until our next meeting in September. I would second that and just say my personal preference unless you can find something that's like to it, because it's not that big of a legal thing. And we are setting a process. Right now I'm just gearing towards a memorandum of understanding. Which I won't go into what the legal enforcement of that is and this, that and the other thing. But I'll leave it to you, Mr. Chair and Attorney Hyme, to work with the gain for this, to come up with perhaps some sort of solution. Maybe there's something better than that, but I think that's sort of the lowest low cost way to go, not low cost, but low legal cost way to go. Thank you. Thank you, Simone. Any other comments? So regarding the water damage that you're experiencing from the tree, so what is, what's gonna happen when, how do we take care of that with the removal of the tree? I mean, it's a honey low cost. And I think that they were, when they brought them here, I think they didn't intend them to grow those giant like 12 inch pods with those seed seeds. So, but our tree, I think every other year, it drops a ton of them, you know, like maybe 10 bags filled. Yeah, it usually happens in late December and early January, for whatever reason, it's the late drop of the seed. Usually if I'm not mistaken for my research, it's a riverbed and water area location. So the human that decided on these trees throughout the town, I don't believe made the right choice as far as that, because we know a few other people have these trees who have similar problems. But unfortunately they are not in the same position we are as far as trying to have it removed or fortunately for them, I suspect. But I thought the roots were affecting your pipes, no? They are indeed, this is true. But however, the drain, we've rerouted liters from our gutters to dissipate some of the water flow to the drain itself. And I'm very obsessive compulsive, so I continually clean out the area. And again, we were able to rerout the liters to slow down the drainage water. But we believe with the pervious driveway and the lack of seeds dropping constantly, they're able to one that are existing possibly deteriorating and possibly free up some of the drainage. That's it. Well, thank you. So I certainly understood where Mr. Mahomet's coming from earlier on about the overriding of the tree warden. But given the nature of the process, which was elucidated by Mr. Corsi's questions, it's not so much that we are, I think overriding the opinion of the tree warden as much as we are giving a wider hearing to the concerns of the residents because it seems like that didn't really get a chance to be aired, maybe had a chance to present a letter, but didn't get to go through this kind of give and take Q&A. And so I think a good case has been made. I like Mr. Corsi's, you know. Which I second it. Which you second it, and so on. And it gives more time for the tree warden and anyone else to make their case mean. And so on motion to continue the hearing. Thank you. By Mr. Corsi, the second. By Mr. Mahan. Mr. Hine. Mr. Her. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. This is Mahan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Thank you so much for your time. Sorry to take up so much of it. No problem. It's the nature of the tree hearing. Or the tree, anything that tree is for you. We spent a lot of time on here because. Can I ask, did I hear a dog in the background? Yes. Yes, sorry. It's another hearing that didn't. But we won't go there, we won't go there. She's got a lot to say. Thank you for looking at it. Well, thank you. Have a great evening. Thank you. Take care. I'll probably see you in September. Yeah. Goodbye. Bye-bye. So, we'll be done. Continue discussion. And possible vote on overnight permit and parking pilot. You know, I think it's gonna be probably mostly discussion. So, here's where we are. After the last meeting, I had the idea, maybe I presented this at the meeting that we would talk to TAC to get some sense of whether there, how would we do a pilot, you know? Because as I said to you all, think metrics because I couldn't really come up with a pilot. You know, like what to measure, you know? And so went to TAC hoping that they would have some ideas being in and essentially no one had any ideas of metrics. It's certainly not anything we could measure in the short run, you know? And so, in fact, one person said, well, probably what you should consider doing is a stage or a phase deployment, you know? So essentially what I kind of hinted at, which is that you make a decision to go forward and you go forward slowly and gingerly and just kind of try to mitigate anything that comes up. And so, I've talked to Mr. Corsi and the thinking now is that we like to explore doing less restrictive overnight parking policy, you know? So I don't really want to call it removal of the ban, just right now we have a very restrictive overnight parking policy, you know? And so we will grant some people relief, you know? But most people don't get it, you know? And so I want to make that be a lot more permissive, and also explore how we can enforce our current overnight parking, you know? And because right now that's part of the equity issue is that the right, we only will ticket someone if someone calls, you know? And so we want to explore how we can make that not be the case, so that we can enforce it generally, of course that will require potential resources or at least a reallocation of how APD allocates their time. And also explore me doing this only on one side of the street and was there anything else, Mr. Corsi, that I just, that we would consider? Permit one side of the street, and we're still talking about a pilot. Yeah, and permit me, so it's like, so then if we allow a person to do an overnight parking situation, there would be a permit, and then how we price that, and how we, what is the bureaucratic side of it? How do we administer it, you know? Is that gonna be done by APD? Will it be done by us, you know? So we need to work these things out. So these are just some ideas, you know? Because essentially what we need to do next, if we get permission from you all, is to go to APD, and DPW, and probably some of our staff, mean and start betting out how to do this, you know? So that's where we are, you know, Ms. N'Hon. Excuse me, this is just to tickle everybody. Sure. Two things, first off, a pilot by the nature of itself is a defined area, defined time, because I know there was some discussion about doing it town-wide right off the bat, and I think that would just set everything up to failure, because different parts of town have different issues that they're dealing with. So I think we should definitely still, as we're moving forward, if there's a pilot, it's not a town-wide pilot, it's a, you know, finite area, finite time, and then go from there. This is just for discussion, I'm saying. And then, just to put this on the table, if, I don't remember the last time we went to the voters, if we wanna go to the voters again, not for a special election, so we're not costing any extra money, put it on the ballot again, but then really pay attention to the results precinct by precinct, because traditionally, and I'm going by memory, and I could be wrong on this, so someone correct me. Traditionally, when it fails, it's because everyone does get to vote, and the part of town that doesn't have this is an issue, which means I'm not East Allington, myself growing up there, and my colleagues, some grew up there, and some live there. You know, if that was sort of a weighted thing, or if we looked at the results and saw that, you know, certain areas of town versus, you know, it usually fails because the total town might vote, I don't think is representative of, especially what we have in East Allington, and I'm not saying that situation doesn't exist in other precincts outside of East Allington, but it's probably one or two, if that. This, to me, and is it more of an East Allington concern, something you have to be concerned with. I don't want to make it that it's a problem or an issue, I'm not trying to say anything negative about that. So what I'd like to do is continue the conversations, as you say, with the APD Allington Police Department and others, definitely get back to, if we do it before anything else, finite