Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the board of selectmen meeting for June 29, 2015. We start with we have our consent agenda, which means it should go pretty smoothly, but we'll see. So, first of all, the minutes of the meeting June 8th and June 18th. Number two, the request for a contractor drain layers license, Pave Tech LLC out of Newton. Another request for a contractor drain layer license, Joseph Cardillo in Suns Outta Wakefield. And another one for GW Gatley Inc. out of Wolbin. Reappointments, and reappointments we don't require the person to be here when they're first appointed. We do ask them to be here. Our board of library trustees, reappointment Heather Calvin and Diane Gordon. Board of Youth Services, Cindy Sheridan, Commission on Disabilities, Kerry Fallon, Michael Rademacher, Council on Aging, Mara Klein Collins, Richard Phelps, Human Resources Board, Sheila Rosson, Mac and Recreation Commission, Jennifer Rothenberg and Donald Vitters. Any members of the board of anything to say on any of those items? Move approval. Second. Second. Is there anybody here wishing to speak on any of those? Are any of those reappointments are you here with us tonight? You didn't have to be, so God love you. I know you're among the millions watching at home. Moved by Mr. Dunn, seconded by Ms. Mahan, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Next, we have a time-certain hearing, so we'll do that first. The Mystic View Terrace, a request to repair to private way and the bediment order. And I see some of my neighbors out here in the audience. Who's going to present on this? Richard, are you speaking for the group? Come on down. You'll recognize this accent, but you're about to hear it from South Boston. Richard. First of all, thank you for giving us the opportunity to present. My eight neighbors, including myself, are residents of Mystic View Terrace. We know that the terrace has not been paved in 34 years. It got significantly damaged during the winter weather. And it's really a public safety issue at this point to fix it. So all butters are on board. We have a contractor. We had three bids, and we also have paid careful attention to drainage, which is an issue on the hill. And so I guess we're asking for the go-ahead. Move approval. Is there a second? Second. Questions? Yes, Dan. Just want to double check on one of the, I understand that everyone signed it. But there's one of these that the residents of Seven Mystic Terrace, they aren't marked down as having signed it yet. Can you just confirm that they did? It's the, sorry, Brandon and Paula Kindle. They signed the petition, and he's certainly been involved in the discussions. I don't really know. Okay. But he's not actually living on Mystic View Terrace. That's why. His house actually is down on, I forget what that is. But he's the property owner of the seven. It's a rental. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Others? Anybody else? Okay. Nice to see all my neighbors, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed to go. We should have a block party to celebrate this. At your house, Richard. I'm sure Eileen would say okay. So, we all have been rocked by this past week having two deaths from an overdose. And Adam and Chief Ryan asked to come before us tonight to talk about this. And how can we help? What can we do? We feel hopeless. And Adam, of course, going, I mean, Fred, our chief going above and beyond, has brought our district attorney, Mary Ryan, with him here tonight along with Sean Garbley, our rep. So let me turn it over to Chief Ryan at this point in time. Fred. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen of the board. It is a difficult topic to be here on and one that I wish I didn't have to speak publicly about. But last week was a very difficult week in Arlington. We had three overdoses, two of which were fatal. One was a 27-year-old male. The other was a 21-year-old young lady. Year-to-date in this year, we've had 15 overdoses on heroin. Nine of which, and I really want to emphasize this, nine of which were revived by our firefighters and paramedics. There could have been nine of the fatals right there where our firefighters not carrying the Narcan and doing the heroic work that they do every day. By comparison to calendar year 2014, we had 14 the entire year. So we've already surpassed and if we continue to trend this way, we'll double what we had in 2014. I should point out that some recent media reports about trending down statewide, and Madam District Attorney will speak about that in Middlesex County in a few moments. We're not seeing a trending down in Arlington, I'm sorry. And we remain laser focused on addressing this at the intervention phase. There's prevention, which our Arlington Youth Health and Safety Coalition has done prescription take back. We have the disposal kiosk in the lobby of the police station to take prescription drugs back. We did a Narcan event at the senior center, which the DA was at last April. And they're doing extraordinary work in the prevention area. Then there's intervention followed up by recovery and treatment. And we're focusing really laser focused at this stage in Arlington anyways on that intervention phase. And with that, I'd like to publicly announce it through the extraordinary work of our town manager and our unions coming to the bargaining table. We've come to an agreement on police officers being trained in and carrying Narcan. So we'll be beginning that program on July 1st. District Attorney Ryan and her staff have trained our trainers, provided us with all of the Narcan at no cost to the department. And have been extraordinary in their support at rolling out this program as well as other intervention measures which I'll talk about after the DA speaks. But if I may, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to invite Madam District Attorney Ryan to discuss the Narcan program that she's empowered us to implement. And I'll follow up with a little bit more on the intervention. Madam DA. Thank you for your piece to this. It is that what Arlington is seeing is reflected across the county. I'm distributing some maps that are updated as of last Friday that will give you a sense of what's happening. We have 54 cities and towns in Middlesex County. As of Friday, we had had fatal overdoses and usually more than one in 44 of those cities and towns. And you will see as you look at them, they are some that you might expect and many that you will not. They also in many cases tend to track where there are major highways because that's another issue we're seeing, people coming off the highway. And I think the first piece to be thinking about is if you ask the question of why is this happening, there's probably three good answers. And the first and I use this example of myself is that certainly when I was the age of the people who suffered fatal overdoses this week, 21, early 20s, I don't think I knew a lot of people who had had such major surgery that they'd been placed on an opiate prescription. I have two young 20 children myself and that is not the case at all. Virtually every one of their friends has had a shoulder repair, the knee replaced, wisdom teeth taken out and gotten an opiate prescription. So we know for a number of people that's where this begins. So looking at that piece, we've tried to attack that source. One of which is we have brought to Middlesex County a training for the prescribers, the scope of pain. We partnered with BU Medical School. We trained people who are writing prescriptions on what are the real questions to be asking about that. And that takes, when you ask Mr. Chim and about what are things people can be doing, it takes the form of some unusual public-private partnerships that I've been engaged in. For instance, one is with realtors. Because we know that one source, and I won't ask you to raise hands, but I would guess that a number of people in this room tonight have a few unused opiates in their medicine cabinet. You had some kind of infection, surgery, boot canal. You didn't finish them, they're in the back. Well, we've discovered that a lot of people go out on Sunday, they're at an open house. They spend a lot of time in the bathroom and they're rifling through the medicine cabinet.  You don't, you're never going to miss those. So they're disappearing. Another source is in Middlesex County we are extraordinarily fortunate. In Arlington ranks high in this category, the population age, as we all know, is trending up. In Middlesex County the number of people, and don't be frightened, but anybody over the age of 60 is considered a senior in Massachusetts, the number of people over the age of 60 being able to age in place in their own home is 5% higher in Middlesex County than it is across the state. That's a great thing because people are staying in their own communities. What we also know is that most people by the time they get progressively older are on a number of prescriptions. So they've got opiates probably that they are taking for some condition. What we frequently see happening is the elderly person either it goes off to live somewhere else or succumbs to one of their illnesses. And left behind is very often literally a shoebox full of prescriptions, many of them opiates. So if you've got young people who are experimenting, that's an easy source. And again, if you've got people coming into the house, no one's missing the grandma or grandpa's pills are now missing out of the box. So we partnered with some of the real estate agencies to be thinking about telling people that when they're showing their house. It's a simple thing, makes a big difference in cutting down what's out there. It also drives home the point, which is what many of us have forgotten is that these opiates, I've been a DA for a long time. I see the amount of time and money we are putting into this problem. We aren't seeing a real decline in these numbers. And in part that speaks to the physical nature of this addiction to which it's important to remember that these opiates were chemically developed to be end of life pain. They were never intended to be used by people who would be living long enough to develop that addiction. So that piece, that really strong physical component has to be a part of every decision we're making. The second reason why there are so many overdoses is just the pure amount of substance that's out there and how cheap it is. When I started in the DA's office, a bag of heroin was about $50 a bag. You can now get it for $4 to $6 a bag. So it's cheaper than a package of cigarettes. It's cheaper than a six pack. So people very often beginning on those prescriptions can't afford those anymore. It's very easy to substitute for heroin. And the third is that what we're often seeing is heroin that's been cut with lots of other things, particularly things like fentanyl. So you have someone who even is an experienced user buying and using what they're typically using and dying from that. Because what they're getting is literally many hundreds of times stronger. So in going to the source and prohibiting the source of those legal prescriptions, we file legislation. One thing that really is demonstrated here tonight is how fortunate Arlington is to have the kind of partners that I'm lucky to have, like Chief Ryan and Representative Garberley, who really have helped us to tackle this. We have a piece of legislation that we hope people will be urging their representatives to support, which would limit the amount of opiates that you can get in an emergency room to a 72-hour supply. So you take a bad fall on Friday night, you break bone, you go to the emergency room, we want you to be able to get opiates. You don't need 90 days' worth because we're finding those at the overdose sites.  And what we're eventually hoping to do is that those will come in some kind of a zip pack like you get for some kind of strep throat or something. So all you're getting is literally what you're going to be able to take, not even the script. We can reduce the number of scripts that are out there. That's a good thing. So that's targeting the legal piece. We've funded, and the chief mentioned with some of our drug forfeiture money, those drug take-back boxes that are in the police station.  This Wednesday, I'll be paying for all of our 54 cities and towns to dispose of legally. We've hired the company to do the disposal. We expect to have thousands of pounds of drugs that we will just be getting rid of that came in in those boxes. So that's one piece. The second piece is that education piece. We're out all the time. I was up at the high school giving again drug forfeiture money to fund the substance-free nights connected to the PROMs in graduation. So we're getting that message out. We're doing the legislative piece, that one piece of legislation I mentioned, two others, one being with respect to one of the new synthetic drugs, NBOM, that's being targeted, particularly at very young kids. It's a dollar a hit. That is not presently illegal in Massachusetts. And we've also filed a piece of legislation in those very narrow categories where we can show a direct connection between distribution of heroin and death. We'd be able to charge that crime. So those three pieces are pending. The other piece that's important to think about is just what the chief and I are really the ones who can do that, and that is the enforcement piece. We are really targeting our enforcement efforts at the people who are not users but are businessmen. You know, one of the things that we have seen a downward trend in is some of the gang activity that we would see across Massachusetts. That's not necessarily because they've reformed. It's because they've become entrepreneurs, and they are engaged in the systematic movement of a lot of product. So they are very busy moving drugs, making a lot of money, profiting off this misery. So we are working very hard with our partner departments to make those big arrests, to be taking numbers of pounds of things. We took, we did an arrest in the last few months where we took 6,000 opiate pills off the street. The other piece that's important in what our office is doing, looking at this is, we see these numbers. And to give you that sense, you can see on the chart, 2012 for all of Middlesex County, we had 65 deaths. That went up to 80 in 2013, 146 in 2014. As of today, and we are not yet at July 1st, we've had 106. So if that trend continues, we're going to be at a significantly higher number. And remember, that's the fatal overdoses, not counting the vast number of people who are being saved with the drugs like Narcan. So the first responders are doing a great job in keeping those numbers down, and they're still way ahead. But the second piece that we need to be looking at is, this is a problem that's going to be with us for a good five to seven years. If we're looking at what we need to be addressing. And that carries with it three important components that we're going to be talking about. The first is, we are increasingly seeing fatal overdoses occurring in the presence of children. Often, you know, young elementary school age children. When you look at the trauma they're suffering, the genetic predisposition is established for drug use. The fact that they've probably seen drug use normalized in many ways. And what does that mean for them going to school? So we are going to really have to start focusing on those children. The second piece is, Middlesex County has now more drug courts than any other county in the state. We now have six drug courts up and running. They do a great job. The rate of success is very high. No program is perfect, but it's well up into the 90 percentile. What we're looking at now is a lower level of drug court, trying to set that model in place. So we'll be able to catch people sooner in their addiction and do that treatment piece. And the third, and this is where we're going to need the help of the community, is right now the Commonwealth of Massachusetts literally could not afford. If everybody who had an addiction came forward and said, please help me, please put me into treatment, we just couldn't afford that. And as we know from our legislative partners, there's a lot of bids for that money. We really need to be thinking about more public-private partnerships that will help fund some coordinated long-term treatment. Part of treatment is relapsing. We know that. Research shows you five or six relapses to get to the end of successful treatment. We have to be figuring out a way to pay for that. And thinking about the fact that we are already paying for it in the quality of life crimes that we're seeing take place. So that's kind of an overview about the short-term and the long-term approach that we're taking at the district attorney's office. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam DA. And I thought that macro level perspective was important for the board and our policy makers. You might ask, so what are we doing at the local level? I was briefed on a recent heroin distribution arrest that we had. You may have seen it publicized. And after being briefed on it, we asked the investigators, what are we doing with the names of the addicts that we're buying from this dealer? We know who they are. What are we doing? The answer was nothing. We're waiting for them to find a new dealer and then maybe turn up and be a victim of one of these overdoses. So, you know, while I respect what's going on up in Gloucester, and the Gloucester chief is a good friend of mine, he and I have had a lot of conversations. I think their program has a certain element of reactivity to it. They're waiting for people to come to the police station. We're going to turn that on its head. Following a criminal investigation, the criminal investigators will be required to give our staff, including Rebecca Wolf, our in-house clinician, who will team up with organizations such as Wicked Sober and others to start doing some outreach with these folks, bringing them in, providing them with resources, hopefully bringing them in with a loved one so that we can do some training on some Narcan and dispense some Narcan to a family member, a loved one of that addict so that as the DA said, when they do relapse, if they should become victim of an overdose that a family member who's nearby can deliver the Narcan and save a life. That's one thing we're doing. We're doing that with the suburban Middlesex County Drug Task Force, which I think you have a brief memo on. It's a group of eight cities and towns that collaborate, you know, Arlington, Belmont, Watertown, Walfam. And so our investigators all team up and pursuant to the completion of any of their investigations, which impact the region, will be reaching out and getting proactive about providing services to those addicts. In addition to that, locally, not regionally, the Arlington Police Department and concert with the Arlington Health and Human Services, which, you know, under Christine and Jim Feeney, we have a great partnership. And Rebecca Wolf, our clinician, will be setting up on Tuesday evenings at the High Rock Church. They've provided the space to us where we're going to put out via social media and public service announcements. They will have people to do, provide some expert resources and instruction on support resources and strategies for those who have a loved one or family member who's suffering from addiction. And that'll be Tuesday evenings and we'll also have somebody available to do Narcan training and to dispense Narcan at those meetings as well. And lastly, you know, Mr. Chairman, you ask a great question. What can you do? I think as a community and as I look at all the people here tonight and I look at the work that Rep Garbley and our legislative delegation has done at trying to address some of the legislative issues. I know last year they passed the 15-day minimum inpatient for the insurance companies having to provide at a minimum of 15 days. And there's a lot of work being done, you know, as you can see, Middlesex County DA is ahead of the curve statewide. So there's a lot of work being done there, but what we need from the Honorable Board and the members of the community is to set aside the stigma. You know, this image of a heroin addict that you may have or I may have from our experiences is no longer. This is the white picket fence. It's hit our community. If it hasn't impacted you or a friend, it likely will. And set aside the stigma and if you or any member of the community watching or anybody here tonight think that you're aware of a person who's in need of some resources that we can help with, contact us. Our priority is saving lives. Yes, we're a law enforcement agency and we take that responsibility seriously and we will investigate and work with the DA's office to prosecute those that choose to make a business out of selling these drugs. But we're also about community policing and working with members of the community to get the resources that their friend or loved one may need to save their life. So that's it in nutshell. Again, I apologize for coming with such a distasteful subject, but it is a real issue in the community. I thought it was important for the Board to know that we're being proactive, probably more proactive than other counties and other cities or towns in the Commonwealth. And we're open to suggestions and open to your help. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So a few questions. Yes, sir. I have a couple. I don't know about the Board, but other members might as well. So, you know, I've had three surgeries in the past few years and I bet you the first time I'm doing when I go home is I'm going through my cabinet and I'm throwing that because I didn't. I'm sure I didn't finish. Right. And we have a kiosk in the lobby of the police station. A lot of times, as a DA mentioned, we see people coming in with large quantities. It's after the family member has succumbed to their illness. Yeah. Encourage everybody in Arlington to do that. At Narcan, how available is that? Is it in great supply, short supply? Yeah. So the Narcan provided to the police department is provided by the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office. We also have the ability to train and, as I understand it, the police can dispense Narcan pursuant to our medical director's prescription that is either through the Fire Department Community Safety or the DA's office as a countywide medical. Marion, what is it? DA's order. Standing order from a medical director. Health and Human Services, Christine and Jim Feeney will be working with pharmacies and, you know, making sure that it is available. But we're going to be encouraging people to come out Tuesday nights to High Rock Church and to get the training and it will be dispensed by the police at that point. And we'll buy that through asset forfeiture funds. So basically using drug money, see some drug dealers to provide nasal Narcan to families. And Jim Feeney is working with the medical doctors and DMDs in town on the prescription piece. This is my naivete, but District Attorney Ryan mentioned they're very close to highways. Is there a link to homeless living under bridges or something? It's usually people coming in, you know, doing a meet at some place right off the highway. And what we're frequently seeing is the addiction is so strong that the attic buying it doesn't take it home. They're going right into the public restroom at the McDonald's or the Dunkin Donuts and using it right there. And because they don't know what they're buying, we're seeing a lot of fatal overdoses in those settings. So if you look, for instance, even on the northern part of the county up by Peperole and those places, those are places where there's highways going up to Vermont and where things are coming through. So those meets are being arranged. Well, thank you. Colleagues, you have Ms. LaHun. Excellent presentation on a very sad tragic subject that we're all dealing with. And I don't know anybody up here that hasn't been personally affected by that and hearts go out to all the families and unfortunately we're seeing it more and more. Just wanted to highlight one thing and make a suggestion or two. I definitely agree about opiate use in young children.  The middle one, they convinced me with the epidural, hated it. But I also cautioned her. I remember leaving the hospital, pushing the Percocets just because I was afraid with my crazy personality. But she had a compound fracture when she was 13. The bones came through her arm and they were pushing it in the hospital when she left. Nope, she took Tylenol. And I didn't, you know, I said, you know, if you want to take one or two, she did it. Same thing, she had a wisdom teeth out, terrible pain, took the Tylenol, had two soft pockets, I think it's called. And when she went back in, the orthodontist tried to give her Vicodin and she said no, she just wanted to know what was wrong. I think that's a good message to get out. I try to get that out to my players and there from my cheerleading team and their parents. Because you do see a lot of surgeries, especially with cheerleading and other high impact sports. And I do caution them on that because some of my friends, unfortunately, who have gone through this personally, that's where the root of it started. It was a surgery, it was something, you know, and they got Percocet, OxyContin, Vicodin, all this stuff. But the second thing I'd put in just as a suggestion, I know myself as a coach, I think, I know I have to get certified every year. And whether it's M-I-A-A, M-S-S-S-A-A are the national, N-F-H-S, National Federation of High Schools for coaches. We have to set similar, as we do for selection, you watch a video on hazing and bullying. And there's alcohol and substance abuse, but there's really, you know, I think some of the presentation that was made here tonight. Even if it could just go out Middlesex League, you know, through the, you know, athletic directors. And I'm not saying the other coaches don't also spy to this or do it, but I think it's a really good message to reinforce. Like, when I have to get re-certified, you know, that's another video I'd like to say. To say, you know, this is a thing and if you have a player that's going in, you know, what is, we can say to parents or do we ask the athletic director. I have just done it on my own, just my, but I think that's a perfect audience.   But I think, you know, maybe if you can get in with the coaches somehow. Yeah, I mean, you know, RSRO could do an educational piece via the athletic director and, you know, maybe more wide through Maya. I would love that, because I'm not saying, you know, the 12 different areas we get trained on. I mean, my thing is if I can take the test and I can get the 89 questions all right right away. But this is something I wouldn't mind watching over and over again. You know, Mike Duggan right here in town is a perfect example of a kid who went through that struggle. He was a great athlete and had injury and it's an amazing story. He's an amazing young man. Thank you. Anybody else, Mr. Dunn? I just want to thank you all for coming in. It's been very educational and I think it's stuff that we can carry out of the room as well. So thank you. Thank you, sir. Joe? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much for your presentations and your work on this. You know, I've been thinking a lot about this just a week or two ago. We lost one of our premier local, you know, treatment resources when right turn moved out. And it's a good thing for Watertown. I know that they're going to be able to expand and provide more service, but it's certainly not as convenient for Arlington residents. So I'm wondering, you know, thankfully we have Wicked Sober as a resource. But how is the department and your, you know, your social work staff looking to kind of fill that void as you're making referrals? It's a great question. The strategy, which you may or may not have read in the media the past week on the opioid crisis includes funding for, I think, Repgobby said 100 additional beds, which is, you know, it's a great strategy as very forward thinking, maybe a little discouraging in terms of the number of beds. But we see our role is filling those beds when the government makes those additional beds available. Beyond that, Rebecca Wolfe and Duggan has a great history at placing people who want to get placed, you know, not only in the Commonwealth, but throughout Eastern United States. So we're tapping into him as a local resource to help us get people placed that wouldn't otherwise be placed. Thank you. I just have one more question. I work professionally for the Massachusetts Medical Society and I know that they've done a lot of work on prescriber and patient education. And I don't speak for them. I want to make that clear. I was just wondering, you know, in addition to the legislative efforts, what types of outreach has there been to the health care community around this? I think that's an important point. We have centered our task forces in the hospitals to get that outreach going. And I'm proud to say, really, this year we've made a lot of progress with Mass Medical and some of the other associations in coming to the table on that emergency room limit. I think everybody sees the crisis we're in now and we really have been able to do that. BU has been helping us to provide that scope of pain training. So I think that the one silver lining to all of this, I think, as the problem has become so big, is everybody has been impacted. As the Chief says, as it's now your next door neighbor, it's somebody you know that has been very helpful. That has facilitated a lot of that cooperation. Thank you. It's interesting that you have the Chief Law Enforcement Officer for the county and the Chief Law Enforcement Officer for the community here talking about public health. We've talked very little about law enforcement and I think it's abundantly clear and I'm repeating the Governor and many others. We can't arrest our way out of this problem and it requires a community-wide collaborative. And that's part of the reason why we're here talking to the Board. We know that of your value in the community and your constituency can help us keep this momentum going. It'll be difficult to measure the absence of a death, but I'm convinced that if we all work together and parallel this canoe in the same direction, we will save lives. Thank you. Mr. Byrne. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. So first, of course, thank you everyone for being here tonight.  And I do think that what, you know, the Chief was talking about in the team work that we're moving forward with, you know, on the state, regional, but also with the other departments and towns. And I do think that's going to go a long way to make sure that we get less thoughts and stars moving forward. I do have one question, Chief.  