 Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. It's not as good as when we're in the hall, but it's very good anyways. Okay, a couple of remarks tonight. Can we bring up that Council of Aging thing that Joan Roman gave us, Adam? So as you know, COVID is still with us. We're, I think, about 50% vaccinated in the town of Arlington, and we're trying to reach out and get our citizens who are not yet vaccinated vaccinated. The Council of Aging and Department of Health is doing a push to identify 75 year old and over seniors who have not been vaccinated to get them vaccinated. So we're gonna get a display in one minute that's gonna give you a phone number. If you know any 75 or older seniors who have not been vaccinated, we ask if you can work with them and get them to, he's trying to find it. I think, oh, she can't find it. I don't have the document. All right, okay, I'll have to email it to you again. Joan sent it to me. We'll get that up later. So I'm gonna send it to Adam now. Oh, there it is, he found it. So if you have, you know, anyone who's in need of a vaccination who's 75 years old or over, please work with them and call the Council on Aging at that number that's on the screen and let's get them vaccinated. And if you haven't gotten yourself vaccinated, go ahead and do it because next year, we're gonna be meeting in the town hall and you will need to be vaccinated at that point. We have a few scheduling things to go over. On May 10th, no matter where we are in the warrant, we're going to table everything and we're gonna use that as our budget night. So all finance articles, budgets, we're gonna start with the operating budget. And then if we have a chance and we finish that, we're gonna go to the Capital Planning Committee budget on May 10th. And on May 12th at 8 a.m., excuse me, 8 p.m., we're gonna start off with Minuteman. So I've invited Dr. Ed McQuillan to present the Minuteman budget and presentation on the 12th at 8 p.m. There, Minuteman's presentation is now up on the town meeting webpage. So if you have a chance to take a look at that beforehand, take a look at it, otherwise we're gonna do the budgets on the 10th and Minuteman on the 12th. And one more thing, there seems to be some confusion out there. I got an email sent to me by one of our town meeting members today saying that we were intentionally hiding or deep-sixing presentations. Nothing could be further from the truth. There was a presentation that was not sponsored by a town meeting member that is actually on the presentation page of ACMI's YouTube, but there is no town meeting sponsor for that. No town meeting member has stepped up to sponsor that or to introduce it. So it does not get placed under article 35 where the person who produced it wants it to be, but until they, and that person who produced that video, I did personally tell them that they need to find a sponsor if they wanted to be posted on the annotated warrant. They have not gotten back to me with that. So I'd appreciate it if town meeting members would hold off from intentionally inflaming the meeting by spreading false information about what the staff and I are doing with the website and the warrant. I actually took quite offensive that because the staff is working really hard. They're going over time and more than I can ask of them, more than we can ask of them to put this meeting together, to do everything that's on the background and then to get an email like that I found was quite offensive. So I'm going to apologize to them for that town meeting member who would rather not name. All right, that's all of my announcements today. I recognize the chair of the board of select and Mr. Steve DeCorsi, the select board, excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. It is moved that if all the business of the meeting has set forth in the warrant for the annual town meeting is not disposed of at this session when the meeting adjourns, it adjourns to Wednesday, May 5th, 2021 at 8 p.m. Second. Thank you. If you object to that, I request that you use the raise hand feature in Zoom. So I'll give Ms. Weymann a minute to turn that on. If you, it's on. If you object to that, please do so now otherwise we'll consider that a unanimous vote. It looks like that's a unanimous vote. Now, okay, there are any announcements or resolutions. If anyone has a announcement or resolution, please bring it to our attention by using the raise hand feature in Zoom right now. And while we're waiting on that, if any committee or board has a report that they wish to announce or wish to present at this point, please also get my attention using the same feature. Okay, I'm seeing that we have no announcements or resolutions, nor do we have any reports. So article 21 is now before us. So we're gonna go right into article 21. I vote to reserve affordable housing for people earning at or under 60% of the AMI. The recommended vote of the board, the select board is no action. And I believe there is an amendment on that. I missed the John, seeing Bulmatsu, Laura Keisel and Judith Garber. So it's Ms. Garber here. Let's bring Ms. Garber up, see if she wants to present her motion. Judith Garber, precinct four. My co-sponsor, Laura Keisel would like to present this. And I believe she's on the call right now. Okay. And is Ms. Keisel a town meeting member? No. Okay, so is she a resident of the town of Arlington? Yes. Okay. So Ms. Keisel has a right to speak and she has six minutes and 40 seconds left to go for it. Great, can you hear me? Yes. Can we get a second on that motion first? Second. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, Ms. Keisel. Thank you. So last fall, special town meeting, there was a warrant passed to establish an affordable housing trust fund, which is great. The trust fund was amended to rely on the definition of the Community Preservation Act for low and moderate income households with the latter being defined as households making up to 100% area median income or AMI. To put that in plain language, 100% AMI is nearly $84,000 for a single-person household, $95,000 for two-person household and $107,000 for a three-person household. The reason why we are concerned about this is when you break it down by AMI by race in the Boston metro area, while that aligns with white and Asian households, that is more than double the AMI for black and Latinx households in the Boston metro area, which is $47,000 and $42,000 respectively. Furthermore, a 2016 study by the Boston Redevelopment Authority found that more than half of city residents make under $35,000 a year, and that was before COVID. This was something that was actually brought up last summer during the race and housing panel that the town itself hosted when Leon Andrews of the National League of Cities, which has been consulting with the town on racial biases, when he was asked during the panel, what was one thing white majority municipalities like Arlington could do to be more equitable on their housing policies? He said, quote, cities that are committed to centering racial equity require us to use a lens that redefines affordability. And he mentioned specifically earmarking affordable housing funds for lower area median incomes so that they would be more inclusive of black and Latinx households. And he brought up an example of another municipality that had had similar racial disparities in their AMI to Arlington. Furthermore, another thing was the National Low Income Housing Coalition has found that households making 100% area median income, there is actually no shortage of available homes on the private market without being cost burdened. In fact, there's a surplus, but for lower income households, there is quite a shortage. For every 100 households making 50% AMI, there are only 57 units available. And for every 100 households making 30% AMI, there are only 36 units available. Furthermore, affordable housing price for households making 80 to 100% AMI are also exclusionary to people on section eight and other housing vouchers who are disproportionately more likely to be disabled and or people of color and especially young black households with school-aged children. I'm on a section eight voucher and section eight was originally intended for use on private market. And the problem is private market has become so prohibitively expensive, especially in metro areas, that a lot of times people have to live in affordable housing to be able to utilize these vouchers. And if even affordable housing is priced too high, we have nowhere to go. And lower income households do not have the options that higher income households have. They can't really rent on the private market a lot of the times. And if not, they're forced into congregate settings like nursing homes, institutions, shelters or the streets which have been ground zero for mortality rates and infections. I'm kind of stuck in my affordable housing. I live on the top floor with no elevator and I can't even move even though it's not a medically accessible apartment for me because there's a lack of any kind of unit under the payment standard on the private market and there's no affordable units in the area. And I'm relatively much more privileged than many other people in my situation. And I'm struggling to quickly address why the select board voted no action. They encouraged us to trust the board of trustees to prioritize low income households. They said they agreed with the principle of this. With all due respect to the board, we do need mechanisms to ensure equity. We can all have the best of intentions but if we really wanna make sure we're not going to be perpetuating historical injustices we need mechanisms codified in our policies to ensure that. Secondly, they were concerned that this would conflict with federal rules for the community development block grant program which allows up to 80% AMI. However, the substitute motion exempts CDBG from it. So that should not be a conflict. I have also heard about the Homes Act concerns about that conflicting but the Homes Act already asks that 90% of those funds be airmarked for households making at or below 60% AMI. So I don't think that will potentially conflict. I know that last fall town meeting there was, it was between this amendment and one that did a hard cap at 60% AMI. I feel like this is a compromise. This is not a hard cap at 60% AMI. This is simply asking that the majority of funds be airmarked for households making at or below 60% area meeting income. We do not quantify what percentage that would be. So this is really the bare minimum. And if as the select board said that is already an intention I don't think there's any harm in just making sure that that is codified in our policies. When I looked up other surveys of affordable housing trust funds around the country the majority already do ask the bulk of those funds be airmarked for households making at or below 60% area median income. So I'll stop there. Okay, very good. Thank you very much, Ms. Kaisal. And that's it for you guys. Ms. Garber anything else? Yes, I just wanted to say in our research in doing this we found a 2018 Arlington housing forum event that found that out of the 700 plus people on the wait list for affordable housing the vast majority of those made $40,000 or less which is much, much lower than 100% AMI much lower than 80% AMI. So I think the we all know that the need is for affordable housing is among very low income folks and we have to target our efforts there. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Garber. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Patricia Warden. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Patricia Warden precinct eight several time meeting members. First of all, I want you to know that I have been active in affordable housing endeavors for at least 30 years and was a member of the group which brought the inclusionary affordable housing zoning bylaw to Arlington. Better time meeting members Ms. Garber's substitute motion might be the only opportunity we as town meeting members will have to help Arlington residents most in danger of becoming homeless. Those of the income less than 60% of AMI speculative developers are threatening them with displacement. It was hoped that the affordable housing trust fund could help them avoid homelessness when their buildings become acquired for elimination and replacement by luxury and market rates units. That hope has faded away with the adoption of an unfortunate amendment at the special time meeting in November changing the purpose of the trust to benefit predominantly those of much higher income six bigger incomes. That purpose clouds needs to be amended hopefully by next year to make the trust fund a real affordable housing trust fund. Currently the fund is only a housing trust. It is not affordable. It does not comply with Arlington's own disowning bylaw definition of affordability. Ms. Garber's substitute motion would bring a measure of social and economic justice to the fund. Only you, the town meeting members can do that by proving Ms. Garber's substitute motion. It's time for town meeting to play a very necessary role in the trajectory of this most important fund. Its board may become the most powerful unelected board in Arlington. If you want to have a role in ensuring that the affordable housing trust fund board will protect no income residents from homelessness please support Ms. Garber's substitute motion. The select board role in the fund is very important in that they will appoint its board members. However, we town meeting members can require that at least half of the municipal funds allocated for affordable housing be earmarked for those making 60% or less than area median income. That is what the substitute motion would do. We should remember that the master plan concluded that the only housing Arlington needs is affordable housing and senior housing. The select board claims that they wish to allow the funds board of trustees to have