area, finite time, because it's just fair for everybody, including town staff, that are gonna have to manage this and evaluate it, and then maybe put some thought into, no cost to the town, to the taxpayers, when it can go on whatever next election, which could be the local election, I don't know, or it could be before or after that. Put that in, but then look at those, say to the voters, we're gonna look at these results to see how each precinct voted on overnight parking, and if your precinct, a precinct seems to speak a different voice than other precincts, which sometimes become the majority, then maybe that's where we need to focus, so I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Mr. Hurt? Yeah, I mean, I like the idea of, I mean, I think we definitely should look towards a ballot question and not make any promises as to how we're gonna interpret the results, but it will at least allow us to take the temperature of the town as a whole, and maybe there is some mechanism to allow it in certain areas and not allow it in other areas. There's certainly challenges that we could face in that situation too, but I do like the idea of looking at a more, I don't wanna say relax, but changing the requirements that we have for overnight parking permits, as opposed to just blanketly allowing anyone in a certain area or anyone in the town to park in the street overnight, because that will invariably allow people who don't really need to park out front, who's just more convenient to park out front versus pull around to the driveway, in front of the house as close to the door they walk into, and it will provide some, I think important data to say, or if we had yet the way we change is you have to be more than 300 feet from municipal parking opportunities. You have to, and I think right now we just say if there's any parking at your property, then we're not gonna allow you to have an overnight parking permit, which certainly in multifamily situations can be difficult. So I mean, I think that is certainly worthwhile looking at to see if initially we can come up with some sort of pilot that does that, as opposed to just blanketly allows people to park. And again, I think we will go towards a valid question because we hear often about the people that are grieved by the parking policy. We don't have people come here that support generally, they don't come on to tell us that they support overnight parking bands. So that will give us the information we need. So I mean, I think it's all head in the right direction. And I think, I mean, it will get, we've been talking about this for, I think since I've been on the board and well beyond that, it seems to be a prevalent issue. And it does, it is something that we need to come to some conclusion on. So I think we're heading in a good direction. I like what I hear. I never call them Mr. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the summary. I appreciate the discussion from my colleagues as well. So I heard that you were talking a bunch of ideas. Do you need a vote to continue the research or did you just kind of want to get a, did you just kind of want to get a sense of where we're at? Want to get a sense of where you're at. But I do want to make it clear though, we are not talking about me overnight parking without a permit. I'm not talking about that at all. It's not just blanket overnight parking. Like Lexington, Lexington allows overnight parking except during the winter mark months. We're not talking that at all. Okay. We're talking overnight parking with a permit, and then it wouldn't matter of the cost, but also enforcing our current overnight parking ban. Because my thinking is that we have a lot of that going on, but we're not enforcing, and it would be interesting to do that enforcement and then see what kind of demand we get for the permits. I mean, and one thing I didn't toss in is that we also want to explore what we could do with the money that we get for those permits because one of the things that we hear, and I'm hearing a lot from people who really want to keep the status quo just so you don't miss the turn, you know? And so, and one, two, there are two concerns. One is that we will increase the parking on the streets, I mean, and also encourage people to get cars when what we want to do is discourage me in cars, I mean, encourage people to do more transit. My feelings about that is that, I mean, in fact, we had this, I think in one of the hearings for an article, is that a lot of people who have to have cars don't have the luxury of not having a car. I mean, their jobs are far away, I mean, and they have to have one, I mean, and a lot of times, they are perhaps even renting, I mean, and so now we're really making it hard on those folks to love to take transit, but they can't, I mean, or maybe it's that they have to take commuter rail and it's very expensive. I would love to see us take those monies and maybe even try to like help people use transit and maybe help subsidize passes. I mean, another idea is, especially it's in the Kinect Arlington, is help put in more electric vehicles, I mean, and another idea was in Kinect Arlington was create car sharing opportunities. So that's, so I just want to say not just overnight parking without. Thank you for that expansive response to my very narrow question, but that was very helpful, so I'm glad that you did. I think we should can proceed, but proceed carefully. It's been clear to me listening to the first public forum we have listening to the correspondence that I've received from individual constituents, residents and otherwise that the status quo isn't working and does really present some fairness and equity problems, both in terms of unnecessary restrictiveness on people who don't have the luxury of just taking transit. You know, I think that's the reality of people's lives. This is not a good time to put economic difficulty on people. At the same time, to avoid unnecessary and unintended consequences that do promote, make it, you know, that do tip the balance to making it easier to just add another car or when there may be other alternatives because I really do support sustainability initiatives and a transportation plan. I think that, so I don't know where we wanna land on this but I'm glad that the research is continuing. I also think that when it comes to a permit program, these are complicated programs, other towns, municipalities have implemented them and learned lessons and I assume that that'll be part of the research process. I think one of the hardest things to me would be the market research for trying to determine the demand for who would wanna permit and how to price those permit and how that goes into the cost and the benefits so that it's revenue. Neutral at the least or maybe revenue positive as you were envisioning, you know, how we get there. In order for me to vote to support that, I will need some real data, I'll need evidence of some real study. At some point, a written report and presentation with formally well thought out, you know, narrowed down proposals would be really important to me and I think with respect to the ballot question, I'm not opposed to it. My concern is that it's very difficult with if it's a binary up or down, it's very difficult to know to for the public without a very robust outreach and education pro plan activity from the town for the public to even understand the complexity and the nuance of what we might consider. So if it's another yes, no, overnight ban or not overnight ban, I'm not sure how much more we'll learn than we did the last time other than to see the delta of how the attitudes have changed and there's value in that. I think the precinct by precinct value is good too. If we do a ballot question, I would like to try to find a way. I don't know if you can do multiple choice in a ballot, I kind of doubt it, but I don't know if there are ways for a ballot question to be more nuanced, to reflect the nuances of what we are contemplating and a way for public education to make it possible for people responding to that ballot question to be thoughtful and to be informed. I think for me, that's where my comfort zone would be with the ballot question is that we're making that commitment so that we can be sure that we'll get the input that we want. So those are some caveats. I