How do we get to that point? Well, you know, drug task forces become so focused on their work and their mission. And these drug investigations are time-consuming, complex, very difficult investigations. And so these investigators, and of course, the DA's office wants it on a silver plato when it's done, so we just hand it over to the committee to prosecute the case. And so, and we get in our silo, right? And so we've been in our law enforcement silo for too long. And it was obvious to us after this last case that, you know, we've got this list of names. You know, why aren't we contacting them? And two-thirds of them won't talk to us. But that one-third that will listen to us and have a conversation that we can get some resources to and maybe make some inroads with them. And also, because we know that recovery, there are all these relapses, get Narcan into their home with their cohabitator or roommate or sibling or mother or father and maybe save a life that way. But, you know, we've been, the frank answer, Mr. Berners, we've been in our silo. We need to get out of our silo. And I appreciate your efforts in doing so. Thank you, sir. All these efforts, just one less dot on this map. Well, it would be huge. I mean, you think about the families affected by all those dots. I mean, it's just devastating. I know I want to thank Rep Gobly for being here tonight as well. I mean, it's, as you can see, this is, we're taking this matter very seriously. We talk about this daily and we're committed to doing what we can to save lives. I want to thank you for your time. Thank you. And let's continue to work together on this. Did you want to say a couple of words? Sure. Thanks for being Chief Ryan. The first thing I will make note is Arlington, we're very fortunate to have our DA, Mary and Ryan, our police chief, Fred Ryan, because they're at the State House on a weekly basis, not just educating Arlington's delegation, but state representatives, senators and the administration across the Commonwealth. I think that's important. And I think that's a resource that we can use specifically here in Arlington. And the delegation takes this matter very, very seriously. As Selectman Byrd mentioned, these are our friends, these are our neighbors, our sons and daughters. It's an issue that we take very, very seriously. So the delegation looks forward to working with the members of the board to really address these issues in Arlington and get some of DA Ryan's legislation passed and also parts of Governor Baker's Task Force recommendations passed. I'm going to send that information separately to the board so you know what those recommendations entail. But they were Selectwoman Mahan mentioned education, sports teams across the state, specifically across Middlesex County, his recommendations specifically overhaul education around these issues. I think I saw a statistic the other day that stated, you know, 70% of those who start start under the age of 17. So if you start in high school, we're losing a clear majority of the young people that we need to target in terms of education. So we really need to get focused even less than 11 years old, 10 years old. We need to start earlier. So that's part of the recommendation. Another piece of the recommendation, Selectman Curell mentioned the issue of data sharing. And one major piece of the legislation I know or the recommendations is the issue of data sharing among government entities and pharmaceutical companies and making sure that that is tracked. Another issue that Selectman Greeley mentioned was Narcan. And one of the specific pieces of Governor Baker's task force recommendations which would need legislative approval is the issue of bulk purchasing of Narcan. Obviously there's a financial component of that, but it's really about putting the tools in the hands of our communities and making sure that we can address this issue. Another part of the last final part of Governor Baker's recommendations and there are many is the issue of streamlining support services for treatment. So currently there are many state agencies, as you know, and many of them collaborate on the issue of supporting those who need treatment, who need state services. But there's not one entity to support the travel of addiction services. And the plan is to have a central point person within the health and human services who can be in charge of helping with service delivery. And I think that is very important. And in the task force, we had a number of people in the health care industry, leaders in Mar-Healier, Attorney General, and Mary Lou Sutters from the Administration who is our Secretary of Health and Human Services. So we'll talk more about this, but thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Garberly. Thank you, Chief Ryan. Thank you, District Attorney Ryan. Thank you so much for taking time out of your schedules to be with us tonight. Let's continue your work together on this. Thank you. Thank you. And speaking of busy public officials, I'm going to take the next item out of order. Item number 17, water and sewer rates. We have Mr. Rademacher with us tonight. Excuse me. Our Director of Public Works, and I want Michael has other meetings that he's been at and going to, et cetera. So item 17, water and sewer rates. Thank you. Sir. Members of the board. Folks over here. Thank you for allowing me to speak here on a few issues concerning water and sewer, three, in particular, water rates, the changing of water meters, and a potential for that. We're going to be looking for seasonal billing for sewer to make up for irrigation meters. I'll start with water rates. At this time, based on a couple of factors, we don't believe we'll need a rate increase for FY16. That's based on two major items. One being that efforts for water main repair and sewer main repair to lower assessment from MWRI has been paying off over the past few years. So our assessment from the MWRA is essentially flat from previous years. We're up about 1%, where the MWRA is averaging 3.5% for community-wide. So that's good news. And secondly, we seem to have seen, we saw a bump in sales greater than we expected in FY15. Could be it was a dry summer last year or the economy could be getting better. But we exceeded our projections. So the fact that we are going to have a little less on the expense side, and we had a little bit more on the revenue side, we feel strongly that a rate increase is not necessary for FY16. So that's one thing that we look for the board to vote on at the end of this. And that is the sewer fee that we were going to look to enact, or shouldn't call it the sewer fee, the methodology by which we were going to bill for water in the summer. About a year ago this time we spoke about the potential for a seasonal rate where we would review consumers' winter water usage and assume that their sewer would be the same as that in the winter and then would stay the same in the summer. So we were going to try to work our billing system to perform that calculation. Since that time, I've learned that we're going to be looking at a new billing system townwide. Currently it's a fairly homegrown system we have now. And reprogramming it to do that calculation was becoming rather involved. So that being said, rather than to spend the time and effort to try to reprogram what we currently have, the thought is as we look for a new system, we might find a pre-program system off the shelf that can do that for us. But understanding that even still that might be a tall order, I think in the year that we'll be looking for that software we can also be on a parallel track be looking at if that doesn't seem to be the course we want to pursue, what second meters would mean for the community and how we would roll that out. So on a parallel track as looking for the new software and at the same time could be examining how second meters could be implemented if we don't think the software out there available to the community would be able to make that happen. So I would present that too for discussion tonight. And third, I just wanted to let the board know that we are beginning within the next few weeks meter replacement townwide. About a year at the previous town meeting we received funding to do so. We were actively looking to get an outside vendor to do this work. It's going to be fairly complicated and we had appropriated $2 million to do this. But in discussions with the water and sewer department within public works we feel we can do it. It might take a little longer, but it will see a savings about $750,000 if we did the work with our own staff maybe over the course of two years as opposed to one and a half or one. It seems that it's worth the extra length of project to save that amount of money. And it will also give us the ability to have more familiarity with our system if we're getting inside of everyone's home to replace these meters. It gives us a good educational experience to do so. And it also gives us the opportunity to comply with the DEP consent order and the DEP is looking for Arlington as well as other communities to enter people's homes and look for sump pumps that may be discharging into the sewer system. And this is for reasons that when sump pumps discharge into the sewer system that's flow that that sewer system was never intended to handle. And during a really wet spring or heavy rainfall can cause sewer backups and overflows. So a rolling together the meter replacement program with an inspection for sump pumps we think we can get a little bit more bang for our buck in that regard. So that's something else if we had questions I'd like to discuss tonight as well. But that's a program we look to kick off in a few weeks. Any questions on the board? Mr. Byrne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mike. You guys are pretty busy right now. So obviously good news with the no rate increase. I'm curious, is there a time frame for the new billing system? How's that project going to? Well, I'm not directly involved. I will be for this component. Oh, Madam. So our goal right now is to have an RFP drafted and issued probably within the next several months for a new receivables package. We've been meeting with the treasurer, the IT department, our folks in the town manager's office to try to bring this to bring it forward. Our goal would be to have a selection for a vendor or vendors that we want to move forward with probably sometime by next spring. So that we'd be able to have a contract signed and start talking about implementation for actually an FY 17. And that's what ties in with Mike's timeline by the point that the board would be asked to make a decision next year on whether or not that we would be able to do seasonal billing or move forward with the second water meter policy in a much clearer sense of what the receivables package that we're going to go with would be capable of in terms of a seasonal billing approach. No problem. Thanks. Diane. I have a question and better keep the rates flat because my husband would be thrilled with that. I don't want to be taking that one back. That's one of the bills he consistently complains about. And I want to thank you for all your work on that. I just have a question. I know you're sort of being guided by the ACO issued by the DEP to the latter piece that you spoke about. Sure. And I know there's going to be a lot of work involved in that in terms of manpower, womanpower, as well as working with what is identified. And I guess I wanted to ask a, not a guess, I do want to ask a question about the last piece, which may not be defined yet. Because I know that you'll probably encounter some situations where it's just a lot of stuff being hit at the homeowner or even the commercial developer. There's language about a waiver process beyond anything else that's in there. Like I can see someone saying, well, you know, who could apply for the waiver? Is it written? Is it online? Is it a department? Has that been defined yet? It hasn't. So the waiver. So I'll explain a little more as we get into the system where we're looking for some pumps. If we identify one that's connected to a sewer, there are a few different ways that can be addressed. It can be disconnected and maybe discharged to a backyard if that doesn't cause other problems elsewhere. It could be put into a dry well if there's room on a property for that, or it can be connected to the town's drain system. All of those have different levels of expense. The first option being the least expensive to the tying into the town's drainage is the most expensive. Sometimes there is no town drainage. And the expense for bringing that up, which the town would share that cost, may be great. Or even getting to the town's drainage might be great. So we're going to have to develop or come to terms with some cost that is just too much. And the DP understands that as well. And we can get waivers. If the system is going to cost thousands upon thousands of dollars, they may allow you to keep it connected to the sewer. They may need to still be a small fee for that, because that is water that needs to be treated by the MWRA. But we're going to have to take a look to see where that tipping point is as to where it doesn't make sense to pay to disconnect it. And just sort of a follow-up, because I'm thinking of two areas of Allington East and the basis of Winchester, water flowing down. Do you anticipate that the town will have any role, all the role, or something else in terms of the process, with the waiver process? Or is that something that individual homeowners or whomever will have to deal with DP because of the ACO? That would deal with us. Okay, because it's better when you have somebody that's aware of the topography and everything that's going on. I'm envisioning, but I know we're going to work cooperatively with everybody, not try to price them out. I'm thinking of people, floodplain zone, the flood insurance that went up, and everything else that's going on. Thank you. It will be about a two-year process before we get to the point where we... So we'll get more information on that waiver. Correct. Or whatever the other questions are. Thank you. Mr. Dunn, at least three questions. Sure. I hadn't understood so much about the waiver, so that was really very interesting because I think... I'm sure you've heard about... My street, of course, is one of the ones that has this challenge. And some of the people up the hill, it looks like a six-figure payment to fix that. And so if they can actually connect, first, a lesser fee with a waiver, that would be a really interesting solution for some of the people on my street. Yes. So I'm very interested in hearing more about that one. I might have a neighbor who starts speaking to me again. Who knows? I guess one of the things about those inspections, I'm curious, what are the experience... Have you had other towns that have... You've looked at... Because I imagine going into... Saying you're going into somebody's basement, looking for something that's essentially illegal, that's not going to be comfortable. What have you learned? Well, we've actually done it in a section of town already. There was a certain area where the DEP was most concerned about. It was the Kimble Road area where we have... When it's heavy rains, we get a lot of water down to the El Wifebrook Parkway there. And so we got into about 1,000 homes last spring. And it was fairly successful. We had a good rate of folks giving us access. And we found, I'd say of the homes, we found maybe 60 connections. I think often folks don't know if it's not illegal. And some maybe know that it's not the right thing. But we got a fairly good success rate of entry. I did have one in my house when I moved in. I didn't know it was illegal, but getting elected teaches you some things. Back to the very first topic, I'll talk about the... Sorry, the second one, talking about the seasonal versus the second meter. I definitely prefer the seasonal for all of the obvious conservation reasons. But the other thing is that I do feel very strongly that... I feel like I've both as a board and personally made commitments to people that we're going to solve this in a fair way one way or another. And it's disappointing to me that we're going to have to wait another year before we provide that solution. So I just, I feel, I mean, sometimes things happen, but I just want to acknowledge that we're changing a commitment. And I don't like doing that. Yeah, understood. I agree. The last question is, could you tell me about the... So how have we been doing in terms of water losses and stuff like that? Because when we looked at this number three years ago or whatever, it seemed