Welcome. I'm calling the order this meeting of the Arlington's Light Board on Monday, October 24th, 2022. I am Select Board Chairman of Diggins and I will now 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 an affirmative. Pam Han? Yes. John Hurd? Yes. Steve Corsi? Yes. Eric Helmuth? Yes. Staff, when I call your name please respond in an affirmative. Sandy Porter? Yes. Got time. Yes. Ashley Meyer? Yes. Tonight's meeting of the Arlington's Light Board is being conducted in a hybrid format consistent with Chapter 107 of the Acts of 2022, signed July on July 17th, 2022, which further extends certain COVID-19 measures regarding remote participation until March 31st, 2023. Before we begin, please note the following. First, this meeting is being conducted via Zoom. It is being recorded and is also being simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Second, persons wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the Thomas website. Participated by Zoom are reminded that you may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate, you are asked to provide your full name and interest developing a record of the meeting. Third, all participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment and those persons are not required to identify themselves. Both Zoom participants and persons watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials also found on the Thomas website using another agenda platform. And finally, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call. So, let's see how much of the Thomas business we can get done tonight. And next on the agenda is the acknowledgement of the retirement of our beloved Board Administrator, Marie Aik-Rapelka. And a few details I have that I got from Karen Malloy earlier today is that Marie started in 1959 and she was a clerk, I believe, in DPW. Vice Chair, you will correct me if I get anything wrong and maybe add to things. You know, I'm glad you're here. And so next, if I understand, she then became the assistant for the first Tom manager, you know, and then she moved to the inspections department, and then in 2001, I think, she then became the Board Administrator, you know, so she's been with us since then, you know, and so she will be retiring on the 26th in a couple of days, you know, and maybe I guess it's the 27th and the 26th will be her last day made.  So I'm going to turn to Madam Vice Chair Diane Mahon since she has been on the Board the longest and probably knows Marie the longest. I do know amongst us, well actually, I think regardless of even being on the Board, we've all had contact with her. In our former lives, you know, because she's always been and in some way will continue to be an integral part of the Board, and you did get all that right. I have so many Marie stories, but a lot of them I don't think I could really say in the meeting. But I, you know, did work with her in many different facets of the different positions that you cited that she held. But for me and others, of course, she was a godsend when she came to the then Board of Selectment, now Select Board, and really for her to hold all those different positions and wear those different hats and do it so fluidly really is a testament to her, as well as her husband, Chuck, who was a firefighter and unfortunately passed very young. And that's when she always regaled me with stories of how, you know, the firefighters starting with Chief Jefferson on down, made sure her two boys were always taken care of. You can't replace a dad, but I've always modeled it, you know, everything that Marie's had to, and we all have crosses to bear in things that happen in our lives. But back when she started out, you know, as her employment with the town, it really was unique to have a woman for a career like that and to stay dedicated. And then with Chuck's untimely passing and raising her two boys. I think because she did it so effortlessly, we kind of overlooked it. But I can't, you know, I know she's retiring, but I'm in denial because she's not. And I know, you know, we always make sure that we touch base with her on so many things just because of her wealth of knowledge. And I know she's not going anywhere. We all know where she lives because we go up there and drive her crazy in person as well as, you know, virtually. So I love her so much. And she definitely is a strong woman, one of my mentors. And I remember when she first came on the board, I would say to her, listen, Marie, don't agree with me. Even if you agree with me. And nope, she had her own mind and spoke it, which I always respected of her for doing that. So I love her so much. And one of my favorite stories is when I brought my youngest Cindy, and she was very young, plus everyone knows Cindy. And if we've all been in Marie's house, she's got Hummels and Westford crystals and this, that, and the, but I had no sense of what they were. And my Cindy picked up this Westford or something, Hummel, whatever. It was a statuette of a woman, which I found out later on was worth at the time, probably like three, four thousand. I don't know what it's worth now. And then, and I didn't, didn't dawn on me till Cindy had a right in her paw as tight as can be. And I'm like, it's not expensive. She's like, it's okay. But it didn't break. So she always prepared her house when I'd say, Cindy's come and put the good stuff away. You know, so anyways, thank you, Mr. Chair. Love you, Marie. This is Gorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And yeah, I want to wish Marie all the best. One of the most enjoyable aspects of being on the board was working with Marie right from day one and just the conversations, the knowledge that she would impart. And as Mrs. Mahan said, the stories that you heard, the institutional knowledge that she had, but also just how she loved this institution and loved this town. And she really would look out for us and there would be different events from time to time. And we all make up our own minds as to what events we're going to. But she would give me a signal from time to time and say, Steve, you don't have to go, but I think it's a good idea. And that was always I'm absolutely going. And just the history that she had of the town. And as you mentioned, she worked for the first time manager. She's worked for or with every single town manager since our Town Manager Act came into play in 1954. And I think what people didn't realize is just how good a handle, Marie. I think people do realize this, but how good a handle on the town. And she's had her best if there was an issue that maybe spanned more than one department. And she's all right, I can figure this out. I know what to do. And of course, she always did. And between phone calls and going up to visit her during the pandemic and just talking, it was just, I really enjoyed those visits beyond what I learned work wise. Just different things that she would tell me different stories. And it was always an enjoyable time. And one of my favorite things here again, after meetings, and oftentimes it was Mr. Dunn. But Mrs. Marie and I would walk out to the car together and talk about the day's events and just small talk at the end of meetings. But those conversations, you really remember. So I've totally enjoyed working with her. And just one other thing about Marie is she's always thinking about us and thinking about others. And this is back in 2021, both my father and one of my sons were in the hospital. And at that time, Marie was having some issues that she was dealing with. And she called me every day to ask me how they were doing. And that's the way she was. And so I wish her all the best. As Mrs. Mahan said, we know where to find you, Marie. We will be up. And thank you so much for all the work that you've done for the town, for your friendship and for your mentorship. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've been around the board for long before I've been on the board. And as far back as I can remember, Marie was always there. And I think going along the theme of what we've heard from my two colleagues is Marie was just such a wealth of knowledge about the ins and outs of the town of Arlington. And I think it was a rite of passage for every new employee in Arlington to sit down with Marie and get the real story behind of what's going on in Town Hall. And you go up to her house, right? And you say, all right, Marie, I'm meeting at 1.30. I can come for 45 minutes and always turn it into a couple hours. But everything you get from her was solid gold. And you ask her a question and you get the answer. And then you get 20 minutes of background beyond that. And it leads into another discussion. And she was such an easy person or she is such an easy person to talk to. And I just really always enjoyed those conversations with her. And I know when I first got on the board, she was someone that I sat down with and I bounced a lot of questions off of and it really helped me transition into the role that I thought I knew about, but you get into it and there's always something, some little niche that you're not picking up on. And she'd always guide me in the right direction. And I always appreciate that. And I think for me, when I think of Marie, I think of her role here in town, but she was also a very proud mother or is, I don't know what I keep saying was, she is a very proud mother and now very proud grandmother. And she'd often text me that during meetings or after meetings and she'd say, hey, you did a good job on that agenda item. Did you hear what happened with the Panthers? Paul, Paul won again. Or Maddie scored three goals. And she always said it was so much pride. And you could just tell that how much she loved her sons and her grandchildren. And it's really, it's a loss to the town, but she's still there at, like we say as a resource to call and text and hopefully visit soon. And, you know, I certainly wish her the well, wish her the best in her retirement and want to thank her for her years and years and years of service to the town and look forward to continue to work with her. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hurrick and Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wish that I could be there in person tonight for this moment. Very temporary situation has other plans. So I am stuck here participating remotely from home. John was referring to Marie's texting. I think everybody who's texted her knows that nobody does emoji like Marie Kappelka. Nobody understands Arlington and what's really going on like Marie. And nobody loves this town like she does. 63 years of service to the town is extraordinary. I'm not sure that's a record that will ever be surpassed. And she's done it because she loves the town and she loves the people that we serve here in the government and she loves the people who work in the government. Everything, you know, I won't try to duplicate everything people said, but I will say speaking personally as someone who is fairly new to town compared to many of the rest of my colleagues and is fairly new to participating in town government. Marie welcomes people who are just willing to do the work and get involved. And that was my experience back when I was a town meeting member that nobody really knew. And I did some work with electronic voting and she sought me out and just encouraged me and welcomed me. She didn't care, you know, how long I've been in town. She didn't care who I was and who I knew. She just appreciated that someone wanted to get something done. And that has been my experience as a new select board member when I started serving. I would know you'd watch the meetings, the meetings were down, I'd get texts from her and they were always encouraging. That's the kind of person she is. That's the person that I will miss. I will say one more thing. Marie may no longer be the select board administrator in a couple of days, but you will always be the mayor of Arlington. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Helmut. And I'll turn to Mr. Fuller. Thank you. Marie, I remember, welcomed me as a lot of staff people to the select board office. She always made me feel welcome. She had many, many great stories. I think she should have been a genealogist because many of the stories involved, you know, somebody's cousin who's the wife of the... So she knew every connection that way. She also was very good at giving away candy. Anytime you went into the select board office, she was always trying to give candy. But I think it was just representative of how I'm much of a giving and caring person that she was. I will say one political thing about her. She and I were on slightly different sides politically. And I still have the little stuffed elephant that she gave me. And keep on my desk. From Marie, I cherish it. I cherish it as a gift from her. And just her human connection. And Eric mentioned that she's sort of the mayor of Arlington. I know for many people, they were much more likely to call the select board office about a tree down or a sewer problem. And Marie would instantly know where to send them and how to get it fixed. She was a master at that stuff. So Marie, if you're listening, I have appreciated knowing you all these years. I've learned a lot from you. And I know the citizens and residents of this town have certainly benefited from everything that you've done for us. So it's been a pleasure and congratulations on your retirement. Thank you, Mr. Fuller. Mr. Heim. Thank you, Mr. Chen. Before I came to Arlington, I worked in some interesting places for some interesting folks in the city of New York and the city of Boston. And I can say, without a doubt, that I have never worked with anyone. I had the pleasure of working with anyone, quite like Marie Kruppelka. Marie's marriage of wisdom and warmth, toughness and wit is just unparalleled. You don't find that many people who can in one breath express their care and concern for someone. And in the next breath, look at you like this and say, not for nothing, but. And then lay some truth down on whoever the listener is. I really value her brilliance, her care for so many of her neighbors, her laugh and sense of humor. As so many other people have said, one of the things that is hard to place a value on is how she brings the stories of people in this town to life. People here today, people who are in our memories. And for all of that, I think we are all better able to do our jobs. And the job was very important to her. As much fun as she had, the job and the service to the community mattered. And I hope that I can serve this town with half of the level of care and dignity and brilliance that Marie did. And I'll just say as a final note, most of the folks in this room know that I can be prone to being a talker myself. So when Marie and I get together, an attorney for whom she can have some attorney-client privilege and a keeper of many secrets in Arlington and Marie, it is a sight to behold. So I will miss those chats very, very much, although my time clock probably won't miss them quite as much. There may be a slight productivity boost in the town council's office. We're not sure, but it's not worth it. Marie, I'm going to miss you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And I know you asked me not to call you. And I won't because you said you would cry. I haven't gone on for a very long time, but to know Marie is to love Marie. Everyone will miss her and I'll end it at that. That's a very nice short and sweet and I appreciate that. And I also appreciate all the work that you've done in the last couple of years while Marie has been ill. I know it's been really a challenge in the office and you and Lorraine have done tremendous work. I mean, I've been very supportive of me, you know, I've been in these few months as chair. And I'm going to be brief because I'll say more towards the end where when we tell you more about what's going to happen in new business, you know, well, first Doug, Mr. Heim, you got that look exactly right. It was a really good connotation. And Mr. Puller, the slight differences for me and her is like it's like it's almost a negative correlation. You know, we look at our votes in town meeting, but that said, you know, one of the best times I had with her was in 2019 when I asked her to sit down with me to go over the warrant, you know, to discuss the issues mean and I was in this room and we sat down for about an hour and just went through all the articles in the warrant and it really helped me understand the articles better. She was giving me a lot of background and like where, what was the the the emphasis behind behind the article and and and the first time I actually think I saw Marie was when I covered a select board meeting for a CMI and she didn't have a microphone and I went up after the meeting and I said, we got to get you a microphone. And she was like, no, I don't want to be on camera.  