as much flexibility as other town committees have. But the substitute motion would allow 50% of the funds to be used for whatever flexibility the trustees wish for. And unfortunately, in the case of affordable housing trust fund, this flexibility would allow more funds to go to subsidize developers of market rate and luxury units. The substitute motion would leave approximately half of the funds for trustees to provide subsidized or used as leverage for projects for higher income families. That provides them plenty of flexibility, too much in my opinion. Affordable housing trust fund board members will have much more power of the purse and are subject to fewer rules and guidelines than other boards or committees. For example, the community development grant committee. The select board has their appointees on various boards. For example, the redevelopment board and their chosen employees in the planning department have shown little or no interest in affordable housing or threats of displacement by developers. There is no reason to think that select board appointees to the affordable housing trust fund board would be any different. Some select board members have been generously supported by residential developers and realtors who may not wish for affordability requirements in their projects. Just a few days ago, a member of the redevelopment board was asked at a precinct meeting, if the redevelopment board had made- Ms. Warden. To increase- Ms. Warden, please keep on scope of the article. Yes, thank you. Yes. In the last year, he said no, they had not made any progress in affordable housing, but they may have conversations after the pandemic is over about it. While several time meeting members, we hear a lot of inspiring speeches from planning officials and politicians about the need for affordable housing. They talk plenty of conversations, but they do not work the work. This article is an opportunity for the select board and the redevelopment board to begin to work that work, but they have so far declined to do so. Profits for residential developers appear to be of much more importance and the wellbeing of residents. We turn meeting members cannot just wash our hands of what happens to our lower income residents when homelessness increases. If we have given away the help they could have received from the affordable housing trust fund. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Warden. Karen Kelleher. No. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Thank you, sir. Karen Kelleher precinct five and a member of the housing plan implementation committee. I wanna congratulate the proponents of this warrant article and urge you all to listen carefully to all of their arguments about the urgent need for affordable housing and the equity issues associated with it. I agree wholeheartedly with the principles that they're advancing and I hope that you do too. That being said, if this article was a resolution providing a statement of support for prioritizing lower income housing, I would favor it. I think they have gotten your attention with this resolution. They've educated the town and it created some political will to take action and for that I applaud them and I thank them. They have many of us and myself included wanting to vote for this to make the statement that they urge us to make about equity. That describes you too. I only hope you're moved enough to stay engaged in this conversation for the long haul because moving from that statement to a strategy that will actually create affordable housing units will require a lot more work and some difficult choices. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about why because I really wanna address the issue that Ms. Warden has just talked about relating to private developers because we in Arlington are not creating much affordable housing. It's because we don't have a proactive strategy. The affordable housing trust fund has the potential to provide one but we're going to need to fund it and second we are taking lots of actions that are actually taking another option for creating affordable housing off the table and that is to get private developers to build it for free and it's part of why I want to talk a little bit further about this article. I have to step back though because I am the person who proposed the amendment last year that created more flexibility in the trust to be able to fund housing units at higher incomes and I'm gonna tell you why shortly but there is no one here who is advocating for higher income housing as an alternative to or in lieu of very low income housing. By saying so, we're really setting up a false dichotomy and a false choice. We're really not making a choice between one or the other and we can apply our dollars equally to them both. They're basically created in different ways and I wanna speak to that. But first I have to start with the basic principle that affordable housing is difficult to create. It's hard and it's hard because it's a math problem that doesn't work. The rents and home prices that lower income people can pay are just not enough to pay for the construction and operation of the housing that they need to live in. That's a structural inequity that we aren't gonna solve in town meeting but we do need to solve that problem if we wanna take action. This statement, this act, this particular warrant article isn't gonna get us one unit closer to actually doing that. There's two ways to solve that financial feasibility problem. The first is to seek and to provide public subsidies. We're seek, I hope we will do that ultimately through the trust. It's what the Housing Corporation of Arlington uses to create affordable housing in town and Arlington can and should do more of that. And to do that, we're going to have to create conditions that make affordable housing developers want to build in Arlington. We haven't done that and we need to do that. But there's a second way to create protected affordable housing. And that is to get private developers to cross subsidize it with excess profits from market rate units where we have a robust market. Massachusetts has two ways we can do that. The first is an inclusionary zoning law which Mrs. Warden already spoke about and we're gonna- Ms. Tellerher. Yes. You're straying a little bit from the actual article itself. We're talking about a 60% AMI. Bear with me for just a minute, Mr. Moderator. I'll bring it back. Well, I'll give you 30 seconds because you are off scope. Well, here's the point of going off on this tangent. Private developers are typically only going to build housing at 70 or 80% of area median income. There's reasons for that related to the feasibility of their projects and their willingness to deal with the subsidy programs. So as a result, if we're not really making a choice between 60% housing and higher income housings in private development, we're making a choice between 70 or 80% affordable housing or no more affordable housing. And so we may have the opportunity to actually get more affordability in town and not be able to take it if we limit our choices. We have tremendous gaps in the affordable housing we need for our community. That includes very low income people, people at 60% of area median income, people at 65, 75, 80% of area median income. If we want to make Arlington a leader in driving affordable housing or even step up to do our part to solve our region's affordable housing crisis, we can't afford to leave either of these strategies off the table. We're about to start a process for setting housing priorities. We just created an affordable housing trust fund last fall. When the trustees are appointed, their first job will be to create process for proposing a proactive strategy for driving affordable housing. There will be a public process around that and it will need to be approved by the select board. We're also about to start a public process to inform a new housing production plan. That will evaluate all our housing needs and the opportunities we might have to respond to them. We're asking the trustees to tackle a very difficult problem. And so far, we haven't given them any money or power. I think we should at least leave them the room to set a strategy. There isn't anybody currently arguing to create moderate income housing instead of low income housing. And the standard proposed for the trust is actually the exact same standard that applies to the Community Preservation Act committee. That committee has never funded a unit that actually is targeted ahead of us. Okay, Kelly, the members are yelling scope. I'm talking about income levels. I'm talking about the 60% area median income level. Do you feel it's out of scope? Go ahead, but you have 45 seconds. There are also some unintended technical issues this law could create. We just created a trust fund. I think we should not take options off the table before the trustees are even appointed. Many of us are saying we support affordable housing just not in this location, not if it'll increase traffic or density or if it's for people who aren't low income or enough or if it places a tax burden on us. There's a thin line between affordable housing support and nimbyism when we make our other priorities absolutes. We narrow the options and take tools out of the toolbox. It's hard to create affordable housing. We're not gonna create it if we don't make compromises and hard choices. I hope we can stop arguing about what we don't want and narrowing our options and instead roll up our sleeves together and develop an informed proactive strategy that we're prepared to support. If you still feel you wanna support this article as a statement of your support for deeply affordable housing, I'm nonetheless thrilled you feel that way and I hope it means you will also be willing to keep showing up for the conversation and also make the hard financial and land decisions these decisions that will turn this statement into a strategy, thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Kalahar. Daniel Dunn. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Daniel Dunn, precinct 21, can you hear me? Yes, sir. Thank you. So as a previous speaker, I salute the proponent's intent but I do not support the motion. It is a solution without a problem. If our town controlled money was going to people close to median income, that would be a problem. But let's walk the walk, as we might say and talk about what's actually happening. For instance, on 423 of this month, or excuse me, last month, the town posted the application for affordable housing rental lottery for Downing Square. 30% median income, 16 units, 60% median, 60% median income for the remaining 32 units. This is not money that is going to the people who are close to median income. The proponent's quoted the speaker from the League of Cities. And one of the things that he said, which I think is really accurate is that you have to make solutions that are customized to your community. We need a solution that's customized for Arlington. That solution comes from these commissioners and the commissioners have not even met yet. It is too early to tie their hands. It is too early for us to say that they're doing it wrong. They know already from the debate because they're here because they're listening what we want. The CDBG is just one of many sources of this money and the restrictions that we put on now will be restricting our access to future money. I encourage town meeting to let the commissioners make their choices and only worry about it if we think they got it wrong afterwards. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Dunn, Carolyn Murray. Hi, Caroline. Hi, Caroline. Yes. Caroline Murray, Precinct 12. I have a question on the substitute motion and talking about area median income and what is area? Is area Arlington or is it Boston or is it national? Hold on, please. Turni Heim. Mr. Moderator, I would actually prefer to defer that question to either the planning director or the Ms. Keller who said what that motion was. Let's ask Ms. Rait. Is Ms. Rait with us? Yes, I am, Mr. Moderator. Hi. Can you tell us what the area is? Certainly, it's Jenny Rait, the director of planning and community development. We're talking about the greater Boston area, which is under the Boston Cambridge Newton MA to New Hampshire statistical metropolitan area or SMSA. So it is a very broad area that draws the area median income. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Rait. Ms. Rait, is the answer your question, Ms. Murray? Yes, thank you. Do you have anything further? No, thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Amos Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Amos Meeks, precinct three. So I wanna say upfront that in terms of housing and zoning and these sorts of topics, I'm sort of still learning on this and I have a lot of respect for Ms. Keller's expertise. I read the document that she sent out before this and I thought there's a lot of great info in there. So from my perspective, from what I've learned, I feel like there are sort of two very broad types of affordable housing. There's sort of deeply affordable housing, this 60% AMI and below, and then there's other definitions of affordable housing, like the 80% threshold that I think is used for things like 40B and that sort of thing. And my understanding is that for really the deeply affordable housing, you really need public funding to make it happen and significant public funding. And according to what Ms. Keller wrote, this exists at the federal and the state level, I think. And so I see this affordable housing trust fund as kind of adding onto that and creating a source at the local level of the town and being a source of public funding that's sort of Arlington specific. And so it makes sense to me that the to have this housing trust fund focus on this sort of deeply affordable housing that really requires this additional public funding and for the not so deeply affordable housing, have policies and other ways of sort of incentivizing the market to create some of that through zoning, inclusionary zoning, these sorts of things. And I believe in what Ms. Keller her wrote, the federal and state funding are already in at least many cases restricted to going to 60% AMI or less. So it seems in line with that to require that for the housing trust fund. Although I think it is an important point that the amendment I believe only requires a majority to go towards 60% AMI. So there is still flexibility for 70%, 80% if that's needed in order to access additional funding from other sources or things like that. And there was a technical concern that Ms. Keller her raised about where this requirement means that one project falling through could jeopardize funding for another project that's sort of unrelated but sort of scheduled at the same time in order to meet the proposed requirement. Hopefully that wouldn't be an issue as long as they are sort of not towing super close to this majority line. Although I think this is still a very valid concern. So overall, I'm generally supportive of this because it seems like the right sort of focus and seems like a good thing to sort of direct and ensure rather than waiting to see if there's a problem and then needing to address it later on or things like that. So thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, sir. Steven D'Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Steven D'Corsi, chair of the select board. Sort of make a few comments on our vote and to follow up on some statements that were made earlier in the evening and to echo Mr. Dunn's statement, the select board did certainly salutes the proponents intent here. Our concern speaking for myself was that one, we have not created the trust, the trustees have not been selected yet. We're gonna put out a statement for expressions of interest within the next few weeks. And the bylaw itself sets a ceiling on what can happen, not what will actually happen. 100% of the funds could be used for below 60% or below 50%. Other communities in Massachusetts that have municipal trust funds, I believe there's about 115 communities. I'm not aware of a community that has the restriction within the bylaw. Some of all has a restriction on income that the trustees put in the declaration of trust and they had three different categories that for 20% will serve households between zero and 50%. 20% will serve households with income between 51 and 80%, 10% between 81 and 110%. That's the type of review and analysis that I would expect that the trustees would undertake over the next year once they're put together as part of the action plan to bring back to the board for approval. But the sum of all bylaw itself mirrors chapter 44, section 55C, which is what our bylaw mirrors. The other thing I wanna point out is there's nothing going into the trust this year. And until we get, if we do pass a real estate transfer fee tax, which would not take place for a few years at a minimum. The only source of funding is Community Preservation Act funds which town meeting will vote on that. So at least for this year, there's nothing that's gonna be put in the trust fund. There's no actions that are gonna be taken. The board felt that if we allowed the trustees to develop an action plan to come back to us, identify priorities in the short term, we didn't wanna limit their ability to do that over the next year. And there was a statement about CDBG funds earlier and CDBG funds, the select board determines how that money is spent. I've been on the board for two years. All of the funds for CDBG that have gone to housing, 100% have gone for households that earn less than 50%. And this year, there was a number of funds that went to households that earn less than 30%. So I just wanted to really repeat one last time in terms of the by-law itself, we don't wanna have to change every year. Circumstances change going forward. We wanna have a construct that we can follow from year to year through the trustees and we certainly can set priorities that in the short term and even in the long term to the trustees actions that support affordable housing for 60% or below AMI. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. DeCorsi. Gordon Jamison. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Gordon Jamison, precinct 12. I concur with Ms. Keller, Mr. Dunce and Mr. DeCorsi's comments. And perhaps a director of planning could tell us since we modified the article last fall to be consistent with CPA criteria, community preservation criteria, what actually are the criteria that we restrict the fund at this point as approved by town meeting last fall? Ms. Ray, can we get an answer to that? Jenny Ray, director of planning and community development. The limit is 100% of the area median income which was referenced earlier by a previous speaker. That is the same as the Community Preservation Act which is called a community housing and units that are targeted to 80% or below the area median income. Those units can count on the subsidized housing inventory that the town maintains. Anything between 80 to 100% cannot but to answer the question, it's 100% area median income. Okay, Ms. Ray. Thank you, Ms. Ray. The question I had was, oh dear, which one of these many? Well, in the proposed amendment, is my reading was, oh dear, where is it? Okay. Oh. Well, it says, it says, dear, can someone put the amendment, the article, the article. We'll put it up on the screen. If I've lost it on my screen here. There it is. We'll pull it over. There you go, Mr. James. My question on the wording is the implications of, it says, the majority of all funds expended by the trust fund shall be 60 or greater. Is that of the gross funds? Even though we exempt the monies from the CBDG, perhaps Mr. Heim can clarify that. Yeah, it looks unclear. That's why I'm asking the question, Mr. Moderator. Thank you for that. Mr. Heim, can you enlighten us as to that? Mr. Moderator, can you just keep the substitute motions over, you can look at it. Sure. So they're illustrated. Thank you. Doug Heim, town council. The way that I would read the substitute motion, because the language exempts CBDG funds, I would say it's the majority of basically non-CDBG funds. I think that's consistent with what the proponents are setting forth. Thank you very much, Mr. Heim. So I think this well-intentioned amendment and my question about it just then points to the troubles with trying to prescribe too much within a bylaw what you want to actually happen. And that the affordable housing trust fund members are tasked with making a plan, I believe. And that those regulations are much better, the regulations are much better as regulations and not within the bylaw. For example, this is how we work recycling regulations those are propagated by the DPW. And just this meeting, earlier this meeting, I believe we passed a stormwater management bylaw. But if you went to the back of your select board report there's pages upon pages of pages of the actual regulations. And the good part about having it be in the regulations or in this case the affordable housing trust plan as made as determined by the trust fund board of trustees is that can be changed without an action from town meeting. And so that's much cleaner. We don't anytime there's a mistake as you noticed in our zoning bylaws or an inadvertent error or we change from select board to some board of selectmen to select board. We have to go back and change that in the bylaws. It's very laborious and inefficient. And so I would for not only for the reasons expressed by others earlier, but for these reasons that I've just stated, I would urge a vote against this article. I expected the affordable housing board of trustees will take these thoughts to task and as they go to the task of take these comments in consideration when they go to the task of formulating the plan. And I'm sure these members and they're supporting other members that support this will show up at those meetings and lobby for these types of stepped increases in different parts of the utilization of the funds. And so thank you very much, Mr. Roderator. Thank you, Mr. Jamison. Ms. Roe has a point of order. Clarissa Roe. Mr. Moderator, thank you so much for hearing me. Okay, Mr. Roe, what's your point of order? My point of order as the acting chair of the Community Preservation Act Committee. I wanna just say that Ms. Rae is correct about the way the law is written. However, this is a local committee and our local committee is firmly supportive of not having 100% AMI in fact, the money that we have given in the planning department for- Ms. Roe. The work that needs to be done for affordable housing, John, let me change my sentence. Has been voted by the entire committee to be a lot less than 60% AMI. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Roe. I appreciate your statement and that that would have been more of an argument as opposed to a point of order. It could be. Well, I'm moderate and I think it is. But if there's nothing else in your point of order, I think we're good to go. Mr. Siano, thank you, Ms. Roe. Okay, I did it. Frank Siano, precinct 15. So have trustees been appointed as yet or no? I believe Mr. DeCorsi told us they have not been appointed yet. Okay, so that does not please me. So then how would this be funded? We have the CPA, the override, the transfer, the school committee wants more money, town meeting members want to be paid. Mr. Siano. I guess I'm gonna- We're talking- I'll be quiet. So how- We're talking about how we're gonna spend it, not how we're getting money into it. Yes, so I'm in favor of this. So I don't get why the select board wants to wait. My mom always said, why put off today, why put off tomorrow what you can do today? So why can't we just support this? Well, that's what they're asking us to do. That's what we're arguing about. Well then I'm in favor of it then. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anna Hanken. Yes, ma'am. All right, Anna Hanken, precinct six. I would like to speak in support of this article and the amendment. I definitely want to really reiterate the fact that this is only asking for a majority. So if we really need to support something up to 80 or even 100% AMI, there's still 49 cents out of every dollar from this trust fund that goes to those projects. I'm concerned that we would think that we should be using the majority or all of these funds for a project like that. It's saying over and over again how this would tie the committee's hands. And I'm honestly super concerned about how anti-accountability, a lot of the discussion around this has been. We should want to address those in the greatest need. And we shouldn't be afraid of putting that into a bylaw and making it codified in law and official. We should state that as a priority in law for this trust fund. And honestly, I think a lot of this conflict comes from thinking that this trust fund is going to fix all of the housing problems and address all of the housing problems in Arlington. And I think this trust fund probably should be directed at those in greatest need. And to reiterate what Amos said earlier, we really should be thinking about having different kinds of solutions for those 60% and above and those 60% and below. This isn't going to solve everything that we can really make the biggest impact with this trust fund if we direct it towards those in the most need. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Ms. Hankin, Ms. Leibahayam. Leibahayam, precinct 11. I move the question and all matters before it. Okay, can we get a second on that? Do we have a second motion to terminate debate? It has been seconded. Okay, we have a motion to terminate debate on the matter and all on the article and all matters before it. We'll take first our vote to terminate debate. So we had a few database errors last Wednesday. We've spoken with Mr. Pedro, the developer, and he made a few recommendations to us. One is that Adam will start the voting table. Don't everybody rush over to participate right away because that causes a database error just like we're getting here. So if the precincts will go over serially in groups of seven, one through seven, we'd go first approximately 10 seconds later, eight through 14, another five seconds later, 10 seconds later, 15 through 21. We've increased the voting time clock to 90 seconds. So you'll see up there, you still have time. And if you do get a database error, just refresh your page and you'll get to the voting portal. Now I just did so and I have my voting portal up. So if you'll want to vote one for yes, if you want, if you're voting in favor of the amendment or two for no, if you're voting against the amendment. And we have a couple other things. Use the chat feature on Zoom if you cannot use the portal. So if you are gonna use the chat feature on Zoom, go ahead and type in yes, if you want the amendment and vote no, if you don't. And third, now another thing, if you can't use the portal and you cannot use the chat feature, then you can text your vote. So we've got a new method here. If you get your cell phone out and text yes or no to 617-575-9266. So I think we need your last name and what your vote yes or no is. And we're gonna try all of these methods to get everybody's vote. Yes Ms. Wamin, you're muted, Julia, I can't hear you. Oh, people are clarifying that we are voting to terminate debate, not on. Oh, shit. Sorry, we're voting to terminate debate. Damn, darn it. All right, so if you wanna terminate debate, I would do all that stuff about the amendment. Oh man, I'm sorry everyone. If you want to terminate debate, vote one for yes and two for no. One to terminate debate and two to continue debating the issue. So I'm sorry, one to terminate debate and two to continue it. So let's have everybody go back and make sure they voted the right thing on the terminate debate. Now it says right there, article one, terminate debate. So one yes to terminate and two no. So we're gonna leave it open for one second, make sure everybody gets the vote to terminate debate and we have any further text or chat votes. Nope, I think we're all set. All right, let's close voting. We'll see if debate has been terminated. Motion passes 73%, two-thirds vote required. So debate is terminated, 174 in favor and 62 in opposition. So we've terminated debate. We're gonna run through the several screens. Then we'll take the vote on the amendment. And I apologize for my off color remark. When I was told I had it wrong. And Ms. Michelle Phelan has a point of order. Let's hear what Michelle's point of order is while we look at the screens. Oops, she put her hand down. Maybe she doesn't have it anymore. Ms. Phelan, do you stop a point of order? Mr. Moderator, Michelle Phelan precinct four, I apologize. I should have taken my hand down. That's okay, don't worry. Thank you. Yeah, Mr. Warden has a point of order. Yes, John Warden precinct eight. My question relates to voting. If the machine does what it did last time, we were here together and you can't get to the portal. There was a phone number to call. Now, but is there a phone number to call? I suppose some people, including me, do not have the capacity to text. So earlier in the evening, I chatted and questioned and answered to Patricia two different phone numbers, and I'll give you Ms. Brazil's phone number again. It's 781-316-3071. So you should be able to call that number, Mr. Warden, and she'll be able to get that call. I suppose it rings busy as it did several times last meeting. Well, we think we have that solved with the other issues. If you'll give me a phone, your phone number, I can call you and give you a private number that you'll be able to call. Well, I hope it won't be necessary, but my phone number is 781-646-8303. 