Good evening. I'm calling to order the meeting of the Arlington Select Board from Monday, November 8, 2021. This is Select Board Chair Steve DeCorsi. Permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Diane Mahon. Yes, thank you. John Hurd. Yes. Lynn Diggins. Yes, Mr. Chair. And just in case things get a little intense, I got some protection tonight. Nice. Eric Hellman. Yes, thank you. Staff, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Adam Chaplain. Yes. Doug Hyme. Yes. And Board Administrator Ashley Maher is participating remotely. Tonight's meeting of the Arlington Select Board is being conducted remotely consistent with an act signed into law on June 16, 2021, that extends certain COVID-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency. The act includes an extension until April 1, 2022 of the remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. The Governor's order, which is referenced with the agenda materials on the town's website for this meeting, allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Before we begin, let me offer a few notes. First, this meeting is being conducted via Zoom is being recorded and is also being simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Persons wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find out how to do so on the town's website. Persons participating by Zoom are reminded that they may be visible to others, and that if you wish to participate, you are asked to provide your full name in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. All participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment, and those persons are not required to identify themselves. Both Zoom participants and persons watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials also found on the town's website using the Novus agenda platform. Finally, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call. Once again, we have a full agenda this evening. So let's see how much of the town's business we can get done tonight. I'll now turn to item two on the agenda, which is the fiscal 2022 first quarter budget update, Sandy Pooler, Deputy Town Manager and Eda, Cody, I'm sorry, Comptroller. All right, they should both be joining us in one second. Good evening, Mr. Pooler and Ms. Cody. Thank you. I think we'll have Eda make the presentation tonight. Great. Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Eda Cody and I'm the town Comptroller. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present the year to date budget tonight. This is the expense and revenue report for the first quarter of the fiscal year 22 and did September 30, 2021. I don't know if I have seen these presentation skills, but I can assure you that I will have the same numbers for you tonight. This board is familiar with the report, but I will still briefly explain the format just in case there is someone in the audience that hasn't watched this, hasn't seen this report before. The report is structured on three parts. The first part is the narrative part where we explain the variances between the estimated and actual expenses. For the end of the first quarter, the burn rate for the expenditures should be at 25% and the revenue collection should be also at 25%. When we get to the departments, you will see that there are variances and I'll cover them as we look at each department. The second part of the report is a summary table of all the revenue expenditures by department or by category. This is a high level summary that makes it easier for you to follow the total expenditures and the expense rate or the revenue collection by department. Finally, we have the Munis report, which is a direct printout from Munis, which is a lot more detailed and not as easy to follow. However, if you're interested in looking at the salaries or a certain line item, you have it here. One note before I dive into the report is that we still have COVID expenses in the general fund. This is because we haven't received the final drawdown of the CARES funds. However, we did get the approval letter last week that the state approved our final request. Once we get the cash, we will reclassify these expenses out of the general fund to free up the free cash and bring the budgets in line with the rate where they are supposed to be. And charge these expenses to the COVID fund. Mr. Chabdolin, yes, I will skip the narrative and I will dive right into the summary where we can look at the actual variances. The first variance that I have here is for the information technology. It looks like they've spent 36% of their budget. However, they paid and encumbered their software and network licenses in the beginning of the fiscal year. So this is not alarming. This is okay. It's normal. We usually encourage the department to pull purchase orders in the beginning of the year to secure funding and make sure we don't have surprises at the end of the fiscal year by having goods ordered or services and not having enough funding. The second department that's high is the facilities and it's the same situation. It's because they encumbered most of their contracted services, mostly for cleaning and utilities, the electric and gas. The next department that's burning high is the DPW. They're showing that they've spent 48.6%. The salaries there are okay. They're at 25%. However, due to the encumbrances, this distorts a little bit their department. It shows that they're at half. Like I said, they encumber for the solid waste, for utilities, for trees trimming and a lot of other contracted services. The next department that's high is the border health. There are three reasons why the border health is high. One of them is the rent. They're paying $60,000 rent at the beginning of the fiscal year. We actually paid in July. They also paid the mosquito control assessment in August and there is a payroll error between border health and DEI. The staff diversity, equity and inclusion was charged in error to the border health, but we rectified that. And when we present the second quarter of this fiscal year, you should see it back to normal on both departments. The next department is the council on aging and it's the same reason the encumbrances of the contracted services and also at the rent payment, which takes place in July. They are encumbering the veterans benefits at the end of the beginning of the fiscal year. And that's about it. Just the library is at about 29% and that's just because they have some encumbrances. This are the expenditures for departments. The next category is the non-department budgets. The first one is the transfers. This comprises of the transfers out that we post at the beginning of the fiscal year. That's why it appears that it's being spent 100%. We transfer the subsidies to the enterprise. We post the capital projects and the transfers to the stabilization on July 1st. That is at 40%. And this is really, we don't have much to say on this. We follow the Hilltop securities debt schedule. The payments of this bond is due on the anniversary of the bond sales. So the treasurer just pays the invoices as they come. Pensions is at 100% because the treasurer transfers the wires, the money in July and the funds get invested in the beginning of the fiscal year. The liability insurance is at 65%, 64.5%, because we pay the town insurance invoices in July. The next category is the articles. This don't necessarily have to be at 25%. We usually give departments and various committees and commissions two years to spend this fund. There are two exceptions here. One is the indemnification which gets paid in July and appears that it's all spent. We're reimbursing the medical costs for the retired police and officers. The next and the maintenance of town water bodies. This transfer takes place in July. We transfer the whole amount into a special fund where the DPW spends it as they need it. And that concludes the expenses for the general funds. Moving on to the revenues. The first line shows the transfers. We bring in the indirect costs, which is the offsets from the enterprise funds. We also post here the override stabilization and all the operating and capital offsets. We usually take care of all the articles, all the transfers in the first month of the fiscal year. The property taxes are 24%. They're right on target. We did issue the preliminary and we accounted for the debt exclusion. We included the debt exclusion for the high school in the preliminary so people will not have large increases when they get the actual bills. The motor vehicle excise. This is high for the first quarter and this is not for this fiscal year. This is collections for the prior fiscal years. The commitment, the billing for fiscal year 22 will take place in the third quarter when we receive the information from the Department of Motor Vehicles. And we issue the bills. The next item that's high is the fees. The fees are appear to be, I mean they are higher than 25% because we have three categories that exceeded the 25%. One is the ambulance. The ambulance payments are strong this year in the first quarter at least. Also the parking revenue has picked up this year as a result of COVID not being that strict anymore. But keep in mind that we reduced the estimate. We originally had 350 and we lowered it down to $200,000 so that this is what makes it look higher. Also the clerk's office, the town clerk's office is at 43%. And this is mainly from the vital records that they are now required for the real IDs. The next line is the licenses and permits. And this is mostly because the economy came back and this clearly shows the strong economy. We had strong revenues from the building permits, wire, electric. Also it's worth mentioning that the inspections director is asking the contractors to sign an affidavit to attest the true value of the work they're doing, which is only helping us by collecting more money. The school medical aid is low. It's only 18%. However, this fluctuates every year. So the next two quarters could be much larger. We've had quarters when we had 55,000, other quarters when we had 23. So we hope to get to the $100,000 maybe even more. Pilots, this is the payments in lieu of taxes. We collect payments from two locations for two schools. Their agreement says that they have until July 1st to pay it. So we'll keep an eye. It might not show up on the second quarter. They usually come in late. Hotel meals and marijuana tax. This is the excise tax. And we made some changes here. First, we changed the estimate originally, and I'll start with the hotel. So for the hotel motel, the original estimate was $325,000. And we lowered it based on experience and based on the current revenues collected. So we made it $170,000. That brought it to 47%. The meals tax was originally $300,000 and we decided to increase it again based on experience, based on actual revenues, and we got to 31%. Marijuana was originally $194,000 and we bumped it to $239,000. This is a good revenue source. People want to be happy and we're strong in this area. The impact of these changes and the changes of these estimates is zero. It did not result in an increase on the total estimated revenue. And the last item I have here is the interest, which is low for two reasons. One, we only posted July and August. We haven't finished the bank reconciliation for September. So you only see two months reflected, not three. And also the interest rates plummeted. We don't see those high revenues as we're accustomed to. And that's about it for the general fund. And I will move on to the enterprise funds. The first enterprise fund is the water and sewer. The expenses are high for two reasons. Once we encumber the funds for the contracted services and second, we post all the offsets, all the indirect costs, budgeted in general fund, we posted at the beginning of the fiscal year. So it looks like they are expensive at a higher rate. The revenue on the other side, it's on the other hand, is where it's supposed to be at 24%. And we also posted the general fund subsidy. So in total, it's at 30%, but really the actual user charges are only at 24%. And this is consistent with where it should be at the end of the first quarter. The AYCC enterprise is okay. It's at 25% both revenue and expenditures. Council on Aging. Council on Aging is lower on expenses than they also have in conferences. But they don't show a lot of revenues. The reason is, we did post the subsidy in July. And also Council on Aging got a lot of donations this year as a result of COVID. So they've been running their transportation services through the donation funds. So both revenue and expenses will be outside from the donated funds. The public fund is at 38%. And for the same thing for two reasons. One is the offsets indirect costs are posted in July, and also they incurred $98,000. Absent of these incumbrances, but with offsets included, they would have been at 21%. So they're in good shape, expense-wise. And that was weak, but that's because this is seasonal and they will start collecting in winter months. And finally, the recreation fund. The recreation is at 54% expenses. And this is because of the seasonal nature of this fund. They had some quite large expenditures during summer. They've also encumbered contracted services. And we posted the indirect costs in July. And the revenue is right where it should be at 26%. And that concludes our summary. And the rest of the report is the printout from UNESCO. Do you have anything to add? No, you know, I think you did a very thorough, excellent job. Great. Thank you, Ms. Cody for the presentation. And thank you, Mr. Pooler. And just to remind people, we had last meeting we had the year end update, which is the fiscal year ending, June 30th, 2021. This first quarter update that Ms. Cody just presented is for the period from July 1, 2021 through September 30th, 2021. Sometimes we get confused when we're talking about fiscal year. So not us, but just in general presenting that for the public so people know what time period we're talking about. So I will turn to the board now for questions or comments. And I will start with Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Cody and Mr. Pooler for this presentation. I have four brief areas of questions. First, I would ask Ms. Cody or Mr. Pooler on the general fund for public works health department in terms of what, and maybe this is for Mr. Pooler working with the town manager in terms of when we file under opera funding to get reimbursed for public works and or health department expenditures. Is that something with opera funding that you anticipate or feel we will be able to use that funding for in terms of the 10 or 11 categories that apply? So we are moving forward with our opera program as demonstrated by the votes of the select board to initially approve certain expenditures. Those expenditures in general will be above and beyond what is listed in this report. This report really relates to the budget as passed by town meeting last spring in the general fund. The budget spending in general will be over and above that. In the same way that you've seen in the past and either referred to certain COVID expenses that we've had, that departments have sometimes had the front, but then as we get the federal money in, it goes into a COVID fund, it then disappears from this report. So overall, this report just focuses on the general fund and the opera and other funding sources will be over and above that. I hope that is answering your question. Yes, thank you. The second question is sort of, I'm putting the question out there to Mr. Puer and Ms. Cody. Excuse me, as well as Mr. Chaplain, the town manager. When we move forward with this report and what we received at the last meeting, and if it's too cumbersome or exhaustive, then I'm not asking you all to do it, but Mr. Foskett, who is the finance committee chairman but a long range planning. He's expressed his own individual views in terms of town spending, school spending, and OPEB funding. And I'm just wondering. I'm really thinking crazy out there and the chair of one range planning Mr. DeCorsi is well aware of these conversations. Is there any way that we could sort of track when these reports come in, if on the town side, I agree with Mr. Foskett on his recommendations for town school and OPEB, but I also recognize, I really can only ask for the town side. I can't speak to the school, that's for our colleagues in school committee, and I can't speak to retirement that's our colleagues on the retirement board, but is there any way to sort of taking Mr. Foskett's individual sort of outline on the town side of three to 3.25% when these different categories get reported, if we're in line with that, or if we've gone over that. Well, I'm going to start by taking a crack at that and maybe I'll see if others want to add anything. So, what we do try to present in this report is the town budget again, as I mentioned my last answer as voted by town meeting and seeing what progress we make throughout the year to stay within those budgets, and to collect the revenue as we've made at the time we've passed things at town meeting. Now I've had many conversations, as have you, Mrs. Mahan with Chairman Foskett about our future spending on both the town and school side, and what percentages should go up over time and how we count those numbers. Those are very important conversations. We continue to have them amongst ourselves and with Mr. Foskett. I would say those conversations were sort of outside of the simple things that this document is trying to cover, which is really comparing budget to actual in the current year. And those other conversations, I think really relate more to the long range plan, and they are important, but probably taken up in a different context. Okay. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chaplin had his hand up on that one as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mrs. Mahan. I just wanted to add to Mr. Poole's answer that really fundamentally, because town meeting appropriates a town operating budget at three and a quarter percent or we have to be respecting it in what's reported, unless we're going over budget. So I think the marker would be clear when Eda or Sandy would come in and say, we're over budget, right, and that would be the first inkling that we would know we're going beyond that three and a quarter percent. So long as we are able to report that we are on track with budget, it also simultaneously means that we're on track with the restrictions or the requirements of the long range plan. Okay. And I'm actually going to my last three questions. I'm just only going to ask one of them, because I feel that two of them are more geared towards long range planning and ongoing discussions will have. But I guess, I don't know if it's to the chair, Mr. Corsi or our town manager, Mr. Chaplin. In terms of the offer reimbursement. Because the understanding that I have is because of the debt exclusion with Minuteman. That doesn't sort of, and I'm asking if this is correct, if it's not, if you can correct me, if it is, if you could say it more accurately, because of opera funding or state public funding, because of Minuteman debt exclusion, and also debt exclusion, we may not be able to access some funding because we're carrying that on the books. So, I don't know if Mr. Chaplin or Mr. Corsi can speak to that very briefly. I'll take a crack at it in this, Chaplin, if you want to add on to that. The baseline for calculating lost revenue under opera is calendar year 2019. And we had our debt exclusion and our override in 2019 and those we would almost call extraordinary circumstances that pushed up the revenue. So when you compare subsequent revenues in calendar years 20, I'm sure it will be 21 and 22 against that inflated number. It's very difficult to show lost revenue, given the criteria that's been set out. I think there is a movement to try to get a waiver on that but Mr. Chaplin, if you want to add to that, I think that that was my understanding of the dilemma we see ourselves in. Mr. Corsi, you just described it accurately and fortunately we have still been able to advocate for a regulatory change at Treasury or even a, I don't even know if, it might not even be regulatory, just a guidance change. At Treasury, that would allow us to benefit from that revenue loss or revenue replacement portion of our spending. The other area that I also have heard is potentially making its way through Washington and I haven't been able to get clarity on whether or not it was in the infrastructure bill or potentially in what could be the later bill back better bill would be a change in the eligibility to allow for roadway improvements to be an eligible expenditure under ARPA. So either if we get the rule change to allow us to claim revenue replacement, or potentially get the eligibility be able to make roadway expenditures, either of those happening would allow us a general fund benefit. I think we already implemented it strategically. So we're keeping a close eye on it. But right now we cannot get general fund benefit as we see it or not significant general fund benefit from ARPA. We are going to take a look at whether or not some of the proposed HVAC improvements and parks and playground improvements could be made in the capital plan relief, but significant relief from ARPA and the general fund would still wait one or both of those things that I just mentioned occurring. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, Mr. Pooler and Ms. Koehler, Ms. Koehler and Mr. Pooler and Ms. Koehler for providing me quarterly budget updates. I'm all set, thanks. Thank you, Mrs. Maher and Mr. Hurd. Thank you for the very thorough presentation and no comments or questions. Okay, thank you, Mr. Hurd. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Koehler for the next report. Now I have to say, probably the quote of the night is going to be people just want to be happy. If that's what it takes to bring in more money. It's like, do we get the happy people more happy or do we get more people happy? But anyways, as you had mentioned on Hotel, I'm sorry, actually not that one. License is impermanent. We're up 46% and I'm sure Mr. Jamison will be happy to hear that, you know, part of it is because of the affidavits on new construction. But is that 1.7 million? The budget is that lower than it was in 2019? Have we changed it or so this is, I'll just stop. I see Mr. Pooler shaking his head. Mr. Pooler, do you want to respond to that? Eda, you can go ahead. I just, I'm trying to. Well, I happen to know the answer. Okay. The answer is no, that the budget number has stayed consistent over the last few years. Okay, so that 40% is, that's very good. Excellent.  Yeah, so the interest income, as you had mentioned that it is lower than we expect, you know, so, so can you give us some senses to why it's coming in, Laura?  And the reason is because the interest rates have down. All right. All right. No, because you did, you did very, you did very well last year, you know, low interest rate environment, you like really outperform. And I just have this thing about interest, you know, and so last week or two weeks ago, I had mentioned, you know, that there was just $100,000 that it was apparently as a general obligation bond. And it was for the permanent building. And it was only actually for three months. And I remember asking the time manager about this is like, it was $100,000, an effective interest rate of 0.055, also about $550, not a lot of money, of course. But I just remember asking so, so why is it that we had to borrow $100,000? Was it just a technical thing?  So I'm just kind of curious and I'll put you on the spot. So if you don't know the answer, we can just talk about it later, but it's just something I can't let go of out of curiosity.  Ms. Cody or Mr. Puller? Is it about the short term? Yes, the short term me so it was it was issued last year. I mean, it was in the meeting the February 22 meeting. And it was a three month bond into support bond anticipation note for Department of Building. So, but it isn't that specific bond itself is more so the general question me so so clearly we've had a case where we've done me or short term long or a small amount of money. I mean, I'm just kind of curious is like a technical thing that causes us to be an issue. A note me for short term being. No, it's not an ethical issue. It's, we issued only long term last year. So that was that particular one. I don't know if it was for a expense that had to be covered until we went long term. And then we turn it, and we pay the short paid off the short term and when with long term. Yeah, I get that I understand that. And I guess the question is why is it for like a $100,000 me we need to borrow it, because it would just seem to me that we would have 100 K. It could just kind of pay it see I can understand it if it was like for a few million dollars me I can see that being like a budget buster, not a budget buster but just something that we don't have hanging around. So we'd have to issue me the notes or whatever me for short term in order to get us through to the point where we get the, the revenue. I'm just trying to understand why this was such a small amount that we needed to issue the note. We just use general fund, if funds, if, if they're not appropriated, let's say we only spend general fund money on whatever was appropriated we can just spend on items that haven't been appropriated. Mr chapter only did you want to add something to that as well. So, Mr Diggins, every year the capital planning committee really goes to an excruciating level of detail expenditure by expenditure project by project, and makes decisions based on the useful life of whatever it is they might be buying or improving or recommending that we buy or improve and decide whether or not it should be a cash allocation, or a borrowing allocation. It not only is based on the useful life, and you know whether or not it's actually eligible to be borrowed for, but it's all part of breaking down the capital plan and understanding if we're staying within our 5% of general operating revenue. So strategically, to make the investments now that we want to invest we might borrow for smaller things and might seem normal, so that we can get to a total balance of that 5%. So each of those individual decisions could be, you know, looked at again and I, and, you know, certainly you could look at and say well I don't understand why that particular one was, but it was likely, based on the fact that as a total we were trying to get to a 5% figure. So that that would be the reason by and why a smaller thing is borrowed as opposed to a cash allocation. Alright, thanks for me. I'm not, I'm not the complaining all more. I know you have good reason for it so I just want to understand the reason. And for some reason I just couldn't let it go so thank you very much for your time and explanation. Thank you Mr. Diggins. Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. Thank you for the excellent report. No questions or comments. And I just have a brief comment, but I just want to Mr. Hurd seconded a motion I didn't hear Mrs. Mahan make the motion so if I could just reconfirm with her that there is a motion to receive the report. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah, no, thank you for the report. I do just a comment and Mr. Diggins touch on briefly on the high rate of collections for the building permits and hopefully that's something we see. Probably we won't see in fiscal 22, but maybe that bodes well for new growth for our property taxes in fiscal 23, given the high rate of permits being being pulled this year. And also thank you for separating out the marijuana tax line out and we've talked about that before and now we can see that along with the Airbnb tax which is separately stated so thank you Miss Cody for the report thank you Mr. Mr. Poehler as well and with that we have a motion to receive the report from Mrs. Mahan seconded by Mr. Hurd, Attorney Heim. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes, thank you. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Thank you. Okay, we will move on to item three for approval acceptance of grants from the Lawrence and Lillian Solomon Foundation, Daniel Amstutz senior transportation planner. Mr. Chaplain. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I told Mr. Amstutz that I think I could handle this one without his attendance tonight if you would accept that so this is asking the board to vote acceptance of a grant from the Solomon Foundation to help support a grant we received from the state to initiate a study of ways to connect our Minuteman Bikeway to the Mystic Valley Parkway, the Mystic Valley pathway. It would be an exciting connection for pedestrians and bicyclists connecting, you know, the already very well used asset of the Minuteman Bikeway, and to sort of a budding asset of the Mystic Valley pathway. So we were excited to be able to get this grant. The state grant was an $80,000 grant which we received via the efforts of the Planning and Community Development Department applying for it. And this grant from the Solomon Foundation would provide $10,000 for a total of $90,000 to begin this study effort to see how the corridor could be improved. So I would request your favorable action on receiving the grant. Okay, great. Thank you Mr. Chair. Before I turn it to the board now we had told Mr. Amstutz we put him at the beginning of a meeting so I think I'm going to have to wait until he actually shows up next time and we'll do that again for him so he'll still get credit for that. Okay. With that, I will turn to Mr. Diggins. Mr. Chair, I am happy to approve on the request, you know, or the acceptance of the sum of grant, you know, and I think this is a great cause, and I love the fact that we will be working with some of the municipalities in the region. It'll be really interesting to see what happens when they come up with those for those, those intersections those big intersections. So this is exciting. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. I'm very happy to second this and to support this. Yeah, the connect the interconnectedness of our recreational assets is a really worthy goal. And I was just talking about that earlier today on another area and I think that that's a it's a real win-win for for the residents of the towns but the municipalities have a chance to collaborate and kind of share and get more than the sum of its parts when you connect to to great recreational assets. So it's a nice thing and I appreciate the work on the part of the staff to get the grant and have the vision to pursue this. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Mrs. Mahan. Very happy to support this. Thank you to the town manager for presenting it. God bless. Daniel Amstutz. We got to him early, but we'll get him early next time. And just want to say thank you to the Greener Greater Boston and Byron Solomon foundations for helping us to obtain this initial $80,000 designation for a feasibility study. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Hurd. Always happy to approve accepting money on behalf of the town. So I'm happy to support this. And this is something that I know has been really in people, especially in the campaign trail last spring. There's a lot of residents who are talking about connecting our breakways. So I'm excited to see what we can come up with. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. Yeah, I'm really excited about this project as well. And I think the fact that it's going to ultimately down the road look at both roadways in Arlington and in Medford for connections is a big thing because there's a lot of recreation and walking and bike path space on the other side of the river as well. And so I'm happy to support this. So on a motion by Mr. Diggins, seconded by Mr. Helmut for acceptance of the grant from the Lawrence and Lillian Solomon Foundation attorney Heim. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmut. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes, thank you. Mr. Decorsi. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Item four is a presentation and vote. Veteran Memorial Park designation. Jeffery A. Chunlow, director of veteran services. Good evening, Mr. Chunlow. Hi, how is everyone? Thank you. to the board on October 26th, 2001, in support of the designation of a Veterans Memorial Park. So I just wanted to give everyone a little background for those that may be tuning in. So prior to the pandemic, our Veterans Council began holding open meetings, and we held a number of those, probably five or six prior to the pandemic, and we were discussing possible alternative locations for Veterans Memorial Park. But at the end of those meetings, the overwhelming feedback from both Veterans and non-Veterans was not to relocate from the center of town and focus on improving that particular area. So the first step to kind of go along with that was trying to find out who has ownership of that parcel of land. So Jim Feeney did some research and he found that it goes back to 1921, where the town purchased that property through eminent domain. And that property was to be designated as a town park. So with that in mind, our goal is not to change that at all, and we want to officially have the Board of Selectment designate that parcel of land from the fire station up to the Civil War Memorial to designate that as Arlington's official Veterans Memorial Park. Thank you, Mr. Chung. Well, I will turn it to the board now for questions and do comments. I'll start with Mr. Herd. Happy to support this. Thank you for your work on this, Jeff. I think I've always called this Veterans Park, so I'm happy to give that official designation. And I'm glad to hear that the memorials will stay where they are front and center. I think that's the appropriate location for them. So again, I mean, this area of Arlington is near and dear to my heart. As it says, in many events, my grandmother used to place the wreath there. So we've attended many events there and I think it's sacred ground and happy to be able to vote on this. So thank you for the presentation and thank you for all the work that you do. Thank you, Mr. Herd. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So was that a motion for Mr. Herd? Move approval. All right, and I'll second it. And just a couple of questions. What is the Article 97 protections that are referenced in the letter? So, and maybe Mr. Chaplin can help me out on that one on the specifics. So in brief, that is a statutory protection for lands designated as parks or open space. And changing their use away from park or open space would require a series of actions, I believe, by town meeting and then eventually even the state legislature. So it's a pretty hardy protection for what's designated as Article 97 land. So I think it's Jeff Lee Sadler's letter. We're not changing this from a park, so that shouldn't be triggered. But if you wanted to not have it be a park anymore, there would be a challenge out of this. I see. So that's Article 97 of our bylaws? Just so it's actually of the state constitution, Mr. Diggins. All right. Yeah, that's because I was trying to find it. And so all right, that's more a curious question. And the other is like, what other sites were considered? So we had looked at Cook's Hollow. We were also looking at Robbins Farm Park.  I was just kind of curious. I didn't participate in any of the meetings. So the big concern from feedback from residents and veterans was that alternate locations were kind of off the beaten path and not readily accessible. So that was the big concern. And like most veterans, they're proud of their service, they would like to have that front and center in town, especially since the Civil War Memorial is there. So that's what we're looking to do. And as I'm sure you're aware, that current location is in disrepair, and it really needs to be improved. And to really pay tribute to the veterans of Arlington, long history of service in the community. And I'd just like to pay tribute to them. And also just to let you know, I believe there are veteran council members that are on Zoom tonight. So they are here and they're supportive of the initiative as well. And I'm also sure that the Chamber of Commerce would like to see me that area also be more presentable for everybody. So great, great work. Thank you. Happy to support it. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. I'm Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. And I thank you, Mr. Chenglong. And I'm glad that you mentioned that the veteran council members are attending. I want to thank them for their service to the country and for the service to the town on the council. And I remember back when I was chair of the CPA Committee and we contemplated the Coke's Hollow idea. And I remember at the time, I think that we were able to fund it for other reasons, not having to do with the merits. But I remember you saying that you were going to really work with the veterans community and really reach out and ask them what they wanted in the memorial. And I'm just so pleased that you did that legwork, no surprise at all, of course. And that this represents really authentic engagement with our veterans and that their voices is heard. And I am very happy to support this and support what they would like to do. And I hope that we can find the funds to get the memorial fixed up. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also want to thank our director of veteran services in the committee for looking into this and continuing on. I certainly agree with the motion in terms of designating the area at headquarters fire station as the Veterans Memorial Park. I just have two things. One is just to, since we have the committee here on the call as well as our director of veteran services, I do know when we gather for Veterans Day and other similar events, I would just put a request in that I assume you all have been already entertaining that when this particular piece of land is redesigned that it's a little more handicapped accessible so that our veterans and our Allington residents who are disabled are not able-bodied. I'm sort of, and I'm not saying this is a negative, but I'm sort of relegated to attend those events and they have to stay in the parking lot of that area of business. And also, since we do have Mr. Chung Lo here, Navy man, if you could just perhaps remind us and everyone who has zoomed in on the call and who's watching from ACMI of what our Veterans Day celebrations are. Sure, so first of all, any designs for the park, obviously everything is going to be ADA compliant and the intent is to make it a reflective area that is proud, you know, where not only veterans but non-veteran residents can go and enjoy the park and kind of engage in that history. So that is the I just wanted to address that concern you had. And then for Veterans Day this year, we're going to be meeting in public again and it's been two years. So I'm really looking forward to that. So this coming Thursday is Veterans Day. We'll proceed from Walgreens. We'll have our brief parade up to the Central Fire Station.  But we will be able to gather in person. I have an exciting program planned. I think residents are going to enjoy it and it's nice to be back in the public view. And if you could just remind us what time we're kicking off, marching from Walgreens and fire station. The parade will start at 10.30 in the morning. So probably a 15 minute walk up to the Central Fire Station and, you know, between quarter of and 11, we'll start the ceremony and we'll go from there. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm all set. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Thank you for asking about the ceremony this Thursday. Mr. Chenglo, I want to thank you before we start or before I start my comments for your service to the country and also thank the members of the Veterans Council who are on the call tonight for their service as well. I'm happy to support this and I appreciate the memo that you sent. I did go back and take a look at the few things from 1922 and I think this is the perfect location to expand the Veterans Memorial Park. The Civil War Memorial was dedicated in 1887 before this parkland was even acquired in 1922. So it seems perfectly appropriate to keep everything at that site and interestingly enough this park was acquired by Eminent Domain the same time that the fire station land was acquired by Eminent Domain and it was a fire station but wasn't as close as this vote was for creating the Memorial Park. But I think as you look at it and we are at the site and sometimes as we go by it that certainly is in need of upgrades and I know you want to update the honor roll for the members of our community served in the war on terror for example and also improve other areas. So I'm happy to support this. I want to thank you for bringing this forward to us. Thank you and I look forward to seeing you on Thursday. Absolutely. Yeah no looking forward to that. Thank you. So for we have a motion to approve the designation of this parcel as the Arlington's Veteran Memorial Park. Motion was made by Mr. Hurd. Seconded by Mr. Diggins. Attorney Hunt. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. Mrs. Mahon. Yes. Thank you. Mr. DeCourson. Yes. To unanimous vote. Great. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Okay. Item five tonight is the PJ Library Hanukkah Lantern Walk. Stephanie Marlin-Curial Commission for Arts and Culture. Mr. Chairman I don't see Stephanie. No I don't see Stephanie logged into the meeting. I'm not sure if there's somebody else here for this agenda item. If there is if they could raise their hand I'm not I'm not seeing anybody. I don't know if Stephanie knew that that you needed whether or not she needed to be here. Okay I'm just looking at the request. I think the request is for December 4th and again I haven't been contacted directly about this. I don't know if any members have. We had this issue previously on an item where our preference is to have a proponent for an application appear before us. Last time we had a situation where the date of the event was going to take place before our next meeting. I guess I turned to board members if anybody is aware or has had any discussions on this and would like to move it forward. That's fine otherwise perhaps a motion to table until our next meeting before this event and I leave it to board members if anybody has had those discussions. And I don't see anybody who has disabled. Okay we have a motion to table by Mrs. Martin and again I note that the event is scheduled for December 4th. We are going to have a meeting on November 22nd. I'll second it. Okay thank you. Does anybody have any other comment? Okay so we have a motion to table table until November 22nd. Motion made by Mrs. Mahan seconded by Mr. Diggins. Attorney Heim. Mr. Herg. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. DeCoursey. Yes. Mr. Dan Misko. Okay thank you. Okay next is the consent agenda. We have four items this evening. Item six minutes of meeting. Meetings October 13th, 2021. October 25th, 2021. October 28th, 2021. Item seven reappointments to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Roger Dupont and Kevin Mills terms to expire 1031-2024. Item eight is a request for free parking for local holiday shopping. Beth Locke Executive Director of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce. Item nine for approval. Sharp Arlington First Banners. Beth Locke Executive Director Arlington Chamber of Commerce. Mrs. Mahan. I would like to move approval and ask the chairman if Ms. Locke is here. If she is here she could speak to her two agenda items. Sure. I believe Ms. Locke is here. She is Mr. Chair if you would yep I can promote her. Sure. Good evening Ms. Locke. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes we can. Yeah yeah how are you tonight? Okay good good. I think these are fairly standard annual requests specifically the parking and the banners will be the same banners that we put up last year around this time but if anyone has any questions I'm more than happy to answer them. Thank you. Mrs. Mahan did you have any I don't know if you had any questions or comments? No the only comment I would have is I really want to thank Ms. Locke for all the energy and enthusiasm that she's dedicated not just to the Chamber of Commerce and our businesses but to the town of Allentown because you're definitely doing a lot of stuff and you have the experience and expertise and we're very fortunate to have you and I certainly look forward to working with you as do my colleagues in the town manager as well as the two requests that we receive from Ms. Locke regarding two really exciting opportunities that either could be funded through opera funding excuse me opera estate funding so we're definitely on top of that and appreciate it. Thank you I appreciate that. Thank you Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Hurd. Happy to second that and then Ms. Locke if you can just run down briefly the shop Allentown for first gift certificates because I think that's something that's great good thing to spread the word on the holiday. Thank you for bringing that up so that is a gift certificate slash check slash gift card program that we've run for many years sponsored by Leader Bank. We have found at times a bit of confusion within the community about it various businesses are anyway the point of the program obviously is to keep dollars within Arlington and so a lot of times folks will purchase gift certificates as gifts it's a great teacher's gift a great gift for a family member who may want to buy something into an Arlington business but they don't you know you don't know exactly what they want so they're awarded a gift check but the the actual item it's it's really effectively a gift card and I don't think I'm probably answering your question properly it's an attempt to keep dollars within Arlington above and beyond that I'll say I actually just had a conversation today at Whole Foods where they I found that they were had been accepting gift cards certificates now they're not then now they're going to be again so it's something we're working on all the time but it's a it's a it's a strong attempt to keep the dollars within Arlington. Yeah thank you it is a great program just for people that are local that are you know gift cards generally what you get somebody these days but instead of picking one specific location I think this exactly what it is right and the only reason it's not a natural card is because businesses use different point of purchase systems so it's a gift check it looks like a check but it's actually a gift card yeah so thank you get some shop on Arlington first yeah go for it yes thank you all right thank you thank you Mr. Hurd uh Mr. Diggins thank you Mr. Chair and and I will support this but also um to give me incentive to have a conversation with you Ms. Locke and the Chairman of Commerce because I reckon I represent you all on to meet um I I want to get some sense as to whether this actually increases business you know because I can see attention on this meet if you allow people to free park we they stay there forever meet and so the parking spaces get locked up meet and and so um I just want to understand that meet and then some other issues around parking so so um we'll have some conversations before we do this again next year but yeah I will make can I make a quick comment on that this request is only for weekends yeah Saturdays and Sundays so um I think issues around parking tend to be more that uh someone might park and you know get on the bus and go into Boston and be gone all day which would not be the case under Saturday or Sunday I don't think