It's like, you know, a good image when you see it. And so I often just give her a hard time. We ate about not having a microphone, but we hit it off immediately and that harkens back to to what Mr. Helm is said. And that is she was very welcoming. And she was just for me another example of how Arlington has always been very welcoming to people. And it turns out later on that a lot of the people that I have come to know had come and still know and like no Marie. I mean, in fact, one of my best friends at the gym, I mean, it's one of her best friends mean. And one of my close friends, you know, at the gym, I mean, is good friends with her son, Paul Kapalka. And his mom is great friends with Marie. And so she's just all over the place because she's been a part of the town for a long time. And people, as people have mentioned me, know that she's the place first to go to when you want information and you want assistance. I mean, and I was not going to run he unless Marie approved of it. And it wasn't going to be one of these deals where he well, yes, you should run.  And so so when when I came by to say I want to talk with you, she's like, I know what you're going to talk about. And it's like, yes, she should eat. And not only me, should you be but but you're not going to wait to go down to the clerk's office and pull your papers again, go down and pull your papers right now. And I did. So so so and then so so here I am and and and it's really thanks to to Marie and and the the community that she helped Arlington become. And so so I'm very grateful to her. I mean, and and there'll be more. And we'll talk about that towards the in the meeting in new business. So with that, we'll move on to item number three. And that is long range plan presentation by Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to wait for Ashley to just put this up on the screen. We have a meeting of the Long Range Planning Committee on September 30th, at which time I presented the forecast as it was in place at that point. Essentially, what we've done is we've put in final place, the numbers for FY 23, the number, the year that we're in now, and we're forecasting out for what things look like for FY 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28. I won't go through all of the numbers on the sheet, because as you can see, there are quite a few numbers. But I will say a couple of things. At this point, we have a balanced budget for FY 24. And we have a deficit coming up in FY 25. That deficit right now stands at about 4.5 million dollars. It gets bigger after that gets to 20 the year after and 25 and 29 the year after that. So it reflects the fact that as we know, there is a structural deficit here in Arlington. The services that we provide to the public, and I think the public expects and deserves, costs more than we can provide under the limitations of Prop 2.5. And so periodically, we do have to go back to the voters and ask them for an override, an increase in their taxes, which they have the ability to vote on. I think the long-range plan, as we see it here, is a pretty good indication, I think, of how things are going to look. We still will look forward to seeing the governor's budget when it comes out at the end of February. That may change some of our state aid numbers, particularly our school aid. But other than that, things are pretty much set as I expect they're going to be. We know what our tax rate is. We know what our new growth is. I will just mention, particularly for the members of the board, because I know you pay a lot of attention to this, that in this last year, for FY23, our new growth was 1.1 million dollars, which was higher than it has been for the last six years. So that's a good sign. I think it's a sign that the real estate market has been fairly active. But I also would say, given what we know about the economy and about inflation going up and so forth, I don't predict that that's going to continue as high a level going forward. So I think we're going to kind of go back to where we have been for the last few years. I would also just mention that our free cash, which was reported to you at the end of the year report, was 15.9 million dollars. Again, I think that was sort of an extraordinarily high number. There are various exceptions to why we had such high free cash last year. But within the context of this long-range plan, it did give us a boost from what the override number was going to be in FY25. Originally, when we had the last override, we thought it would last four years. It now looks like it will last five years. So that is good. But we still do have very significant deficits in the future. At this point, I am not ready to make a particular recommendation about an override size or timing. But I think it's important for the board to see these numbers now and to get some sense of the direction in which we're heading. We will continue to have future conversations at the long-range planning committee. We will tweak these numbers a little bit. We will include, for example, the October 1st enrollment numbers. Enrollment numbers are part of these sheets. At September 30th, we didn't have those numbers, but we will for our next meeting, which comes up this Friday. And then we'll put out an updated report and continue to have conversations with members of the board, with members of the finance committee, members of the school committee, and me and the superintendent about Arlington's future. So with that at this point, Mr. Chair, I'd be happy to stop and answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Poehler. I'll turn to Mr. Corsi. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Poehler, for the presentation this evening. And I think it's helpful for the board. I think it's helpful for the public to hear this. I just wanted to step back for a second, though. This long-range plan is something that's presented every year, or included in the Finance Committee report, at town meeting. It's included in the town manager's annual budget message. And the plan has changes over time as we get a better idea of what actual receipts are, what local aid is. And I will point out, Mr. Poehler mentioned back in 2019, when we had our last override, that there were a series of commitments, one of them being when would the board come back and request the public of voters for another override. And the commitment at that time was for at least four years. There are also other commitments that were made at that time in terms of what the annual growth in town and school spending would be and some other items. And in each period since 2019, we have met all of those commitments. Back in 2019, the five-year plan that was included in the Finance Committee report that contemplated a $5.5 million override. At that time, the anticipated deficit in fiscal 24 was $17.7 million. Back in the spring in the Finance Committee report, as listed with the information that was available at that time, the fiscal 24 deficit was zero. Over this time period, 24 now, there is no deficit. Fiscal 25, the anticipated deficit was $7.4 million. You can see in the report from Mr. Poehler tonight, it's $4.4 million. So I think all throughout this time period, there has been discipline in terms of keeping to the commitments, reducing that deficit. But I think now we're at a point where fiscal 25 to 4.4, I don't think that's going to get down to zero. And then clearly in fiscal 26, there will be a deficit. So I think that the question for the board and for members of Long Range Planning for the town managers, take a look now between now and when the budget is prepared in January for fiscal 24 where we are. And that's going to dictate both the timing and the amount of a request for a potential override. And just remember, the override, it's preposition 2.5 calls for it. There's a certain level of growth that's allowed from year to year. It's 2.5% of the existing levy growth plus new growth, new construction. And we are limited as a community in terms of how much growth we have from year to year. But I think it's helpful here to have this information out there. We'll continue to work and take a look at numbers. I know the finance committee will be working closely with Mr. Polar on next year's budget. And at some point that the town manager will come back to us and we'll have to decide what the timing is. But this is where we are. And I want to thank him for the work that he's done with his staff updating this plan and keeping us informed. Thank you, Mr. Corsi. And for those who don't know, Mr. Corsi comes to his life board from Fincom and he is also currently the chair of the Long Range Planning Committee. So thank you once again. And Mr. Hurd. I will move receipt.  I do want to thank everyone, both on Long Range Planning, Tom Andrew and his office for all the work that's put into this. And I certainly know there's a lot of thought that goes into how to handle our town's Long Range Planning. And I've had starting to have the discussions with constituents and friends about potential overrides. And I think it's very beneficial for us as a board to go out and start engaging the public and educating people. Because people have had conversations with me and said, hey, you know, what's this one for now? And like, it's not for anything specific. It's so we can continue to pay the people that we have and provide the same level of services and fire and police and schools and just be and try to try to explain to people what new growth is in proposition two and a half, which some people get it, some people don't, but and that's certainly understandable. But this is the reality that we live in unless we want to start allowing skyscrapers. I think that this is going to be a certainly a part of our our day to day life every few years. And people tend to forget that we had a long vacation from overrides because of a few exterior factors that affected the town's budget and allowed us to have, you know, I think 10 years off of an override. So we didn't have the periodic override situation that we have now. But all things considered compared to what we were, as the chair mentioned, compared to the numbers that we saw before, we're certainly in a much better position now. And I don't think anyone on this board is right to make recommendations on size or timing. That's a discussion that will will continue to have. But I just I mean, it is important for people to know that we take these numbers very seriously. And this particularly in the current economic climate, understand that this is no this isn't a small thing for a lot of people in town to increase taxes. And it does put a burden on a lot of residents. And that some that will take into account when we ultimately come up with a recommendation. But we will will continue to have the discussion. And I look forward to the discussion when I look forward to engaging as many people as possible in the discussion to so we can kind of hit the sweet spot and give give the town what it needs without anything less or anything more. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. I have no questions. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. I will try to be as brief as possible. I know there was some talk today on one of the actually two of the different lists Arlington list that myself and others peruse and and people saying they'll you know I went to the town website at the data there is outdated because it says September of 2020. But I think that's just because this document's been you know a working document. And sometimes the most obvious thing kind of gets overlooked. So I know our town manager as he's done in the past with other documents when he was deputy town manager will get and whatever you want to put across the screen of what this spreadsheet is because it does change you know when the governor's numbers come out when some other funding comes out. So I'm not saying you have to put a proposed or working or document or whatever. But I know that's one of the things that you'll definitely take care of. I did not go to the town website to I just had Millie today so I have a chance to get on any of that. The other thing is I just want to since I had the benefit not only of the town manager along with the chair of the select board but the long range planning chairman Mr. DeCorsi here just put some things out and have the committee discuss it if it's something that should fall under a long range planning purview for reporting if it's something that maybe it's a town manager along with whoever our acting financial officer does or if it's something amongst the board. But going forward one of the things I definitely would be interested in and I think this might affect the school side more because as I've gone out as we all have to have these conversations and I've also seen them discussed in social media is and I know I can get this at the yearly audit with powers and cell of them. But since we're talking about the override and what it is in the least cumbersome amount of labor possible if we could start tracking and again I think it'll be more on the school side and we can't ask them to do that. That's up for them to do it. But the opera positions and or projects that were funding. I know one of the guidelines the U.S. Treasury guidelines said you know we strongly recommend not using this money for positions that aren't seasonal. But I do think that and we're going to have to go through this exercise anyway. So maybe maybe once a yearly whether it's long range planning whether it's the town manager and chief financial officer at least for the town side. It doesn't have to just give us here's what opera's funding and if there is something that we really do need to retain whether it's a program or a position. I'd like to have that information up front because I'm getting a lot of that. And again when long range planning meets maybe that's something the school side maybe you could suggest it to them. And I think it's an exercise that both the town and school should go through so that we can get a handle on that because I know with the previous town manager and the current town manager from paying attention to what we've been doing you've been very mindful of opera funding and there is an end date to it. And then the other thing since we also have sort of the aficionado on most things Minuteman I'd like to leave with Mr. DeCorsi and with the town manager and it may happen again during your time I know we had a conversation this year about Minuteman and some funding that the town approved I think it was around maintenance and upgrades and we did have that conversation I was willing to do it as a one time thing but one of the things that I'd like to and this others tell me we shouldn't is that that's not an automatic from now on that if we're in the same situation next year or the