to me really high. Sure. Yeah, about three years. So unaccounted for water. Thank you. Unaccounted for water is water that is... We're not metering it somehow. It's not going into a home or a school where we're metering it or irrigation, whatnot. So we obviously buy water from WA and then we sell it. And the difference is unaccounted for. About three years ago, we were at 30 some odd percent. It's crazy. We're closer to about 24 percent right now. We've since about two, about three or four years ago, we started performing a very comprehensive leak survey townwide annually where actually we hire a consultant and they put listening devices on the pipes and they can hear a certain frequency is a leak. And that's required by law, by... Once every other year, we're doing it every year because of that unaccounted for number. That being said, we have not found a smoking gun doing that. There's leaks, obviously we find them and we correct them and it helps. It's been knocking it down, but I believe there are other things out there causing this. It could be the old meters that we're about to replace. As they get older, they don't register accurately. So water is slipping by those meters and that's unaccounted for because it's not getting picked up by the meter. There's still maybe some accounts out there that are unmetered that we yet to find that we're still looking for. As we get into houses, another reason why I would like to do this process ourselves would be more intimate with our system and we may find some of those locations that aren't metered. So doing this meter program is going to check off a big box as to is that the problem. And I'm hopeful after that we can then redirect our efforts elsewhere if that doesn't take a big chunk out of it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Rademacher. Piggybacking on Dan's second comment around the seasonal usage. I mean, it looks like we're kind of rolling the dice and hoping that the billing system next year will be able to accommodate the seasonal usage assuming we're not lucky in that sense. Is there an efficiency to be gained by moving forward with a second meter policy at the same time that you're doing water meter replacements so that you're not accessing properties twice? We wouldn't be accessing the property for second meters. That would, of all the communities that allow second meters, it's up to the homeowner to hire a plumber to plumb the system and then they would call us to put in a meter after that. So they would be reaching out. The resident would be reaching out to us to get us in the home. We wouldn't be trying to get into the basement. So I don't believe there would be an efficiency there. No. I am hopeful that I've seen billing software that has this. It's a checkbox. Do you want to do seasonal? And the question is, is it going to, are those systems going to meet the needs of other departments so that we can buy that? So the trick is going to be finding one that can do everything. That's the concern. If we can't find that, then we would have to reconsider the second meters. Great. Thank you. So do you need a motion from us tonight, Michael? For the rates, I believe. Just for the rates, not the other two recommendations. We heard for the board to take a public vote that they're not raising rates for a second to second of year. We would love to. Not such a motion. Move approval. Is there a second? All those in favor, please stand in favor by saying aye. Aye. Any pathetic soul that wishes not to keep the rates unraised? Anything else, Adam, that you feel we need to do tonight? I'll further, you know, from my part express my regret that we weren't able to come with a solution for FY16 for seasonal billing. I think we went into it with the best intentions and we made the commitments that we made last year with the knowledge we had at that time. Again, with the best intentions, but I do regret that we weren't able to offer a solution for that. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next item. Board of Youth Services, and I see that she is here with us tonight. Dr. Brigham Roblin, would you come on up to the microphone please? Thank you for your willingness to serve. It's my pleasure. Thank you for putting up with my brother as a neighbor for all of these years. Also my pleasure. Think about that. Pull that mic down a little bit for the millions watching at home. Just tell us a little bit about yourself and your interest in serving on the board, Roblin. Sure. So my name is Roblin Brigham and I've been here in Arlington for 16 years, living next to one of the Greeley's, and through that experience I learned how important community involvement is watching this family be so involved and other neighbors as well that I finally met a point in my life and my career that I can give back. So I've worked for the past couple decades, a little longer in youth development, and I'm a researcher and I do data analysis and write reports that help show whether or not programs make a difference for kids. So I'd love to take that and be able to offer that to Arlington as well and the volunteer bases. I also am a mother. I have two beautiful girls, one of whom is a high schooler and listening to the presenters today made wanting to do this job all the more close to my heart because I think it's so important to youth in our community to offer them opportunities and also support. And I think I can help with my expertise to do that. And finally, I am kind of a crazy advocate for fitness and wellness. So I started a program here in Arlington called Fit Girls for fourth and fifth grade girls, which I love and what I learned through that program was how a little bit of power and a little bit of energy and a little bit of can-do spirit in this community can really move mountains. So there's not a lot of communities I think I'd actually offer up some volunteer time, but I think Arlington is a place that I'd like to spend more time and give back to a little bit more. So that's me. Thank you, Robin. Sorry you haven't seen me up at the wine more frequently. I know, I've been missing you. I was wondering about that. I get to watch Kevin in the pool with the older ladies while I'm running on a treadmill. Water, Zumba. Yes. Yes. And I'm good at it. Questions, comments? Mr. Dunn. Move approval. Thank you very much. The reasons you gave are exactly the reasons that motivate so many people, and you expressed them really well. Thank you. Thank you. Second. Second. Diane. I'm really thrilled that you were here to hear the presentation. Me too. At the beginning part of the evening because it hits a lot of bells as a professional physician, a mom. I'm really impressed by your Arlington Fit Girls because it's not just, I understand, a physical fitness. It's also academic. It's a lot of fun and reading. It's running, reading, self-esteem, female friendship, and girl power. All wrapped up in one. That's the perfect age for when the girls start to transition out of elementary and get to those really scary years where the build-on confidence or they unfortunately start to lack some self-esteem. And I'd certainly be interested, as we move forward with the presentation by Chief Ryan and District Attorney Ryan, you and the rest of the board commission, you know, whatever active role, any assistance that we all can give and just working in partnership on that because it's a very important issue. Absolutely. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. I'll set on the motion by Mr. Dunn, seconded by Mr. Currow. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Thanks, Roblin. Thank you. Take care. Appointments to the Arlington Historic District Commission, Margaret Capodano. Margaret? Okay. So I'll accept a move approval, but we'll ask that she come to another meeting so that we can meet her. So moved. So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. And at-large members who do not necessarily have to speak tonight, unless I'd like to, Marshall Auden, Stuart Lipp and Carol T. Are any of them here with us this evening? Okay. Well, would you like to come up and be grilled? No, well, the three of you singing something. No, just a quick, why don't you give us your name and a sentence on why you'd like to serve on the Historic District Commission? Stuart was here briefly. I've been an architect for almost 40 years, recently retired.  One of the things that I feel is very important in these districts is a balance between historic preservation and the issues we deal with today. Materials availability, historically labor was cheap. Now labor is very expensive. So what I'm basically here to do is to find a way to find a balance between all of these issues. That's awesome. I guess it's as simple as I can put it. Thank you, Mr. Auden. Is there a motion? Move approval. Second. Second. Further discussion, questions? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. As opposed. Thank you. Very much.  I'm Carol T. I've lived in Arlington for about 32 years. My husband and I raised our children here. And I've just had a long interest in history and architecture and preservation and living in a historic house. I'm aware of how it, this kind of thing cuts both ways because one needs to have certain rules and regulations to maintain these communities and yet on the other hand it's very expensive for homeowners and creates a lot of conflict in that way in terms of what they feel capable of doing. So I've attended a couple of meetings and certainly have very much interest in continuing with that. My work history is more in the area of mental health, depression prevention. So I too really enjoy the earlier presentation. Thank you so much for your willingness to serve. Is there a motion? Move approval. Second. Second. Discussion, questions? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Thank you, Carol T. Thank you. No, I just. Hello. Thank you. My name is Stuart Lip. And relatively new Darlington been here for three years. Young family. Two little ones. We live over Newport Street and now that we're here and we got in the town and I don't think we're going anywhere for a while. Just kind of wanted to join a committee, a commission where, you know, I could, I could use my strengths, my background is furniture making furniture, restoration, piano making, restoration. I'm not in that now. I work in architectural sales, specifically windows, but old houses, old furniture, old cars is kind of, kind of what my interests are. And just to piggyback into what Marshall said we were talking about it earlier, you know, maintaining the historical integrity of houses and structures are really important, but also being a realist. And it's 2015 and there's a lot of other materials, a lot of other costs involved today and kind of want to help the commission live in those both worlds. Okay? Thank you. Do you do any piano repair in your basement or anything? I know you said that's not your business these days, but... For the right price. Yeah. Well, for that, I move that we double his salary as a historic district commissioner. Is there a motion? Move approval. Second? Yeah. Question? Just a brief, historical furniture. I'm curious, have you been to the old Schwann bill? No, I am not. You really need to. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I've driven by it many times, but... Check it out for a tour. Okay. I mean, given that history, I think you will be fascinated. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All those in favor, please say goodbye by saying aye. Aye. Thank you. I agree with three of your points on balance, but we're very proud of our history in this town, so thanks for helping us preserve it. Licenses and permits, requests for a change of manager, not your average Jones. Hi. Hi, sorry. David. David Chambers. David Chambers. You're the new manager, is that it? Yes, I am. Okay. A little bit on your background, David, if you would please. I've been in the business since I was 16 years old, now that I'm 21, I've got at least five. I've been a general manager of several restaurants in the community. I've held licenses in other communities, such as Watertown, Randolph, Burlington. I came on board in Saugus back in 2001 for a couple of years, and here I am. With not your average Jones, right? I was with not your average Jones from 2003 to 2007, and then I felt I had to stretch a little bit and went to work for another small company in the area. They called Legal Seafoods. I was with them for several years, and I'd say it's a passion of mine. I spent a lot of time wondering what I give to the community, and I give a lot to the younger kids that are experiencing some of these things they're going through now with a little direction, a little motivation, a little structure, and a few bucks when they always need it and don't have to hit their parents up, maybe quite as much, but I've been fortunate. It's always paid to listen and try to be part of the community. We're doing a lot with the community right now through our programs. I really like being in Arlington. I've been here for about three months now, so we're currently supporting the Arlington Youth Counseling Center as one of our monthly causes. In fact, they had such a turnout from supporters this past month that we're doing July for them as well, so we're really excited about that, but all things considered, I'm very responsible and it's really important to me to be responsible, so far so good. Thanks. We're glad to have you here. Is there a motion? Mr. Dunn. Actually, we're going to start with the question. So it was fairly important for me to see you and have you come in tonight because I just wanted to make sure that you were aware that not your average Joe's had an alcohol violation serving in underage last year. Yes, I am aware of that. Can you tell me about how it's been going with the programs and the forums and all that stuff?  We teach it from the very beginning. We talk about it on a daily basis. We talk about it one-on-one, talk about it in groups, and also as a corporation we have several classes that we take people through Surfsafe Alcohol as well. So it's a focus. It's been a problem for a lot of different companies in a lot of different areas. We're very, very focused on that. It's important. It really is. Thank you. I'm going to ask Mahon. Just sort of a follow-up to that. I also shared that. Yeah. Having you come in, and you weren't here at the time in Arlington when the violations occurred. No, it was not. But when they did occur, several gentlemen from corporate came in and they had, you know, a really voluminous well-put-together policy and protocol of how they would react to suffering the violation serving underage. And one of the things they cited was, you know, they set out policies and protocols. And they stated that there would be weekly designated times where, whether it's the shift manager or the general manager would set aside, is that done a certain day? Is that done a certain time so it overlaps on a shift? Yeah. We do what's called a pre-shift on a daily basis, twice a day, actually, once prior to the lunch service and once prior to the dinner service. And it's a constant topic of discussion. Especially with the new people and we're bringing a lot of new people on board right now and it's really important. I kind of, one of those people that looks for personality and people, people versus the seasoned server to take care of the guests because those are the people that really connect and really make a difference. So they're a little bit more spongy, if you will. They're the people that have been doing it a long, long time and set in their ways. So we talk about it, like I say, extensively in training and we talk about it weekly as well in the meetings and it's important we've got to stay on it. And you might want to just check with someone from that corporate office that came out because I know they also referenced that in going through this process and presenting all their policies and procedures that one of the ones that kind of fell to the wayside was making sure that after every process appropriately trained that they had a form where they sat down and they had bulleted seven or eight points where the employee has said, yes, I have been trained on this, yes, I am aware of it and they sign it and date it. So if you could just follow up on that, it's part of the penalty and I think I was going the other way to go a little bit harder was that the gentleman from corporate came in and presented probably 150, 200 pages and made all these I just want to make sure you're aware of it. Yeah, absolutely and what I'll do is I'll go back to the store and I'll reach out to the training department and the people who are involved with that and I'll make sure I go through every single file and if there is not one there, there will be. I'd like to move approval. Second. Further discussion? That aside, great restaurant. Best of luck to you. Thank you very much. Hope to see you all soon. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed. No brokers. Hi, good evening. So tell us a little bit about your request. You're requesting class two license to sell and resell used vehicles at our 1211 Mass Ave. That's pretty much it. I do have another location in New Hampshire. Okay. I see the location here and it's close to my house so I'd rather be here. Great. We'd rather have you here. Yes, Ms. Mahan. I'd like to move approval but I do just have one question. It's a housekeeping question and through the chairman on the application which starts on page five of nine and this agenda item. The question and just maybe it's an arcade question. It doesn't matter but number nine regarding the sign contract required by section five of class one where it says no. Is that okay or is that something that we just have to take care of or is that something I shouldn't pay too much attention to? It's the original application that's dated 2015. It says application fee in the upper right-hand corner of 100 and then there's a series of 11 questions and it's question number nine. But that says for class one. Isn't this a class two license? Okay. That's where I'm making then we're fine. The way it was worded it says as required. Okay. That's fine. This is class two. Is that correct? Yes. They're applying for class two so that's why this isn't necessary. Correct? Okay. Yes. Are the questions comments? Okay. Move approval subject to conditions that's set forth. Second please. Second. Second. All those in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Thank you. Thanks for choosing the bachelor's license BNB food corporation Tana Thai Kitchen. Good evening lady and gentlemen. Hi. My name is Bandit Tana Phum Suk and my partner is named Shao Liet Kaya Vasank. We do Thai authentic food. We have 22 seats and 11 table and we're going to do Thai the real original. We would like to Arlington resident know what is the real Thai kitchen, what is the real Thai food and we didn't sell the anchor hall because we think about it opposite us is Arlington high school. Yeah. It's going to be better if we don't sell anchor hall. Yes. Any questions? Thank you. Any questions from the ward? Mr. Dunn. Move approval subject to all conditions. One question. When do you think you're going to open? In the 12th in next month. July. Yes. Thank you. Good luck. Samples of the food. Like simple papaya salad. All right. I like it. I have to come into your restaurant to test it. Second. Who moved? Dan moved it. Right. And seconded by Diane. All those in favor of passage of this license subject to all conditions as set forth, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Good luck. Thanks for choosing. Thank you so much. Have a good night. Thank you. And for another common victor's license, BNK enterprise and Olympic pizza. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, Mr. Chairman. William Goldberg representing the manager, Aisha Kumar. Yes, sir. You know, perhaps know the proprietor, present proprietor of this establishment. And he was very concerned about who he would sell the business to. As a matter of fact, the mayor of Boston was interested in it. But Tom only found out that he was interested in the name and nothing else. Aisha Kumar has been in the restaurant business for a number of years. And he has found himself in a particular situation where there was an opportunity to come to Allington. One of his favorite towns. And he wanted to purchase this business, which is an active business. And the town seems to like the menu, et cetera. So he made the offer and it was accepted. And we come before you tonight to indicate that there's nothing that's going to change there. The structure is going to be the same. The menu is going to be the same. The hours are from 10 a.m. in the morning to 11 p.m. at night, seven days a week. So that with the experience and the similarity of the operation of the business, it's going to be successful as Tom's has been. So before you tonight seeking approval of the issuance of the victory license to this gentleman. Excellent presentation. Questions? Motion? Move approval. Subject to all conditions. Subject to all conditions. Second? Second. Second. Questions? Discussion? Just one. I know at the time of the application you were still contacting the board of health office and they indicated to us that a plan hadn't been submitted yet. Has that been rectified or is that in the process of getting done? We got that. I have the plan. I'll take it from you. But have you sent that? The board of health has said. I'm going to bring it to the board of health tomorrow. Okay. So it'll be subject to all conditions. That was the only thing that the last thing that needed to be checked off. But you have it. Okay. Just want to make sure you're aware of what you are. Thank you. All those in favor, please say it in favor by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Thank you for choosing. Now, citizens open forum, accepting unusual circumstances, any matter presented for consideration of the board, shall neither be acted upon or a decision made the night of the presentation in accordance with the policy on which the open forum was established. It should be noted that there is a three-minute time limit to present a concern or request. Anybody here wishing to speak under citizens open forum? Citizens open forum is closed. Why did I read the paragraph? Traffic rules and orders. Number 14, approval for sidewalk sale on Broadway Plaza. Barbara. I'm here. I should get a copy of my lovely photos and little diagram. I'm here representing the Body and Brain Center on actually on Broadway. It's down near Starbucks in between Starbucks and CVS. And actually, they've been here about 10 years, and they wanted to have a body, what we call a garage sale. Sort of like a sidewalk sale. It's a way to raise money where we support a group called Earth Citizen Organization, which is a nonprofit entity of our larger establishment. And the money that we raise at the garage sale or yard sale, whatever you want to call it, will stay locally. A lot of times we may create scholarships for youth to go to. We have a meditation center in Sedona, Arizona. We have an organic garden. We have many programs that we would offer to youth or even plant trees in the community or whatever. So it's a way to raise money and create a fund for that kind of activity. So I think hopefully you can understand the diagram. It has just basically six tables. If you look at the bigger picture, the first picture, it shows the area out in front of the yoga studio. But in that picture, the brick looks short. But if you look at the smaller pictures of the next page, then you can see that the space is actually pretty large. So we would not interrupt any walkway. You can see in the actually hand diagram that we have left certainly plenty of space for our walkway on either side and would be far enough away from the bench that people could certainly still use the bench and would just use maybe six, six foot tables in that middle space between the trees. Move approval. Second? Second? Questions? Discussion? You were so persuasive. Come to the sale. You'll love it. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I was so nervous coming here. I'll take a lot of deep breaths. This is one of the better diagrams. Trust me that we've received. I can show you. The regional director said, well, now you're being as I do the diagram. I said, well, pretty soon I'll be the attorney. Yeah. I all those opposed? We encourage everybody to come down there on July 11 from 9 to 4. come for us deal. Thank you Barbara. Thank you. Discussion now of Ted Fields, Ted, commercial vacancy and business trends report. Thank you very much for having me tonight. I'm here to update you on last October's inaugural commercial vacancy report and I'm also going to enhance that update with two new pieces of information. An employment trend report and a summary of some business interviews that I've conducted to flesh out the vacancy statistics that can be a little bit dry. Right now, Ireland has about 1.8 million square feet of commercial space that's rentable and over the past seven months from last October when I last reported to the end of May, the vacancy rate in that space has dropped from about 3.1 percent as we track it to about 2.3 percent and we track it in a very unique way and I think the most comprehensive way possible we look at what is listed as vacant on the co-star MLS system and then we go out and we chart a space that's not advertised on the MLS system and see what's listed for rent there and we get kind of a composite picture that gives us the most complete picture we think is available for what's happening in Arlington's commercial market. So overall commercial vacancies have dropped over the past seven months to 2.3 percent. This is very low compared to our neighbors. The only comparable communities are Belmont which is at 2.6 percent and Winchester which is about 4 percent. Our other neighbors are much higher. However, not all sectors fare equally well as I show in my documents to you. Retail vacancies went up by about 6,000 square feet but those that gain was offset in the industrial and flex markets which went down about 19,000 square feet and office vacancies went down about 4,000 square feet and in response to these movements retail rents came way down about 14 percent over the past seven months as commercial property owners sought to stop the rise in vacancies with lower rents and in the opposite direction office rents have gone up about 20 percent and rents for industrial and flex space have gone up about 11 percent. Right now in contrast to seven months ago the average office rent is very close to the average retail rent. That was not the case seven months ago. Another factor so it's retail say that again office rents are now equal in retail because retail has office has come down or or retail has gone up. You're right in terms of vacant space yeah retail vacancies have gone up okay causing rents to go down okay and office vacancies have gone down forcing their rents up okay you said it clearly I just confused it's it's it takes a little bit of thinking to to get you did well and another area of analysis the board really stressed last time was turnover and there the situation has similarly changed from seven months ago we defined turnover as the time on market in terms of months when a commercial space it goes from not being used to being used and using that definition our intense average commercial turnover rate as determined by costar listings has fallen dramatically from an average of 17 months seven months ago to six months now as of the end of May and it hasn't materially changed over the past month and this six month average is dramatically lower than all of our neighbors so this is a much more active market than it once was seven months ago and it's mainly because owners of retail space have really scrambled to fill rising vacancies and an area where we really see this is when we track the amount of space listed on costar which hasn't changed a whole lot in seven months it's gone up maybe 3,000 square feet to the amount of space not listed on coast or listed on shop windows or on in newspapers that has dramatically dropped from 30,000 square feet to 11,000 square feet and this is showing us that property owners are becoming much more professional they're scrambling to fill vacancies in their broadcasting their vacancies across a much larger area reached by costar they're becoming regional on their advertising instead of and these are just broad trends behind these broad trends are dozens of individual decisions made by business owners and to kind of get an idea of those individual decisions last year we started interviewing business owners who come into Arlington as well as off to leave Arlington or expand in Arlington and I've summarized ten of those interviews for you in your packet and the real finding here is that business owners make decisions not just on locational factors or factors at the town control per se they really make decisions for a wide variety of reasons and this is showcased in two recent interviews that I have done that I didn't have time to summarize for you one of them is with a very unique premiere of goods from the Far East and that person has to shut down his shop on Mass Ave because a recent natural phenomenon earthquake wiped out the production capability in that country for his goods there is no other way for him to get inventory and that's completely killed the business that was thriving and that he he wants to keep here because there's no more stock for him to sell because he earthquake wiped it out and conversely there is I shouldn't say conversely on another note there is a business that is very popular in town that has since had to close its doors and it didn't want to but it had to close its doors mainly because it had trouble advertising it had trouble broadcasting its message on the internet and on in local venues but it really wanted to stay in our intended have been able to buy its location it would have stayed in Arlington and stayed open but renting at even a reasonable rate it just wasn't worth the owners perceived interest to continue on scraping by or losing money after the very tough winter when they weren't really she didn't feel getting her met there advertising their branding out and you know most of the business owners I contacted in these surveys really liked Arlington they liked being in Arlington they like being in different villages that they were in the different centers they were in but there were other factors beyond the town's control generally that either made them leave or allow them to expand or to come into town so I just thought it was worthwhile giving you a larger a deeper picture of what business owners are thinking as they fill these commercial spaces or or vacate these commercial spaces and I'm going to expand this to the licensing process so whenever somebody comes in for a common victory lures license or a business certificate or other type of license I'll try to insert the the survey instrument it's about five questions long to them so that I get a better idea of who's coming in why they're coming in and that should hopefully lead us to produce some better policies down the road and then finally you know Arlington's economy has a number of factors and facets commercial space is definitely an infrastructure is definitely one of them there's also the people who work in those spaces employment is very important employees help a lot of local businesses the help keep the centers vibrant during the day especially so we started tracking employment in town last year and felt that this year was a good year to report