8303? All right. If you'll allow me to call you during the break, I'll call you and give you a private phone number that you can make a call to if necessary. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I hope it will not be necessary. And I hope that you will keep voting open until everyone who wants to vote is allowed to vote. That's what we're trying to do. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Okay, so we're now going to go to the amendment and take a vote on the amendment. Now that debate's been terminated. It takes so much longer. Okay, so we are now kind of open for enable voting on the amendment hearing. So precincts one through seven, please go to the portal. And after a few minutes. If precincts. So we get a database era when everybody's accessing the portal at once. And it just causes a little bit of a hiccup. So eight, seven, eight through. 15 go over to the portal. And then the rest. Now, if you're in favor of the amendment and you want to amend it and have that amendment become the main motion vote one for yes. If you're opposed to the amendment and don't want it, vote two for no. If you can't use the portal, please chat your vote. And all you have to do is type in yes or no. And if you can't use the portal or the chat, then you can text your vote. To six, one, four, five, seven, five, nine, two, six, six. So portal first. If you can, well, one for yes for the amendment to if you wish to vote against it. If that doesn't work, use the chat feature. And if that doesn't work. Text six, one, seven, five, seven, five, nine, two, six, six. And if all else fails. You can still call miss Brazil at seven, eight, one, three, one, six, three, oh, seven, one. But that's only one person on one line and you might get a busy signal. So you'd have to be persistent. And someone is upset because they say I'm blaming town meeting members for the database error. I am not doing so. I'm saying that it's a system issue. That we have a lot of users and we'll use in a lot of bandwidth at once. And we have a huge draw on the system. So we're trying to stretch out the. Instant issues. So we have any other chat votes or any other votes that are not using the portal where we all set. We're all set with the text votes. And I'm just waiting for. To get the thumbs up on the chat votes. You set miss women. Almost okay. She's got one or two left to go. I don't know. I don't know. The Lauren has her screen turned off. So I can't see if she's. Given me a thumbs up or not. Oh, there we go. Thanks, Lauren. Okay. So. I think we can close voting. So the amendment fails. 35%. We got a 84 in the positive. And 154 in the negative. Okay. I'm going to take a vote and I declare it. Now we'll go back to the. Recommended vote of no action. Once we've run to the screens. Okay. Now we're going to take a vote. The main. Vote of. Is recommended by the select board in the report. And that's a vote of no action. Tony members. Please. Migrate over to two. We're going to open. Confirm. We're going to open voting. Seven. One, two, seven, please go over. Ms. Bloom has a point of order. We're voting on the recommended vote of the board of select. Of no action. So yes or no action. No. For. No, no action. Let's hear Ms. Bloom's point of order. Eight through 15 can go over. And then. 16 to 21. Nancy bloom precinct 18. Yes, man. What's your point of order? Yes. I'm just wondering since it is a, since the select board has it as a vote of no action, do we have to vote on this? Yes. We have to dispose of every single article. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Roderick Holland has a point of order. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Roderick Holland precinct seven. This is a technical point of order. You have correctly pointed out that the system has. Its own failure mode. And you have. Correctly. Describe the workaround, which is to refresh and do it again. We're very fortunate that a, we understand the failure modes and B, we understand the workarounds. That makes for a system that is not beautiful, but it is functional. Great. Thank you, Mr. Roderick Holland. Mr, Roderick Holland, Mr. Modderuter. Thank you, sir. Yes. We have to vote on every single. Article, even if it's a no action, so we vote one, yes for no action. Unless you feel compelled to vote against it, but either way the action will fail. So. It's no action. You basically may as well vote for it. Okay. I think having to do with the vote, I haven't explained it well. Mr. Harrelson, what's your point of order? Nancy Bloom has a point of order. Okay, we're just down to Nancy Bloom. Hello, Mr. Moderator. I'm Mr. Harrelson, precinct 16. I would do my point of order. Okay, thank you. Just as I called your name, sorry, sir. Let's have Ms. Bloom's point of order. Nancy Bloom, precinct 18. I'm sorry, I thought I'd withdrawn my point of order. I apologize. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay, so if anyone has a, Ashley or Lauren, if you can give me the thumbs up. I think I've got it from Adam for the text votes. We're good to go. Okay, let's close voting. Julie's asking for one more second. Entering one more vote. So people that have texted in or called in or chatted in, you can see it says right next to them, voted verbally. Those are the ones that we enter into the system manually. So we're getting all clear. We've manually entered all the votes that needed to be entered. So we're going to close voting, point of order, excuse me. The vote of no action passes by 190 to 49. That's a vote and I so declare it and that closes article 21 and brings us to article 22. We have a recommended vote of the select board of no action, but we do have a substitute motion by Ms. Henkin. So what we're going to do is finish going through our screens when we get through with all our screens. Mr. Koralski will show us the article and then he'll show us Ms. Henkin and we'll bring Ms. Henkin up to introduce her substitute motion. This is a vote of provision of town email addresses for town meeting members. The recommended vote of the board of select and was no action. Mr. Moderator. Yes. I'd actually like to table my substitute motion. Are you making a motion to table the entire article? Yes. Okay. We have a motion to table the entire article. Before we take that, we'll ask Mr. DeCorsi for his point of order. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I was just going to raise the same point. Ms. Henkin, did I have a discussion with Mr. Diggins earlier? And I understand he may be working with Ms. Henkin. So I'm glad she brought the motion to table. That's all I was going to discuss. Okay. Do we have a second on the motion to table? Second. Second. Okay. It's been seconded. So we have a motion to table, which would be put it on the table and we'll bring it up another evening. If anyone objects to the motion to table, please use the raise hand feature in Zoom. So if you're objecting to the motion to table, please go ahead and use the raise hand feature in Zoom as soon as it's ready to go. And I think it's turned on. It is turned on. It's unanimous vote to table. So we are tabling article 23. We're going to take that up at another night. 22. We'll request it. Thank you. So this one is tabled. So tabling 22. That brings us to article 23. Affordable overlay study. We have a vote of no action by the select board. Oh, no, excuse me. 23 was on the consent agenda. 24 would be our next article. Article 24, home rule legislation ranked choice voting. Who wishes to present on this? Ms. Rod, are you? Yes, sir. Yeah, Steve DeCourcy, chair of the select board. The select board voted in favor of ranked choice voting. It was a four to one vote. The board was unanimous in its support of RCV for single seat elections. The four to one vote reflected multi-seat elections. I'd like to turn over the rest of the time to Mr. Greg Dennis, the chair of the election modernization committee. Okay, so is Mr. Dennis a Tom resident? Yes, he is. Okay, so he has a right to speak. So he'll be using the remainder of the seven minutes. Sir. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Greg Dennis from precinct one and chair of the election modernization committee. Mr. Moderator, at this time, I'd like to ask that my recorded presentation be played. Sure. Greg Dennis from precinct one presenting article 24 on behalf of the election modernization committee. The recommended vote of the select board proposes home rule legislation to adopt ranked choice voting for elections to townwide offices. To understand the benefits of ranked choice voting, let's look at a key problem in the voting system we use today. That's the problem of vote splitting. Let's say we're holding an election for favorite candy and two candidates enter the race, Reese's peanut butter cups and candy corn. Early polling shows about 60% prefer Reese's to candy corn. So it looks like peanut butter cups will win handily. That is until, uh-oh, a third candidate decides to enter the race, Reese's minis. This is bad news for Reese's fans. Now their votes are split. And on election day, candy corn wins with less than a majority, less than 50% of the vote. Vote splitting has a number of negative consequences for our elections. First, as we saw in the example, it means that those we elect may lack majority support. Now, while non-majority outcomes don't happen in every election, the threat of vote splitting is ever present. And that threat causes prospective candidates to bow out of the race before it has even begun. Fewer candidates means a less diverse candidate pool. It means fewer campaigns drawing voters to the polls. In some, it means campaigns are less welcoming, less inclusive and less engaging than they could be. These are some of the problems that ranked choice voting can help fix. So how does it work? Well, here are some of the ballots that we see in town elections today. Depending on the number of seats we are filling, we may be asked to vote for up to one or up to two or up to three. And Article 24 would replace them all with this ranked ballot. Where voters can choose just one or if they want, mark a second choice in the second column, third choice in the third column as many or as few choices as they like. And it doesn't matter how many seats we are filling, one, two or three, the ballot and instructions stay the same. To see how the votes are counted, let's look at a select board race between the four candidates on this ballot, Mary, Diego, Sally and Robbie. We start by counting just the first choices, just the marks in this first column. Mary has 36 first choices, Diego 24, Sally 12 and Robbie 28. Mary's in the lead, but with ranked choice, you can't win with only 36% of the vote. Instead, the last place candidate, here that Sally is dropped. And everyone that voted for Sally has their vote instantly count towards their next choice instead. Then we continue to drop the last place candidate and transfer their votes until only two candidates remain. When only two are left, the candidate with more than 50% of the vote, a majority wins the seat. Congratulations, Mary. But what if we're filling two seats on the select board? Well, then Mary wins the first of those two seats and then we count the ballots over again from the beginning, but with Mary excluded to fill the second seat. Again, we drop the lowest vote getter until two candidates are left, at which point the candidate with the majority of the votes wins the second seat. I'm happy to answer any questions about how the votes are counted, but it's important to keep in mind that regardless of the mechanics of the count, the task of the voter remains simple, which is to fill out this ballot and we know from experience around the country and around the world that voters can handle this. In an exchange for using the ranked ballot and counting the votes in this way, town elections would see a number of benefits. One, we'll ensure that the candidates we elect always have majority support. Two, by ending vote splitting, we'll encourage a larger and more diverse set of candidates to run. There's evidence that