year after that am I remembering this? I believe it was field field upgrades yes that was the last that was the last one that's right and it was a pretty decent number and I'm not in you know we're all pro schools and pro everything but that's something and I'm not saying it won't happen again and a future board won't approve it and if I'm fortunate enough to be on it that I wouldn't but just where we need to buckle down on that so if we could just wherever that's appropriate and then I believe you have a meeting on Friday for the long-range planning so definitely we'll be looking forward to what's coming out of that and then the last thing that I'll just put on the table but I don't think we can discuss it and I'll leave it to attorney Heim the minute I if I start string into something I shouldn't be discussing right now I know they're you know they're elections and you can come and vote you can vote by mail and you can vote before election day and you can vote on election day I again I see this maybe affecting the school side but there is one question that if it passes I would be interested to know going forward what that would mean for the town side and those town services and I'm not going to cite exactly what the question is or but or if I'm wrong about that if that question does pass and it's really just an education question then you can tell me that but I'm a little bit putting the card before the horse because people still have to weigh in on how they vote on that and then I think that's all I have thank you mr. chairman thank you and and I'm I guess and I'll second mr. Hurd's motion move to receive thank you I have remembered that we use a second and then forgot so thank you so part of me can I'm thinking I can ask these questions on Friday but then we we do have a limited amount of time eight um so it's just one general question and that is the the rate of increase numbers like we all know that our property need that the the taxes can go up only two and a half percent of our cost means that's the structural deficit but I look at other numbers in here and their rate of increase is is what I consider significantly below the rate of inflation you know and and so so me it just I'm a little concerned me that I mean the the expenses are just lower than they're going to be mean the years out mean so so I don't know if there's if that's worthy of any comment I mean tonight you know or maybe on Friday I mean I'll just toss it over to you mr. puller if you want to say anything about that sure I'll respond to a couple of things that people said if I may we are about to kick off in fact this week we kick off our first budget meetings with department heads they come in and meet with me and with the with the budget director and the comptroller and we go over their previous spending and we look at what they might need for the coming year and we will have some of those conversations about whether their needs are being met with the budgets they have and that will lead to whatever recommendations I make back to town meeting into the finance committee about what those individual departmental budget should be so I am keeping an eye on it don't have an answer yet but certainly we need to make sure that there's a sufficient funds for departments to get their work done I would also just mention a question that's on the ballot and I would say there is this question on the ballot about potentially raising taxes that's kind of a millionaires tax I have yet to see numbers that are specific to Arlington or to any community about how that money would roll out how much of it is going to go toward transportation how much goes to education so I think it's a very good question and I'm very eager to find the answer myself so we'll keep an eye on that and then I guess I just finished up by saying this forecast is iterative we keep going through different cycles we look at the needs of the town departments we look at the needs of the schools we look at the needs of capital and so forth and we just keep tweaking it as we go along so it's not a final document I will fix the date and we'll keep updating it thank you so on a motion to receive by Mr. Hurd and second by Mr. Mohan Mr. Hurd yes Mr. Helmuth yes Mrs. Mohan yes Mr. Diggins yes thank you thank you and we now move on to item number four for approval acceptance of funds from the estate of Noreen T. Casey to the John B John J Bialyfer citizens scholarship fund by Mr. Hyman thank you Mr. Chairman I'll be brief the town is lucky to be the beneficiary of a ten thousand dollar request from the estate of Ms. Noreen T. Casey which is essentially a donation to the town's John J. Bialyfer citizens scholarship fund. Generally speaking we've had a little bit of a mixed practice on this but it's a good idea for the board to vote to accept gifts and bequests to the town consistent with some of the things that Comptroller has sort of been addressing over the last couple years so I'd be essentially just be looking for motion to accept the ten thousand dollar bequest to the John J. Bialyfer citizens scholarship fund from the state of Noreen T. Casey with our gratitude to Ms. Casey for thinking about the town and its students in her will. So moved. So a motion by Mr. Hurd. Second. Second by Mr. Corsi any comments questions. Thank you. Yes I mean a big thank you indeed me so just because we don't have much to say doesn't mean that we don't appreciate it greatly. So a motion by Mr. Hurd and a second by Mr. Corsi Mr. Mr. Hurd. Yes Mr. Corsi. Yes Mr. Helman. Yes. Ms. Mohan. Yes. Mr. Dates. Yes. Thank you. On to item number five the consent agenda minutes of the October 13th meeting. Move approval. Second. So on a motion while any comments questions corrections. I think we're all set. So a motion by Mr. Hurd and a second by Ms. Mohan. Mr. Heim. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Ms. Mohan. Yes. Mr. Dates. Yes. Thank you. So before I go to appointments Mr. Heim will any of these need a motion or a vote. I'm sorry these original appointments are reappointments. The original doesn't say reappointment right. Yes. Then yes I would say that they all need just checking in light of our conversation after the last meeting. So so all right. Thank you. So so the first item number six board of commissioners or the trust funds. Mr. Ryan Ferrara. My understanding is that he's not going to be able to attend tonight. He's one of the town administrators in another town. Yes. Yes. I mean as we saw from at impressive CV so. Move. Second. So any comments questions. Okay. So on a motion to approve the appointment by Ms. Mohan and second by Mr. Hurd. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mrs. Mohan. Yes. Mr. Dates. Yes. Thank you. So number seven. The CDBG subcommittee appointment. Rebecca Pearson. So Ms. Pearson. Hello. How are you doing? I'm well. Thank you. Great. Great fellow town meeting member. Do you want to say a few words about or desire to be on the CDBG committee? Sure. Yeah. I'm Rebecca Pearson. I'm a previously thanked one town meeting member. I've lived in Arlington for over 10 years. I'm a master in public health. My day to day work is very much removed from people. It's in front of a computer. So because of that I have been involved with Arlington Eats for a long time and more recently I've been more interested in more policy level work. And as a town member I followed what has been done through the CDBG the last five or so years closely and I'm really interested in learning more what you know happens before a guest town meeting how the decisions are made in the applications come in. I'm really interested in community health and housing and all those things that the CDBG is about. So I am looking forward to this. Yeah. Well, thank you very much. So I'll turn to my colleagues most approved by Ms. Mohan. Second. Second by Mr. Herd. Any comments, questions? Ms. Mohan. I just want to first say thank you and welcome after our vote. So that's sort of perfunctory and we had the other citizen representative that we appointed at our last meeting and just sort of duplicating hopefully more briefly the remarks that I had for her was that you know CDBG has community development block grant program really has evolved over the years since I first got involved with town government before I mean I don't want to say it was perfunctory but it was something that really kind of just rolled over and there was a report to town meeting. It's evolved from that before it would be one maybe two meetings max and you know projects would be listed and be approved. It's evolved from that in the sense that you'll get the packet with all the projects. You're aware of this from Allington Eats. I don't know if you're aware of it from the CDBG side but we're sort we're giving not sort of we are given sort of a matrix of all the different projects. We're giving a code one through four or one through five and literally every project that comes before us it's probably 14 to 20 different facets of that program that we evaluate and you know and give it a score and those are very important for a starting point of conversation because sometimes we'll get a project that might not score that well because it's not a new project but then as we discuss it it's something that's certainly a benefit to the town and it's proven over the course of time and then the other thing is we have had because of CARES Act funding through the federal government and there may be one other time that this will happen again. We've had to have an additional one or two meetings for that and again we go through that same process but the other thing that I've seen the CDBG subcommittee sort of evolve into is and again you're very well aware of this with your affiliation with Arlington Eats but it's really been advocates not only for the programs we approve but to let people in Arlington mostly residents but there are some business projects that are approved really getting out there and not only educating but really encouraging people and sort of speaking from the right voice that people not only can receive the information but really feel comfortable if it's something that would suit them to apply for it and I know looking over your experience besides your residency in Arlington and where you live in affiliation with Arlington Eats but also your you know day-to-day professional life you're very well aware of and you'll be a great advocate for that so welcome to the committee we'll see you soon I'm sure and thank you so much for committing your time and volunteering to do this thank you mr. chairman welcome anyone else so yes I'll just add that I love the last line in in your your letter where you said that if there is someone you know who has a low up to moderate income and would add diversity to the committee you encouraged us to give them more weight and that I think is just emblematic being of the kind of people on town meeting and so and so you care you care a lot and so we're really happy to have you after the vote and and I'm also interested in in your your place of employment seems pretty interesting so I'll pursue that with you later on so on a motion to approve by is this behind in a second by mr. herd mr. herd yes mr. of course yes mr. helmet yes this is mom yes mr. Deans yes unanimous vote thank you thank you very much welcome board take care to see you and on to item number eight appointment to the saris e dallen board of trustees we have marked the queue and amy moher moyer you'll tell me how to pronounce it please you know so we're first turn to mark the queue not hearing you you're muted I see I'm but he's muted hello yeah here we go oh greetings greetings that pronounced your last name correctly it's dq like the two letters there you go okay dq thanks for joining us mr. mr. the queue you know you like to tell us a few words about yourself and why you like to be on the darling board of trustees well I've been working in museums most of my career in fact I'm calling you tonight from the museum of science in Boston where I'm employed I've really been interested in art and worked at the art museums in Los Angeles for 17 years and have since I moved to Arlington been volunteering with the saris dallen museum where I'm currently docent on the weekends as well as a prospective trustee great thank you and so um any um questions comments from my colleagues second so um I see um it's dq you're still doing work out in LA oh no no that's not occurring okay I thought maybe I've been at the museum for four years now yeah I just saw freelance work so so I was just kind of curious if you still had a connection out there because you know well you might be interested in some work out there myself I mean so anyways you know just kidding uh so on a motion to uh approved by mrs. mohan and second by mr. herd I guess I would just besides our thanks um mr. dq one of the really great things that we have here in Arlington that we sort of lagged behind but we're definitely caught up on lexington used to do a better job and now we're doing as well as which is you know highlighting our museums and our history and the saris dallen museum committee has again like other committees evolved and really been very proactive um in not only speaking for the saris dallen museum but a lot of people didn't know um many of the artworks uh down at the museum as well as the opportunities and when they're speaking engagements and the like so um I really appreciate that a you have um from where you're coming to us tonight your daytime employment as well as um volunteering with the saris dallen committee um not only putting the energy and volunteering your time but also again advocating for these programs and making sure people know about them because you know it really is uh vital to the town and as we sort of uh go from pandemic to endemic and whatever whatever else evolution goes in the future um I really think highlighting Arlington's history is um something we do a really good job but I'd like to get up to a great job um in terms of people who come you know I know there are a lot of people that come into lexington and they sometimes look for where else they can go besides conquered and um that certainly has increased when we can offer Arlington whether the saris dallen the schwan mill the jason rustle house so I'll leave that in your stewardship to handle that end of it and I'm very appreciative of everything that uh you're I'm anticipating you will do and I know things that I have no idea that you will do uh as as a member of this committee thank you so much thank you Ms. Mohan so on uh motion to approve by Ms. Mohan a second by Mr. Hurd Mr. Hurd yes Mr. Dacorsi yes Mr. Helmuth yes this is Mohan yes Mr. Diggins yes it's unanimous vote thank you and welcome aboard Mr. Dacue thank you so much by that backdrop you know so um Ms. Moir did I get that correct yeah can you hear me just fine you know so so I want to tell a few words about yourself and why you would like to be a member of the Dall Museum Board of Trustees sure my name is Amy Moir M-O-Y-E-R I have been living in Arlington for over 15 years I live near Monotomy Rocks with my husband three children a dog two cats and some other animals that our children talked us into getting um I am a former museum professional before I settled into mostly staying home with our children um a mom of three I have two at the high school and one at Otison now um I have a history of a lot of volunteer work at the Bishop's school and once that ended I contacted the Dallin Museum to see if they needed some help and I've been uh like Mark I've been working as a docent on the weekends but also helping with some other um odds and ends for the museum and um that's about it I would be happy to join the board and I also enjoyed hearing about uh Ms. Karpalka's Hummels um that you spoke earlier you've been here from the beginning great