think general support, I really like the idea of trying to figure out, to try to solve some of the equity questions within enforcement because the police chief has always told us that almost without exception, the enforcement is complaint driven and that's the thing I hear most about from residents is that that isn't set up a great dynamic for the neighbors. So I'd love to fix that too. So there's a lot swirling around. I don't know, Mr. Chair, if you thought about expanding your study group or who all was involved with it, but as you move to specific implementation questions that would require this body's approval, if there are people, everyone's got lots of committees and work to do, but if there are others who could assist in the study, assist talking with other municipalities, assist in pulling this together, that's certainly a suggestion I would have to to pull together a group that could also help with processing and analyzing and grouping pros and cons and putting real mean on the bones for the kind of more formal report and proposal that I would need to see before I would vote. Well, my answer to that would be that I would go to TAC and ask for a subcommittee attack to work with me and on it, so I think we could make that charge to TAC in a special respect to the pricing part. Not sure what research is out there, but that's the kind of thing I like doing, but it's also good to do that with a lot of the people because you need your conclusions, you need your conclusions challenged and you need the challenges on getting the methodology correct, you know? So, yeah, Mr. DeCourson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to my colleagues for the comments this evening. Mr. Diggins and I have had a number of discussions he talked about going to TAC recently. We had the public forum earlier and this has evolved our thinking in terms of where we are, as he said, and I would call it leaning towards a permit program as far as a recommendation to the full board. Certainly for a finite period, I think that the area or something that we may present a broader area than what some members may be expecting, but I think it's for discussion and for a full vote. But I think as we started this, we did look at other communities. We've had some discussions with other communities or members individually in other communities. And I think at this point with the continued support of the board, we will continue to refine what our thinking is and work towards bringing something back to the board, but I think Mr. Diggins laid it out nicely in terms of what the thinking is now on a permit type system as opposed to just having an unlimited overnight parking type situation. There's a number of reasons for that that we can elaborate on further, but it's still not a done deal ready to be presented. There's a lot of different aspects of this, as I said previously, but I think we're making progress. I think we're getting there and I think we're gonna continue our discussions immediately after this. Just wanted to add a few comments on that. Yes, so the plan would be to, if you approve me, it would be to go to TAC and say, I'd like to create this committee to help us determine the pricing if we were to go that route and then have the conversation with APD and DPW because some other things came up regarding overnight parking. So essentially, this is like the check-in. And probably once we start meeting twice a month, we'll probably just do these check-ins once a month and it becomes apparent that we need to do them more frequently so that we can just get feedback from you. And there are no surprises because the worst would be to come to you with a fully fleshed out plan and then find out that's not at all what you want it. Okay, all right, so. Sounds like a plan. All right, so I'm moving on to, excuse me, number 19, yes, you know. So redistribution of open forum to middle and the most like board meetings. So I had a brief conversation with Ms. Mahan about this and what I essentially, I just want to be able to have a predictable time when we can expect to be done with the major part of the agenda. And so essentially, hey, you want to try to have everything that we need to have covered and deliberated on pretty much done between like 10, 10, 15, and 30. And so for me, it would help to have that first open forum which is pretty much where, keep it pretty much where it is. I mean, after the consent agenda, maybe after license of permits where it is but limited to 30 minutes, you know. But then if there's demand made for more, I mean, by that, if we have a queue of 20 people, then we could take the remainder at the end of the meeting and so that would be after new business made and then before we adjourn that way. If anyone has to leave, they can leave and then the rest of us can just stay here until 11 which is I think the latest we generally will run a meeting without asking for a vote to extend the meeting. So that's it. And I know as chair, I mean, you can run open forum however you want, but I just would like to let you know that's what I'm thinking of doing. If you have objections, I'm all ears, and also I didn't add it here but you see that three o'clock, that three minute up there. So we're gonna ask ACMI if they could do it because I wanted to find out if it was possible. I wasn't expecting them to do it because I wanted to try to get at least buy-in, you know, before we do it, but the clerk can do it. And so that will just help make things equal because what happens with me is I start listening and I forget to queue people. And I think with open forum, it's important that everyone is treated equally, you know, and what happens with me too is that sometimes I'll bend over backwards, especially if I feel that the person is kinda countering what we're saying or my position. And I feel that I do a disservice then to people who stay within the bounds. And so just be a little more, I mean, let me give you three minutes and 10 seconds and you see it and when it's done, please stop. And hopefully they'll give me as much perspective as they give the time moderator. I mean, I must say I'm a little jealous of how people stop when the time moderators have stopped. You know, so that's what I'm thinking. If I could, it definitely sounds good as something that has been done in the past, only because to be respectful of the town business that we need to get done, as well as there's nothing worse that, you know, once you hit 1020, 1030, you know, especially if you get up early as we all do to go to our regular full-time jobs, your brain isn't functioning the way it was at, you know, 9, 930. And, you know, to have department heads or committee reports and, you know, they come on at 1056 p.m. Unless I'm super-duper that day and I had, I actually ate three meals or whatever, I'm well-hydrated, I'm having trouble focusing. So I think if we can, as the chair has said is, you know, have open forum, stop it if there are a lot more people, go back, get the business done and then, but the only thing I did say to the chair is, you know, exceptional circumstances, like with town meeting, I'd really like to stick to the 11 p.m. rule because I need, it takes me honest to goodness and somebody says to me, why don't you have a drink? I'm like, because I can't, but I mean, I won't. It takes me a good hour to go to sleep after a meeting, whether I'm on Zoom or here, it just does. And maybe because I'm just crazy, I'm reliving the meeting, but to wind down and literally have to get up at four and, you know, so I need that four hours. So I would really want to stick to the 11 o'clock rule unless it's a different, once in a while it's fine, but I wouldn't want to go beyond that. But I think it's, you know, I said to the chairman, it's your meetings, it's a purview of how you run it, but the nature of your chairmanship is you'd like to hear from everybody else. So I'm in agreement. Yes, Mr. Hearn. Just a question to, I agree with Ms. Mohan said it's your decision, but I appreciate you asking. So you're thinking of doing open form where it is now, but limiting it to the first 30 minutes, which would be 10 people. Yeah, roughly. Which, and I don't think that has happened real often. So this may be an edge case, if you're kind of accounting for an edge case with an overflow then at the end