this benefits women and people of color in particular. Three, we'll help boost voter turnout because more candidates means more people pulling their friends and neighbors out to vote. Four, we'll limit gamesmanship because lobbying your supporters to bullet vote for you becomes an ineffective strategy under ranked choice. And five, candidates will have an extra incentive to stay positive and civil, to pick up the second and third choices from supporters of their opponents. What's the impact of a yes vote? Well, if town meeting votes yes, and if the state approves the home rule legislation this year, then Arlington voters will decide whether to adopt ranked choice voting on the April 22 town ballot. And if Arlington voters say yes, our first election with ranked choice would be in April 2023. Importantly, that means one, even if we vote yes, we'd still have nearly two years for more public education before ranked choice voting is ever used. And two, a yes vote is ultimately a vote to let Arlington voters have a say. In November, 64% of Arlingtonians said yes to adopting ranked choice voting at the state and federal level. Please vote yes in this motion so that they can decide whether they want it for local elections too. Thank you. Thank you for playing that. In addition to the recorded video, there's a fact sheet and a select board example in your materials with answers to common questions. I'd like to add that in addition to a yes vote on the article, the committee is also urging a no vote on Mr. Schlickman's proposed amendment, which would limit ranked choice voting to single seat elections only. That amendment would deny key benefits to some of our highest profile races where vote splitting is a serious concern. It would also give voters an inconsistent and unpredictable experience. For example, it would mean that in some years, the select board race would use ranked choice voting and in other years, it would not. Our proposal for multi-seat elections is straightforward. It just repeats the single seat method, the same single seat process to fill each of the available seats one at a time. It's based on the same rationale and offers the same benefits to multi-seat elections as it does to single ones. So please vote no on that amendment and then yes on the main motion. Lastly, I'd like to thank the other 14 members of the election modernization committee, including the outgoing chair in town meetings outgoing assistant town moderator, Jim O'Connor, for their service to the committee of the town. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Schlickman. Mr. Moderator, it's 9.30. Do we wanna do this after the break? Sure, that's a good idea. Let's take our 10 minute break then Mr. Schlickman will be the first one up. And I do have a PowerPoint that I wanna narrate it with, so if... We'll have that queued up ready to go. So we're gonna take our 10 minute break and we'll see you all in 10, 12 minutes and we're gonna play a piece that was produced by a Lincoln High School student, Daniel. I didn't get his last name. That he won an award through the Community Access Cable Television Station Association for this piece and I think it was a nationwide award given to one of our high school students through ACMI. And so we're gonna get to see that during the break. So thank you. We'll see you soon. Oh, yes, on my amendment and I don't wanna read anything else. We are so happy to give you a glimpse into the hearts and minds of our Arlington student artists. We will continue to ask them, through their art, to tell us what they are thinking and feeling about their students and how they feel about their students. To tell us what they are thinking and feeling about their lives and about the world around them. Our goal for this project was to give students a way to reflect on the school closure. We asked them to share their experience of life away from school and friends and all of their normal activities. We wanted students to understand that making art can help us to process things that can't always be put into words. I think that I think is really amazing about all of this social distancing artwork is that we now have this wonderful record of what life was like at this time from many different perspectives. I really enjoyed seeing the different ways that each student interpreted this prompt into an artwork from abstract art that used color to describe feeling to students that drew a map of their house. And you don't give yourself enough credit Listen to your mom when she tell you, don't sweat it, love When you slow it down, you know what's true Ooh, ooh, ooh, and you don't gotta feel what you do To spend my feelings back, I'm sitting dry, dry, yeah Teaching my students how to be their own kind of artist these last few years has been the best way to prepare them for art making in these new circumstances. They are resilient, they are resourceful, and they will find a way to express themselves through art. Listen to your mom when she tell you, don't sweat it, love When you slow it down, you know what's true Ooh, ooh, ooh, and you don't gotta feel what you do When your mind wanders to bubblegum and grilled corn, you wonder if things will ever feel the same way. Circles all the time, finger in your hair Circles round my mind, let's echo your mind Circles all the time, finger in your hair Creating art for this online art show is a way to reach out to each other in this very unique and isolating time. The way from school has been fun because I play with my brother and spend time with my parents. I don't get to go to school anymore and learn at school and play at school. I need to be happy, creative, and connect with my cousins and friends all over the world. Art has helped me express myself on a sheet of paper because sometimes I just get really bored there's like basically nothing to do so I just grab a sheet of paper and start writing Feeling like there's much that's my heart and heart I'm better and safe away from the cold Won't you smile, heart is melting as time falls but I swear this ain't real Swimming batsman and ladders, the world around you Gets up this rough, but I'll wait it out till you and I One reason I like painting is because it just really brings out your personality and you can paint anything you want And I love culture because you can take everyday trash items and make them into something amazing Life away from school has had its ups and downs and art has helped me express myself during this crazy time It has also helped me find a fun calming activity to brighten my day It's creative and to be busy It's hard being lazy in school because I miss all my friends and teachers because it helps me keep busy Art has helped me find inspiration and creativity all around me and it's helped me do something that I really love to do and it's just fun It helped me during this time It helped me think about more happier things and what's happening right now You can use art to make other people happy That's what it's really all about, just making other people happy This culture is already eccentric Multimedia Chalk creative Happy helpful artist We are artists Daniel Gorbinov for doing that video He won an award for that He collected all of those from Arlington students over the last year their reflections of life during COVID in the schools We're just trying to queue up Mr. Schlickman's PowerPoint presentation and then we're going to bring up with him as soon as Adam comes back on and gives us the okay that he has ready to go This is kind of the problem We don't reload these things up into the YouTube so we can play them If we have a second on Mr. Schlickman's Okay, we're ready to go Okay, Mr. Schlickman's motion has been seconded Okay, is Paul still live with us? Paul, are you still there? I am now here Okay, so you're on, go ahead Okay, I'm going to ask that you vote no action on article 24 If it ain't broke, please don't break it Next slide, please The election modernization committee when it was conceived a couple of years ago The select board envisioned it as being the town looking at the town's election practices, policies and opportunities for improvement and this community viewed itself as an advocacy organization for rank choice voting so the mission changed and in 2020 they looked at the criticism of the rank choice voting article to special town meeting is without merit Next slide, please This is the text of the select board's report in article 36 of 2019 The select board urges town meeting to establish a study committee to comprehensively examine the town's election practices, policies and opportunities for improvement Next slide, please And there's a list of nine things that they were supposed to look at Now, they did come before the special town meeting last year and with the recommendation and a very good one to change the way we elect town meeting members but other than that was all about rank choice voting Next slide, please And the minutes of the election modernization committee point that out If you go to the minutes of the January 14th, 2020 meeting the discussion resolved revolved around the statement that the primary reason for this committee was to pursue rank choice voting So we didn't get what we asked for in the study of our elections and we've got an advocacy organization for rank choice voting Next slide, please The other thing they were supposed to do was listen to to the voters but they didn't do that In fact, when I presented two amendments to the rank choice voting proposition last year they withdrew it and then stated that whatever I was doing was totally without merit Didn't ask to talk to me Nothing Next slide, please Now, they are telling you that the rank choice will limit gamesmanship It does not All it does is it changes the game Next slide, please I run for school committee in a race where we're electing three candidates Right now I'm telling folks please vote for me But you have three votes Use your other three votes Please do, because they all have the same value And I have built coalitions with the other candidates who are running in the cycle Bill Hayner and I come from totally different political constituencies But I keep telling people Yeah, vote for Bill, he's a good guy He does a lot of work But if we go to rank choice from multi-seat elections I can't do that anymore What I have to do is I have to go and say Don't give me one of your three votes My campaign is I need your number one vote And number one votes will start appearing on campaign literature and campaign signs just like Cambridge where candidates are pushing for number one votes Next slide, please Multi-candidate elections with this added competitive edge will not be more civil They will not be more collegial They will not be more happy They will be more intensely competitive It will make the situation worse Next slide, please Multi-candidate rank choice voting doesn't just change the way we count ballots It changes the character of the election and it does it to the detriment of the way we campaign in town My amendment will remove multi-seat elections from the rank choice voting proposal before you I hope you adopt that But I also hope that even if you do adopt that you vote this down until we've had an extensive chance to come together and talk about the nine items that we wanted to talk about in terms of reforming our elections and coming back with a comprehensive package that will make elections better if it will work Next slide, please Please remove the most detrimental aspect Multi-candidate by adopting my amendment and then defeat the article and vote no action Look at this language in letter E Look at that language If you vote no action on the total package you will defeat this language Can you explain this to your constituents Can you explain why you voted for that language Next slide, please And would you explain to folks why you would authorize the town clerk to have total authority to make any changes and procedures possible if this is adopted Next slide, please Please remove the most detrimental aspect by adopting the Schlickman amendment and then defeat the article and vote no action on article 24 This is the best thing to do for Arlington Let's have a real discussion of what will make our elections better in Arlington and then move forward for that. Thank you very much Thank you, Mr. Schlickman Okay, so what we're voting on here is article 24, there is a recommended vote in the board of select board report and that's spelled out. Mr. Schlickman now has an amendment to change that to make it for single seat elections only I believe and then we also have a second amendment by a misfreedom Let's bring Bethy and out Mr. Levy has a point of order Mr. Levy Thank you Mr. Rotter Can you hear me? Yes, sir My question is Mr. Schlickman's amendment out of scope because he clearly wants a no vote on the main amendment on the main article His amendment is within the scope of because he wants to amend the main article but he's advocating for a no vote on the main article but whether his amendment passes or doesn't, he's still advocating to vote down the main article so I'm confused about therefore is his amendment out of scope? No, it's not out of scope and yes, he can make that advocacy for the main article either way regardless of his amendment Okay, I just hope that for the purpose of making sure that we get out of here before the end of June that further amendments like this are considered truly in scope or not if the end result is something fundamentally against the purpose of the main article that's all, thank you Thank you sir Thank you Mr. Moderator I'm Beth Ann Friedman from Precinct 15 and I have a very simple amendment to article number 24 and that's to add a subheading to section 8B subheading G that indicates the town clerks shall publish election results that show the tabulations by ground and one of my issues with the ranked choice voting I understand the purpose of it and that it might avoid