so yeah so turn to my colleagues move approval second so um any questions comments yeah I just want to thank Ms. Moir for you for your willingness to serve you certainly have a impressive resume here and um appreciate that your willingness and your volunteerism to date sure happy to so yes I'll echo what Mr. Corsi said I mean I'm looking at your experience in museums I mean it's it's um it's pretty impressive it's very impressive and then looking at your um your leadership positions here in town also um impressive and so uh thank you very much me for for volunteering for this um this role as my colleague Mrs. Mohan has pointed out you know it's very important and it can do um more for the town so on a motion to approve by Mr. Corsi uh second by Mr. Herd Mr. Heim Mr. Herd yes Mr. Corsi yes Mr. Helmut yes this is Mohan yes Mr. Diggins yes unanimous vote thank you thank you take care thank you so on item number nine license and permits for approval common victualer uh and all alcohol beverages license donut Villa Diner 319 Broadway Aaron Bachelari hello Aaron are you there Aaron well you've you've been pulled into our Zoom session I'm gonna sit there you know I mean I mean I mean they're they're in the session but right I just mean that you know maybe not in front of the camera you know well I tell you what you know we'll circle back to this item you know so we see some signs of um activity you know we'll then come back to that item in the agenda so all right um so right now we'll go to open forum okay so except for except in unusual circumstances any matter presented for consideration of the board shall neither be acted upon nor a 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 a request so turn to participants see if we have any hands of okay okay so um we'll give people uh see Aaron Bachelari has the hand yeah okay do you want to circle do you want to do open forum uh no let's let's not do it before now we'll take care Aaron now uh and you know sure we'll be back to open forum folks hang in there thank you I'm gonna check the Q and A see if me Aaron's having some problems I hope I'm not seeing anything there hmm so I saw the hand go up in the hand wasn't up right and it looks like his video is now trying to start all right well just an alternative he says it's just a technical issue all right you know well you know I'll suggest this we can he or she can continue working on it says he has a technical issue it's like okay you know so Colin I was gonna suggest that you but we'll let's maybe let him try to work out that issue you know maybe what you can do is keep him yeah and that way yeah so so if he's hearing us and it's like I mean if you can if you have video if you can turn on your video when you're in without and you solve the technical issues and then maybe unmute your microphone because we were able to see you unmuting your microphone even without you talking then we'll know that you're ready to go alternatively you know I'd say if by nine o'clock you can't work out the technical issues we then maybe try calling in if you need the number we can provide you with the number so okay well if we're ping-ponging back to open forum but I'm not going to read the open forum thinking again in the preface you know so so and the first person I want to promote is Steve Moore okay great Steve Moore yeah I'm seeing the clock up so also more uh yes thank you I I'm sorry I took so long it was complicated uh Steve Moore Piedmont Street I I'd like to uh admonish the chair for not having recognized any of the public regarding testimonials from Marie Karpalka I I wanted to just add my voice to all of yours uh that Marie Marie always put a very uh sort of a warm and personal face on town government and I I myself um first had dealings with her back almost two decades ago and it was so helpful and always could explain the process when I didn't understand so um I just I just wanted to add that I think it was uh Kevin Greeley who event originally coined the term Mayor of Arlington for her and I just wanted to say that I'm sure Kevin is looking down from above smiling so I wanted to say that uh and uh thank Marie for all of her service and secondly I wanted to ask the same question I asked of the last selected meeting which is um do we have any update on the status of uh I think it was uh is it 261 Hillside Avenue the tree removal and I think the question probably could be answered either by by Ms. Maher or perhaps uh Doug Hyne is there been any action that when this is going to be continued to be we're not really supposed to be addressed you know things that are brought up in open forum what I'm going to do is note that you've opened brought this up this question up me and I will take it upon myself me to ask that question me and and either get back to you or ask me the town manager to get back to you on it okay great thank you thank you you're welcome and I I sit admonished yeah also take care bye bye and and so um next I think we have Mr. Wagner okay thank you Mr. Chair can you hear me okay Jeff fine thank you I'm Carl Wagner Edge Hill Road and I'm a town meeting member in precinct 15 thank you for letting me speak at open forum I wanted to just encourage uh the members of the board and the town employees that are there to be very careful with costs at this point I've just heard that the school department is looking at hiring a position between 170 and 190 thousand dollars I've heard that in the DEI diversity equity and inclusion space we may have more than one employee for that process in a town of 40 000 people and I've heard that um the parks and recreation department is looking at spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to take one of our last open spaces that's forested Hills Hill and essentially add a lot of stuff that may not be used for biking motor biking whatever dirt biking we really should be looking at the five million dollar structural deficit that we're coming up to see in the year after the ARPA funds go away and it's very important that the town be run transparently but also in a lean way that allows us to focus spending money on the really important things like the services such as the schools um as needed without throwing money at things and I would ask you please to uh to look carefully over the budget so I know sandy pooler is great in that in that area so I ask you to work with him to make sure we we really have a very trim town budget uh until we get out of this deficit thank you very much thank you miss Wagner so all ready I think we're all set with um what's over for him okay great you know and um oh yeah oh yeah let's let's do please so so um so hi there hi how you doing hi I'm so sorry about that I just recently got new phones for the privacy standards where we're not uh not up to date I apologize no problem I mean things happen totally fine so you want to tell us seeing about um donut villa dinner yeah absolutely so uh so donut villa is um it's a retro brunch restaurant that specializes in donuts um we uh have recently been offering dinner along with the full liquor menu um it is a family business um my parents are involved in the day-to-day operations and especially making the donuts um and my wife is involved in design and marketing and um yeah in the last five years we've been uh our original locations in Malden so in the last five years we've been branching out to um Cambridge and Newton as well and uh yeah we're really excited to be here uh I grew up in Everett uh right next door and um very involved in the community both uh in Malden and Cambridge uh whether it's uh during COVID when we um we participated in some of the COVID programs on the vaccination sites and in Cambridge with some of the homeless shelters so uh really excited to be part of the Arlington hopefully be part of the Arlington community as well well thank you thank you very much and so I'll turn to my colleagues Mr. Hart welcome I'm glad you were able to join us um at a conversation with the Trayheim today about this where I called and asked my question you know often I get excited about many things that we have on the agenda but sometimes you get an application you get really excited about and this one I was actually getting a little nervous when you're having technical issues because I didn't want to have to put this off another couple weeks but my yeah I was I was getting a little nervous too my fingers weren't working too well when uh that wasn't working so that's probably part of it no I hear I hear yeah and my office right now Arlington Center there so in out this is this location that you're moving into is really a prime location for a restaurant restaurant space and ever since we lost the common ground everyone's been asking me on a weekly basis what's going into the common ground and when I first heard the donut concept I was it was a little taken aback because I was thinking just strictly uh morning pastry business but then when we got when I received this package and saw the menu both the uh the cocktail and the food menu it was very excited what I saw and I think it does fill a little bit of a gap in Arlington we have a bunch of great restaurants but many of them are only open for lunch on Friday through Sunday so I think there is a demand for for a nice casual dining area for lunch in Arlington and I think this is I actually sent the menu to some of my friends who are also very excited and so this is the perfect type of food establishment that they've been looking for in Arlington so I think you you will see you'll get a very good response from some from uh residents to to the menu options so I'm excited about this I'm sure we're going to have a discussion about the hours of operation um for the business because I don't have it in front of me but I believe the request was to be open till 1 a.m. seven days a week which we yeah so we don't license businesses restaurants for a liquor past our handbook says midnight which I confirmed with attorney time today I'm sure we'll have thoughts amongst you know and then we'd also have to figure out when you start serving alcohol if you're I assume it's not going to be at 7 a.m. so I'll open that up to the comments from my colleagues but I do want to say that I am I am happy to to see moving to the the space and I think again it will fill a nice gap that we have in Arlington so I'll be excited to I'll be excited to to come in once it's open absolutely thank you for the feedback okay so um any other comments questions concerns is behind welcome I'm glad you're able to join us um and thank you just sort of uh following on Mr. Hurd's comments about um the alcohol part of it and um I don't know if it was in the materials or received and for some reason if I misplace them but um who who will be um when we determine what the hours are for the serving of alcohol who will who will be performing that function what what positions and what experience do they have and are they tip certified or will they be no I understood uh so that that's going to be me uh I'm um heavily involved in day-to-day operations um when we opened um our Cambridge location uh for example which was our first location where we serve liquor um I was the one that that opened um of course uh tip certified I've been in the uh restaurant industry since I was 15 um and um I've you know got no issues in our previous licenses with with the liquor um and then um we we essentially I will be there full time to make sure that that um everything goes smoothly in terms of especially in terms of uh the liquor uh license and the operations so are you saying you're you're the only person and you'll be taking the orders as well as delivering it to the table 24-7 I I just don't see how you how you actually do that where you have the oh okay I I misunderstood I meant I'm the manager on record um of course there's uh servers um that that are will be tip certified all servers that touch uh liquor are tip certified we do have two managers um along um along myself that will you know when I'm not there that they will that will be there and they also um they also have tip certification uh surf safe um all the necessary certification and they have extensive experience in managing restaurants with a full liquor menu okay um if you could uh if you could um submit that information to the select board's office it's usually contained in our packet is it in there and I don't have it they typically don't have to submit to us their tip certification right it's not required right but I think we like yeah yeah it's he has provided tip certification for himself right in the packet right and the only reason I'm concerned about it is um it seems like which is your right to do to um and this goes part and parcel with the with the menu and you know I come from a restaurant family Chateau's which is very different than this but you know but I'm very from and I know how difficult it is in the restaurant business um you know you really got to sweat it out for at least three years before you kind of really see anything so I do appreciate you coming to this space and as Mr. Hurd said you know quite a few few people have asked about that but um if you could I just have concerns around the alcohol as well as um the only times I recall us going beyond the midnight is when you know people come in for like New Year's Eve or some other events a one-time event and um by and large we generally approve those but I I am not uh of the mind to go uh beyond midnight as well as I'd be interested in um when it is in terms of serving of alcohol um similar to when the kitchen shuts down when uh working from whatever your closing time is in terms of serving alcohol when is sort of last call right so uh can I can I just uh put a little more clarification to that as to why I put 1 a.m we are not open every day until 1 a.m it would be more like 11 p.m um in our Cambridge location we have had uh events uh at night time where you know we will be open or we will have people there are serving alcohol until until past the 11 p.m hour so which would be midnight if the town has those rules you know of course uh you know 12 is the cutoff 11 30 will be last call um I am of course you know I'll abide by those rules but um that's the reason I ask for the 1 a.m which is how we have it in the other locations is to make sure that we have those um those that option for the event um but again it you know 12 if 12 a.m it is is the last the last um is what the city of Arlington permits then of course we can uh I'm happy to change that um and uh just to address the the start time for serving liquor uh we do uh we do serve a beam brunch so we we like to have some of the Bloody Mary's and cocktails for brunch um according to the state law you know we don't serve alcohol before 8 a.m on the weekdays or 10 a.m on Sundays so um no no I didn't have question on start I totally get that I know my most is in Bloody Mary's you know I love my Tito's I haven't had a drink in nine or ten months because I haven't been anywhere so I'm more concerned on the other end and um if you could maybe amend your um application in terms of what your hours were operation here in the town of Arlington and you know sort of sense of what a town is versus a city and in the in the other reason I'm concerned is um has nothing to do with you but at the this previous location um we did have a I won't go into too many particulars in terms of whether it was a violation or earn anything like that but very serious accident um with a previous business that was in there um and it evolved around alcohol so um I would not be in terms of putting it into 1 a.m for special events that you need to have well you'd have to come to the board anyway so I'd ask you to sort of amend your hours to what it is um you you'll see your normal you know Monday Sunday through Monday or Monday through Sunday hours and then you know whether it's a new year's eve or some other special event um you can certainly apply to the select board um we do everything we can for businesses um in terms of you know allowing them to uh be able to operate as a restaurant and operate successfully and encourage special events when you have it but um also cognizant of the neighbors you know who live there so I I certainly you know if you if you could amend what it is here in the town of allington your hours of operation would be and anytime you want to extend that you could come before us and again you know I I just stress on the alcohol and and getting some information and having continuity because the times when we've had violations um and unfortunately a couple times when they've been very serious in terms of you know persons bodily injury etc it's when something hasn't been the norm when unfortunately a restaurant has charged maybe only one person and when that person gets called away or you have a family that person has a family emergency or some health issue um that's when something falls between the crack and I will tell you here in the town of allington we are very vigilant in terms of through our board of health in our health and human services director Christine Berngerno um making shores sure not just with restaurants but you know with sales of tobacco in in our stores and others um we do uh play a very active role in that and you know we highlight the successes but we also um when there are violations and we'd like to have none and can continue to continue to do that so um definitely wouldn't be in favor of 1 a.m. seven days a week it sounds like maybe that's not what you're asking for so maybe if you could amend that and um if it's if if it's the midnight sort of past practice has been the alcohol I'm not talking about in the morning but uh on the other end of it it's usually 30 minutes before um it's sort of the last call but um we'll see where right thank you thank you mr chair thank you very much so I'll second mr herd motion what I didn't we didn't I didn't make the motion because I I know we're gonna have the discussion right but I just wanted to make clear I think we can as a board amend the hours ourselves so I'll submit a motion to approve the application with the change that the hours of operation in the request will be 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. 