a trend you know from last year to this year and I'm happy to report that as of the end of March the last month when we had complete data from the state Arlington's employment base grew 1.6 percent to a record level of 8,760 jobs that's the highest we've seen since 2001 and it shows that employment wise we've recovered from the great recession and we're in good shape going forward does that include town employees of this it does it includes public sector employees to yes not just from the town from the state agencies and whatnot the strongest job gains were observed in the retail professional technical service food service and construction sectors and now it's important to note that these this is employment of firms located and headquartered in Arlington so on the construction side those are people who are employed by Arlington based firms but at least for construction they generally work all over the region not just in Arlington that's an important distinction to know and even more exciting employment also grew in important regional growth sectors that are small relatively in Arlington's economy but are growing quickly is the information health care and arts and entertainment sectors deep declines were noticed in the financial and insurance sectors miscellaneous services and wholesale sectors and in terms of long-term trends manufacturing jobs continued to decline as well that's a trend that's been observed for many years and with your packet I provided two pie charts for you showing kind of the distribution of Arlington's employment across sectors as well as the number of firms in each sector and it's important to note that all economies specialized to some degree Arlington's economy is pretty broadly based but we nevertheless the town's economy right now specializes in educational services health care services and the retail sector those three sectors alone account for nearly half the jobs in town when you add construction and food services to those three you get about two thirds of the employment in town and I go a little bit further in my analysis to we really wanted to look at not just job growth but where job growth was happening in sectors that really help local businesses we have a number of firms that kind of have a national scope or regional scope and they fill their requirements for goods and services more with national or regional suppliers we have other businesses like artists and creative enterprises and in professional services that really source their goods and services they require locally we want to take a look at those and I'm happy to report that job growth over the last year has largely been concentrated in sectors that really have strong local links like professional technical services again informational services arts and entertainment and retail they had strong job growth and they keep source a lot of their goods and services that they use in their industry with the local economy local good local firms and sectors that experience job losses tended to be concentrated in areas that don't have as many local suppliers like manufacturing wholesale transportation and administrative services the one exception was the financial services industry they source a lot of their goods and service provision from the local economy and they had a significant drop in employment so we're hoping that that sector rebounds in the future so I it's a lot to throw at you I tried to summarize it as best I could but I'm happy to answer questions questions Mr. Currow thank you very much and thank you thank you for this Mr. Fields it's always good to have the numbers in front of us because especially I think you know for most of us probably retail is most visible and there's always a little I have conflicting emotions like night like tonight we approve a couple of you know common victual licenses class 2 it fills me with a lot of hope when I see that storefronts are either going to be filled or business is going to be continued they can worry though when when you know you see on a particular block a couple of vacancies go out and you worry that it might be a trend that'll be prolonged so it's helpful to have these numbers one thing that kind of jumped out at me when I looked at these you I I like that you broke down Arlington Heights and Arlington Center in East Arlington right and I noticed an interesting trend here between the five-year averages and the 2014 here to date that there's been kind of an inversion in the retail vacancies whereas East Arlington was had a higher vacancy rate over the five-year average and it you know descended it was lower in the center and then a little bit lower practically the same in the heights it's now the opposite yes we look at this where vacancy rates now down to 1% I read that and I think of some of the things that we've gone through and it seems to say that despite some of the gloom about the impacts of the the corridor project that there is actually optimism around around the commercial area there although I do also note that the retail rents dropped pretty drastically right I still get worried that we're that despite an overall trend down of retail rents that we're higher than all of our surrounding neighbors except for Lexington and I hear that that puts us a bit of a competitive disadvantage and I wanted to ask you about something that you state in your in the report you said the development usually stimulated at a 10% vacancy rate correct okay that's a very general rule of thumb in the development industry it differs slightly with different sectors but across the board vacancy rates are in Arlington right now are much lower than those thresholds especially the 10% general level I asked that because I think a lot of us have been very supportive of some of the goals in the master planning process promoting mixed use development and more of a commercial tax base one of the questions though that's come up in some of the forums is you know are we are already we in a position right now we have so many vacancies that we really couldn't absorb more you know retail or commercial space and you know your stats seem to refute that I was wondering if you could comment well the vacancy rates definitely show that there is a market for commercial space in Arlington they don't say how much extra demand there is per se but they are significantly low enough to by the general rules of thumb induce developers to develop where there's capacity to develop so I think that's an important consideration to take into account Arlington is a fairly small commercial market compared to larger property markets like Lexington in Cambridge and even Somerville so the dynamics are a little bit different but I think especially in terms of offices as we see office rents really increasing dramatically in Cambridge there are definite possibilities there retail is very sensitive but it's important to note that these three different types of commercial property can help each other as you develop especially office space which is relatively dense in terms of employment those type of employees patronize services and retail and dining establishments during the day so the retail and office can help each other out especially if one type develops it can spur the other to develop as well thank you very much thank you thank you on the rent looking at the graph about the rents and looking at the change in the rents that they're trying to describe in there do you have a sense of the methodology of how those numbers are being developed and like what's the number of transactions per month and things like that in terms of what costars generating this one is from costar yes that's it's from using costar data yeah yes yeah they're looking at lease lease transactions so do you know like how many transactions I'm trying to figure out like how much of this is noise and how much is it is signal you know if there's like one transaction a month you know you're learning more about the property that transacted than you are about the market leasing we're talking about between all three commercial sectors probably about 30 to 40,000 square feet a month or over the time yeah about if I let me run over the 30 30 to 50,000 square feet over the past six months oh wow so it's really a pretty small sample yeah it's fairly small okay thank you but so one transaction can have a large effect as you say thank you mr. Bern thank you very much Mr. Chairman and I thank you for my colleagues for those comments on one the so I appreciate all of the work that's been done here but one thing and I do like the the trends that you spoke of but I'm really interested in this retention survey that you've been working on and so looking through the questions it seems like they you know you provide the questions to them and they can check out a box yeah and I would I really like to hear the stories that you were giving at the beginning and I think we can really learn quite a bit about or I think we can inform our policies quite a bit more if we have those surveys particularly when you know nearly all of not all pretty close to my saying you know business closed to poor performance I'm dying to know you know what caused that poor performance so if there's any way that you know moving forward and I do know this is quite a lot of work we could kind of you know if I know you have some of this information but if you could even provide it to us I'd be really interested in digging into I can provide you a fuller more detail for each of these cases I have more detail I just summarize them here no and I and this is a quite a lot of information as is but I think that those you know really being able to see the ins and outs of each business would be pretty helpful to I think it's important to realize that there are many small especially small businesses that fail and and you know to many times entrepreneurs fail a number of times before they get a successful formula so it's not unusual to see a business inhabit a space and then fall out of the space no of course but I and I understand that completely but I think just getting into you know you know I just I think more information be helpful sure business closing due to poor performance in area I do appreciate all the work that's been put in on this like my colleagues I like to look at trends and tracking and things like that but I'd like to have a question two questions one's sort of can we use co-star to get additional information and then the second is you know what do we do with this to take it out to the next step then where am I coming from with this line of question is that a lot of people in Arlington have said you know how come we don't attract certain stores and certain flag companies and the really the only place that we can maybe have some sort of an impact and I've driven through there as have others is our only industrial zone up there which when you go through there are quite a few vacancies up there as well as I'm always surprised by the parking that's actually back there so the stores that I hear from people in Arlington when they said how come we lost this particular store it's basically flag companies so I don't know if it's I don't want any exhaustive search or time awarded to this but is there any way I don't want to say forensic audit but we could get in terms of that one industrial zone sort of a mini costar report on that in terms of you know the trends square foot vacancies do you know what I'm talking about I can examine I can drill down to that level is that not a lot of work I don't I'm not trying to I can do that you check with the town manager and if he if he thinks it's okay and then that's a prelude to my next question which is is this something all this tracking and trending data which is good to know but is this something you foresee not just you Ted fields but also the planning department and going forward in terms of trying to solicited businesses especially around the industrial zone as well as well known places that are vacant so that you know I I know it's not our job it's up to the owners of the commercial spaces it's it's to their benefit to get it rented and have money coming in coming out but just in terms of people in Arlington who are saying you know trying to get back a big at least one big flag company back in here do you anticipate that besides having this data that that will help you or is it that not something that really is on the plate no we are using this data to help us identify the relationship between the commercial products available in Arlington right now in commercial property and how that inventory matches up with growth sectors in the regional economy for example one growth sector we're looking at is information services technical services professional services especially around collaborative workspaces co-working spaces how does our commercial inventory match up with the needs of that growth sector where a lot of Arlington residents work and it it could provide a great service if we have those type of establishments in town serving local residents providing them an option instead of commuting out of town staying in town patronizing local businesses so we are using it for that analysis for example that's just one area where we're looking at we could certainly use this data to look at the fit of the town's commercial property with other types of establishments sure I don't want to think I didn't know if you wanted to I would only add I think this data will help as years go forward making proposals to town meeting for implementation as part of the master plan so when certain zoning changes come forward having data like this that will be able to back up what we suggest you know a lot of times when you talk about zoning it's a we could do this or this may happen I think a lot of the data that Ted has been gathering and then sharing will help make those arguments stronger and I do appreciate this is a lot of work and this is a good baseline to have for that scenario as well as for you know what we're trying to do for economic planning and so I don't want to minimize all the work that you've done and everybody else I do truly appreciate it I can see the hundreds of hours that went into this I was just trying to take it what actually you're already taking it two steps forward so excellent forget about my one step forward thank you anybody want to move receipt seconded excellent detailed report thank you very much all those in favor please signify by saying I great work thank you thank you and sorry we're holding all of you up later into the evening here but next we want to talk about endorsement of our bike facility design guide when we're here and since you hired me well sorry we kept you here so long tonight Wayne sorry another place just lower that might just attach millions at home Wayne millions well thank you for taking time to listen tonight what I'd like to develop for you is the process or the path that we do we took to get to this process things about three years ago we had finished paving mystic street down by the golf course and at the time we would start our projects put them back together the way we finished them and you have a newly paved street we put a centerline down the center and put parking lines down the side and we moved on to the next project from the bicycle community saying we missed an opportunity there to develop the biking capabilities on mystic street so from that moment we developed a working group with the transportation advisory committee DPW attack committee and then the the bicycle advisory committee and we developed some guidelines that the DPW could use to review each street as we're developing our capital project each year and we didn't want to be able to miss an opportunity to have a network of lanes and bicycle sharing facilities so so we developed a pretty much a recipe to follow based on widths of streets parking availability speed