it's taking up parking that um would otherwise be used by the folks I mean especially right now um but it's it's sort of a good will type of request more than anything else and good will is is the best mean um best reserve can bill these so but like I said I mean I'm not I'm not criticizing uh I'm really using it as an incentive to to meet with you all and have discussions about this yeah and parking in general means those yeah so thank you for that response though means a good response thank you mr. Mr. Hurd did you want to add something to that or yeah I just want to mention I think you know it's just Saturdays that this would apply but I think the parking enforcement officers can still enforce limitations on parking that's cars can't be parked there for eight hours they still do their loops just the meters are right within reason of course great thank you thank thank you mr. Diggins thank you mr. Hurd mr. Helmuth thank you I am also glad to support this and you know I think this year especially given the really rough year and a half two years that our local businesses have had due to COVID I am very happy to sacrifice a little bit of parking revenue um to give them a boost this this weekend uh these weekends so so thanks for that and thanks for all your other work and since it's a consent agenda on one vote I want to also thank mr. Dupont and mr. Mills for their service on the zoning board of appeals the ZBA is a lot of work it is often unsung and it is really important so I'm grateful that they are willing to be reappointed and usually the the reward for hard work is more hard work and that's what they're getting but I wanted to make sure they also got some gratitude as well thank you mr. Chair thank you mr. Helmuth yeah I'm also happy to support all the items thank you miss luck for for coming on uh this evening and as to the parking I'm happy to you know if we get more consumers coming to our linkedin I can live with people parking and maybe going into the city as well they'll help the local businesses uh hopefully uh through this holiday season and thank you mr. Helmuth for pointing out mr. Mills and mr. Dupont because this year especially they have been meeting um throughout the summer throughout the year they have a number of projects they had two comprehensive permits before then this year so uh we thank them for their work as well so on a motion on the consent agenda by mrs. Mahan seconded by mr. Herd attorney hind mr. Herd yes mr. Helmuth yes oh I'm sorry mr. Diggins that's okay mr. Hind yes mrs. Mahan thank you yes mr. DeCorsi yes to unanimous vote thank you uh item 10 we have two appointments to the open space committee Eliza Hatch and brian mcbride um either or brian with okay they're both here would you like me to bring them both up mr. sure yeah good evening this hatch I can see you now I think mr. mcbride mcbride is just about to join us and before we start okay great thank you miss hatch I'm happy to hear that you're believe it's your daughter is doing well um so that you saw that in your application happy yes thank you to hear that and um why don't we do this why don't we start with you miss hatch and then we'll go to mr. Mcbride if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're why you're interested in serving on the open space committee sure um so I moved to Arlington in 2019 uh and I've been sort of trying to figure out how to engage with the town in a way that can use my skills and that I find you know interesting and engaging as well um and I explored a few avenues um I was able to talk to Ann about uh the chairwoman of the committee um and she was very encouraging I am very interested in open space work in general um my profession thus far has been in travel and I'm applying to law school currently so sort of different um but my family history is in open space and conservation um and so it sort of runs in my blood uh and I just love being outdoors so it seemed like a really great fit I joined a few committee meetings um I know Brian did as well and I found them really engaging and the committee is um just extremely well put together and uh very well organized so I'm excited to join them officially thank you Miss Hatch and Mr McBride if you could do the same thing tell us a little about yourself and uh why you're interested in serving yes sure can you hear me okay yes we can very super right so I've uh I've had the good fortune uh of living across from Robbins farm for 20 years now and uh regular reserve monotony and the res uh during my child my child's uh growing up here uh so I'm still very grateful to the town for their open space for their for their parks and fields and I love an opportunity to give something back I've seen during the COVID times how important open space is for community connections for physical health for mental health for global warming there's just so many good things about it it's really a no-brainer for me I spent a lot of time feeding hiking groups and doing other outdoor activities and I'd love to be able to contribute in some way to the town when where I benefited so much from it great thank thank you Mr McBride um I'll now turn to the board and I will start with Mr Hurd thank you both for your willingness to serve we say this all the time but we're always so impressed with the caliber of volunteers that we have in Arlington it's really really an amazing thing and uh just willing to step up and serve on any committee not the least of which this the Operable Space Committee which is really important to a lot of town residents uh is really an amazing thing so I'm happy to move approval with both appointments great thank you Mr Hurd uh Mr Diggins I'll second that I think it's part of the consent agenda uh and um to the excuse me no this is a separate this is separate it's a stand-alone oh stand-alone sorry sorry I lost track so okay then then all the more reasons to second it and um and um so this hatch um you you did uh HIV AIDS seminar freshman seminar I'm impressed yeah thank you and that's that's um yeah that's that's pretty impressive and the second of question the second thing I have to say is a question and that is given how many times you've been to Tanzania you think you can maybe find this a sister city there we have a sister city in Japan okay so I I absolutely can I actually helped build a health clinic there I wouldn't call it a city um it's more of a very small village but yes well you know I mean uh that that that that counts being that that would be you know it's just all about connecting us being to other places being and and so we maybe learn some more about the possibilities there uh and um to Mr. McBride you know um you know um I see that you work at Thermo Fisher and and what I'll say about Thermo Fisher is having um recently had to um look at some safety data sheets from various companies they have the best ones I mean you know these safety data sheets that's the one you know and and given your experience in biotech I have a uh a soft request and that is and I'll touch base with you maybe later if you want that is to get a sense from you as to whether you think beat um or only take a maybe attract some more biotech beat um we're looking for more all right right there's a facility down on mill street today I believe yeah it's a great location and if if so how we could go about doing that so just a soft request maybe I'll have a conversation sometime thank you love it thank you Mr. Diggins uh Mr. Helman thank you both for being willing to serve it is a great committee Ms. LaRoyer and her colleagues to outstanding work I've been privileged to work with them just a little bit back when I was uh chair of the CPA committee and uh they're in progress with a new open space plan so as you know and uh that'll be good to have the extra help um Ms. Hatch I love that you have conservation open space in your blood and your family history that's the first time I've heard someone say that and I think that's a wonderful legacy to be proud of Mr. McBride we're neighbors I also live near uh Robin's farm and I couldn't agree more with your vision for the place of open space and our community and in the world for all the reasons that you that you gave and um just so thrilled that you're willing to uh to serve so thank you thank you Mr. Helmuth Mrs. Mahan thank you Mr. Chair more than excited to support the motion um as well as uh just sort of advocating with um Ms. Hatch and Mr. McBride to definitely take advantage of CPA community preservation act funds which um our current board member Mr. Helmuth uh was previously the co-chair of that committee so he's the best resource I like to say I'm well versed in everything but I would steer you towards him as well as there are an awful lot of opportunities um pre-covid and current COVID for state funding um around open space and uh the other thing I would say to both of you is one statement second a question of each of you the first statement is um as we look at Arlington's current open spaces and other spaces that we can retain in that category to kind of look at a multi-use um open space area sort of you know not just think one thing open space for just purely open space and since you both have been attending um the open space committee meetings is there anything um I guess I'll stop with Ms. Hatch um going alphabetically and then Ms. McBride anything that you you all have seen at uh the meetings that either a you're really interested in and kind of want to build upon or b something that you feel like you can bring bring to the committee as a unique opportunity whether it cannot whether it can and cannot be followed through on um so or see anything else you want to say from attending those meetings so if I could ask Ms. Hatch first and then Mr. McBride um I was particularly excited to learn about the rain gardens which I know I had encountered through Emily at conservation commission when we had a project go there um but to learn a little bit more about them and you know even small open spaces that can make such a difference in our landscape um and in our daily lives I think are really remarkable and interesting and I'm really excited to learn more about them and hopefully we can get some more interesting small areas around town to sort of beautify everything and make it feel a little bit more outdoorsy yeah so I guess my comments would be I I think there are a lot of under underdeveloped under enhanced open spaces in town I've always been a particular fan of the no brook and I think they call the lin linear park idea cooks hollow uh when I was leading a kids hiking group some years back we followed the water from the res uh to the mystic it was just a fantastic experience I think everyone in our nation should try it once I think there's a lot to be done along those lines of enhancing those existing resources and and awareness as well not just not building them up but letting people know what's available thank you Mr. Chair thank you Mr. McBride and Mr. Hatch thank you Mrs. Mahan and yeah I also want to echo the comments of my colleagues thank you both of you for your willingness to serve on the open space committee this is an important period coming up because our current open space plan is going to expire in 2022 and and you'll both be working on a new plan which is which is critical on this hatch I just want to say briefly I noticed in your background there you were a government and psychology major at skidmore my son is a political science and psychology major at skidmore right now so tell him to take Ron Saib's classes okay I will and and and Mr. McBride I also in your cover letter you mentioned monotony rocks park and it's really a gem of a resource for the community and a place where I try to go to before every meeting just to clear my head before three or four hours of select board meetings I was there a little bit in the dark tonight walking around but it's a what a great resource so thank you both for your willingness and and also want to applaud both of you for going to the meetings and we've seen this a lot lately with different committees people attending the meetings becoming interested and then getting involved and and so that's we really appreciate that Mr. Helm if you put your hand up did you want to add something or oh you just need to unmute yourself yeah I clicked the wrong button thank you just just briefly you mentioned Mr. Chair the the open space plan and Mr. McBride mentioned the the linear park and I just wanted to add my encouragement that as you do this that that concept for the linear park along Millbrook has been around for a long time and it's been the dream of some really good conservationists for decades and I would be thrilled if that could come to fruition we did some CPA funding in Wellington Park to to kind of create a little piece of that a couple years ago so you can look into that and I'd be happy to talk with you about that or Ms. LaRoye knows all about it but I think that when you think about a plan I know it's a short-term operational plan for funding but if there's a place for vision I would love not to lose sight of that of that asset and that opportunity just a little bit here yeah thank you Mr. Chair okay thank you Mr. Helm it okay so on a motion by Mr. Herd seconded by Mr. Diggins for approval of Ms. Hatch and Mr. McBride for appointments to the open space committee Attorney Hime Mr. Herd yes Mr. Diggins yes Mr. Helm yes this is Mohan yes thank you Mr. DeCorsi yes thank you both thanks so much have a good night thank you you too okay item 11 is light under licenses and permits for approval convictual bitulars license boon noon market 161 Mass Ave and do we have the applicants with us tonight yes I've just promoted them good evening yeah hi if you could first identify yourselves and also just tell us a little bit about the application for the location at 161 Mass Ave so that place was the Thailand cafe before and run the previous on the excuse me before you start could you just give us your names just for the record okay sorry about that so sure you first my name is Natasha I tell you and won't you guys can call me cheek like a car just my nickname and my name is Pachara Win Watanaki Depad you can call me Pachara sure would be easier yep so um we are taking over that space because the Andy was too tired to to work with by himself alone like he do everything himself for many years and we've just been searching around for for the space for um for a restaurant a Thai restaurant to open one in Arlington we moved to Arlington on May and we really love living in here Arlington compared to previous places that we've been living and yeah we came across with the Andy the Thailand cafe and yeah he said just like why don't just take his space and then we're gonna do like the same like the Thai food like he did before and yeah we hope to be some good addition to Arlington and you know some good Thai food here we we haven't seen a lot of the Thai food um in Arlington yet okay um thank you I will turn it to the board for questions or comments um and I'll start with Mr. Diggins thank you Mr. Chair I mean um I will move approval and and um and I'll just say first off flattery will get you everywhere you know it's also uh in that paragraph like is Arlington is the best place we've ever lived in the US you know and and also it seems like you know your nomination by Bon Appetit you know it says a lot about about you we do have some good Thai food here um um but there's only one Thai food place in the east being and you will be replacing it I live in the east and so I'm looking forward to um frequenting your place a lot because I really like the menu and I have to say that um the the heights is coming along in terms of good places to eat so we kind of need to keep you know we need to keep up being and so you're going to help us with that and so we're really looking forward to having uh of your restaurant here and I'm really happy that you're enjoying living