12 a.m. yeah to avoid have the petition having to come back at another meeting mr chair yes please clarify mr herd are you proposing for the alcohol hours to be the same hours yes okay and can I just clarify one thing for the applicant sure so uh sir just so you know with respect to outdoor service that's a separate process that you'd have to follow and the board has separate default rules for alcohol if it's served outside just for a future reference understood and just I guess to further clarify the hours of operation the petitioner as he mentioned town laws are preempted by state laws so if it's he has an hour of operation for 7 a.m. but can't serve until 10 a.m. then he has the petitioner has to abide by that as well correct anyone else did you second mr. Hurd's okay yeah I agree to I was just going to say for your benefit to we we had a license that we granted which probably a little bit more than a year ago and there's the Heights pub where we limited the hours actually I think we limited to 11 o'clock for part of the week so I can go along with mr. Hurd's motion here but I am mindful of you know there are there is a neighborhood nearby your restaurant there and I think that's something that we want to keep an eye on just on the hours just to see if there's any any issues there and you know that most of the restaurants and bars in town do close at 11 I totally understand the midnight especially on the Friday and Saturday nights but that's something that we will at least consider hearing back from your neighbors in terms of what they what the impact is is there just a different type set up I know in Cambridge one o'clock is is might be routine for a lot of restaurants but not not here and it's something that we want to keep an eye on the other thing I just have a question might be a question for attorney but on the application there's reference to the patio out in front is that the patio which is in Broadway Plaza is that subject to a different approval I mean you mentioned it for the service of alcohol but is that a separate approval that's required every year for outdoor seating as well yes outdoor seating okay so so just so you're aware I mean we can approve the license here obviously it's it's something that we would encourage in the in the warm months to have outdoor seating but it's not necessarily part of this approval it's a different application that you might have to submit every year sorry that it's traditional work that way but that's consistent with other restaurants in town right exactly and that's why I didn't submit their application just because it's it is maybe wintertime and I knew I would have to come in for for the springtime for next year application for the for the patio but thank you very much for for all the information sure I'm looking just to make sure that Mr. Helmuth isn't beckoning to say anything seems like he's all set you know okay he's not inside it's all set you know so yeah I mean I'll just go back to the very beginning with um what Mr. Hurd said I mean you see some menus and you just get really excited you know it's like you should just it's like certainly not your your your father's armory propellates donut shop you know it's like wow like really wow I'm not I mean for me I mean I just can't handle alcohol I'm not against alcohol at all I can't but I love the names of the drinks and I would say to my colleagues it's like um no painkillers before it's like we're meetings okay but hey you know more power to you and my colleagues have me I have nothing to add to my colleagues said about restrictions and things like that you know and so um yeah I wish you all the success me and and I'll just add respect to to um sounds of the neighborhood you don't have to serve alcohol for that of you yeah I live very close to scooping scootery you know and especially the summertime but you know this is something about people having fun you know that it just I love it you know and and so it's usually a lot of kids mean and they're just having a good time in and and so so I will keep things under control I'm sure me then and if neighbors complain just invite a man to the fun you know so on a motion to approve by Mr. Hearn and second by you have that look Mr. Heim do you all right all right second by by Mrs. Mahan as amended as amended you know so thank you you know so I appreciate that so any look of excitement is just excitement for brunch all day from New Jersey so it's kind of a thing the drunken our executive chef is from New Jersey so we have we have we have Taylor Ham that's a northern Jersey thing but I still love it Mr. Heard yes Mr. DeCorsi yes Mr. Helman yes Mrs. Mahan yes Mr. DeCorsi yes Jeanette Misfold welcome aboard thank you all right thank you thank you so much everyone thank you welcome so we are now on to the traffic rules and order section of the agenda starting on item 10 the community equity audit the interim report by Yasmine Gordon on the project director and I respond Jill Gil you know so hopefully I pronounced the names correctly um so I actually see Ms. Harvey here so so I think you're going to be like the emcee for this part of the program so I'm going to turn it over to you first okay yes thanks bud and I was gonna say that um so Jill Harvey diversity equity inclusion division director um I am really excited to have Yasmine and Iris here to share um an update on the community equity audit that's the subboard um supported last winter so the audit has been moving we've brought on opportunity consulting in June around the end of May June so the the audit process moving right along I'm wondering if we could have access to share screen just because we have a couple of slides just to review with you and then we'll open it up for a few questions from the slide board but I will pass it over to our guests wonderful thank you can everyone hear me yes very wonderful good evening good evening members of the slide board and members of the public are watching virtually we certainly want to thank you for the opportunity to present to you this evening um on this community equity audit that the town has commissioned and we've been um so pleased and um to be able to work with Jillian and her team um and also with with community stakeholders and so happy to be here this evening um we're going to walk you through a few slides uh is the slides up I'm going to go ahead and share screen now if I have that permission hold on which one of us did you make a co-host yeah okay wonderful thank you all right I will continue on and we'll bring up those slides um so my name is Iris von Gill and I'm CEO at opportunity consulting prior to starting uh opportunity consulting I um spent about a dozen years in education policy in urban education and education equity at the national and state levels um opportunity opportunity consulting is based in Washington DC and we focus on advancing equity and improvement in public policy and um and outcomes uh we in our work partner with mission driven organizations uh school systems municipalities workforce development organizations and other public agencies to really help them align equity focused intentions with actions and outcomes and so that's really where our focus lies we offer we believe a really new and unique approach to traditional consulting which is uh both really basing it in the data and the research but also it's a community driven design process that centers the voices and perspectives of those who are most marginalized in our systems and institutions um and we do that because we believe that is where the solutions also lie when we're listening to those who are most impacted um so I'm joined tonight by my colleague Yasemin Gordon who also works at opportunity consulting and she is the director of this project uh of this community equity audit here in uh the town of Arlington um she's also a fellow new englander she is from and currently still resides in Vermont uh where prior to joining opportunity consulting she served as the equity director in um in one of the most diverse cities in the state or the most diverse city in the state so I'm going to share a little bit of background on the project and then turn this over to Yasemin so she can give you all an update on where we are now and where we're going through the end of the project uh but as you all know the town of Arlington commissioned this equity audit to better understand the inequities that exist in the town with regard to three areas civic engagement uh the town workforce and housing and um specifically what potential policies may be contributing to those gaps or or at least maintaining them and so we believe in our our process is really rooted in this notion that every system is perfectly designed to get the results that it gets and therefore our approach is to start with understanding the outcomes um that are being produced and then examining the practices and the policies within the system to see where changes could yield uh targeted improvements and provide more equitable outcomes um so in each of these three areas are overarching questions are listed here on the slides and they're really around what if any barriers exist to equity in those in these three areas um so that's in civic engagement which includes voting elected office and positions and engagement in public meetings um it's also uh what barriers exist in diversity and inclusion in the town workforce and um what is impacting housing equity and access to affordable housing in the town um so you can see these are three really critical areas that impact all residents of the town and we've spent a significant amount of time we're looking at a lot of your data and also preparing for upcoming stakeholder engagement and so um we're looking forward to telling you a little bit more about that and and diving into those details and so I'll turn it over to Yasmin after that we'll answer some questions thank you Iris so you know we have gotten to this point today we're speaking with you all tonight kind of in an interim um a little bit more than halfway point throughout the project and just wanted to give you a little bit of an overview of the timeline of kind of what we've been up to so far um you know really we started engaging with Jillian and her team in April of this past year um really looking at collaborating around the guiding questions really thinking about the scope of the project um going into the summer we started to begin our quantitative data collection and so that meant the town sharing um you know publicly available data with us we did some research as well into some of that publicly available data just to determine what some of the current outcomes are what the landscape currently you know what are the demographics of the town workforce what are they you know what are the current demographics of you know voters and folks who are coming to the polls in the town of Arlington especially considering the upcoming election in November um we also came for a community visit in August um some of you that are in that room I believe I've met um either in that room or on the other screen when I came down to the town um really you know began to immerse ourselves in the community and learn um by being boots on the ground um really you know we're walking around the city with Jillian and her team um attending some of the public events that you had and speaking with um town leadership um at that time to try and once again gain kind of a big picture of what is the town of Arlington what do people experience when they're walking around on the streets I also spent some solo time solo time um in the town of Arlington you know getting to know people shaking hands talking to um talking to residents randomly trying to get their you know their their stake on on what they were experiencing in the town so that was the beginning of what we call our stakeholder engagement process which really is the key to the entire project so now we are in you know October and November and we are in the thick of the stakeholder engagement process and I'll go a little bit more in detail on the next slide with that um upcoming in the month of December we're hoping to hold workshops between the lead stakeholder group that we have convened and the town leadership team around some of the draft findings that we are beginning to um that we're beginning to design and and and and cultivate while we're going through this process you know we are starting to see an idea of what could be shaping up this findings because of all the engagement that we're working in and because of the data that we have collected already and so we'd like to present that to you and we'd like to really talk to you about that and you know do what we um call a root cause analysis to really dive deep into what your ideas around some of the main causes um in our policy in your policy and practice are um for you know possibly contributing towards some of the inequality that we're seeing and then finally in January um we will come and either you know we'll decide on how we want this to look but we will present a final report and recommendations um to to the town vote and um hopefully to people who have been engaged with us in the process we really want to invite all of the people who are lending their voice and experience um to this project to the table to see the results of their hard work um in partnership with us as well and then finally um where we are now like I said previously is that we are in the thick of the stakeholder engagement