of the meeting. Yeah. Sounds fine to me. All right, all right. Okay. So, well, we don't need to vote. We just wanted to run that by, so thank you. I mean, if you have any thoughts later, I'm all ears. And so next discussion and vote maybe on update of the town hall and light pole banner policy. So you have pretty much the same documents that were presented in the last meeting. And so I think we left it with me and Mr. Corsi and Mr. Helmus wanting some more time to think about things. So, I'll turn to either of you. Yes, sir. Has the proposal changed at all since the meeting? No, it's not. I haven't had anything. I mean, I thought about adding something for lights, and light poles, but I decided not to do that because I didn't want to seem as if I was getting ahead of folks. I mean, I think it's pretty clear where we'd be going with that. I mean, I think there was also some discussion that that should be left to the town manager. And I see that point, but at the same time, I guess it was incumbent upon us to make it really clear to the town manager, you know, where we're headed in that direction, because I think it's important that we deflect the issues that come along with that from the town manager and take that on ourselves. So, Mr. Hart? Well, I just want to comment along those lines that Mr. Poole is here, but he said at the last meeting that he didn't see any of those changes to prevent the upliting on Town Hall. So, the changes that we're making tonight, at least in Mr. Poole's eyes, don't affect the ability to put up lighting on Town Hall. So, I think one of my main interests was giving our town council, Mr. Heim, the opportunity, and I know he's just been on vacation, and he's really good of you to be even here tonight because you just got back today. So, I am not expecting Mr. Heim of an explication of this tonight, but this for my colleagues. I still would like a fuller explanation of the constitutional issues that have been raised by the short-lived decision with respect to the degree to which this draft proposal, the discussion of upliting, how that fits into the Supreme Court's current doctrine of limited public forum, rather, and government speech. And again, I'm actually suggesting we don't try to do this tonight, Mr. Heim, just because of time, but this is a signal to my colleagues what I feel like I need before I'm prepared to vote on this, because I think I wanna be sure that we're very clear and have our town councils has enough time to really think through, go over this document, provide a full and more robust discussion that's well beyond the scope that we're all able to afford to do tonight. So that's one point. I think the second point for myself, and I think I've mentioned this before, I would like personally to find a way, and I would support a policy that allowed government speech if our council believes that it's possible for this body to make decisions about signage on town hall under circumstances that we seem appropriate to us. I would like to do that. I think that will depend as a policy whether there's enough support amongst my colleagues to do that, I completely respect contrary points of view. I know that some of my colleagues who don't think town hall should be used for anything, and I'm not bashing that at all, just saying them myself. I would like to find a way to do that. I liked the former proposal that never came to a vote that former select board member, Mr. Carrow, and Mr. DeCourcy brought forth that it kind of allowed some limited signage there. But that said, I think my biggest question is the first one. I would really like to proceed with some care so that I'm satisfied that we are very clear under short-lived what this proposal would do, and if there are, particularly with some of the provisions about town body sponsoring, is that a sufficient protection against our having to accept banners on light poles and things that we don't want? So for me, it's a complicated question. I need more on that before I'm prepared personally, but that's kind of where I'm at with that. I don't know if my colleague, Mr. DeCourcy, or others have anything to add or help my understanding. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, so when we left off last time, I felt that there was more questions that we had whether what standards are we creating if we decide to engage in government speech. It goes beyond what this policy is. This is a policy for the use of town on property for publicity and promotion. And I think regardless of what we do on this evening or another night, we've got to think about if we as a board are engaging in government speech, what standards we're applying to doing it, whether it's here or anywhere else in town. And I think that's a fundamental question that we still have to address. I mean, if this, as far as it goes for the use of town on property for publicity and promotion, if we're removing town hall from publicity and promotion, I think that there probably would be consensus among most of us on that. But I think there are still issues that we need to discuss. A couple of things I do want to point out is there are some changes here and I appreciate the changes that were added here. I think no matter what we do a defined period of time is absolutely essential no matter what we do. And I think that's a good addition. I think the primary purpose of the update that you've added here, I mean, I think that's helpful for the board in terms of what's being voted. I don't think I would include that in a policy because you're putting that into an existing policy, not just the update, but I, and this may be a night that we're not getting some things done. Maybe there will be a full vote tonight. But I do point out, I still have some questions in terms of even on the light polls, like have we been in compliance with our policy to date in terms of what we've approved? And that's the type of discussion I'd like to hear back from attorney Heimann. The other thing I'll point out beyond what happens here at town hall is there's two references here in the general category. One was to article seven of the zoning bylaw, which is now at section 6.2, that the signed bylaw in town when we first, or when the Board of Selectment adopted this policy in 2013 was seven pages long. It's now about 22 pages long. So to the extent that everything must comply with that signed bylaw, I don't know if there's just only aspects of it that we would want to comply with. It's much broader than what it was. And title five article one, billboards and signs is now a notices bylaw for the town that has very limited applicability and actually refers to regulations of the Board that I'm not sure were ever issued back in 2015. So I'm okay on the publicity and promotion aspect. I mean, I think we're maintaining the status quo. We're not doing anything in the short term, but I continue to believe that there are still some things that need to be flushed out here. And so in that respect, I agree with Mr. Helmuth, but I did want to point out those other areas as well. And also point out that in the meantime, we're not taking any action as a Board regarding any signage. Just a question for my colleagues. If we did, and I understand too that I think there may be a consensus myself accepting about the uses of Town Hall facade. And again, that's fine with me. But if we did prohibit Town Hall facade, would that affect the informational sign at the front that's used for election information and other town sponsored information? No, that's a sandwich, that's not the front of Town Hall. Right, but not the sandwich board. Right. So, and this is a question of intent to make sure that if we do this, we're clear that that wouldn't require us to not use that. Right. Thank you. Mr. Luzon? I guess I would say I'm certainly prepared on the Town Hall facade. I think that's really been flushed out. And I think at some point we have to make a decision on that and then speak to the other points. But I also, if the majority of the Board wants to I don't say me to say put this off, continue this conversation table or I'm okay with that also. But in as far as using the facade of Town Hall for government speech, I don't see how that works. I really don't. Because the way I would stand on that is if we're going to allow, you wanna call it government