limit traffic volumes truck usage things like that and it's a little more detailed than than than that but we use that information to develop the best way to to to to plan bicycle facilities and this is the result of that we've done it probably tweaked it for about two years now and before we got into the new capital projects for the year we wanted to present it to you hopefully that you could endorse it and ask any questions about it and more importantly there's on page six there is there's a network map so we don't want to hold town to have bike lanes and sharrows we're looking for connectivity through town in the round town for major corridors and things like that so you'll see that Mass Ave Pleasant Street Lake Street Lowell Street different different connectors that will get you the two different avenues different destinations and we developed this over over you know two years of working group meetings so if if you have any questions I'd like to answer them if I could otherwise before we start painting the roads we we didn't want to surprise you and it's not going to happen that frequently you'll see there's just a select few roads and and only will they be put in when we get to the point of resurfacing them so I'm not going to dig them up just for a bike lane when we get there and then we start surf resurfacing improving the infrastructure we can provide these accommodations and it will actually work nicely with a new a new policy from Mass DO2 which is the complete streets program so we're already on board we have a policy that is is practically I believe it's in progress not completely accepted yet because MassDOT hasn't approved their their guidelines yet but but we're this far behind them so we'll be available to look at complete street projects thank you Wayne would you remind me what's happening in East Arlington as this project is finishing up are we doing share lanes or there are bike lanes on the full bike lane both sides both sides questions on the board mr. Brun yeah thanks for screwing you're welcome mr. Brun don't you mention it again so so I'll start by moving approval and thank you very much for all of your work on this and so all the other groups and what I think is really important not only that we're gonna line ourselves up to to get more money from the state but that this is it's codified now and that we're not going to be surprised as projects move forward and you know not only will the engineering department DPW but all the residents will now have an idea of what what will be expected when these projects come up and I think that that type of information just goes such a long way to avoid confusing confusion as the projects you know come up so thank you very much very welcome thank you mr. Dunn I think you put together a really good group to work on this and I think it's a really good work product I like I think it's a great plan I might as well acknowledge them we had Smith from the two different committees he wears a hat for the TAC committee for the ABAC Phil Goff from the bicycle advisory committee and Howard Muse from the TAC and we we met numerous times over the years and it was actually done about a year ago it just we just tweaked it kept getting a little bit better so the last year was just making it right thank you thank you for the work I especially like these forms that you have to just objectively assess the situation follow the decision tree total and and objectively make decisions about what should happen on the road I was curious what the box means ideal total so you have subtotals based on on the yes no answers to this series of questions about the pain of emissions but there's an ideal total it is six of ten sorry six of ten it's the second part of the form his is numbered differently because we have so tell him with checkbox contact sensitive bike lane design guide it's the checkboxes and it has mm-hmm yes and no and the boxes and subtotals there's a box at the bottom right which says ideal ideal total I was wondering how that's arrived at well we all know the world is in the ideal world so a lot of these things are tools for us we will we'll use some decision-making with based on a professional judgment as well but ideal total I'd be honest with you I don't know I can't can't recall what that was for Scott sorry I think this will be very indirect answer one thing we found is that this is more challenging to apply than it looks mainly because road with severe over the place so your ideal total then then you get the practical concern while the road is this wide here and then that wide a few feet further up then you have to look at and say okay let's do what's reasonable here so I think this total really is an ideal you know it's just not applying the formula then you have to actually look at the street and how the width varies that was a good shot at it the perfect example is this first first road section that that we that kicked us off on this which was Mystic Street there are places where it's 52 feet and there's places where it's 38 feet yeah that's a significant difference if something is only for 200 feet you don't go throwing in a bike lane for 200 feet you want to have some consistency so you're developing you know a feel through the corridor it may have to do with that and I will we will have a follow-up meeting just to discuss where that probably came from two years ago okay okay great thank you just one question and just because up we're sort of our pages are paginated differently from what you say okay so I just want to make sure when you said on your page 6 the proposed routes were depicted outlined is that the page which isn't number but it says it has a map it says the only looks like a map correct is there anyway because I've tried to widescreen it and open it up is there any way and not a comprehensive list but we could get street list I believe that is on there as well I can I mean is it in this document and I'm not finding it yes where where's that I'm sorry I apologize okay oh you can get back to me on it I don't want to waste your time I know you're sitting here all night I don't want to go home to you do you know me have you met me sir it's not Monday night football so I'm not in that much under the draft roadway we strapping guide to providing bicycle facilities under street it would be I'm gonna just show it to you yes this one here the street list is right at my finger oh yeah it's page 5 of our okay yeah right in the middle of the page we're gonna tweak this a little bit with your permission and hope you'll still support it and actually put page numbers on every document thank you I'm sorry I missed that okay so it was moved by Mr. Burns seconded by Mrs. Mahan for the thoughts questions all those in favor please signify by saying aye I opposed thanks again sorry to keep you here oh my pleasure thank you we're here for a while yet to have a good evening thanks God thanks Wayne thank you all right we dealt with 17 already an 18 we're going to go into an executive session for at the end of the meeting so 19 approval of suspension of meters in the municipal lots Mr. Burn yes thank you so this is stemming from our ongoing meetings with the parking implementation and governance committee and I know this has been a long time coming but for for a myriad of reasons particularly on one they do generate quite a bit of revenue for the town we I think the board is going to keep them online but I think we've passed the point of no return and I just learned this this past week in a meeting and that it's really not worth to have a private vendor come out and continue to fix these the plan right now is that the new meters installed by the end of August and in the past you know historically revenues generated from the lots dip during the summer anyway and and it's really just not worth it it's not worth the headache of having these meters still still in place so so I do ask that you'll support me in voting to suspend these until our new meters come online and I will note we do ask that people still obey the three-hour limit so we do have some sort of turnover in those lots still and to if you I know this issue of the farmers market parking passes I think that we should also often have those redeemed for anyone who wants to contact the town and get their I believe ten dollars back and we'd be happy to do that for you so discussion although sorry we going to and if the answer is no I totally understand I'm just we're suspending that but will we still be going out and tracking and anyone who talks more than the three hours would be issue a ticket are we suspending ticketing no we do ask after three hours that you know you move your car in that they'll still be you know using the truck just if someone says oh you said it was suspended and I got a ticket I want to be able to say but that was the plan from the beginning you were on your honor system that you're going to do it but we still have another way business as usual Mr. Chairman I just wanted to clarify we're voting to suspend the meters and to redeem anyone who affirmatively comes to the town seeking their money back from the farmers market permit yes and you know I wish that there was a more effective way of doing so but we gave out quite a few tickets and I do ask that people will come and get it but I think it'll be quite a lot of work to track am I right we're talking just the rest of common life are all minutes throughout the time I will meet us I'm still with it thank you I just had a question we know that we're going to be replacing them at the end of the end of the summer does it make sense to set in motion the wheels of actually removing these meters during the summer because I only asked a question because I think we've all had the experience of going down there after hours and the meters out in effect oh so we're gonna have people wondering we're gonna have bags over them yeah and I guess the so the infrastructure that you know is currently keeping them in place is going to be reused so we're going to leave it leave it as be and just put bags over so if I may Mr. Chairman there's a little bit of half-and-half some of the pads are just gonna be enhanced and some will be relocated but so it'll be a bag slash eventual removal combo so long as it's crystal clear to anybody yeah yes I'm on the motion by Mr. Burns seconded by Miss Mahan all those in favor please signify by saying aye thank you very much mr. chapter lane interinter municipal agreement with Winchester veteran services thank you mr. Chairman so I've mentioned this to the board I believe in new business recently and this has been a topic we've been discussing with some of our neighboring communities for several years and that's sharing veteran service staff amongst multiple communities initial discussions had been between Arlington Belmont and Winchester I think there still would be the potential long term for such a broader collaboration but right now through conversations between myself and the Winchester town manager as well as Jeff Chunglow Arlington's veterans agent and Health and Human Services director Christine Bargero along with Winchester's veteran staff we have put together basically a six month pilot that would kick off on July 1st and expire on December 31st with a built-in check-in time on December 1st to see how it's working for all parties the Division of Department of Veterans Services and the state level has signed off on this pilot program in terms of recognizing it temporarily as a district the next part of that would be the Board of Selectment of both Arlington and Winchester approving this inter municipal agreement which basically codifies both the services being provided and our ability to charge Winchester for the services that we provide to our veteran service officer this I think you know this helps us you know utilizing the resource we have in receiving financial benefit from Winchester and it certainly helps Winchester in making good in the eyes of the state's Department of Veterans Services in terms of offering the level of veteran support and veteran services that the state requires and can start to try to enforce on a community so what I would ask for the board's consideration tonight is approving this agreement in principle the Winchester Board of Selectment also has to approve it so would there be some slight changes I would ask that you authorize me to sign the agreement in principle just to be able to make any administrative changes that might happen through the approval process and then I would certainly come back to the board in December let you know how that review process is going on and make a determination of whether or not we want to suggest that the board continue with the Veterans Service District. I just want to say that I'm very happy we're not on the side of going and searching for you know an agreement like this and you know I think Jeff does a fabulous job and we're very lucky in Arlington to have such an individual dedicated to these types of you know critical services and yeah I'm just very happy that we're not I guess in Winchester shoes currently. Yes Mr. Dunn. Just want to comment on the continued creative exploration of regionalization and I really love the initiative I love what they were to endorse it. Thank you. Okay. All those in favor please sign the five by signing on it. Aye. I am most opposed. Good work Adam. Thank you. Future BOS meetings so in September the seventh is Labor Day. How about the 14th and the 28th. Oh Town Day. Town Day. Sorry. Yeah. Go ahead. 14th is Rasha Shana. The 14th is Rasha Shana. And Town Day is what date this year? 12th. Okay. So I got the 14th. I won't be here on the 27th. Andrew and I both will be at the ICMA conference on the 27th. That's a Sunday. That's a Sunday. Do you mean the Monday? The 28th. Excuse me. Everybody all right with the 21st? So we'd just be trying to get away with just doing one in September. Is that going to work? Well I don't see a way I mean. How about if we leave it that if we need a second meeting we can look at a Wednesday or a different night that you know what I mean just for the one time. Yeah I mean we really can't. Yeah. All the other Mondays are out. Who would be here? You and Andrew would be away. Who would be third Doug? Yeah I think. So you keep jumping. Sate's Doug. Adam Sate. You're Sate. Adam Sate. You're Sate. That's what maybe we should schedule it then. Yeah. Go for it. So then how about October 5th and 19th? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? Anybody? Okay. That works. Okay. Okay. Everybody? Yep. That's not. When is Columbus Day? 12th. 12th. And I'm away that whole week so I can't do it the 12th. You can certainly go without me. 15th and 19th what honey? Oh right. So then November. Veteran's Day stays on the 11th right? It doesn't move. 9 and 23? Sorry one moment. When's Thanksgiving? I think the 26th. The moment with Kevin. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. You're going to be in Florida thanks to you. Well I hope so. The veterans would be Wednesday 11-11. But that Monday will work for me too. Okay. Sorry. But 9 and 23 was same but you got any opinion there? Both sound good. Thank you. Okay. And December. So traditionally the 21st would be a short meeting followed by our annual get-together. So you want to say 7 and 21? Okay. Yep. That should be fine. Yes. Yep. Yes. Okay. That was pretty painless. Yeah. I think it's the leadership that makes it so. Except for every year. Are you finding them? It's one of my kids' birthdays is a meeting and I'm like I don't feel justified saying no please let's not meet that night. Rebecca you always get them. So next right okay we're all set. Yes. All right. So next minimum school building statement which we have on our desk here. What are we doing with this? I'll if you don't mind Mr. Chairman I'll give a brief introduction and suggest that Mr. Dunn also make some comments with his focus working on behalf of the board on this issue. So there is a document attached tonight's agenda that document you have before you is slightly updated as suggested by Charlie Foskett who's also been a leader on this issue for the town for the board's consideration and adopting adopting this position. Basically we have been moving along quite slowly trying to get 16 communities to agree to the revised regional agreement that Arlington along with nine other communities adopted not in 2015 but back in 2014 at the annual town meeting. There's still a number of communities who have not adopted and there's some communities that are continuing to be very challenging and getting them to agree to adopt for a revised agreement. This is all swirling around at the same time that the school building project is beginning to advance and an enrollment figure has been offered forward to the MSBA. The MSBA is now considering that once the MSBA moves forward the district would then need to come up with a funding plan within I believe a year's time and produce that they'd be able to fund the project. Arlington through the board of select men I believe town meeting for quite a number of years have been on record that without a new revised or without a new regional agreement there would be no building project approved regardless of the enrollment or any other factors involved with that building project. So we still don't have a revised agreement. The superintendent is working on some small changes to the already agreed upon revised agreement that Arlington and those other communities agreed upon that would possibly bring Wayland and Boxborough who are two of the outliers back into the fold. But he is simultaneously began to publicly talk about invoking a statute that would allow for a district wide ballot initiative to support the building project. So basically a district wide referendum to support the building. Now for a number of communities financially that's not that big of a deal because of what the financial impact would be of a project. It's certainly a very big deal to all in any version of a building project for a minute man most likely want to consider pursuing a debt exclusion. This would make doing so very challenging. We also feel like it's not compatible with a collaborative approach a collaborative approach that we've been leaders in over the course of the past several years. So I believe it was just two weeks ago now the superintendent first mentioned this at a minute man school committee meeting. He's been talking about it privately for a long time. But more as hey this is something that's out there. Now he's asking his school committee to actually consider that. I feel very strongly that's the wrong way to go at this time. I think the working group in Arlington that's been working on it myself. Selecting done Charlie Foske, Al Tossi, Steve Corsi, Sue Schaeffler, Tony Lyameda, Doug have you know all been working on these issues and feel as though it's a it's somewhat ignoring the long hard effort that we put into this. So Dan had suggested I agreed Charlie Foske already also suggested the email to the board that the board go on record taking a strong position in opposing this minute man school committee moving forward this ballot wide district wide ballot initiative. So Dan suggested some framework. I tried to build it out to some positions that the board could affirmatively act upon. And I also included some of the language that the board had acted upon back in 2012 as some precursors to supporting any building project. So happy to discuss with the board make any changes they feel appropriate. But if the board was to act on this, we would send it with a cover memorandum to Minimane School Committee, Superintendent, all of the member towns, the MSBA and our legislative delegation. So the the ballot question that so putting this on the ballot is would be a big deal. I really think of it like it's a it's an override vote. And it's an override vote where it isn't even just our LinkedIn that's voting. It's all the other towns that are also voting. Now the other towns could effectively put something on us that would require us to do, you know, it is an override vote in a lot of ways. It's always been on the table. And I've always, you know, there are people who use it to describe it as the nuclear option. Because I just and I frankly, I'm surprised that the superintendent is so quick to head in this direction.  What do you guys think? I suspect that we would come as close to unanimously know as we as we ever would. Of course, it's up to us to say that. But I am stunned that he'd still go there that quickly. And I think that we need to react strongly. And I think we need to react clearly at how, you know, how not okay this is, it is not okay for someone to effectively put an override ballot that could happen as early. I forget how quickly it's like 45 days after. So, you know, they they're gonna meet next week. Yeah, next week, a week from today, July 7th, is that a week from today? Anyway, July 7th. And they could vote. So there could be a referendum on our ballot in the middle of August that says, you know, let's build the school for this big. And I think that we need to be clear how unacceptable it would be to to make a vote like that. I afforded everybody over the weekend, what Belmont had proposed, they had actually, they'd gone in a different path. I had been thinking talking to the school committee and the superintendent, they went to the MSBA and said, you know, don't fund this thing that they're asking for. And I was it was intriguing. So part of the question we should talk about is who should we send? I mean, provided we agree with this statement, who should we be sending it to? And I feel like it should be this school committee, the superintendent, the other 16 town or 15 towns, and our delegation and the MSBA, because it's just, you know, this would be a yeah, I've said it enough. Second, that's motion. Yeah, I guess for discussion, that's a motion. Let's send it to all those people. So Dan, yeah, it goes through a vote and loses. Yeah, what happens? So it's an interesting, this weird, why do we let that happen? I guess is what I'm asking, because I think it would lose. But I'm yeah, that's a good question. What would happen? The the MSBA may back out of the project and say, look, you guys just so aren't ready that we're just dropping the project entirely. They would have a lot of grounds to do so. At the same time, they've recognized already how difficult this district is in terms of like getting into consensus and and so on. And they may say, okay, get here's another year, in which case we could have another conversation about the regional agreement, we could get to 16, we'd have some towns drop out. But frankly, I think we'd also have to come to the building committee would have to come to a proposal with a smaller number of size, because I I still don't think that they personally I don't think they've got the size right. And there aren't a lot of people who do think they've got the size right. So if you look at this, the arc of the saga over the many, many, many years that we've been invested it, most of the time, I've been able to point at it and say, you know, I don't know if this is going to work, but this is going to be the path forward. If this is going to work, this is the way we can go. We're actually at a point right now where I do not see that path, like I don't see a way out of this without the state getting involved. I think it was two, three years ago, Adam and I walked out of a state house meeting and we said, there's no way this is going to get solved without a crisis. And who knows, maybe this is the crisis that's actually going to get the state to, you know, take some action. But I just don't think that these 16 towns are going to be able to put together the recipe. Forgive me, probably for jumping ahead, but I guess this would be the dug dug on the ballot. Could we I assume the warden's going to come from Minuteman? Could we add so that we could inform the voters what this would cost them so we can help them decide to vote against us? Can we add to that? Do you think they're done? I don't know if it's like being done as a position of it. I don't I don't believe that we could. Can we add another question? I actually don't think so. I actually think so. A lot of things we call the ballot. This is actually called by the Minuteman School Committee. Yeah, I don't know that we have any control. So the I'm sorry. You know, the sort of reflexive things that Arlington would do aren't usually going to be ballot measures. In other words, as a reaction, we could hold a special town meeting to approve certain actions. We could try to withdraw from the district, we could initiate a whole other set of things that would pursue in a more or less parallel track. But there wouldn't necessarily be a ballot question with some legal effect. Could we try to put something in the town ballot that was a non binding referendum or question? That's a possibility that I think I'd have to explore with the So complicated. It's very tough to get a ballot question. I couldn't explain that to the voters. Sorry, colleagues. Joe? You know, thank you. We absolutely have to do this. I have two questions. Number one, in this statement, is there any benefit in reminding the recipients of this also that we, the town of Arlington is on record supporting the Needham resolution? Because we reference the exit provision here. But we we're on on record supporting the Needham resolution and we're not standing in the way. Do we have to explain the Needham resolution? Probably, yeah. Yeah, we're on record is stating that we would not we would not oppose was it in the first year and any that's an interest, especially given that we are talking about sending this to the other 16 towns or 15 towns. And, frankly, I'd like to partly get their attention. I think that a paragraph about that could make a lot of sense. So from a practical point of view, I believe it's box boroughs. Well, it's both whale and unboxers major concern. They don't care about the Needham resolution. They don't trust us. And they want one of their proposed changes is express language or explicit language in the new regional agreement vote, allowing them out. So a simultaneous vote, you vote from the regional agreement, you knock them out. So perhaps it doesn't hurt to put a point in how about the sort of covering both, which is a statement says Arlington supports any town's choice to withdraw from the district. Arlington will not block any town's choice to lose the district. No, we don't want to say that. I don't think we want to do that unless there's a new regional agreement. And I'm not I'm not I'm not sure I'm sorry. I'm not sure we can as a board of select when we can say what our position is. That would be okay. Yeah. And I don't know. Yes, you can see that the board's position. Yeah, I think that that I think this is written from the art that voice. Yeah. But are you saying you want to put a statement that board of select and position is that we will not block their efforts? I'm very hesitant on that. Because just where this is a crisis that we're in such a volatile issue. And everybody's basically putting all their chips on the table is going to empty out. I don't want that to come back and sort of bite us in our block. So, okay, you know, yeah. Yeah. And is this in relation to Mr. Carol's question regarding citing the town of Needham. So, okay, so I would have the same thoughts along the same. So we just to refresh people's memory that so we as a board agreed to what's called the Needham resolution, which says that we as a board with if the new regional agreement is approved, we as a board will not seek to block anyone who leaves within the first 12 months. So we as a board adopted that position 15 months ago now or something like that. But that's we're not even there yet. Because that's right. If the regional. But just question is should we remind people that we said that I think it doesn't hurt either way is just how strongly everyone feels. I mean, I have no problem with that. The block thing statement I did. So I'd be guided by everybody else. I think we should remind them. I mean, even if Wayland and boxboro don't go along with it, it highlights again. I think how unreasonable their position is without coming out quite saying that. How about if I add under number two? So representatives of the US Finance Committee to approving school building project. This collaborative approach was evidenced by the Arlington Board of Selectment adoption of the Needham resolution. You know, committing to not taking action to block withdrawal should the regional agreement be passed or something like that. I think that's a good way to it is evidentiary to the town's commitment to be cooperative. Can you just put the period after adopting the town of Needham resolution? I could do that. Yeah. Because again, I don't want to give them more more ammo. Yeah. I mean, if they if they don't know what it is, they can go ask their town council city solicitor, you know, what's that citation? What does it mean? I'd rather have it in there inherently. So my first question, my second question was, is there any benefit to our also contacting the MSBA in support of Belmont's recent communication? So the motion motion I made is that we should include we should send this to them. So yes. Okay. And so I'm saying send this to the MSBA, send it to the school district, send it to the 15 towns, send it to our delegation. Do you have any appetite on how the other towns feel about this ballot question? Maybe the only thing we're unanimous on. Really? I would. I can't I can't say that unanimously, but since unanimously, I think it would range from anger, like Arlington would have to perhaps apathy. But I don't think anybody would say it's the right. So and so the the Minuteman School Committee, there's a representative from each town. And is there not the thought that those representatives would then support what their towns are wishing, you know, telling or representing to them there? History has not demonstrated that pattern. I think that one of the actual practical benefits of sending this is actually that those school committee members will be they'll get a different voice than just hearing the superintendent say this is a good idea. And so I actually think that as this, I actually think that this has some practical actual effect. I think this is a great idea as well. And I was just thought those just curious, I guess. You know, it may it's worth mentioning, Mr. Burn that though it's never manifested itself as a problem here, one of the pieces of the revised regional agreement was shifting the appointing authority for the regional school committee member from the town's moderator to the Board of Selectment, unless the town chose to keep it as the moderator. And I think that is as a result of in the member community, a number of the other communities, them feeling as though the moderator was not an accountable body that would have some political or policy level control over that school committee member whereas the Board of Selectment would be happy with the way I could have something. Mr. Chairman, if I may, the only thing I wanted to add was that speaking a little bit to Karen Bruce question was which Mr. Dunn was saying about what happens if the vote fails. My understanding of this and it is a little bit murky is that the MSBA would want to hear from not us, but the school committee as to why it failed. And so they would then be responsible for presenting some information as to why these communities do they don't seem to... Do you mean the Minimum School Committee or the Addison School Committee? No, the Minimum School Committee. So this kind of is