we are actively working with people who live in the town of Arlington we are actively seeking um and planning for the focus groups that we will be holding um in person um in mid November we will be coming to the town of Arlington as well these groups are close groups that are really targeted towards the groups that our data has shown us are the most underrepresented in the town of Arlington so really um you know we are working with um a community stakeholder group we call it the lead team um that I have with in partnership with Jillian and some other um nonprofit organizations that are operating in Arlington we've developed a really wonderfully diverse team of stakeholders who have connections to the very um groups and demographics of people that we are hoping to look for and with their skill in planning we are working to um invite people into the table to lend us their experience um and really what that is um you know what's really important about that is that we are engaging with folks who might not have a relationship with us and so we want to make sure that those connections that we're making on the lead stakeholder team are really the folks who are leading this charge in asking people to come to the table um we are also examining some of the external factors um within the town of Arlington so that's really finalizing that quantitative data piece really looking into and diving deep into the research around some of the outcomes that we've discovered now we're starting to trace them back by looking at some of your policy um that exists in some of your practices that are in existence so that when we do obtain like the qualitative data and some of the findings from the focus groups we want to know if what people are saying are matching what the intentions of through your policy and practice and if they're not then we want to figure out why um and we definitely believe that the key to that is within the stakeholder groups so we'd love to um open it up I believe that you all have received a copy of the interim report which goes into a little bit more detail um than what was in the slides earlier and we'd love to just you know open it up for discussion and answer any questions that you might have about the project and what's to come thank you very much and I do want to express my appreciation for um you trimming down the presentation I know that he had uh wanted 20 minutes in and and um what I'm trying to do as chair um is try to keep the presentations to like seven to ten minutes because I know that my colleagues read everything mean and so say I want to save the time mean for for um for q and a mean and and and have that q and a while we're fresh means so um with that mean I'll turn to my colleagues for any questions comments concerns um this behind um the the first question I have is I you know I understand that your meeting with um identified groups here in town um as well as residents um um I just want to since it is discussion I'd like to put something out um in it may not be applicable for the work through opportunity consulting and I know I've spoke about this briefly at a couple of the meetings but maybe with um Miss Harvey um in our DEI office but um I haven't since the pandemic but before then uh coach at at Arlington High School and I guess one of my questions would be um I understand it's residents and you're also looking at housing in Arlington but um one of the leadership groups or uh whatever other word groups uh have anything to do with the METCO program and and the reason I say that is being a coach at the high school um I understand our METCO students are not residents of the town but they're in in terms of our schools and um education and in the environment therein with children who do live in Arlington um there there's a lot of um having coached these students in METCO I've seen that that there's a lot of work that needs to be done in terms of everybody understanding each other um and not just based around sports they also um are involved in the community for community service projects and and other groups and other after-school activities and curriculum and I know I've done a very small part in my world as a coach where doesn't he doesn't even scratch the surface to really um educate uh not just the high school the students the team but also residents in the town in terms of not just what the METCO student program is but what the students are and um I don't think a lot of them really appreciate um it's a everybody has a sacrifice has some sort of sacrifice in order to get by in life and move along but um I know they're not residents but I always felt like there could be more work and outreach um to our METCO program um because you know maybe we'll consider the educational residents or something like that so I'm wondering if there's a connection to that and then also um when I was growing up in Arlington um I did live down monotomy manner did not know it was called monotomy manner um there weren't the amount of programs back then available as they are now but I still sort of see the same pervasive um I shouldn't say pervasive I still see sort of the same uh environment from when from whence I came sometimes when you're in that kind of housing um you sometimes feel like you're already getting maybe enough help and um you need to get comfortable to the point to say that not only learn about more help that's out there but that um you can take that step to go for it I mean the conversation needs to you know come from a place that you know you're hearing what you need to hear to say okay you know this is legit sort of a thing um I know I'm rambling a little bit but I'm trying to sanitize it in terms of we're here at a public meeting um versus so those would be and I know it's it's kind of if if this is outside of um either one of the questions the METCO or the um affordable housing whether it's monotomy manner or um senior residents or others if it's outside of opportunity consulting tell me that if it's something you sort of can touch based on let me know that and then um and or Miss Harvey if if you know I'm I'm taking advantage of opportunity consultants and I shouldn't be and you want to give me a brief answer some other way so those are my two areas thank you yeah no thank you so much for that question it's a really good question um we actually are um engaging with representative from both of those communities that you um spoke to we have representatives from both of those communities that are involved in the lead stakeholder team um and we also are seeking to conduct an entire focus group that is particularly for you um we actually we know that the school district is conducting their own equity audit and I believe that's either finished or finishing up um this fall and so we'll certainly be looking into that to see if there's anything that can complement you know the areas that we're looking into as well but we absolutely would like to get um the perspective of some of the youth and students who are involved um in those programs and also in other programs at large within the school district in the town of Arlington and so one of our targeted focus groups that we will be conducting in November is a youth focus group Jill did you have anything to add yeah I just wanted to add to that too um so the macro director was invited to be a part of the stakeholder group um and some of the students but just with the timing I mean they're in school so it didn't really work out um but definitely like yeah said the focus groups are going to be where we're really encouraging folks um who we are you know we know we're not hearing their voices um we're using that space to have really for that um and I know the location of the focus groups as well is more so tailored to meeting people where they're at not necessarily expecting them to come to us um so I think I'm hoping we'll have a good turnout for that yes we're currently in the recruitment phase and we've already had some folks start to sign up um and so I think that they have the groups are going to be quite robust it's I think it's going to be a really good turnout we have a great group of folks from like I said from representatives from many many different groups um that are helping us in that recruitment process and it's very much you know um a handoff of you know we are inviting you to the table instead of holding them in an open way where we just say here's the time and location please show up you know we're really getting people engaged and making a commitment to come and sign up you know offering compensation offering multiple locations in different times um and during the dates that we're going to be there so you know I'm hoping that folks will be able to um to engage for sure but yes we do have those two groups represented do you want me to move her seat yes okay move her seat all right thank you um thank you Mr. Chairman welcome I'm looking around and I'm looking oh Mr. Thomas has his hand up you know thank you Mr. Chair I raised both both my virtual and my real hand I thought one of them might work um thank you for this um I had the pleasure of being involved in a couple meetings of the stakeholder group um and I'm excited to see how the focus groups that you've been working on go I think I have a question for Ms. Harvey actually and you know I'm not going to ask you to tell us what you've learned so far because that is never a fair question and you're still collecting data but I wonder if you could give us a preview of Ms. Harvey what you hope the scope of the recommendations coming from this report could be what kinds of things can we look forward to learning about Arlington about barriers and about solutions yeah thanks arc um well the first part of your question a little bit um what have I learned uh I learned that we're not great at collecting data um so that's a big um recommendation I would see is that we need to set up some other systems for how we do collect data what types of questions we are asking because a big chunk of I think the first couple weeks working with you all I was creating surveys to send out because we just didn't have information about folks who are um representing us you know I think I sent a I sent a survey out to folks who are town meeting members who are boards and commission members because we don't have any demographic data I have your name in your address that's not helpful um it's helpful in some ways but it's not giving us the information that we are really trying to look at so step one is kind of looking at what we have in place and seeing how we can add in different measures to start to collect some of that info so that we can start to track some of the changes um over time but in terms of the scope of the recommendations that will be coming out I mean I'm really interested in looking at how um well really the three topic areas we have you know the civic participation the workforce and housing I think I don't know how often housing comes up every day in my conversations with people um so seeing kind of what's going to come out of this audit in different recommendations on how we can start to work together with what we do have in town um and see what some of those barriers really are because I feel like the senses were pro housing and this and that but there's clearly still an issue so what's actually um causing that that's what I'm curious because I think we at least for myself I can tell that we have certain areas but we know there's a problem but we don't know what is at the rate um and so that's what I'm really hoping will come out of the audit if some of those root causes that we can then start to tackle and look at and for me um helping lead I'd say how how we go co-create some of the solutions I would say I'm not absolutely expecting opportunity consultant to hand us a cookie cutter you know solution that's not to me that's not realistic and it's not real I think we as town leaders also have to do a good chunk of that work you know taking what they've done and found out for us and helping us figure out the next steps that's absolutely correct Jillian um it you know one of the things that I love about doing this work the way that we do is we really focus on what we feel like is possible for towns to be able to implement um you know very you know almost immediately afterwards you know we're not we're not looking at providing you with recommendations that are going to come 10 years down the line you know we we know and understand that folks are looking for something that can impact their daily lives almost immediately and so that's part of the reason why there's a partnership involved in this work right like we're talking with Jillian and her team and other stakeholders as you know Eric in the meeting and really talking about what what is feasible what we what you all feel like is doable for the town of Arlington and the recommendations will be based on a balance of what that is and what the community is telling you their needs are um and that you know that is really what we are going to highlight in the report and then balance that back with what you all feel like is doable and also having those recommendations based on national research in other places who are implementing strategies that are working um in towns that could be you know that could be um reflective of of the town of Arlington or could be similar to the town of Arlington and so it really is you know very much focused on a partnership in that way because we don't want to give you you know a report that's going to sit on a shelf and collect dust for the next 15 years thank you thank you i'm i'm glad i asked i'm reminded again of how lucky we are um miss harvey to have you and your team helping us to challenge ourselves to ask the tough questions um and to think systematically think systemically you know we spend a lot of time talking about diversity equity inclusion and i think that's one of the things i love about the town but i think that you have encouraged us to look to go beyond scratching the surface for things that are that are reactive and immediate and symbolic and to look at what's really driving inequality so i'm really wanted my appetite for what's what's to come and something i would encourage both you and your team with with the opportunity consulting is to don't shy away from from challenge for us i hear you miss gordon what you're saying about practicality and that is important because you want to suggest things that we can get done but i i hope there are some stretch goals in there too some things um that that just confront us with with facts and and things that maybe are a little less comfortable that's what we need i think that's what i'm hoping to get out of this as well as as a visible print and roadmap so i'm i appreciate your efforts very much i look forward to us to come thank you mr chair and you're welcome mr helmess you know mr herd thank you for the presentation um the town in the past however many years has really put de i efforts to the forefront and something that this board in the town manager's office in our many many residents who participate in the process have talked about it and a lot of us have been looking forward to this this equity audit under the wonderful guidance of our de i director jill harvey who i think is one of the busiest employees in our town and really indispensable at this point so just so you know that jill you're not going anywhere um so but um i think one thing i was struck by that you said tonight which i think we all know but it's something it's good to say it out loud is that you work back from a result and then you look at the the process of how you get to that result and all anyone that participates in town government knows that we have an under representation problem and we know we know that the results of this equity audit are are going to show areas where we have to