speech, so I might say free speech. I'm trying to think of something. My thing would be yes or no. I feel that opens, which is why just originally just the Town Day banner went up, just to announce Town Day and that was it. But if we get into anything that's a statement and whatever you wanna call that statement, my personal feeling is then we have to offer it to everybody in Boston City Hall, just went through that and is going through that with the most recent ruling. And I don't think that's the way to go because I think what that does is unnecessarily on my part may create a device of issue that doesn't need to exist. Just for the sake of me being able to give my government, my personal, my free speech opinion because I happen to get elected on, and who knows, but I happen to get elected onto the sport and go out there. So I think we really need to, and I'd be willing to do that tonight, but I don't. But I'm in terms of the, I'm prepared to vote for the policy for the Town Hall facade if that's what we're calling it tonight. Just to clarify that, and then the other questions that have been raised tonight in terms of our five page, which became 17 page, which became 23 page, I think we need to look into that. And the only thing that I would say, housekeeping wise for myself personally, just thinking of somebody that wants to come in and fine tune and picket things that, whenever we come out with in the end for a definition that we either say town slash school or when we define town, town also applies to school committees, school commissions, school, because we do give, when I think of the light poles and sandwich boards and banners, we also do do some school initiatives when they come in there. And I know it's a small thing, but I just don't want anyone to say, no, you just said town. So however we get the school in there, if we define town as town and school, or if we put towns as school. So that's not a biggie, but I don't know if this is what my colleagues want that I make a motion, at least so we do, I don't mean to say it like that. I'm not saying my words right, but in terms of the Town Hall facade, I would make a motion that we adopt the policy that's before us and approve it and then address all these other issues down the road. So I'll make that motion and see where it goes. Yeah. Well, Mr. So a second the motion. I'm certainly ready to vote on this. I think this seems, there's a similar discussion that we had back in July. It's been some time since the decision came down and it's also just becomes, I mean, for me, whether or not we can allow government speech on Town Hall, I just don't think it's the appropriate location for it. We had talked before about finding, if we did want to allow for government speech in somewhere in town a more appropriate location like there's two flagpalls and Uncle Sam Plaza. I mean, it certainly would be open to having that discussion. And I think that that's similar to what a lot of other cities and towns have done. I think there's only been three or four cities and towns in the whole state that have allowed the some sort of government speech on their town municipal building. A lot of places have done it in other locations, but I think that's a separate discussion than what we're voting on in front of us. And, you know, certainly varied opinions on this. And a lot of people liken it to one particular banner, but, you know, like I said, at the last meeting for Town Day, we've told the primary sponsor that they can no longer put their banner on Town Hall, pending approval, I guess, of the board, but we've made other arrangements for them to display their banner during Town Day. So I'm prepared to vote what's in front of us. It falls, and it's just, in general, it has nothing to do with any particular banner. It has nothing to do even really with banners of government speech. It just, I think it's a cleaner and easier policy and avoids conflicts if we just say that we're not gonna put any sort of banners on Town Hall. Again, it doesn't affect the ability to put up lighting for a limited period for specific purposes, but as far as hanging any sort of banner whatsoever on Town Hall, I'm prepared to vote on that tonight. Mr. Hyde. Can I just ask a question, Mr. Chair, if I may? Which version of the policy are we making motion relative to? The A or the B? What's the difference between the two? It's just a location. Just a location. It's a location paragraph, and I think Mr. Corsi was saying I don't even include that paragraph, right? Well, this is a specific vote that's being proposed and the policy is already in existence, so I get to almost like it when you vote something in a session, a lot of update the general laws. You may want this preamble, but I don't think that goes into the policy. Right. That's fine. Yes, Mr. Hallman. Thank you. I think it's good that we vote tonight. I'll probably vote no just because of where I'm at, but I do so I think in the friendliest way possible. I think that my colleagues who have made a case for not using Town Hall made a very reasonable case. I think there's a good case either way, and that having said that, with respect to my views on using Town Hall as a venue for government speech, I really want to emphasize to the public that hanging of any banner to support any marginalized group which I care about is not in my mind the most important thing that this town does on diversity, equity, and inclusion, far from it. I am very, very happy to see our equity audit go forward in a way that is playing out to be real, to be involving a lot of work by our diversity, equity, inclusion coordinator and her team. I'm happy to be asked to be a small part of that, and I think that we're gonna ask some really difficult questions and invite real accountability for the town, and I think that's just one of the other things that we are doing to walk the walk. So for me, despite my probable vote tonight, I think I just, I want to say that as a question, as a matter of priority, that I don't view a banner, I think it's very easy to view a banner as like you've done your thing, and that's the easy part, and I understand we're not gonna do banners on Town Hall, and I really can live with that, but I think Arlington is doing the hard work, and I want to say to members of our community to please continue to hold us accountable to that hard work, because I know that there is strong unanimous commitment from this body and the part of our town leadership and the staff to do that. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Mr. Helmuss. And for me, I mean, it really is easy for me to imagine being on the other side, being of a statement and even the current statement under consideration has another side to it, and so, as I said a while ago, I've hesitated to repeat myself, but I can easily imagine a time when there would have been a banner saying we support family values, and for that to imply that we support marriage when it wasn't allowed me for people who were gay, and it'd be very clear to me what that meant, and it would not make me feel welcome at Tahoe Hall, and you can imagine any other number of statements where the other side, the minority, doesn't feel welcome, and that minority is always the one out of power, and so, so it's because of that, that I feel that we just need to have the seat of government be as open to all of its residents as possible, and I know that Tahoe Hall isn't the same as the police station, or the fire station, the headquarters, or even any stations really, but we don't have those kinds of signs on those buildings either, and I think there's a good reason for that, and so that's how I see Tahoe Hall. With respect to the larger conversation, though, and what Mr. Hurd was getting at, I would love to have that conversation, and figure out, and I could see an article with me where there's a committee set up me to find that place and to figure out the rules for it, because I really would like people to work on it, because we did have something here, and I did not run on changing things. In fact, I was like, find how things were, and I wasn't going to come in and say me, no banners, I mean, my first day when I was coming against war and it was when they were doing the banner raise, and I was like, okay, fine, that certainly wasn't going to say anything