in Arlington and it's our job to make that continue to be the case so thank you thank you thank you thank you Mr. Diggins uh Mr. Halmoth thank you I'd like to second that motion for approval and to thank you for choosing Arlington for your home and for your business we are very excited to see what you are able to do to with the community and even though I live in the heights I I think I can manage to travel to the east to the other side of the tracks and uh and check out this exciting new new Thai food when it's ready thank you thank you Mr. Halmoth Mrs. Mahan and thank you Mr. Chair um I want to say from uh reading the other information that both of you have provided and I'm probably going to butcher your name and I apologize but Facha Duen and Nuthachai I really was excited by what you wrote in your sort of other explanation I'm excited about your Asian Thai food and I was really impressed that you've been recognized Nuthachai in I think it was by Bon Appetit could one of you speak to that because I'm so impressed by that because I can read the words and understand what the words say but I don't really grasp what that really is so if you could just speak to that a little bit yeah so that was the the prize that I have brought the restaurant called Daxen in Somoville yeah um to the one of the top 50 best restaurants around in the United States and that's nominated by the online magazine called Bon Appetit yep and yeah I working on marketing and developed the recipe with my friends but it's turned out not um a good place to us so we decided to quit and then we come here to open our own no and that's really exciting and um my family's also involved in the restaurant business which is one of the most difficult businesses ever um putting aside the pandemic that's another thing that you all have to deal with um yeah but I really get from what you both have submitted um that you're really clear on not only your menu but um how you're going to execute those dishes because that's as you know I'm not telling you both anything you don't know the really important thing is um having a really good menu offering um and having a consistent chef preparation as well as having the ability which you both obviously have in getting that recognition um from Daxen out of Somoville with the Bon Appetit um mention um I'm really excited to see what you're going to do here in Arlington so I look forward and thank you for coming to us and I'm almost as excited as you all are just reading what you put in your application okay so thank you both and thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you Mrs. Mohan Mr. Hurd. Thank you and thank you both for choosing Arlington in the wake of COVID and all the strains it's had on the restaurant industries it's nice that we've seen in the past six months a number of new restaurants that have chosen Arlington to start a new business and uh we appreciate having faith in our community and uh I think that this will be a very successful restaurant we love Thai food in our house so we'll be down there I'm excited to try some donut shrimp that's if anything it's good marketing so we'll be down there and I wish you the best of luck. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Hurd. I was going to mention the donut shrimp as well but I um if you were open I'd put it in order for a basil eggplant pad Thai right now but it looks like you have a great menu um thank you for the words that you put in the application and we want to wish you the best of luck um with the new business um they're on Mass App so we have a motion by Mr. Diggins seconded by Mr. Helmuth attorney Heim. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mrs. Mohan. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Dacorsi. Yes. Janine Ms. Boat. Thank you. Best of luck. Thank you very much. Very sure. Okay next is open forum except in unusual circumstances any matter presented for consideration of the board shall neither be acted upon nor decision made the night of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which the open forum was established it should be noted that there is a three-minute time limit to present a concern or request before I open open forum I want to let people know that we will be taking public comment on the discussion of the 21 precinct map so if you have something other than the 21 precinct map to talk about please um signal by raising your hand for open forum now and and again bear in mind that we will have public comment later on the other item. So we have two hands raised Mr. Chairman. First name is Paul Schlickman. Okay. Now five hands raised. First name is still Paul Schlickman. Okay. And now I'm hungry. That was a great presentation. Yeah. Good evening Mr. Schlickman. Good evening. I'm Paul Schlickman town meeting member precinct nine and I resided 47 mystic street on November 3rd. The town tweeted photos of the newly painted lanes at Appleton Street in Massachusetts Avenue. This occurred 21 days after the plan was approved by the select board. Charlie Proctor was killed at this intersection on May 5th 2020. Since then the town has filled the intersection with traffic cones in the afternoon. Instituted a left turn prohibition during the hours before sundown and stationed a police detail to enforce the prohibition. On December 31st 2019 126 days before Charlie Proctor was killed. My downstairs neighbor and DeRosier was killed in the crosswalk on Chestnut Street while attempting to walk to 7 a.m. mass at St. Agnes. On May 12th 2021 498 days after and DeRosiers was killed the transportation advisory committee voted to forward its recommendation for traffic calming on Chestnut Street to the select board. On June 21st 538 days after and DeRosiers was killed the select board approved these recommendations for traffic calming on Chestnut Street. On August 13th 591 days after and DeRosiers was killed and 53 days after the select board vote a no turn on red sign was restored on Chestnut Street at Mystic Street. Today 678 days after and DeRosiers was killed and 140 days after the select board vote. Key elements of this plan are unfulfilled. The plan included restriping Chestnut Street to provide 11-foot travel lanes, 7-foot parking lanes, 5-foot bicycle lanes and 2-foot buffer lanes. None of this has been done. The plan included a temporary island and curb extensions on Chestnut Street in 2021 in order to evaluate them in preparation for the 2022 construction season. This has not been done. The plan included installing advanced crosswalk signs and moving one of the existing crosswalk signs. This has not been done. The plan included the installation of pedestrian activated warning signals at the Chestnut Terrace crosswalk. This will need to occur in conjunction with the construction of permanent bump-outs which requires an analysis of the preliminary bump-outs scheduled for the 2021 as well as the identification of $25,000 in funding. The official tweets of Appleton Street improvements serve to amplify the disappointment that this board and the town manager have not followed up on their commitments to pedestrian safety on Chestnut Street. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Schlickman. The next speaker is Linda Varone. I apologize I hit the wrong button. Good evening, Ms. Varone. Hello. Hello. Good evening. You're on open forum. All right. I just got the unmute signal. My name is Linda Varone. I live at 54 Medford Street which is otherwise known as Chestnut Manor. And I am a frequent pedestrian crossing at the Chestnut Terrace pedestrian crosswalk. And I am similarly dismayed and disappointed at the lack of progress on creating a safe crosswalk for the many residents of Chestnut Manor. The fact is that this is a dangerous crossing on a curved street which makes visibility of pedestrians particularly difficult even with the idea of a curb bump-out. And the key solution which is a pedestrian activated flashing crossing sign similar to the one on Mill Street is in the proposed TAC plan to be implemented in five years. I think a number of the other things that are being suggested are almost like wind addressing and the key safety proviso of the flashing crosswalk should be moved up to one of the first things that's done. I don't know what to say other than I'm kind of amazed at the lack of progress of this. One thing that was suggested at the April select board meeting that Sean Garbelly attended is he offered to find partial funding for the flashing pedestrian crosswalk. And I'm not seeing anything anywhere about looking into that to get that money to help. From what I understand the cost of that crosswalk would be $25,000 give or take whereas some of the other improvements are significantly more expensive. I'm kind of confused as to it seems like the plan is backwards. We need to have a safe crosswalk there. And just today coming back from the library the a little pedestrian crossing sign that's in the middle of the street had been bumped six feet out of where it was supposed to be. So if people are bumping signs then there's not a whole lot to prevent them from bumping and injuring or killing people. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Farron. Next speaker is Marcy Beck. Hi, thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Marcy Beck. I'm the daughter of Anne DeRosiers, the pedestrian who was struck and killed in the crosswalk at Chestnut Street. I just wanted to speak and just say that I'm sad and disappointed that almost nothing has been done to improve the pedestrian safety measures at this crosswalk up to this point. TAC came up with a great plan. It was approved almost six months ago. It's now been almost two years since my mother was killed. Safety improvements need to be implemented as soon as possible before another tragedy happens. So I just wanted to speak and say please, if we can get this moving. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Beck. There's one more hand raised, Rieko Tanaka. Good evening, Ms. Tanaka. Yes, good evening. I'm Rieko Tanaka, child meeting member pressing nine, living 47 Mystic Street. I also would like to address this lack of progress on Chestnut Terrace crosswalk. It was bad enough to lose a neighbor and it's always been difficult to use that crosswalk. And since last May, I joined the gym on Mass Ave and Arlington Center. And I go there in early morning. So very often it's before sunrise. And I now realize how difficult it is, even with very quiet traffic. And I ended up buying those reflective sash, which has, you know, laced with LED light. And I have to walk like a walking Christmas tree to feel safe and to cross that road because there are people driving very, very fast. Then when I finished my workout, the gym come even broad daylight because during the rush hour, people are ignoring blatantly ignoring that do not block the intersection sign. And they are also stopping on the crosswalk. And someone like me, I'm a five foot zero. And you know, the people take towards the Mystic Street, people do the two lanes. And I don't know if it's kosher. It doesn't look kosher to me, but they do this. So there is an unofficial left lane, right lane. And I'm a short person. So the car on the right lane can't see me actually walking the crossway. So I always have to stop in the middle of the road and check. And I need to peek out from this oncoming car so that the right lane car can see me. And which is really ridiculous. During the day, it doesn't feel safe. In the dark, it doesn't feel safe. And I was at, I was watching that April TAG meeting too, and I got very excited. But nothing's happening except a no right turn sign. And it's not really making it any safer for us. So please, please, please go ahead and take some measures. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Naca. Mr. Chairman, there's one more hand raised and another attendee has been messaging me unable to raise their hand who would like to speak. So next person with their hand raised is Patricia Warden. Good evening, Mrs. Warden. Okay, you're okay. Actually, it's Mr. Warden, John Warden, Jason Street. And Patricia is my technical person because I'm totally inept on this stuff. I sympathize with the folks at Chestnut Manor and Mystic Street, and that is a bad crossing. And I have gone through it, I hope, carefully and not hitting anybody in the crosswalk in the many years I've been traversing it. But the problem I would like to mention since traffic has come up, it should be a much simpler one. A couple years ago, they repaved Mill Street itself, rather overdue, but they never put the center line back. So cars are going just, you know, hoping they stay to the right or to the left or whatever they're supposed to be. And there's multiple lanes there. And of course, I guess if the police stopped you, at least they couldn't get you for crossing marked lines. But seriously, I think it would be a simple matter for somebody from the DPW or whoever does to get out there, paintbrush or whatever they do and just put that center line back in the middle of Mill Street. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Warden. The last attendee asking to speak is Joanne Preston. Okay. Good evening, Ms. Preston. Good evening. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Joanne Preston, Mystic Lake Drive, town meeting member precinct nine. Tonight, I'd like to urge the select board to ask the DPW to move forward on the pedestrian safety plan for Chestnut Street. As was mentioned before, the select board had already voted to approve the TAC plan in June 2021, but almost nothing has been done. While holding a candidate sign on Chestnut Street in March 2020, I observed an informal memorial to Anne DeRosa, who as you've learned was killed in the crosswalk on our way to church three months earlier. It was constructed by a neighborhood in deep mourning. I also observed a woman in the middle of Chestnut Street trying to cross with cars whizzing by her in both directions. One car came very close to hitting her. She screamed out, stop. You killed my friend, Anne DeRosa. I promised this woman as a town meeting member for her precinct, I would work to make Chestnut Street safe in the near future. She replied cynically, sure. And in what year would that be? After almost two years of writing proposals, talking to DPW, sending emails and attending meetings, I know asking what she asked. In what year will pedestrian safety measures be instituted on Chestnut Street? Over 100 senior residents live in Chestnut Manor and must cross this dangerous street in order to attend their church, go shopping, visit parks. Some inexpensive changes recommended by TAC could be accomplished right now. Temporary bump outs to narrow the street, installing a temporary island, moving an existing crosswalk sign, demarcating bicycle lanes, and even repairing a crumbling section of the sidewalk. Instead, DPW has moved heavy equipment through Chestnut Street to Medford Street where it's engaged in major sidewalk construction projects. Our Arlington Housing Authority residents and our residents of Webb Cowart neighborhood need to cross this dangerous street every day and they ask you for their help. And the time has come to make these changes now before we lose any more of our senior citizens. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Preston. I believe that is that it, Mr. Chaplin? Okay. All right. Before I go to the next item, Mrs. Mahan, you had asked previously, perhaps 9.30 might be a good time for a break. This actually might be a better time because the next item is going to be somewhat lengthy. So if members would like a five-minute break now, we can do that and then come back with item 12. I see people nodding their heads. So why don't we take a five-minute break and we will go to the precinct discussion at 9.10. Okay. I believe everybody is back. So I will go to the next item, item 12, presentation and discussion, 21 precinct map, re-precincting working group, and Julie Brazil, town clerk. Good evening, Ms. Brazil. I just need you to time me. Oh, there you are. Yep. Hello. So just briefly before you begin and you can fill us in on the dates because the legislative maps have been approved and we talked about the deadline here in town being 30 days after the maps are approved at the state level. I believe that just occurred. So do we have an outside date? Is it December 4th? Yes. Okay. Great. Okay. And I see Ms. Leinemar is on and Ms. Harvey as well. And Mr. Garoski. Oh, Mr. Garoski. Okay. Good. Yeah. Nice to see you, Mr. Garoski. The hero of town meetings last year when he had the power on. So nice to see you again. All right. So yes, the quick update on the timing is the governor signed the district maps and so on November 4th. So our deadline is Saturday, the 4th of December. I'm skeptical that Saturday is a good day to submit things. So I definitely want to get them in. A couple of days earlier than that. So my suggestion is that we get a sort of affirm commitment from the board to make a vote to select a final map at the next meeting on the 22nd. I'll submit that map to the state. They will prepare final documents which will include text descriptions and all the paperwork that they need. The reprecenting working group and I will work very hard to make sure that that's all been double and triple checked. And then the board will need to probably schedule a brief special meeting on November 29th, November 30th. In order to take a final vote on the package, the state has specific language. We'll need to collect all five signatures and then that entire package, the signed certified vote and the approved materials go back into the state. So that's where we are. That's the process to get us to the finish line. Great. And did you want to present what you had sent us? Okay, just on the option. Okay, perfect. Yep, absolutely.  All right. Can everyone see? Okay. So I'm going to present two maps tonight just as a brief reminder. Reprecenting is the process. It happens every 10 years. Communities must review precinct maps following the federal census. We rebalance population numbers so that all precincts are about the same size. And we look at communities of interest and local concerns, like bylaw and zoning votes at town meeting in order to draw precinct lines that allow residents to elect representatives to town meeting that fairly represent housing type neighborhood density and household income since those would have a big impact on the debates and discussions at town meeting. We repaired one map that makes the fewest possible changes and a second map that uses data like housing type and income to reimagine some precincts so they make more sense as a coherent whole. In the second map, which the working group recommends, we were able to use major streets, school district boundaries in several places that we think provide a natural structure to the changes. Both maps respect the House district line so we don't have split precincts. The summary chart identifies in red the five precincts that are out of numerical compliance in terms of population and have to be adjusted once you start moving the lines. There's sort of a trickle effect and some number of additional precincts have to be changed. There's a difference of only one precinct, precinct 13 affected so we have to change 10 in the limited change map and we change 11 in the recommended map. Before I dig into the detail close-ups of the maps, I want to remind everyone of just a couple things. Change is hard. Evenly spacing polling locations around town is hard. Someone is always going to be feel like they're unawkwardly distant from a polling location. Someone is always at the edge of a precinct and so while the maps that we look at might make my proposal change that's slightly worse in terms of the current polling locations, it's that's probably not the biggest focus of the conversation simply because we always have the option of adjusting the polling locations over the next 10 years as we seek to make it work as best we can for everyone. I'd also like to just thank resident Don Seltzer very briefly. Our limited change map is very similar to his. Don and I corresponded briefly on Friday and he didn't have any concerns about our version of the limited change map. He thought our precinct 17 worked pretty well and he had an idea to smooth out a boundary line. After digging into a little more, we aren't recommending it but mostly because we think it just pushes the population in one precinct slightly lower than is necessary but we certainly want to acknowledge Don's work on this very complicated process. Again, this summary briefly for the limited change map is five precincts have to change, five more precincts then have to change in order to make the whole thing work and we don't split any districts. So I just want to dig in. Just walk through a couple specifics on each map. Precinct five needs to gain population. So we add precincts. These two blocks to the overall precinct five that gives us sort of a nice shape uses a strong boundary line with Medford Street. That pushes us slightly over the precinct, the population numbers we're looking for. So the block in area two is pulled out of precinct five and moved into precinct seven. We could have chosen another block but in terms of sort of shape, this one made as much sense as this one sort of made the most sense. Moving a little more into the center of town, the sort of the heart of this series of changes is here on the blocks surrounding Arlington High School. We pull them out of precinct 17 and into precinct nine. We pull because precinct 17 definitely needed to lose population. That was a lot of population. So we add area one, which are three blocks that come out of 15 and get added into 17. And that balances precinct 17's population with the rest of the map. This strip along Summer Street comes out of 17 and moves into precinct 11 and precinct nine in order to balance the populations. This uses the bike path as a boundary line, which just has a nice and has a nice benefit of allowing residents on both sides of Summer Street to be in the same precinct. Usually the center line is right down the middle of the street and so this is sort of a little bit of a benefit in this section of the map. In order to balance the precinct population in nine and 11, we have to swap this one little corner, which sort of shows you how fine grained working with these census blocks can be in order to find sort of the least disruptive series of changes that make the whole concept work. And then finally, in this map, we need to pull three small blocks from precinct 10 into precinct eight, which definitely needed to gain population. And the last change is a very simple. We pull one block from 18 into 16 in order to add the population that's necessary to balance precinct 16. And that's a very low impact change because everybody votes at the gallon. So again in summary, 10 precincts were changed. We successfully managed to avoid the need to split the precincts, which is very helpful. We change a total of 10 precincts and 11 census blocks actually change their polling location. Although only really I think only four of those blocks would consider it sort of to be a real negative change of a greater distance to travel. And again, I'm hoping that we can adjust some of those by looking at the precinct at the polling locations over time. The limited change model still maintains some of the existing precincts that we haven't been able to adjust in this map that have unusual shapes or encompass a wide range of demographic groups. And I'd like to talk a little more about how some of that led into our concept for the recommended changes map. So again the goal was to use the data we had on the neighborhoods to really consider natural neighborhood boundaries and draw maps that reflected things better in terms of representation of a wide range of characteristics from neighborhoods in town meeting. And again, well, not splitting any precincts based on the house district line. And I want to talk a little bit about sort of this concept that we've had about natural neighborhoods. So precincts that run from Masav to one of the borders tend to encompass a wide range of housing types and incomes.  Residents gave us comments in earlier phases that they liked the idea that precincts would have a mix of demographics. But the concern for the reprecenting working group is really the same at the local level as at the national level. People who run for town meeting are often wealthier and live in single family homes. And that just raises a concern as to how well the diversity of the precinct is represented in town meeting. Just as an example, if 40% of residents across Arlington rent their homes, you would hope that roughly 40% of town meeting members rent their homes if you're looking for sort of representative town meeting. We don't have specific data on that, but I was trying to find a simple example of sort of to illustrate the concern that we have when we start digging into the data. In our recommended map, we limited the changes as much as possible, and we only changed one additional precinct that we didn't have to change before. So it's not a comprehensive solution. It doesn't address every possible issue that we would have found across town. And it would have been a little easier to draw some of these precincts if we had had 16 instead of 21. Nevertheless, we do think this is a strong step forward sort of using the data and the tools that we have in order to make improvements as we go forward. So same five precincts have to change. So when we look at East Arlington, the major change here is we took the idea that this webcam at neighborhood is much more similar to precinct five streets. And it's also, you know, Thompson School neighborhood. So we pulled that into precinct five out of precinct nine. Part of the focus here is precinct nine then becomes much more largely focused along, along Mass Ave and sort of that more urban and dense feeling very similar to precinct 17. In order to accommodate moving the entire webcam at neighborhood, we pulled more precincts out of five and into seven. And then also made adjustments to move a few precincts into nine. So, you know, sort of the changes flow around in order to balance the precincts. Similarly, when we looked looked at this part of town, we wanted to, we wanted to think about precinct 15 a little differently and turn it into more of a the planning department often refers to something like this as a transition zone. The precincts to the north tend to be very suburban. Lots of single family homes and not very dense. Precinct 15 is somewhat in the middle. And then, of course, the other side of it are the much denser precincts nine and 17. And so we took, we sort of shifted things around. So, you know, we took population from 15 and moved it to 13 and swapped around the bottom of 15 with 11 to create this new shape and sort of concept so that each of the three precincts are more clearly defined and there's less mixing of sort of demographic and, you know, housing styles within each precinct. You can see when you glance through the filters that are on the web page, you can sort of see as you go through and this is a sort of a nice shot. You know, there's real differences and it's nice. It's just sort of nice to start recognizing that and adjusting our precincts shapes. In the center on this map, again, we do the same type of work taking this section out of precinct 17. And then, so again, precinct nine stays along Mass Ave. And then, and we smooth out some of the, some of the other shapes. So this is sort of a nicer map here for the center of town. And then the biggest change difference in the next big issue is precincts eight and 10. Rather than having eight and 10 run vertically, so to speak, we suggest that we run them horizontally. Precinct eight and 10 are fairly different when you sort of look at some of the data filters. And this makes sort of a more natural division. Also, it respects sort of Gray Street, which divides 12 and 14. It sort of continues that along and the neighborhood profiles really follow. I'm sure you guys have lots of questions, but I didn't want to, you know, sort of read all the words off of the slides. And, and so, and then, of course, there's the same change in precincts 16 and 18. So again, we've added one additional precinct. So 11 precincts with a recommended map would need to elect all of their town meeting members, which is less, fewer, a fewer number of precincts than the previous two decades, which had 15 and 13. And we believe that we've constructed better precincts that are positioned well for the kinds of growth and discussions and housing development conversations that we want to have over the next few years. I'm going to leave the presentation up for just a little bit in case it's helpful for people. We can answer questions and look at the maps. Great. Thank you, Ms. Brazil. I'm just wondering, and I think it's helpful to leave it up. Would you mind going to the page that shows the limited changes map and the recommended changes map and it also shows some of the detail. And then members want something in particular, that's fine. Yeah, that one there. Okay. Okay. And just before I turn it to members for questions or comments, again, because of the timeframe here, we have to have something in by Saturday. I think Ms. Brazil's right. Let's get it in ahead of that date. So I view tonight unless board members feel differently, as I need to get comments and questions on the table, we will have public participation with an eye towards making a final vote either on November 22nd or another meeting before the end of November. But whatever we do for the final vote is going to be a short period of time that's necessary for descriptions. And I think that's the reason for the delay between a vote to accept a certain map and then the final vote with the descriptions of each precinct. So with that, I will start with the board and I'll start with Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. Thank you to Ms. Brazil and the precinct working group team for your continued hard work. This has been an outstanding presentation and it really shows how complex this is to what the ripple effects are when you make a little change and I am fully appreciative of the challenges. We've already started, like I know at least speaking to myself as a select board member, the emails have started to come in from people who are responding to these maps that went up on Friday. I've heard some concerns that this was, that they went up Friday right before our meeting and was there people worried that this was an effort to try to not give the public much notice. And I just want to say to the public, I understand that concern and I value public input a lot. And I think it's important to just for the public to be reassured that this, the timing of that represents, I'm going to guess, and please correct me if I'm wrong, my input represents nothing more than the groups doing this as quickly as they could, given that the state legislative districts came through very, very recently. There's a lot of data to crunch, a lot of work to done on Friday was when it could be done. And as Mr. Chair said, we were not planning to put on this for another couple of weeks. Is that a fair representation Ms. Brazile of the reason for that timing or is there anything you want to add? No, yes, no, it was, we certainly wanted to give the public and the board some time to digest it. There wasn't additional time in the schedule. No, you've been working very, very fast and very hard given the constraints. So thank you for that. But on the topic of public feedback, I know that when the earlier maps, including the 16 plan and other where we're being distributed that you and your team did an exceptional job of soliciting and collecting structured public feedback via online