work on to increase equity and diversity and so we do look for the reason we were so emphatic about moving forward with the equity audit was so we can identify what those areas are and help work towards the immediate results and like mr helman said the long-term results of really chipping away at that under representation problem um and so again i just want to thank you for the efforts and i my only question i think would be is there anything we can do to help in your efforts to gather all the information that you need um i think you certainly know how to reach us and certainly while we're in very capable hands would love to help out and be boots on the ground in order to try to get all the information and make sure that this process is as robust as it needs to be in order to get the results and what we really hope to out of the out of the equity audit so thank you i just leave that out there thank you sir mr horsey yeah thank you mr chairman and now you want to thank you all for the the presentation this evening and and just to elaborate a little bit on mr herds comments and i note on your your timeline you're going to have the focus groups starting next month and then there are workshops that will take place with town leadership and i think that's where in terms of this partnership that uh we're talking about in order for you to be able to do your job we're going to have to do our job to to participate in in work with you and i and i um to make the the report as meaningful and and um important as as possible so i i i stress that that if you're running into a situation and maybe we're working through miss harvey where you're not getting the feedback or or this is limiting what you can be done we'd like to to hear about that because i look at this as you have a january 23 timeline for the final report but if you're not getting the assistance that the january date isn't it's going to come and go and you're not going to be able to produce the product that that that you'd like and what we need so i i think we really want to continue that partnership and hear from you and we will reach out to in terms of um participating and in hitting some of the milestones and drilling down just as you have in the report this evening so i guess that's a commitment that we may need to make to you just as you want to make a commitment to to get the report done and i do want to just add one thing this is loosely connected to the interim report tonight but we had a comment earlier this evening about that being multiple members in the di department there's three members now and then that that has been a demonstrated need for the community miss harvey came here a few years ago she was working alone and and doing a da work on top of the di work and that's been expanded but that that is an important function in the town it's been well supported and i see that as something that will continue to be supported so um can't comment during open forum i want to make that comment now during during the presentation this evening thank you thank you mr. coursey yeah that january 23 um timeline that's aggressive good luck i mean i mean we'll do what we can on that but um you got a lot um accomplished then especially with um thanksgiving and christmas in there you know so you mentioned that um there was a report i mean we got a slide deck i didn't get a report so there's there's more than a slide deck yes we sent interim report i believe last week i believe it was sent um out to select board you got a slide deck me so we got a slide deck meaning they had like four slides in it but if there's like a a beefy a report i'd love to see that you know so there is jill do you know what the status is of that i think i sent the right thing i have to double check okay excuse me mr. yeah it's in pdf form that was the interim report that's that's attached to our agenda so what i see online is just like four slides you know so it's a it's a short interim report so maybe all right all right that's fine all right so that that's what i got you know so so yeah all right i thought okay fine you know so i thought it's good yes it's basically just you know a status update you know where what we've done so far where we are now what's to come next in a little bit more detail than what was on the actual slides um from this presentation tonight it goes and it just gives a little bit more in-depthly um in-depth overview of what it is that we've been up to um and gives a little a little blurb of a little bit more about the the workshops that are coming up um yeah we'll absolutely you know continue to be continue to be updated when the time comes to start scheduling those workshops folks will definitely get more information around what it is it will be doing for them what the expectation for engagement is especially for town officials and um and town leadership team members um but we want to make sure that you're a part of that process when we're building those workshops to make sure that they are going to be um well attended gotcha gotcha so um so and when i read through it i didn't see a mention of um reviewing i mean the connect arlington plan or the net zero action plans and though they may not be the obvious things to check mean or or they may not come to mind i mean i know like the the housing production action plan you know the i'm blanking out exactly on what it's called but i mean that one's obvious me but but i think me it would maybe good to kind of take a look at me what we're trying to do in the transportation of sphere mean and also in the the energy sphere mean and see what gaps may be there because it would be good to make sure that we do include me as many parts of people in the community in those plans because it's easy for people to get left out mean and they may be the people who could most benefit um from um good transportation and and and good um energy usage so i'll ask you to take a look at those mean and and um and also think about the um the use equity you know because i know that we tend to look at equity more through uh race and ethnicity lens mean um and sometimes we think about the different age ranges mean but also just try to include youth as a group mean and see mean what gaps there may be in in how the town mean is is um reaching out to to youth and finally along those the lines of what mr herd had asked me you know just let us know what we can do me you know me i was if we have some input now it's like what you would like to hear from us now you know you can let us know you know and and by now i mean like in the next week or so of me you could just i mean send an email me through our board administrator and and we can feedback some more if um we didn't say give you the kind of feedback that you want tonight you know so so i got the motion um from mrs mahan did i get this second you know so second all right so second from mr herd you know so um um so our motion is behind the second mr herd you know on receipt of the interim report mr hind mr herd yes mr coursey yes mr helman yes this is mahan yes mr diggins yes stand in this vote thank you thank you very much thank you for January absolutely thank you you're welcome so we're now on to item 11 update and recommendations from the transportation advisory commission we have four reports here and oh i have just lost my session you know my connection you know oh come back um so we have four reports here um from from um tack and and we also have jeff i'm asked to this uh here maybe from tack to um answer any questions that um we have so so um we'll turn to the first report i'm sorry i just need to like get my screen up here you know so the first one to take a look at is the overlook um vehicle speed recommendation you know so the essentially the recommendation is that we essentially no action on this you know and so um i think we should just go through these individually they may not require um any kind of a vote me for this one i would just recommend that um the the board administrator may let the person that asked about this know and this is clearly inserted into the record you know and um i'll also ask boarded men to pull in jeff next to this into panelists you know and while we're bringing them in i'll ask my colleagues if you have any questions or concerns i'll just back to this thanks for joining us good evening line thank you you're welcome so is there anything else you want to add to to um my assessment of that first report um the only thing i'll mention is that you know if required we'd suggest you know erlington police department do some periodic enforcement as needed of speeds okay all right well thank you you know so so we'll move to the second um report and and that is regarding um orange in high school and and essentially because there's some work underway mean to um some do not block intersection markings mean and uh there is a plan to um put in a semi-perner or a barrier mean a recommendation to put that in in the parking lane on mass app upstream of the signalized crosswalk um and to the length of the pedestrian clearance interval at mass app at the mass app pedestrian signal so it is mutcd compliant and um add the plan by parking to the southeast corner of the property as soon as possible so um is there anything else anything you want to elaborate on that with miss matured jeff um the only thing i'll say is yeah the questions came through town manager's office from the construction manager um skanska on the you know the the signal we understand the signals being purchased and it will be installed but the do not block the box is really just a short term um measure and um the other measure for the it's really the safety issue at the at the existing crosswalk on mass app and the bicycle lines so to eliminate that conflict between vehicles bicycles and pedestrians and so any questions i just have a quick question and i don't necessarily need the answer tonight um if the town manager wants to get back to me and check with the assistant town manager but i know on the um bike parking scooter parking e-bike parking all that um the way we left it at the last meeting was that um the town manager and mr finney had identified um some sort of a temporary fix of some bike racks down at the yard uh that they would install if the uh if consigli and or it's subcontract subcontractors approved and i'm just wondering i understand that's a temporary fix and there's going to be something further um and if they said no then we can't put them in so i don't know if mr pooler the town manager knows tonight whatever became of that if that temporary fix is going to be used or if you want to get back to us on that uh thank you i'd be happy to get back to you on that i'll have to check with the deputy town manager to see how he's progressed with that and the only reason i ask this is i'm not trying to put my toe in the school side school committee side of the pond but just where we um had received some concerns about it where the town manager and the assistant town manager identified the temporary solution but we did need permission so if we could and if for some reason they may come back and say the the consigli and or subcontractors didn't approve of that temporary fix but this was their answer to it which is fine and it's not something that we have to that we can approve or disapprove it's just enough why so that's it thank you thank you anything else anyone and that can just be an email to us if that's okay i'm not asking for an agenda item or anything thank you mr yeah thank you i very much appreciate your follow-up now mr helmeth thank you mr chair um so are we do do you or does the town manager need a vote from us tonight for implementing these recommendations on this particular memo well so i'll turn to mr heim for for the final word on this me my my inclination is to have one vote to move receipt on them and um as a well mr yeah mr i guess that question really might might be for the town manager and that that is the time of position to move forward do they want us to do that you know i think um i guess what i'm getting at is intent rather than than procedure right now um you know is this is this a request for action or is this just information for us right i mean i see it as a request for action and and and so one of my request was going to be after we voted and depending on how we voted uh let's assume we vote to accept them in that we want to follow through on the intent is to get the a sense from the time town manager as to when the plans would be implemented you know and he wouldn't have to give that to us tonight because he's just looking at tonight but that hopefully soon within a meeting or two we'd have some sense of of when we could expect a momentation is that answer it does thank you thank you for that clarification um so just while i'm speaking i just with respect to all four of these memos i want to express my gratitude to the members of the transportation advisory committee for the considerable work that went into this i think it was a really helpful window uh to help us in the public understand just what you bring to your service and i know it's voluntary volunteer service the level of rigor in the data collection and analysis is really pretty spectacular and i you know it's it's something that i don't want to pass unnoticed because i'm very grateful for the real benefit that that your services to this board um into the town is represented in the quality and of thought and and work and all and all four of these memos so thank you thank you mr helmeth and and so the next memo um regards the parking spot um before the crosswalk at town hall and so essentially the recommendation is to eliminate it and uh and and make it such that um people can't park in it so um questions comments concerns from my colleagues mr heard i would say just looking at the overhead it just this seems like a no-brainer to me um i think the standard is that you know it's supposed to park within 20 feet of a crosswalk and that's about 20 inches so i think that makes sense i guess for attorney heim just for clarity for is particularly with this particular one where we're taking specific action would it be preferable to have an individual motion as opposed to accept the recommendations in total for an item such as this please mr i think it depends a little bit on talking about changing the pattern or the number of parking spots or you're talking about just asking the town manager look at the allocation of resources so it depends a little bit on exactly what it is you want to do with these recommendations if you're sort of doing anything that would fundamentally alter parking spots whereas if you're just sort of correcting specific things where you might need to hear from the town manager about repainting certain lines just like that i don't know that necessarily needs a motion it's just uh if you're again i think it's it's anything that would be altering the traffic pattern or the number and placement of parking spots as opposed to just sort of correcting things i think you should get some kind of vote of the board but if you're again just kind of talking about we want to refer this to the manager manager's going to talk to the director of public works about what's feasible and what's not feasible um you know or things that can be sort of administratively corrected i don't necessarily need an individualized motion does that make sense yeah and i guess for for this particular one where you have a few businesses here and you're taking one of those spots where it might be helpful to the manager if they get a business owner who says hey where's my spot there to say the select board took a vote to eliminate that one spot can i just make sure the town manager is right arm of the input that he needs before you take any any action with respect to hearing from dpw or anybody else from his perspective yes thank you