about it, but then it became like, we can't take the banner down, and we had agreement to bring it down at a certain amount of time, and I said the point, but at the same time, it's like, well, now we're in a whole different territory, and now we have to deal with this issue, and that's when my true feelings about statements on buildings then had a reason to be brought out, and so that's where I am on this, I mean, but like I said, let's have that conversation. Let's find a space, try to find a space, and then try to find the rules, I mean, and whether that's us or some other committee, you know, as a community, I think it'd be great. You know, so Mr. Hurd? Yeah, just to expand on that, and I think you said it eloquently, but if we do have the conversation, it's a larger conversation about where that space is, but then you can really flush out the consequences of the Supreme Court decision, so people understand that if, you know, we're gonna, I keep saying the second flag, most people don't know the second flagpole in Uncle Sam Plaza, and if it doesn't need that space, then before we put anything up there at the request of a resident or a town committee, we let people know clear as day that, you know, if we put this up, we have to put this up, and in the course of that conversation, I think, I mean, people will have to make a decision, and ultimately this board will have to make a decision whether or not that they want to run that risk, but again, for me, it's just, it's not, you know, I don't think it's appropriate for government speech on Town Hall for the reasons that Mr. Diggins just reiterated, but more than anything, I think it's just a good, solid policy to not have any sort of banners hanging on our town municipal building. All right, so. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I say one thing, I'll try to be brief, because I just wanna try to be as clear as I cannot for the benefit of the board, I think the board has explained its position well, but just so that folks understand what we're talking about is that the basic distinction that the board has been sort of discussing is the difference between a limited public forum, which is when you create an opportunity for anybody who wants to essentially create speech about something in the public sphere versus government speech, which is when the government is speaking, and as far as I understand the vote being taken place tonight, what the board is saying is that Town Hall is not going to be a limited public forum, nor is it going to be the place where the select board engages in government speech, that the select board may decide ultimately that it wants to engage in government speech, or it may not, but it's not going to do so on Town Hall. The actual parameters of government speech, and when the government is effectively speaking, not speaking, we're not as well delineated by the shirtless decision, which is what everybody's talking about as we would like. What the Supreme Court really decided was that the city of Boston had not established that it was engaging in government speech, and in fact, it seemed like it was just creating a limited public forum because there wasn't any backup behind its policy. Its policy didn't really seem to reflect what Boston was arguing it did. It weren't making affirmative choices until they encountered a choice they didn't like, and that is the real risk that we're all trying to, I think respectfully talk about with each other is that if you're sort of saying yes, yes, yes, and then no, because I don't like this specific thing, that can be a problem unless you've well established when you are and when you are not engaging in government speech. The decision that the board seems to be inclined to make tonight is that regardless of whether or not this board will engage in government speech, it's not going to do so on Town Hall. Is that a correct understanding? Yes. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Town Hall was on. That's Town Hall, anything that touches. There seems to be, I'm sorry, if I may continue, there seems to be some further work that may need to be done about whether or not the town will engage in government speech elsewhere and what might be the parameters for that. Is that, I just want to make sure that I'm understanding the board's motion correctly so that I can do what I should be doing. Yeah. Okay. Yes, Mr. Dacorsi. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Attorney Hyme, for that. And I think you laid it out nicely there. I mean, this is an issue where for me, I think if we decide to engage in government speech, and I'm okay with not having government speech on the facade of Town Hall, it's a matter of having a policy for government speech. And I think you discussed this very well tonight, Mr. Chairman, I understand what the members of the board are doing here. For me, I'd like to see that government speech doctrine or different policy to see us develop it a little bit more. I think it's appropriate given where everybody is to have the vote this evening. I totally understand what's happening and at least with respect to the Town Hall facade, I could go along with that. But I think until we've developed some of these other issues and some of the concerns that I raised in terms of potential inconsistencies just with the change in the bylaw, I'm gonna vote against this, but we'll try to continue to work to improve this and work on other issues as well. But I respect where everybody's coming from here and for me, I need a little bit more work on it, but I totally understand where everybody's coming from, what we're attempting to do tonight and where the discussion is going. I'm not here yet. And I am totally willing to commit to that. And in fact, the reason this is here is because Mr. Herd and I, we worked on this meeting at the request of the current chair at the time, he was to the closing meet. And so I would happily put me, you and Mr. Herd, I mean, Mr. I look- Which Mr. Herd? Actually, Mr. Helm is on a committee to work, need to get this to where you would like it to be, because I think we're gonna end up in a spot that I'm very comfortable with. Mr. Herd. I can- What were you point to as we were talking? Yeah, I would just say that taking this vote in whether it's grade two or however it comes down, I mean, all the discussion on this one particular issue is focused on town hall. And it's sort of been in barrier. It's impediment to getting to that next step of, like we've been talking about government speech, I should define another place. And the discussion always seems to revert to town hall in the one particular banner. But I think if we can establish a policy that says that if we vote and say that, all right, it's not gonna be town hall. That opens the door for us to now talk with residents and talk months. If you have a subcommittee and talk with town staff to find a better location in the consequences of engaging in government speech. And again, it just seems like for two years it's been an impediment to getting to that second step because we're still talking about town hall. So I mean, I look forward to voting on this and then in our meetings or on a subcommittee with residents individually speaking about a potential policy or place for government speech if we choose to do so. So again, I just feel like as long as town halls within the, is a possibility that it gets hard to have the conversation about engaging public in government speech anywhere else in town. I'm just trying to figure out some way to make the commitment to just enforce the need that we're gonna keep working on this. Sorry, you don't have to make a commitment. I mean, I know we'll work on it. Okay, all right, so, all right, I know, we'll make, all right. So vote need to remove the facade of town hall named from limited, from being an limited public forum or a place for the location of government speech in on that motion by Mrs. Mohan and second by Mr. Heard, Mr. Heard. Mr. Heard. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. No, Mr. Helman. No, Mrs. Mohan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. It's a three to two vote. All right, thank you and check the time. All right, thank you. I want to get checked. So we'll now move to a review and approval select board goals and select board in town manager goals. And so we got the spreadsheet made from the town manager this afternoon. And I think, there's a little bit confusion as to where that was the source when that was supposed to come out. I mean, so if people haven't had enough time to review it, that's fine. We can go over it in next month at our next meeting. I was, I apologize. I was working on an expedite today until you just said that I didn't realize. I was going to say I haven't read anything I haven't seen. That's fine. So then it's my fault that I didn't. No, it came out late. When I'm working, I'm like, I just don't go on my email because. No, it came out late because I talked with Mr. Fuller and this afternoon at three o'clock. And at that point, I wasn't sure that we're actually going to have it. And so, and so I did not communicate well with Mr. Fuller the previous week. I mean, and so that's fine. I mean, if the rest of the board has reviewed it and they want to go forward, my only thing is I didn't, there was probably two areas. I mean, I want to look at the whole part of it. No, we'll wait. We'll wait. It's hard. I also had almost no time to look at it. I didn't notice it until, until very late in the day. Similar vote. And I also just think it would be good for the public's benefit if it was attached to an agenda. So make it look back and know where to click on it. They want to look at it. Second. So on a move to table, I'm going to second by Mr. Helmeth, Mr. Hyde. Mr. Herd. Yes, Mr. Corsi. Yes, Mr. Helmeth. Yes. Mrs. Long. Yes. Mr. Dickens. Yes. It's unanimous vote. Great. So I'm 22. Let me tell you assessment. And I look at the attached to this and I see my letter to Madam Vice-Chair the Anmohad. Take it away. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I'll, I'll try not to repeat when I've already repeated two or three times, but what I would like to do is, you know, I've had conversations with the chair. I've also had conversations with Charlie Foskett, who's on the finance committee, what's chair now? Christine Carney is chair. Dependent on the vote tonight will be communicating with him. And basically what I want to do is for years, and I think Mr. D'Corsi spoke at this at the last meeting I was at, which was not the last meeting, that Arlington's MBTA assessment is really out of line in terms of even before the reduction and elimination of bus services, which is all we get for our MBTA assessment. And I've already pointed out that we paid 3.2, 3.3 million. Lexington pays 720. I'm doing it from memory as does Belmont, as does Braintree. Quincy pays about 2.1, but you know, they have the different red line in others. And for years it's been discussed that, you know, our assessment is really much more than it should be. So in the spirit of whether it's next year, 23 or 24, along with everything else that we've been doing on long range planning and that now the chairman and Mr. D'Corsi will do through that committee, in terms of speaking about an operating override. When I go to the voters in my capacity, I want to be able to say, you know, I've searched every pocket I've looked in every corner in crevice to, yes, I'm coming to you with this number for an override, but I knocked on eight different doors, six I found nothing but two. And to me, the MBTA assessment, which a lot of people have said in many, many years, is much more than it should be. So when I had a conversation with the chairman, he was kind enough because he's on the MBTA advisory board either as our designee attack, I can't remember. Yeah, so I am, I am a select horse designee. And he had a conversation, which you all have received a copy of and I was having this conversation with the town manager on this issue and a few other issues through long range planning. My thing is I'd like to try and demonstrate that we tried. And if nothing changes, we're no worse of a position. And the way that everyone seems to agree in the opportunity that's presenting itself is to, for the board to take a vote, to ask our state legislature delegation, Senator Friedman, representative Gobley and Rogers, alphabetically, with the upcoming hearings to put in that Arlington, I'd like them to ask that Arlington is formally requesting a reevaluation of its assessment, a reassessment of its assessment, whatever the language is appropriate at the upcoming hearings in the state house and where it goes from there, whether some say, well, you can't just do Arlington's reassessment, you have to do the whole system and then you have to retool it that way. I just want to get it in, get it into the committee, have state house counsel tell us what is the proper form because I don't agree with, you have to retool the whole thing or I'll come back with and say, hey, you just got an extra 400 million from opera. You don't necessarily have to retool. So I'd like to at least take that step, see what comes of it. We do have a representative to the MBTA advisory board because my thing is once we get our foot in the door, it may open up another opportunity. And if I could, if I could ask Mr. Pooler, our town manager, I don't mean to put him on the spot, but he had a conversation with Mr. Kane where they discussed perhaps another way, some might say the only way, but to me it's another opportunity, which I think us taking this first step, we still have another step. If you could speak to that, Mr. Pooler. If that's all right, Mr. Chairman. If that's all right, yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. I did have a discussion with the director of the MBTA advisory board, which is the group that represents all the municipalities that pay into the T. He mentioned that as the MBTA is extending servers further south, the more communities they are going to have to start assessing in those communities, pay into the system and that that might be an opportunity to look at assessments from all the communities because they're gonna have to rejigger everything as they get more communities in. So I think it's a door we can walk through to try to have that conversation and we can see where it goes. Okay, so what I'd like to do tonight is first put a motion to that the select board request that our legislative delegation at the upcoming MBTA hearings, similar to the language that Mr. Cain spoke about in the email, formally request that Arlington's MBTA assessment be recalculated. Period, I'm not gonna add any more words to it. I know what I'm hoping it is. And I'm not including the action step that Mr. Poole has spoke about because that's a year or two down the road when we get to that if this is not successful. So that would be my motion. Second. Oh, questions? I think that was very well said by Mrs. Mohan. So my question is so I understand what Mr. Poole is talking about because I talked with Mr. Cain about that. Also, so that's gonna take place in the next legislative session, because they are extending a South Coast rail main and so those communities are coming on board in the next session. What are the hearings that you're referring to? Well, I'm just saying our state legislative delegation that this MBTA hearings coming up, they can put in this individual request for the similar to what Mr. Cain said in his email, the way that you should do it is the upcoming legislative session, what Mr. Poole, I believe, is talking about, that's not gonna be for another two to four years from what I understand. My, I think that's gonna be in the... Well, either way, we're gonna need to ask a legislative delegation. Right. It's the next upcoming hearing for the MBTA to put in the request to have our assessment evaluated. I don't wanna add anything more to it because when you add more words, then it makes less opportunities that you can do. All right, I was just trying to, I guess what I was trying to do is prevent them from having the same confusion that I'm having as to what we're referring to, you know, so... We're saying that the, you're saying the next MBTA hearing is what Mr. Poole is speaking to, extending the T out to act in Bedford, et cetera. People, I'm speaking to you about that. That's not for two, three years down the road. I'm saying the next hearing, MBTA hearings, set of hearings that are about to occur in this coming year, I'm asking our legislative delegation to put this request in on behalf of the town of Arlington. If