survey forums and public meetings. And, you know, I know that you're all very tired and still very busy and we are too. But what can we do between now and two weeks from now to solicit broad based public feedback? Are there plans in the works or is there anything that we can do? And the reason I ask is, you know, we're really narrowing down to what we're very likely to do. And I think that people tell meeting members, but also residents, this is when they're really going to start paying attention that they feel like, okay, now we kind of know what close to where we are, it gets a better look at those boundaries, it gets a better look at these neighborhoods, look at my polling place. So a lot of people are going to be hitting this for the first time. What can we do to draw out as much public input to help us as the select board in making this decision in two weeks? I'm sure we can sort of create a very similar Google forum, very simple just to let people and then, you know, people can continue to email you the board and certainly email Town Clerk. So yeah, we're happy to invite people to share. It'll be a few days of comment so that we have time to, you know, sort of digest it and do any fine tuning around issues that are raised. Yeah, thank you for whatever you can do that. And I would maybe suggest that on his part of the Town Manager, you know, might look at any way to assist that effort. I think it's just, speaking for myself anyway, it's really important to get public feedback at this really critical stage. And I know the Town Communications efforts for, you know, for sending out notices can certainly be used to promote that. Great. And I appreciate noting that, you know, there's always winners and losers, so to speak, you know, with this and that some people will have arguably worse changes in their polling locations. And that transparency is welcome because that's just how this works. I'm curious, you know, I think you said before correctly that we can, this like board can change polling locations at any time over the next 10 years, and we certainly have history of doing that when we can. Have you had the opportunity in working with these maps, other than just sort of knowing that that's something that can be done? Have you had the opportunity to do any project, any perspective thinking to like look at potential solutions where polling places could be moved that would that would alleviate these at all? Or is it more just kind of, we hope that, you know, that that might be a solution? We have not done a lot of detailed work on that simply because it's a separate process. And in some ways it's easier to do it as a separate step. If you try to solve two problems at once, I'm afraid you make too many compromises around the edges. So that's a real concern. I mean, the quickest overview is some of the best solutions would be to have as many polling places along the center of town. So, you know, really look at being able to use the high school and, you know, and the Gibbs, you know, ideally we don't want to increase the total number of precincts a lot, that adds expense and, you know, sort of overhead logistics. But I suspect there are several, you know, several solution paths that will lead to improvements for, for a lot of people. Yeah, excuse me, Ms. Allen with Ms. Lineman, did you want to add to that answer? Sorry, I think just to add one thing that we have, you know, we have discussed in the development of both these maps is there are times when, you know, some of these precincts only need to shift by a few blocks. And when you're trying to pick which blocks moves, you're trying to, you're considering the overall numbers. But you're also looking at if we moved this block, would it retain its polling location? It's like historical polling location or would that shift? And if it would retain a historical polling location, then that would be the block that would shift instead of one that would maybe have to move its polling location to a different, completely different part of, you know, the area. So it was a consideration. It's just not, it wasn't like the driving force, but it's definitely something that I think we've all had in our minds as we've gone forward. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for, for pointing out Ms. Lineman's raised hand. I didn't see it on my zoom screen. Another question I have is I noticed that in the report, there was a table that, that expressed the percentage of non-white residents in various scenarios. And I wonder if a member of the, of the team would want to speak to that consideration and the degree to which that kind of work went into the drawing of the, of the recommended changes map? Mr. Korowski might have the quickest answer since he spent most, most time with the data. Laura, thank you, Ms. Brazil and Mr. Helmuth for the question. The table that's in front of you is a summary table and it does create a column, two columns that represent non-white population. And for size of the table, it's kind of a summary of how we looked at non-white population. But in drawing the map, we separated GIS data layers into Asian population, Black population and Hispanic population so that we could see more variation across the community in drawing our boundaries. And so this, this table isn't necessarily representative of the entire GIS analysis that we did. The maps that are online represent the, the more detailed data layers and the various considerations that we took into account, especially along the Mass Ave corridor where these populations tend to live in higher numbers. Okay, thank you. That's helpful. Yeah, I think in the over the next couple of weeks, I would be interested in hearing more when there's, you know, there's more time and happy to talk offline, you know, about, about what, what a little bit more about what the thinking is here and if that, you know, drove some of the, of the thinking about precinct boundaries or if that's more descriptive, I think that's kind of what I'm, what I'm getting at. I'm not sure my question is fully formed. So I'll hold off and ask you a better question and maybe consult with some of you later. I think that's all I have now. I want to give my colleagues a full chance to, to have added in here from the public as well. So thank you so much for your responses and for your work. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Mrs. Mahon. First, I'd like to move or see that's appropriate, Mr. Chairman. And my question is through the chair or to the chair or to Town Council that is my understanding correct that the ultimate decision makers on this issue are the Town Clerk, Town Moderator, and the Board Administrator from the Select Board. For the outline of the, of each precinct, Mrs. Mahon? For the ultimate decision of what, of what the 21 precincts will be and what those districts will be. Attorney Hyde. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Mahon, I believe, I believe the ultimate decision is the Select Board's. Okay. And I'm sorry. No, please go ahead. So they're proposing something to you but ultimately the any change in precincts is ultimately approved by the Board, ultimately rest in the Board Authority. And if I can, Mr. Chair, asking Attorney Hyde to read into my mind, why do I have that the Town Moderator, Town Clerk, and Board Administrator have a role in this? Do they or do they not? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, go ahead. Thank you, Ms. Mahon. I think reading into my understanding of how some of these things took place in the past, my, my read of some prior memos that I perused at different points in time, I think there were some instances where the state had made some suggestions in the timeline was even shorter than we have at present for a variety of reasons. And the Board Administrator, then Town Clerk and Moderator were among a sort of task group, not that different from the group that Clerk assembled here to sort of try to look at the paper maps and parse out what changes made sense to them. Mr. Krause, you may have been present for that discussion the last time this happened. I could be wrong about that, but I had heard some anecdotal evidence that you were, you're present. That might illuminate the situation further, Ms. Mahon. But just to be clear, I think that they may have been making recommendations, but the Select Board was ultimately taking the vote. Yes, Mr. Krause, he has any knowledge of that. And if he doesn't, that's okay. Sure. And just to clarify, you'd like a summary of how this occurred last time? Yes, last time, which I believe was previous times. I just want to make sure we're covering all the bases. Sure. Yeah, so that would have been in 2011 this occurred. The last census was 2010. So about a year after that, we conducted this similar review. And at that time, I would say less communities in Massachusetts had GIS. So one of the clear deliverables and methods that could be used by a community was a paper map review. And we were just starting our GIS program at the time. And the management of this came down to a short of timeline. So we did do an internal paper map review that included a similar group to which we have now planning the clerk's office and the Board of Selectment with recommendations of minor changes by the state, which we essentially adopted. And it was my recollection that it was the Select Board that ultimately approved this and was also headed up by the clerk's office as well. So I actually don't recall who was the final signature of it, but both were involved. Okay. So I guess I would, since this will appear on November agenda, just reiterate my motion for receipt and to continue to tax the precincting working group under the town clerk. But also I would like, when this appears on our next agenda, that we also have a recommendation, which I assume would be the same or probably would be the same from the town clerk, town moderator and Select Board Administrator. So thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Mohan. Mr. Hurd. Thank you. I'll second the motion. I also want to thank our town clerk, town staff and the recent precincting working group. As we have these presentations and sift through the data, my head spins at the amount of work that I think is involved in getting our precincts to comply with the requirements and by you all but me. But I do want to thank all the work that comes into this. And you know, we do have, we've got a number of comments already on these, the two proposals like our town clerk said sometimes change is hard, but we'll take some time to take a look at these and really absorb the presentations and see and just move forward with what's best for the town as a whole. One question that I did have, and I apologize if this was covered in the presentation, I know it said that under the recommended change, 11 precincts will have to rerun for the town meeting spots under the recommended map. Under the limited change map, how many precincts would have to rerun for their town meeting spots? I could answer that. Sure. Go right ahead. Sure. 10. 10. Okay. And then to borrow some language from my colleague, Mr. Diggins, I have a curiosity question on the recommended change map. Do I see in precinct nine, is there a portion of precinct nine that's separated from the rest of the precinct on the upper right hand portion of the map? It looks like a little yellow portion. Sorry, let's get to the recommended changes. Ms. Brazil, I could answer that question. Yeah, this section. Yep. The areas that we get to work with in order to define our precincts are called census blocks. And unfortunately, census blocks kind of end up like Tetris blocks, where they're these really strange shapes. And that block that you're speaking of, Mr. Herd, is actually a really long, thin block that's on the lake side and the river side of Mystic Valley Parkway where no one actually lives. And Ms. Brazil's green cursor is actually on the block that you're speaking of. So if you can see it kind of is like a hockey stick and hooks around the web co-at neighborhood. So if we put it in precinct nine, it will look like it's got a strange hook on it. And if we put it in precinct five on this map, it will look like a strange panhandle of sorts that goes between the cemetery and the lake. So unfortunately, some of these census blocks are these really strange geographies and they actually don't have any folks in them. So they do have these odd tails. So it is contiguous, but it did look strange on that map that you were referencing where there was a side-by-side comparison. Yeah, thank you for the explanation. I just was wondering why there was one particular portion of the precinct nine that seemed separated, but I appreciate that. Like I said, you know, I thank you for all the work that's put into this and we'll take the next couple weeks to really absorb the data, reach out to the members of the working group and the town clerk as necessary with any questions that we have and look forward to our next meeting on this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Heard. And before I turn to Mr. Diggins, and just on that last point, Mr. Krosk, I think I saw a similar situation. It was contiguous in the recommendation for precinct 10 as it looks like there's a stretch of land between route two and spy pond. No one lives there, but it shows up in the precinct 10 map. You can see it there and the lower left. So I think and thank you for that explanation. A lot of people as they were providing us feedback. It is really hard with the job that you have to do because of the census blocks that you have to take in and then with the legislative districts as well. So I'm sorry for taking that time right now, Mr. Diggins. That's quite a right, Mr. Chair. You know, I love about other people's curiosity questions. It usually isn't a question that I've thought of myself, but nonetheless, I'm fascinated by the question. I'm really happy you asked it, Mr. Heard. And so, see, a request to the clerk, Mr. Chair, through you. So you think we could get, like you did with the race on the charts and income breakdown on the chart, a chart for that? I believe that information is posted online so that you can look at the filters and if it's particular screenshots of comparisons would be happy, we can certainly do that. Yeah. If it's already online, that's fine. I'll just go and get it myself. So great. Thank you. And let's see. Oh, so let me feel for a second. I'm sorry, Mr. Brazil. I know, Adam, I could probably address that too, especially regarding income. Adam, do you want to go ahead? Sorry. We, income isn't available at the level of detail that we could provide on the chart because the income, some of these, some of these characteristics, while we can show them on a map, we can show blocks almost like a heat map of where income is above or below median income, et cetera. It isn't available at the, it's only available at the block group level, which is not as detailed as what you see here. And these little red lines are in the block level. And so at sometimes a block group will cross a precinct boundary. And so then it sort of muddies up our ability to create a chart with that data. Adam, I don't know if there's anything else I missed there, but that, so there's certain things like race and ethnicity that we can show in that chart. We can show population in that chart. But we can't show things that are in the American Community Survey data because that's only available at the block group, not the block. All right. Great. Well then, I won't go looking forward. Thank you. And so, and so maybe this is something that you just don't feel that you should deal with. How do you recommend that we deal with the potential impact on FinCom? There is no impact on FinCom. It's 21 precincts. Oh, in terms of, we'll need to map, sorry, you're right. We would need to map the location of each person and work out, you know, if a section, if a section is changed, then it's possible there would now be two current members from the same precinct under the new map. And we would have to, we'd have to get that list together. Right. I mean, so as I've said several times, yeah, I just find it worrisome, bothersome. I'm trying to come up with a fairly tame word, being that we seemingly can't do much because of the impact on FinCom. It just seems that that can't be what prevents us from making positive changes. And if for some reason, that becomes a reason we don't do something this time that we feel we should do, then we really need to put some steps, take some steps to make sure that when we get to 10 years from now, that we've warned the folks who are going to be dealing, that they need to take some steps beforehand, need to make sure that potential impacts on FinCom are resolved. And so the last thing is with respect to more comments. What I'm really interested in is the response to the comments. We're going to get lots of email, meaning for me, it's not the number of times I hear an argument. It's really the quality of the argument and the response to it that's going to determine how I feel about something. So to the extent we do get comments, it would be really helpful if I could see responses to the comments that you choose to respond to. I'm not going to dictate me a request that you respond to everything, but there are those arguments that you know that it would be helpful for us, me, and maybe the residents at large, me to see the responses. So that's my request. And I don't, I guess we can't really, I'm going to stop at this point. So thank you. That's it. Thanks. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. And before I turn to the public, I would like to thank Ms. Brazil and all the members of the Representing Working Group. This has been a lot of work that you've undertaken since early this year throughout the summer and over the last few months. And there's been different iterations that you've had to work with. And we really appreciate all the time and effort that you have put into this. And as I look at what's being proposed here, too, I appreciate the fact that from discussions and I think feedback that you received that to the extent that a precinct didn't need to change, I think there was a sentiment, let's not change it to have everybody run again. And I think you have followed that. I am starting to get comments as all the members are. And right now, most of the comments I've received are people in precincts 11 and 13 where things have changed. And also precincts 8 and 10. And I just am wondering briefly, you have put in some of the reasons for changing the proposed configuration of 8 and 10. So Grace Street becomes a dividing line as opposed to an orientation from Mass Ave to Route 2. Is there anything further you want to add on that? This seems to be a lot of discussion on that. And I just want to give you an opportunity if there's anything further that you've saw that maybe wasn't in the slide that led you to the recommendation. No. I mean, I think the housing demographics are sort of very clear. The extending of the dividing line is very clear. And in some senses, this wasn't considered, this wasn't the more difficult recommendation simply because precincts 8 and 10 could continue to vote at the same location. So we're not disrupting the residents terribly. We do understand it disrupts some of the town meeting members. I mean, they'd have to run anyway because we have to rebalance 8 and 10 in terms of population. I guess I will say if we looked, we did sort of start to look at the addresses of town meeting members. And precinct 8 had, if you graft them and compare them on this map, precinct 8 had fewer town meeting members than precinct 10. And so that was our concern is that if you divide them vertically, you have more representation in this part than you do in this part. And so the voices of these people on certain bylaw and zoning changes is potentially sort of not as well represented in town meeting. So I think that's, there's a lot of layers to the data that we looked at if that answers your question. Sure. No, that's fine. Thank you. And I also can I ask one clarifying question. I have not received to the town clerk email any specific feedback on the maps. So in order to absorb the data and respond to the data, both to the public and to the board, I'll definitely work with the administrative staff, this like board office, to make sure that that we're getting those emails summarized and sent to us so that we can work with them. Okay, that's great. Yeah. And most of them, at least in my experience came in since Friday when the agenda item was posted. Ms. Lineman, did you want to add to that respond? Yeah, I think just the one additional charge that we were given, both by the state and just as part of this overall process was to not only consider our demographics, the demographic information we have right now, but to also look at, I mean, these precincts will cover the town for the next 10 years. So we do have a responsibility to think about change. And part of the changes that are proposed in our recommended map on eight and 10, and also on 11 and 13, are thinking about the kinds of changes that are most likely to happen to the town and where those changes might, based on changes that have happened to date, where those changes are most likely to occur. So part of what we are also trying to do is anticipate change over the next 10 years and identify precincts that maybe 10 years from now may not need to have so much change, because they're designed in such a way now to accommodate that growth and change in the next 10 years. Great. Thank you. All right. So now I did say we would take public comment on this. And so I'll open it up to the public. I believe there are a couple of hands raised now, if anybody else would like to speak, if they could show by raising their hands. And I believe Paul Schlickman is the first person. Correct. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm very impressed by the work of the town clerk and the committee on these maps. I would say that the preferred map is preferred for some very good reasons. And it's been very thoughtful in terms of having a coherent and thoughtful description of the precincts that need to change. That said, precinct nine would move to be a linear mass of precinct and in order to put the polling place for precinct nine in a central location for this new precinct, particularly under the preferred map. A lot of folks in the precinct live across the street or short walk to town hall. And I would hope that if the either map is adopted or particularly the preferred map precinct nine's polling place should be at town hall and not the Bishop School. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Schlickman. Charles Foskett is next. Is Mr. Foskett still with us, sir? Yeah. You know, I think what happens is when I promote someone to attend, they have to accept the promotion. So if he's not actively sitting in front of a screen, you might not be able to do that. Okay. All right. Why don't we go to the next speaker and we can return to Mr. Foskett unless you... Yeah, it doesn't look like he's... The next speaker is Elizabeth Dre. Okay. Good evening, Ms. Dre. Just need you to unmute your microphone. Thank you. Gosh. Elizabeth Dre. Elizabeth Dre. I want to thank you so much to the working group, to Ms. Brazil. These maps look really great. And also I want to thank Don Seltzer for his work on these maps. I'm relieved to that not all 21 precincts are involved.  And I came tonight really open to hearing the discussion, because I'm going to have to run no matter what. So I'm in. What I didn't really get to dig into the maps until this evening. And so one of the things that I would love some feedback about, and I know you can't respond now. So maybe I can email Ms. Brazil. But one of the biggest goals that was originally discussed by the reprecenting group was about like the DEI goals, right? About having these communities of interests and making sure to see if they could sort of be kept together to give them more voting power. Something like that, right? But what I don't see on this presentation is any information about those goals anymore. I see that there's information provided about race. And one slide about density. But there isn't any information to say which of these two maps is better at preserving and maintaining those communities of interest. I know that it's stated that race, income, and tenure were part of the decision making, and that the goals were to consider race and home ownership. But there's no data to support which of these maps gives us the best, that achieves that the best. And then when I did dig in, when I looked at the different precincts, so in the recommended map, in the limited map, 10 change, in the recommended map, 11 change. So if we just look at those 10 that have to change in either one, three stay the same. So those are constant. Of the other seven, five of those have less, have a decrease in the non-white percentage. So they are more white than in the recommended map than they are in the limited map. And so to me, without knowing more, the recommended map does a less good job of concentrating or protecting the racial groups. And then we don't have information about age, home ownership, or income. So we can't compare those. So, oh, I'm over time. I just want to say, I understand the time constraints that you were under with the working group, but I would love, if possible, to have these maps out as quickly as possible so that the public has a big robust time to respond. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I think just before we go to the next speaker, just and I think those questions, as Mr. Ray said, I mean, those, I think they'll probably follow up with the clerk's office or with the clerk herself on that. Okay. Thank you. All right. Who's next, Mr. Chaplin? So there's a hand raised by Don Seltzer and Joanne Preston has once again messaged me asking if she could speak. Okay. So why don't we turn to Mr. Seltzer and then Ms. Preston after. Good evening, Mr. Seltzer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Don Seltzer Irving Street. I can provide an immediate answer to a question that was asked a little earlier about the impact on FINCOM. With the second map that was presented, six of our precincts will be without any FINCOM members. Three of them will have two FINCOM members and one precinct will have four FINCOM members. So you might want to take that into your consideration. As a long-term resident of precinct 8, I wish to disagree with the characterization of what constitutes neighborhoods in this area. I think many of my fellow precinct 8 and precinct 10 neighbors will agree that our natural neighborhoods tend to run north-south from Mass Av down to Route 2 and splitting it up horizontally does not represent a natural neighborhood for us. I think you've received some correspondence from Elizabeth Pyle, which expresses that far more eloquently than I can as to the reasons why that is true. In fact, I hope that all the correspondence that you received on this will eventually be posted as correspondence to the select board on this matter. The other thing that I want to point out that disruption comes not only from having a number of precinct town meeting members have to run again next spring. The real disruption comes from the fact that with scrambling around these precincts, you're going to end up with very different precincts as far as their constituencies. The limited change options generally keep most precincts to within 95 percent of their current constituency. The ones that are being recommended are splitting lots of precincts in two and then shuffling around with other precincts. They look very little like the current precincts do now and the town meeting members are unevenly distributed between them, so you're going to have cases where certain precinct members, town meeting members currently, are simply going to be forced out. There will be no seats for them. That is particularly true in precincts 8 and 10 or precinct 10, where there are going to be 15 current town meeting members competing for only 12 seats next spring. Three current town meeting members generally long serving, capable, knowledgeable, are going to be forced out because there's no room for them. Please take that into your consideration. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Seltzer. Just on your point on the correspondence, what we do is anything received before the agenda is published, we will put as correspondence received. What we receive from the date the agenda is published through tonight's meeting, we will post after the fact that the record of the meeting just in response to that question, that's what we've been doing on this issue where we get things after the initial publication, but we will add those letters to the record. Thank you, Mr. DeCorsi. I want to point out though that I've written to the board a couple times in the past over the last month, and none of those correspondences has appeared in the official record. Okay. All right. We'll work on that. Sorry. I'm sure it's an oversight. That's right. Thank you. Okay. Is it enjoying Preston as an ex-Mr. Chaplin? Correct. And one more hand has been raised after her. Good evening again, Ms. Preston. Almost there. I see her on the screen, but I don't know if the connection has been made yet. I'm sorry. Okay. Now you can hear me. Yes, we can. I live in the Webcowen neighborhood, which is a very cohesive neighborhood, which has been lopped off of Precinct 9 and attached to some other precinct much larger on the other side of Medford Street. And my neighbors are just beginning to find out about this. I'd like to say as a social scientist that demographic data is not always what forms the neighborhood, and that our interest in the environment and trees and pedestrian safety, we have in common with other parts of Precinct 9, especially the housing authorities. And we've been working with them on the Chestnut Street issue and other issues. So income does not make a neighborhood. A community of interest makes a neighborhood. We haven't heard or seen or I'm not sure I know more than three people in the precinct that you're attaching us to on the other side of Medford Street. But I would like very much for the Precinct 9 to stay together as a coherent group, as it has been working for that. Just because we're further down Medford Street doesn't mean most of the people in the Webcowen neighborhood actually walk up through the two Mass Ave where the bookstore is, the coffee houses, the bus, everything. So they have much more of a community than whoever might live across the other side of Medford Street that is closer to the river. Not the part up by Mass Ave. So I think very seriously we should take more time to ask what makes a community. It's hard for these hard-working four people to know every community and what makes it cohesive and every neighborhood in Arlington. So I'd just like to add I think it would be it would be very disruptive to take our little neighborhood which has been working with the housing authorities and other people a little further up on Medford Street and attach them to the other people who live on the other side of Medford Street. They have not worked with us in any of these issues as have the other people in Precinct 9. So I'm not quite sure why this is I guess what this refers to is the recommended plan, but that is not true of the limited change plan is that the I would call it my recommended plan that we are still attached to the rest of Precinct 9 and could continue to work with the people on the issues that are important to us. So as you might hear from people in the webcam at neighborhood, but that is my analysis of what would be a cohesive community to just walk us off for the people we've been working with on these issues. I think would not be