so um back on the high school one uh in that regard i will need to talk to dpw about like some of the markings of the new do not block on this particular one on the parking space on the next to the crosswalk if the board were to vote to take that away i think we could just move ahead and take it away so depending on the situation it depends on what i need to ask but thank you yeah i mean i think we can move receipt of these items but particularly in this one i'd be happy to submit a motion to fall tax recommendation to remove the one-circle parking spot next to the crosswalk across the mass av second fine so i i agree what you are recommending that we do and that essentially going to be two votes right you know would it possibly be three if we vote to add a crosswalk is that something that needs to separate mr chairs that's something into separate voter for those under the except on the next agenda item on the next agenda yeah so so so yeah it could be potentially so so yeah because yeah and the reason i was thinking that we just do the except because had we just put these all under correspondence received it would have just been one when voted in would like pull them out probably had another meeting but we're trying to explain things so we're just going to have multiple votes now and and so so it's just so i don't lose track we have a motion by mr herd and a second by mr behind on the removal of the parking space you know and then we'll determine how many more votes we'll do so let me just write that down all right so the fourth one is the summer street um so it's putting in a crosswalk on on summer street so mr back suit is want to elaborate on this sorry is the motion pending for a vote where you're going to do all the votes at the end i was going to do all the votes at the end me but do you feel that makes better sense to do it now on on number two and i'm sorry i defer i defer to the chair in terms of how you want to run the meeting i just wanted to make sure i was straight on what we were doing so i apologize to me interrupt i just defer to however you want to run it no it's all it's confusing we haven't done it like this i mean i i get that mean and part of me just kind of wants to just do the voting get it done so i have to remember it i've written it down you know but but i had said you know that that we would determine how many votes we're going to do um and so so um so yeah you know thanks you know so um so on the um the fourth recommendation regarding the crosswalk in on summer street let me see um yes this back soon as you want to elaborate on this a little more uh sure yeah so um rick um letter came in to uh select board and from some residents and the issue was you know a lot of uh parents and children crossed to pierce on on summer street the request came in to newland road um newland roads it's too close to the the signal it's under 200 feet of the similar pierce extent park have extension so actually a better location we came up with was sunset road and that actually had the highest demand for pedestrian crossings it's got adequate sight distance in both in both directions and it got endorsement from many of the neighbors and the school itself so our recommendation is for a new a new crosswalk on the west side of sunset road at summer street move to install a crosswalk on the west side of summer street as just described second any comments questions from yeah and i don't know if we need to add there's also a recommendation to install crosswalk signs and in warning sign is that something that that should be included as part of the motion as well or is it just the crosswalk that we vote on it's just showing a new signal i think we might as well wrap it into the motion if there's a friendly amendment to it okay so amended thank you and i also want to thank mr. max do this for all his work um and for these reports um and all the members attack but just one question if i might go mr. chairman um i know there's a reference here to the the arrival and dismissal audit the safe route to school audit that the pier school is doing and this recommendation was endorsed um it is part of that audit but is that something that goes back to attack to the the safe routes to school any potential changes on newland road or blossom street for for any um directional one-way type issues during the day is that totally separate from anything that would come before attack um it's related it's not it's it's it'd be separate um yeah there is a safe routes to school liaison who was you know reached out to for this uh judy crocker who also supported this but as far as any one ways or changes that that that would have to be separate okay thank you i'll just i'll just mention also that whenever we put a new crosswalk in it's got to be ADA compliant so the pedestrian ramps are course included with that thank you mr. chef back to this you know so any other questions comments well i i do have one you know i mean this maybe is directed to mr. hind you know so at the bottom and maybe even you jeff me it says the town should consider the following adding a traffic supervisor to assist in crossing summer street at sunset street so he he says should consider me it um um i think i had tapped out of the meeting at the time the vote was taken on this so i'm not recalling whether this was something that we are really recommending you know be done because that's a whole other element to this um it's chairman yes please our traffic supervisors employed by the town they employed by the school department well we're talking about crosswalk supervisors yeah if they're employed by the school department you can't i think we'd have to have a conversation with the school department about it i think the select board can direct the school department to hire folks to provide increased so that may resolve the issue for the scope of this conversation all right can i also just say one thing i know that the town engineers deeply involved in all tack matters um whenever we're talking just related uh uh to uh the note that was just made there is a schedule for replacing curb ramps um that's sort of in our um ad a uh sort of sorry transition plan um so it's something to just note uh i don't know if that happens at tack noting where this is on a priority list because it might bump some other um ad some other curb ramp replacement out of the cube just as a heads up i'm not sure how mr shinard factors that in right i appreciate that and that's part of what i mean by we get a report back from the town manager as to when you know these can be implemented so we're kind of like tossing them over and then then a meeting or two i'll request the town manager let us know me what the implementation schedule is because they may very well be that it can't be done in a near time frame or we may find out something different than the engineer does attend these meetings but things could change i mean so i'm not seeing three votes you know so so one is for the to accept all the reports i mean the second will be to remove that parking space i mean and the third will be need to add the the crosswalk and there was a little bit of amendment to it you know uh but anyways we'll get to the minute so on the first so yes i said i just wanted to clarify and maybe i missed it it's getting late did you get a motion to receive no it's just about i was just about to to get a move to receive the report okay second of course so on the motion to receive the reports by Mr. Hurd and second by Mr. Porsig Mr. Hyde Mr. Hurd yes of course yes Mr. Hamlet yes this is Mr. Hamlet yes Mr. Dickens yes oh thank you and on the second vote to remove the parking space on the in front of by the crosswalk in front of tile hall um motion by Mr. Hurd and second by Mr. Mahan Mr. Mr. Hyde Mr. Hurd yes Mr. Corsig yes Mr. Hamlet yes Mr. Mahan yes Mr. Dickens yes and spoke great thank you and the third vote is to add that crosswalk on summer street and amended as amended to add also a signal uh so i have motion by Mr. Hurd and second by Mr. Corsig Mr. Hyde Mr. Hurd yes Mr. Corsig yes Mr. Hamlet yes Mr. Mahan yes Mr. Dickens yes thank you transportation is complex you know and i just have made a little more complex i mean thank you Mr. Messutas you know and and once again it's a pleasure working with you on tack and then look forward to more meetings take care thank you again thank you board members thank you thank you you look forward to more meetings god bless you you know with um i'll tell you meet um i like to tack meetings meet uh and the the vote allows me to attend more meetings but sometimes i have to tap out attack in order to go to an envision early and standing committee and that was the only pair of meetings where being in person actually worked because tack meets on the second floor of the annex and the vision artist on the second of the first floor and they are roughly simultaneously say look at the two agendas and it's just kind of right up in downstairs so but anyways you know so um we're now moving on to uh uh discussion and and possible vote on potential overnight a potential overnight parking pilot so you've gotten the the statement the statement that i read a couple of weeks ago or nine days ago and so essentially the in all our meetings me what we come to the conclusion is that if we're going to do this pilot and we should wait until the next year so the second third you know the year and so um and we now would start figuring out how to do it you know and and that i'm sure will result in a number of regular meetings with um dpw me and um apd me and and other interested stakeholders you know uh and but if we are going to move forward that pilot me we certainly need to put the uh process in place to make sure that we don't collect more money from people than they should pay and we figured that it's easier to take less money you know than to get back money me so so if we decide that we don't do the pilot because we ask we get it configured or whatever comes up people like no this isn't what we want to do then we can of course get more payment you know uh but um um the point is that we we just need to see how you feel about at least not accepting the payment you know and it gets sense as to whether you feel that the doing the pilot started in May you know it's something that you could go along with or um so i'm opening up this is a question so i mean i think may is fine is it always is the reason you're looking for a vote that we are determining what we're going to charge people from municipal lots as of january first 2023 yes so so we'll as part of that vote we'll need to know what we're going to charge people well it was i guess are you sorry it's okay um are you looking for a motion for us to say that we'll charge people two-thirds of what they generally get in anticipation you mean one-third so they'd be reduced by one-third right so we charge them two-thirds nobody charging just one-third because we're not sure how long the pilots are running yeah so we collect one-third up front you know what after we get in a year and then depending on how long the pilot would run would determine i mean how much we charge later on is it all right i have a question on that and it's maybe semantics and i apologize two-part question first we're talking about overnight parking pilot townwide not just a designated area right correct second is um is that right um that's not turning yet oh okay yeah all right because i was thinking to me this has really gone way way way beyond i don't see how i i thought it was going to be a pilot be a pilot area and and go from there because i think it's it's it's such a but anyways but the other thing in terms of the the question that mr. herd raised about parking in municipal lots that's not overnight parking i mean if somebody's going to be parking there for the whole year i think what's going to happen is the people see now this is where i'm getting into if it's going to be a townwide overnight it's going to be a lot of details of change because um they're just not going to apply because they're going to stop parking in front of the houses i don't know it's i'm just getting confused maybe it's the time tonight so but to go ahead sorry yeah so i mean i think it folds in i think the reason chair is saying that is that is somebody going to be mad that they paid 365 dollars for a lot parking sticker when all of a sudden they can park in their house over in their street overnight but yeah i mean i don't know it feels like the beginning of the year the the pilot the pilot doesn't start until may so at the beginning of the year anyone that's using a lot has to pay 120 dollars but what i'm saying is some people are parking in the lot because they come in and say well when we bought the house when we rented the apartment we were told we could park in front of the street we have three four plus cars you can only park one so which i'm not in favor of doing an overnight parking townwide i just think that's just too mammoth but if we did do that that means those people that are parking in the municipal parking lot um what they're saying is they can all of a sudden pull their car number two three and four and put it in front of the house because only one car can go there they're still going to have to park there this is where i'm getting confused and i think this is where because we're talking about a town line overnight parking um lifting of the band that i think it's just too herculean of a task to do it that big i was more in favor of but i'll go with along with whatever the majority of the board wants to do that a pilot program would be a pilot area um versus town line well we haven't decided that yet so that's all still because what i'm saying is if if you're coming in and we said to you listen when you bought the house that wasn't true real estate agents shouldn't have told you that when you rented that apartment your landlord should have told you that but if you want to park car two three and four you can park in the municipal parking lot what i'm saying is if there was an overnight parking band lift for the whole town they would still have to park there because from what i'm understanding and this is where i'm saying that i think it's two of the herculean tasks if you wave the overnight parking band i would anticipate and this is where i think it's just going to get just so cumbersome police department and i can see the the phone calls coming in that somebody who has two to four vehicles that are parking one to three of them in a municipal parking lot they're going to say oh i can park on the street now so i don't need to park there anymore and then somebody else who says yeah i have a driveway for three cars but you've lifted the overnight parking band i want to park in front of there but there's already a car there so um i'm assuming that whether it's a pilot finite area it's a small designated area or a townwide that's one of the things that i would assume that whether it's a small area or large area that if it does get lifted that doesn't mean you can just you know park your car anywhere you want you get to park one car in front of your house for the way with the overnight parking am i right on that or is it everyone can just park on all the streets and lots of details have to be figured out you know and and so and so i think one of the reasons you are assuming that we are talking in townwide lifting of the band is because we came in a few months ago saying that the apd was recommending that we do a townwide pilot you know in subsequent discussions mean it's not so ironclad you know and so that's one thing to work out the the details mean of where people get to park you know when we do the pilot i mean need to be worked out any signage needs to be worked out um and so so we what we're trying to do along with me getting a sense of the whether or not we can not charge p