I'm wrong and I don't think I am, that that's what those hearings are, just to talk about act in in Bedford and extending it. But I'm telling you, that's not happening for two or three years. What I'm saying and what Brian Kane also said is, we have in the next year hearings coming up, that would be the appropriate place for you to make this request. That's what I'm asking the delegation to do. All right, you know, I think we're saying the same thing just in different words. But I'll work with you to make sure to have a clarifier, I just don't want to. And if this is successful, Mr. Foskett has indicated, I'm gonna send him everything, you know, if it's a successful vote, the materials, and I also got something from Representative Govley that shows not just the language, but every single city in town's assessment. So I'll send that to everybody. And I had suggested to him with Mr. DeCorsi and Mr. Tosti, because they've been on the finance committee. I've heard from Mr. DeCorsi and Mr. Foskett that this comes up and there's definitely an appetite on behalf of the finance committee to do what? I don't know, but if I could ask, Mr. Foskett definitely wants to take this on. And I told him that, you know, Mr. DeCorsi would probably, if this is a successful vote, having come from Fincom and Mr. Tosti to go from there. All right, so that's getting at what I, those are my next questions, like what is the real deliverable out of this vote? And so it'll be something coming out of... Well, if I may? Yeah, well, I think it's a request for reconsideration of the assessment or taking a look at it, but to Mrs. Mahan's point, and Mr. Tosti has been well versed on this over the years, and it's still being a member of the finance committee, he would be a good resource on this as well. But I mean, I think it's just a request to take another look at the assessment. All right, all right. So it's simple. Yeah, yeah. Just email to or email to our delegates, you know. All right, so I have it, you know, and so I know that the motion came from Mrs. Mahan. I think the second bank is so long and the second came from the Corsi, so on the motion to send the letter to our delegates asking the MBTA to review the assessments made for Arlington. Mr. Heim. Mr. Heard? Yes. This is the Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmuth? Yes. Mrs. Mahan? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. To Mrs. Folk. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're welcome. We are doing correspondence received. And so the first is traffic concerns at school crossing post, second 24, traffic calming on Huntington Road from Daniel Amstutz, senior transportation planner. Let me back up on 23. That was from the Arlington School Committee. 25 comments regarding the proposed banner policy. That was a bunch of comments from various residents. 26 concerns regarding the bus stop at Park Circle for private school from Kevin Farrell. 27 international coverage by Bess Milafchik, Russell Street. 28 traffic concerns at Four Way Intersection, Jess Lieber, Lewis Avenue. 29 concerns regarding Park Avenue bus stop changes from Nate Herpick. And then 30 banners on Tahoe Hall from Ezra Fisher, 32 Thorn Dyke Street. And so... Move received. Oh, second one. So I think I have some instructions for these. So for the traffic concerns at school crossing, I will send that to TAC and traffic calming. That is a letter from Mr. Amstutz to us asking us to send that to TAC. The banner policy received a bus stop at Park Circle. And I think I would recommend that one to TAC, international coverage that's received. And traffic concerns at Four Way Intersection, that should go to TAC. Concerns regarding Park Avenue bus stop changes. That one will go back to TAC and I'll ask, I'll talk with the chair about having this a little bit expedited. It's regarding the changes that were made that the MBTA proposed to us. We have voted on it and there's been some more discussion with the MBTA and with the senior transportation planner. I have told Mr. Herpick that I am inclined very much to support Mr. Amstutz's position on this. I mean, Mr. Amstutz is inclined to support the MBTA, but he feels that he wasn't heard at our meeting because he missed the open forum and he's making a case. And so we're going to go back to TAC, and ask TAC to give them a recommendation. We don't have, it's not binding for us, but I think you'll give them a chance to be heard again and we'll see what happens. And so I'm in and banished on Town Hall that's received. So with that and that set of instructions on motion from Mrs. Mahon and second by Mr. Helmets. Mr. Herpick? Yes. Mr. DeCorsi? Yes. Mr. Helmets? Yes. Mrs. Mahon? Yes. Mr. Dickens? Yes. Shannon Ms. Fulton. Thank you. Mr. Hyde? No, no, that's not it. Mr. Hyde? No, no, business. Mr. Corsi? Thank you, Mr. Chairman, just briefly. Last Friday was the last day of the Reservoir Beach summer season and it was a huge success. I had a recent conversation with Joe Connolly and the numbers were phenomenal in terms of the number of people who visited the beach in the playground area. Also was very successful in terms of the number of students that the town could hire to work there because it was so busy. So it was a George program as well, which was really great. Some people, they got a couple of questions over the weekend, why did it close on Friday? And that's the college students going back to school. There's a lot of high school students who are participating in athletics and they started this week at the various high schools. So it ended today, it was a rainy day, it didn't matter anyway, but that renovation and reconstruction there has been a tremendous asset to the town and I will note that today the construction started at Herd Field and that's another fantastic program. It's basically gonna link, in addition to the improvements in the playing field, it will link the bike path to Reservoir Beach and to Lowell Street and it's a really well thought out plan. So I wanna congratulate Mr. Connolly and all the staff at Reservoir Beach for the great job that they did this summer. We'll also do a link from Drake Village. Drake Village, yeah, and there will be, they're working right now while the construction is going to take place at Herd Field. That is the way you'll access the walking path around the Res through Drake Village. Great, nice, thank you, Ms. Mohan. I don't have any new business. Thank you. Mr. Poole. No, no business, thank you. Okay, sorry. Mr. Herd? No, no business other than to say it. Glad to see that reconstruction of Herd Field. My seven-year-old likes to tell people he owns a baseball field. So he'll be happy to own a nicer baseball field. Great, and Mr. Halle. No new business, but I wanna add my compliments to Mr. Connolly and the whole team. I keep hearing from residents about how happy they are with the Res improvements. Just, everything was done so well. You can walk around with the tripping on tree roots. The beach is great, and people love the playground, the imaginative work that's done. I am thrilled to hear that the connection, back when they came before the CPA Committee back in my former gig, they talked about doing, about those linkages, and I'm just delighted to hear that those are in progress. So can't say enough good things about a recreation director and the whole time team that he's assembled to work on this. And the Park and Rec Commission who have been very strongly behind all of this from the very beginning. Great, great, and I don't have any new business because I was just thinking there's just no way we're getting to this fight by 10 o'clock because we still have an executive session to head into, you know, so with that, I will turn to Madam Vice Chair and to get us into such a session. I'd like to move to, go into executive session for the purposes of complying with the authority regarding federal grant and aid requirements. And when we come half asleep right now and when we come out of the executive, in that we will also join currently in executive session. All right, so on that motion, can I get second? Second. So on motion to go into executive session by Ms. Mohan, a second by Mr. Corsi, Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mrs. Mohan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. We're in executive session.