third candidates splitting a vote and ending up with a candidate that doesn't have populace majority of populace support but I think that it's really important that whatever calculations made be really transparent and so by this amendment when the town if the town clerk publishes election results that show the tabulation by round you will actually see the determinations of who won the election have been made so I urge you to support this amendment we have a second on miss Friedman's amendment it's been seconded thank you now we have the force to recommend the vote of the select board Mr. Schlickman's amendment miss Friedman's amendment they are all subject to discussion first to speak now thank you Mr. Moderator Frank Siano precinct 15 so I support Mr. Schlickman's idea but I'm trying to understand this ranked choice voting the state voted against it but Arlington voted for it as I understand it and then in the example that was given we have Mary has 36 votes Robbie 28 and Sally 12 to fill a seat on the select board in the example given in the presentation were there two seats open and how does it end up that so the first choice votes so Mary wins and then her votes get spread over Diego Robbie and Sally can somebody explain that to me and then Susie and explain it to me back a month ago and maybe I'm simple stupid and slow but can someone explain it to me please thank you um the gentleman who gave us the presentation can we bring him back yeah Greg Dennis precinct one chair of the election modernization committee uh yeah Mr. Siano um so colored page there has the example you're referring to yes and so if you step through so um so do you understand how Mary wins with a majority just in that first row we dropped the lowest vote getter and people get their vote counted towards their next choice and so on until we're down to two candidates so how many seats have to be filled in that example two on the select board well if we're filling in this example if we're filling one seat Mary wins that one seat and that's the if we're filling two seats Mary wins the first seat and then we just do this we do the same tabulation over again effectively to fill the second seat and if we need to fill a third seat we do the same tabulation over again so when we start the count for the second seat if you voted for Mary first in Diego second that means when we begin to count the second seat your ballots going to count initially as a vote for Diego because Mary's already been elected so your vote when we start to do the tally for the second seat will count instantly as a vote for Diego when we begin the tally for the second seat and that's what I don't understand sir so so Mary apparently got 36 first choices yep and Diego got 24 first choices correct I see so then because Mary wins you go to the second choices is that what happens because Mary wins we start the counting from the beginning counting the first choices but also anybody that voted for Mary has their vote count towards their next choice and say because Mary's already been elected so Diego has in that first round 16 more votes then he did for the second seat then he did for the first seat so you can see from that 16 of the people that voted for Mary first had voted for Diego second so when we start counting the second seat those votes instantly go toward to Diego I guess I understand it complicated but I understand it I'm not in favor of it but thank you sir thank you thank you Mr. Moderator thank you Mr. Siano important Diego John you're live thank you Mr. Moderator I wish to speak about the to the same tenor as my esteemed colleague Mr. Schlickman that is if it ain't broke well he said don't break it I would say don't fix it this is a solution in search of a problem the if let's just go back and think about history for a little bit if Abraham Lincoln had been if we had national ranked choice voting in 1860 Abraham Lincoln would not have been elected president that would have meant that the southern states would not have succeeded the civil war would not have happened the horrible institution of slavery would have continued that's maybe an extreme example but it shows that the principle that the person who gets the most votes wins whether it's 36% or 51% or whatever and that principle as long before there was a town of Allington long before there was even a state of Massachusetts since the colony since as long as the colonies have been here in America that is the way that our leaders have been chosen whoever gets the most vote wins and it could have in the very example that was used by the the opponent if the let's say his first candidate Mary gets 49% of the vote gets 25% and the next guy Sally or somebody gets 26% and all of I don't know the Eagles votes all go to Sally so then so then she wins and Mary doesn't which means that basically the person who almost got half the votes loses and the person a quarter of the votes wins and is that a way that we really want to run our elections I submit that that is not really a popular popular opinion at one of the precinct meetings which I attended I asked the I pointed out as has been cited earlier the city of Cambridge they call it proportional representation and there they are electing not three select persons or two select persons or three school committee members they are electing a whole bunch perhaps a dozen city consulates and as stated everybody says give me your number one vote and then they take some days and sometimes weeks to figure out well who are the lucky twelve squeak in one way or another I don't but the speaker then said well don't worry about that and I might say as registered voters I do know a little bit about elections and I would say that this past spring when we had an election unfortunately very few people bothered to participate 20% but we had results by before 10 o'clock tonight and I don't think it's going to be there that way at least I pointed out that that's unlikely to happen with this ranked choice business he said oh well not to worry we have a computer program that is going to make this work and okay I thought oh good computers never let us down if you're a senior citizen like I am and you tried to get you wanted to get vaccinated against the pandemic it's simple easy for you to go in the town on the state website and get an appointment wasn't it or let's think of another example that would affect almost anybody suppose you wanted to get your car a sticker you inspected it to get your sticker during the month of April didn't work so well did it because the state's computer had decided it didn't feel well or something and let's think about this very town meeting some of us a lot of us some of us I know I was one were prevented from voting because the system here was reverting to the connection is busted or something or other and by the time we got around to finding where the heck the portal was it was too late to vote so people were deprived of their right to vote because we're relying on a computerized system so it used to be on the Supreme Court of the United States some years ago in a decision on congressional districts issued the famous edict one man one vote but now now of course we say to be correct we'd say one person whole bunch of votes and beyond that don't worry computer will decide how the election is settled and I submit to you fellow town meeting members that we we're better to have the people you and me and all the other voters voting for our leaders let the one who has the most votes win and let's not let a computer decide who's going to be on any of our committees in town thank you thank you that was John Ward in Precinct 8 he didn't Mr. Dice what's your point of order Mr. Monterey here Mr. Dice Mr. Monterey can you hear me I I would hope that you might be able to keep the discussion within scope a little bit better than it has been thank you very much thank you again everyone name in precinct when you first log in thank you Mr. Deist David Levy Levy now I'm not sure I should let him speak but I'm gonna because his point of order was kind of an argument before so David thank you Mr. Marauder David Levy precinct 18 I want to move the question all matters before it okay someone on a second Mr. Levy's motion to terminate the debate it's been seconded we have a motion to terminate the debate on the article and all matters before it so we have the main article and Mr. Schlickman and Mr. Friedman's article amendment we're gonna wait for motion to terminate the debate on meeting members please go over in batches of 7 precincts 1 through 7 then 8 through 15 and finally 16 through 21 we're gonna confirm action so we're gonna open voting now if you want a motion to terminate the debate if you want to terminate please vote 1 for yes if you want to keep discussing it vote 2 for no if you cannot use the portal to cast your vote please try and chat your vote so 1 for yes to terminate the debate 2 for no to continue discussing it if you can't use the portal or the chat feature on zoom please text your vote 1 for 575 9266 617 575 9266 if the chat that's the third choice and if all else fails please call Ms. Brazil 781 608 now wait a second 781 316 3071 781 316 3071 we're voting to terminate the debate 1 yes to terminate 2 to no to continue discussion okay voting time is up we're just gonna wait for our chatted and texted votes so Laura and Ashley when you're all set give me the thumbs up we're good on the on the texted votes Adam I'm just waiting for my sign from our voting administrators that we're all set chatted votes Adam you're good on the texted votes okay let's close voting the motion fails 49% so we'll go through these screens and we'll go back to the list while we look through the screens we'll go back to the list was our next speaker we have to reopen it so we have to wait for you to go through the three screens so 115 in the positive 118 in the negative more screens to go through Brian Reirich was the next on the list Mr. Reirich Thank you Mr. moderator Brian Reirich precinct date I noticed that the select boards vote on this was not unanimous I'd be interested in hearing the thinking of the minority Mr. Decorsi would you wish to tell us what your thought process was you don't have to if you don't want to certainly thank you Mr. moderator as I said when I presented the select boards recommendation we were unanimous for a single seat RCV the split was 4-1 on multi-seat my issue with the multi-seat is several but one in particular is how the votes are redistributed and Mr. Siano raised the question to Mr. Dennis but in the multi-seat election that is presented in the proposed bylaw when you get to the second choice the first choice voter the first place finisher which is Mary 26 of her second choice votes are replied 10 of her third choice votes are replied in choosing a winner Sally was the fourth place finisher same thing the last place finisher and the first place finisher in this example both of their votes were redistributed second choice third choices Diego and Robbie who were the second third place finishers in that second round none of their second votes were applied so the first votes were applied to choose Mary as the initial winner none of their votes none of their second votes counted and that's one of the criticisms about multi-seat ranked choice voting is you have to redistribute votes in order to get to 50% you have to keep redistributing votes and in this example the first place finisher 36 votes 26 second choice and 10 third choice votes went to select the second place finisher and with a 50% threshold that keeps happening I will say that there was a lot of discussion among the election modernization committee about what form of ranked choice voting to use for multiple seats because there are a number of different options because it's difficult in terms of determining how you redistribute and they chose a majoritarian approach for the board there are four or five communities across the country that use ranked choice voting for multi-seat elections, Cambridge being one of them for all nine seats some others use it as multiple seats come up in a cycle none of them use this approach that was a big concern to me it seems to me that if we have two votes now in a multi-seat election the two votes count in the ranked choice voting example here they don't count for every voter and first place votes certainly count but there are scenarios here where the second choice vote does not count last thing I would say is that as to the confusion between a single seat election and a multi-seat election East Hampton, Massachusetts adopted ranked choice voting they adopted it for single seat elections they did not for multi-seat elections and while they're discussing and moving towards that that's the way they voted it in so for all those reasons and one last point Mr. Dennis said that the multi-seat ranked choice voting you always have majority support for a winner well that's not necessarily the case people don't use all their selections and you have to move down the line to second, third and even fourth place votes if those are blank a majority is not going to result if there are exhausted ballots so for those reasons I support it for single seat I just can't I can't get there I don't think it's an improvement for multi-seat thank you thank you Mr. DeCorsi does that answer question Mr. Erick yes it does thank you thank you Mr. Erick anything further nothing further Mr. Moderator thanks John Deist I pass Mr. Moderator thank you Mr. Deist but we need to know who you are from now on sorry okay Chris Hyam Christopher Hyam okay can you hear me yes sir Christopher Hyam precinct 11 of the of the main article yes particular section A okay so my question Mr. Moderator is on the concluded ballot section A number two I have some questions about that that I hope someone can answer okay so in particular the third clause in that sentence the two or more sequential skipped ratings rankings rather what exactly does that mean Mr. Hyam can you tell us what that means from a legal point of view Doug Hyam Town Council I'm sorry Mr. Hyam can you repeat which specific citation it was so section A number two the third clause where it says contains two or more sequential skipped rankings before its highest continuing ranking I believe what that's trying to capture and Mr. Dennis is frankly the expert on right choice voting but I believe what that's trying to capture is that there may be ballots that don't contain a preference for you know one two three four five in a in a perfect order or may have equally prioritized votes in terms of what the highest ranking is so that you might have someone might have voted for candidate A as their first choice didn't vote for anybody for their second choice and then voted for somebody for their fourth and fifth choice or something of that basically to that nature because ballots aren't necessarily going to always be pulled out perfectly so this is trying to sort of my understanding is this is trying to capture those scenarios where there's a skipping of the order of preference I'd love to confirm that that's my meeting okay we'll ask Mr. Dennis if you have that correct is Mr. Dennis still with us yeah thank you Greg Dennis chair of the election modernization committee yes so normally a skipped ranking is if somebody voted for a candidate first and then say in their first ranking and then didn't put anybody as a second ranking that would be a single skip and a single skip what would happen is that the candidate you put in the third rank would be considered as if it were your second choice would be promoted in that way but once you get to multiple skips it becomes a little bit dubious to do the promotion like that if you say voted for one candidate first and then you skipped all the ranks and you voted for you know some candidate fourth or fifth or something it would be probably not a clear good reflection of the voters intent to say well that was that voter's second choice so once you skip two or more we say okay after that point the rest of the rankings are as if the voter left it blank because we don't want to consider those as if they were the voters second choice this is pretty much standard procedure in most jurisdictions around the country and most of the language in here is you know straight out of model legislation that's been passed in various places around the country thank you sir so somebody so somebody could vote as you're saying is someone could cast a first place vote for a single candidate and then could cast a could potentially cast say two votes you know second place votes for two candidates that ballot would be good for the first candidate but then would be thrown out for the further candidates similarly if they voted for first and then they skip two more and they went to fourth and fifth that ballot would be good for the first first choice but thrown out for the fourth and fifth choice if they managed to cast it the voting machine will detect an over vote if you voted for multiple people in the same rank it will detect an over vote like it detects and spit it back out to you spit it back out and you have to go fix it just like it does today if you're over so another question how many you say multiple other jurisdictions how many jurisdictions use this particular this particular you know algorithm for doing rank choice in multiple races for multi-seat offices it's going pretty rampant hold on sorry you gotta wait for me to ask you to answer the question I can't lose control of the debate so Mr. Dennis go ahead sorry about that great Dennis chair of the election modernization committee yeah there are a number of communities that do it one of them is linked to on the Arlington rank choice website the website we created for this article where it happens to be a video from pace in Utah we chose that because it's a particularly popular form is growing pretty rapidly and I think in the next it's not quite as popular as the proportional form like in Cambridge today but it's getting another number of adoptions this year and likely next year to soon overtake the proportional form is the most common way to elect a multi-seat offices with rank choice Mr. moderator is it possible to get an actual like number I don't know if he has that do you have an actual number or is it just there's two cities in Utah there's some jurisdictions in Virginia that I would need to go look up and then the adoptions this year are mostly in Utah from cities in Utah that because of some enabling legislation there Salt Lake City Moab I believe so we're talking 10 10,050 500 there's probably there's two definite cities today and next year they'll probably be like a dozen that answer question Mr. yes thank you Mr. moderator for using that out all right I see that I'm over time so I will simply say thank you thank you sir Patricia Muldoon Mr. moderator Patricia Muldoon precinct 20 and I'm also a warden for precinct 6 and I'm also active with the Arlington League women voters and I'm also was appointed recently to the election modernization committee so this is an issue that is near and dear to my heart I was first introduced to rank choice voting at a national League of Women Voters conference probably back in the 90s it was so much more fun then because we got to choose ice cream flavors and it was a lot easier to understand when my favorite chocolate got chosen but it is an issue that the League has long supported as being the fairest method Arlington voted in favor of it for state and national but we this is our chance to move it forward so Arlington voters can have the opportunity to say yay or nay as to whether we would like to have it for local elections and I think I think our voters would very much appreciate having the opportunity to make that decision I would like to comment on a couple of things that have risen in this discussion Mr. Warden had some concerns about computers being able to handle the count but our new wonderful ballot tabulating machines that we have in all our precincts the Dominion machines can handle this they are currently counting our ballots right now with all of our elections and they can handle this kind of ranked choice voting so they're going to be counting our ballots one way or the other so that's not going to be out of their range of abilities but I think it's really important to expand the diversity there are issues in Arlington where sometimes I think people don't choose to run because it looks like hey we've already got those seats filled and we really need to get greater diversity and I think with the opportunity to have not only your first choice but also your second or third count that will get greater diversity in the town of Arlington and we need that we need more voices of a greater range and I think ranked choice voting will really help that and it will certainly increase voter turnout when we have greater competition I'm always excited when we've got a range of candidates but this will give the voter greater control I think over how their votes are considered and I think we really need that opportunity so I think it's greater control for the voter and I think it will expand our diversity in town and I think we can all manage manage this process smoothly I hope so I think we should give the voters a chance to do it and the whole idea of just choosing well let's do it for single seat versus multi seat drawing that variability I think if we're going to vote for the select board it should be one system and I think that system should be ranked choice voting it shouldn't be one way one year another way another year so I think we should give this 14 member election modernization committee a chance to carry out our mandate and this is a piece of the mandate we are working to improve elections and this is a very significant component of that to support free and fair elections in the town of Arlington and it's going to be different from what Cambridge does I hope it will be better but I think it will be good for the town and for all of us so I encourage folks to say yes to the original the original article thank you thank you Mr. moderator thank you Ms. Muldoon Ms. Brazil yes I would like to thank you Mr. President and also the town clerk I want to speak first just as a town meeting member and a voter I have supported ranked choice voting in my heart for years and certainly was thrilled to have the discussion come to Arlington so concretely I do think it does give Arlington voters a sense of our local elections speaking as town clerk I foresee no problems administering elections the process will be exactly the same I will get the memory cards from the precinct workers and put them into the same device and the computer this is the part the computers are good at the computer does the counting in all cases and so I think we'll get quick results just exactly the same way we do now I appreciate Ms. Muldoon's comments but I want to specifically focus on urging people to vote no on Mr. Schlickman's amendment as person who has to try and explain how elections work to the voters I definitely agree that it would increase the complexity and confusion if the ballot is different sometimes and races are different sometimes I think it's much cleaner and more straightforward and I strongly urge us to vote for rank choice but to keep it sort of pure and simple and not to increase complexity as Mr. Schlickman proposes to the first table I want to go through this as a moderator very great cristiana thank you Mr. moderator Greg Cristiana precinct 15 first of all I don't know how we can possibly know with the second choice votes in the election of 1860 considering that candidates would have run pretty different campaigns in the presence of rank choice to run all voting myself. I'm not a member of any advocacy organization that advocates for ranked choice voting in any way. I just have happened to study the topic and I have firsthand experience campaigning for a race three years ago which was decided by ranked choice voting for the first time in that district. So as a part of the canvassing voters, I learned about and helped inform voters about ranked choice voting and the implications in that race, especially for the candidate that I was canvassing for. And what I found in my own personal experience and in my research that I've done on this topic is that candidates are more likely to say nicer things about each other with ranked choice voting, specifically because it's not just winner takes all on an individual's ballot. Of course, not all candidates are going to say nice things about all the other candidates. It's not gonna be some magical civil ointment that's gonna cure all our divisions and discord. But with a wide field of candidates competing for a limited set of seats, the mechanics of ranked choice voting actually encourages candidates in a lot of cases who have similar priorities and similar constituencies to vie for first and second choice votes rather than sink their like-minded opponents with negative campaigning, which tends to be the case. Maybe not so much in Arlington, but that is pretty prevalent in campaigns across the country. And lastly, I support Ms. Friedman's amendment as I don't see any technical reasons that would hinder the implementation of that amendment, but I'd be interested to learn more from the town clerk's office if there are any technical reasons that publishing the tabulations by round would be prohibitively challenging. And that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Charles Foskett. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Charles Foskett, the precinct eight speaking as a town meeting member. I would just call us back to Mr. Warden's comments. Voting for the winner based on who has the most votes is a tradition that has worked in this country for three centuries. And I think it's still works. I'm actually personally affronted by the suggestion from the voting, from the vote modernization committee that voting a bullet is wrong. That seemed to be some sort of a basic fundamental of the reason to go to rank choice voting. And I find it arrogant for somebody to tell me that I can't vote, that I can't choose not to vote for a candidate. The most voting for candidates or not voting for the candidate or candidate is one of the most fundamental principles of our democracy. And if I'm being told that if I only vote for one candidate out of three, and that's wrong, I'm just really disturbed by that. Listening to the whole argument, I have concluded that if I followed multi, multiple choice of voting, that I could wind up helping the candidate that I least liked get elected. And I harken you back to Mr. D'Corsi's comments and his descriptions of his concerns. Truthfully speaking, could you understand what he was talking about? And the fact, it's really very difficult to understand. And it's not, it wasn't the fault of Mr. D'Corsi, it's the fault of just a fundamentally complicated and flawed proposal. Now, even Ms. Brazil said that she wanted this, was opposing Mr. Schlickman's motion because it increases the complexity. She didn't say it made it complex. She said it increases the complexity. And everybody understands that this is a complex system and it can't work. Voting is not broken. Voting has been working for hundreds of years. This proposal reminds me of counting chairs in Florida and I suggest that you vote no on the entire article. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Joseph Coro. Thank you, Mr. moderator Joseph Coro, precinct 15. I just want to address three things. The first is strategic voting. The second is turnout. And the third is my own experience. First round strategic voting. I don't think there's anything wrong with, with bullet voting, but I think that, um, you know, people, people make their choices for a lot of different reasons. And I think in some cases, um, voters might look at the slate of candidates running for, like maybe there are three candidates running for two seats. And they may decide that they like one of those candidates more than, than the others, but they feel very comfortable with, with the other candidates and would like to have the opportunity to, to, um, express a preference, uh, for each of the candidates in the race, um, ranked choice voting gives them that opportunity and gives them their opportunity to, to actually rank their preferences. They're not forced to do it. There's nothing wrong if they want to, um, to, to bullet, but, but they, there also is no particular advantage, um, if they bullet. Uh, the second thing I wanted to address was, um, turnout. And, um, I know that part of the proposal of the election modernization committee, uh, suggests that, um, you know, going to rank choice voting will, uh, boost the number of candidates and boost turnout. I think that's still something that, that, um, would need to play out and need to be proven in, in, in practice. I do know that, that this past year we had some competitive races and the turnout was 19.69%. Um, but not, not nearly as competitive, I think, uh, across the ballot as, um, 2012, which was the year I was elected to, uh, school, uh, to, I'm sorry, the select board when we had, uh, 25.9% turnout. In that year, and some of you may recall there were five candidates for two seats on the select board and there were six candidates for two seats on the school committee and some of the other races across the ballot were also, um, uh, competitive. Um, myself and, and, uh, Mr. Byrne were elected to select board and, um, in, in that case, um, uh, one of us received 45.92% of the, of, of the voters cast a ballot for, for us. Um, and in the other case, 37.7%. When you compound that with the low turnout, that was a higher turnout than we typically see, but, but, um, in reality, um, you know, I was elected with 11, just over 11% of the registered voters in town, uh, voting for me and, um, you know, Mr. Byrne was, was close. It seems to me that, that, that the benefits of this system is that by allowing the ranked choice voting, you're, you're electing candidates who are the most palatable to the most people who are voting. The turnout issue, I think this will address part of it. I think part of that is actually on all of us as town meeting members, um, to, to, to help, um, really, you know, evangelize the importance of voting in, in, in local elections. And I think a lot of, um, my colleagues do that very well, but clearly we have more, more to go. But that, that's the core principle of me is that, that this introduces the opportunity to elect leaders who are the most palatable to the most people or, or participating, um, in the election. So I, I would urge you to vote against, uh, Mr. Schlickman's amendment and to adopt the, um, recommended vote, um, of the select board. And I thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Coral. Betty stone. Um, I'm trying to distill my comments so as not to repeat things that other people have said. Um, I am very much in favor of the, um, original article 24 for rank in favor of rank choice voting. And I'm against Mr. Schlickman's amendment to exclude multi-seat elections. Um, the reason for that is that, um, in particular, um, rank choice voting for only single seat races would lead to, um, and I believe that, um, Mr. Dennis mentioned this in his original and in his, um, initial presentation, but I want to emphasize that. It would result in inconsistent. Elections. Um, because for example, in some of the. Um, More competitive and higher stake, um, um, Races such as the select board. In some years, if there were. Two vacancies, then it would be. Not ranked choice. And in other years, if there was only one open, uh, one opening, it would be ranked choice. And I find that the inconsistency. Goes against. Um, is very confusing and goes against. Um, I want to emphasize that. Um, The proposal for multi-seat elections. Is a straightforward application of the exact same single seat method. Simply reapplied. Once for each seat to be filled. It's based on the same rationale and carry forward. Um, As single seat races. From the voters perspective. The voting process. Is identical for single or multiple seat elections. And I believe, um, if I'm not. I believe that there is a built in. Um, Lag of a year. From, uh, if this were to pass from accepting it, this as a, as a policy and actually, um, Implementing it precisely to allow for education of people. So that they know how to vote. It's a, it's not, it's not a complicated thing. Um, and we have voting machines that have. Software and the capability to. To do the tabulations. On the same time schedule. We'll have the results. At the same time as they normally would come out. With no additional expense. Um, And I think that. In the races that are more competitive and more high stakes, such as, um, The select board and the school committee to eliminate the benefits of rank choice voting. And. End up with inconsistent. Inconsistent voting, depending on the years and the, and depending on the number of vacancies that are available. Um, Is not the way to go. Um, I believe that a previous speaker all who had experience and some data from other elections. Spoke to the elections. And the campaigning. And I, I just would like to speak to the point that elections are not about how candidates campaign. Um, as much as they are about how giving the voters an opportunity to. To have their say. Um, And so I think I'll stop now and let other people have a chance to speak, but I'm very much in favor of. The original. Um, Article 24 and very much against, um, Mr. Schlickman's amendment. Um, I would vote in favor of, um, Ms. Friedman's amendment. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mrs. Stone. Uh, Daniel Jalcat. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, sir. Thank you, Daniel Jalcat. Precinct six. Um, I think the core question here in this whole. Uh, article is, can we make our election system better? Or will we make it worse? And I think that's everybody's comments on the subject. Boiled down to that. I had the sort of unusual experience of. Uh, the privilege of being in a class. About 20 years ago with. The famous songwriter and mathematician Tom Lehrer. And I was at UC Santa Cruz when he happened to be teaching a class. Mathematics. I think he called it mathematics for liberal arts. And he. Uh, Proposed that there is no such thing as a perfect. Election strategy. And that really struck struck me. Because even back then. Probably misremembering this probably more like 30 years ago, to be honest. Um, even back then, uh, I was thinking about things like rank choice voting and, um, wondering what, what can we do to make democracy more fair? And, um, To have him, you know, a person of authority to my mind. Say, there's no such thing as a perfect election strategy. It could have made me come away with a feeling that. We shouldn't bother. Why, why even pursue democracy. Why pursue the idea of voting for what the people want. If we can't perfectly execute it. But I think what I came away with is. Even though there may not be a perfect election strategy, for voting and for elections. Uh, it doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to move closer to a perfect strategy. Um, Even if it's not possible to perfect it, I think most of us can agree. There are so many problems. With the winner takes all approach that we're so used to. That it's worth trying something new. And there are so many things to be said for the kind of rank choice voting. Approach that is proposed by this article that I am in support of it. Um, And I am also. Not in support of an amendment that would change it to only apply in certain races. Uh, the, the, the arguments against this article seem to boil down to it being complicated. Um, But. I think it's more complicated to us who try to understand it and analyze it at. Like a, you know, a legal point of view, kind of, kind of way of thinking of it. I think it's not that complicated to propose to a typical voter. That you simply put into a list. In order. The people you would most prefer to represent you. It's not complicated at all. It's complicated when. You try to break it down into what does this mean on a mathematical level? What does this mean? When there are skipped votes, et cetera, et cetera. You know, um, there may be some issues to figure out, but it's not complicated to ask somebody. If you had your choice, who would you elect? And then if you had your second choice. Who would be next? And then if you had a third choice, who would that be? So I think it's pretty simple to the voters. And that's what's most important here. Um, Somebody else raised, uh, a criticism. About the rank choice voting that if somebody. Uh, Didn't vote for a second or third. Candidate, then their second or third vote. They would be next. They would not be represented at all in the vote. And to be honest, that is exactly the situation we face when people choose on their own accord, not to vote in an election at all. They choose to not be represented. In the vote that elect somebody. And if you're voting in a ranked choice voting. And you vote in your first vote gets disqualified. And you choose not to place a second, third, fourth, whatever vote, then you are choosing effectively not to vote. If there's precedent for that. It's not a great, uh, tragedy if somebody is quote unquote, not represented when they choose not to vote. Uh, So I would summarize by saying I am very much, if it's not obvious for this article. And, um, I'm against the shipment and amendment. I don't see anything wrong with the freedmen amendment. Again, as somebody previously mentioned, unless there is some, uh, non-obvious reason that that would be difficult. I think the transparency of reflecting. The voting order, uh, would be good. Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. Mr. Jolka. Um, Miss. The court. And the court creasing 15. If you can't hear me tell me now. Um, I would like to, uh, Make a couple of points here. Um, the first point I'd like to make is that what we're debating is not whether or not we like rank choice voting. What we're debating here is whether or not to put rank choice voting on a ballot and allow the voters of Arlington to choose whether or not they would like to implement this method of voting. So that all of the people who are arguing against rank choice voting here are arguing against the article itself. And they will have an opportunity to vote in an election on whether or not to vote. To vote in an election on whether or not they want to implement rank choice voting when we put it on the ballot for the rest of the town to vote on as well. So I think it's important to remember that when you make your decision about what you're going to support and not support here. Um, I think Mr. Schlickman's argument about competition in elections, his suggestion that elections would be somehow more competitive and people would be jockeying more actually is, uh, an argument in favor of rank choice voting, because I think rank choice voting, if it makes more can brings more candidates into the races, simply says that more people are going to take a bite at the apple and more people are going to get excited about campaigns and more people are going to vote and voting is addictive. Once you've done it once, you want to do it again. So I think it actually will improve our democracy, which I think is what perhaps, um, the election modernization committee is considering. Um, I do have one question, which is that, um, Mr. Schlickman suggested that the election modernization committee has been only paying attention to this matter. And I wonder whether or not that's true and whether or not perhaps there's someone on the board of select men who could, um, mention whether or not they have had interim reports from the committee and what other issues the committee has considered, um, or whether the board of select men believes that committee is not fulfilling its mission. I think those issue questions are outside the scope of the article. Um, they were inside the scope of Mr. Schlickman's argument and you didn't stop him. Yeah, but he didn't ask questions about him. So how about if we get the answers to those questions? It's 1056. We'll come back on Wednesday and have a couple of answers for you. Do you have anything else you wish to discuss? You want us to hold you open? Do you want to finish off now and have us give you answers? Well, I would suggest that regardless of those answers, which I would like to have simply because I believe that, uh, the committee has been slandered. Um, regardless of those answers, I support us putting rank choice voting on the ballot and allowing the voters of Arlington to decide whether or not they would like to implement this method of voting. I also support Ms. Friedman's amendment because I think being totally transparent about the calculations is a good idea. I urge you not to vote for Mr. Schlickman's amendment, which I believe guts the purpose of the article entirely. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you. Okay. It's 1057. We're going to preserve the speaker lists. If anyone has a motion for reconsideration on the one article that we passed tonight, um, please use the raised hand feature and zoom right now. It's going to give us your notice of reconsideration. And otherwise, I would take a motion to adjourn till Monday. We passed one article. We have a motion to adjourn. We have a second. Second. Second. Second. Second. If anyone object to adjourn, please use the raise hand feature also use the raise hand feature if you want to file a notice of reconsideration. So at this rate, um, passing one article a night will be here for another 30 nights. That's just something for us to consider between now and Wednesday. Okay. We'll see you all Wednesday night. Thank you. And good night all.