So, just for the record, this is the Tuesday, February 27, 2024 meeting of the Arlington Artificial Tour Study Committee. Good to see most of everyone back. I think we had a really great meeting last week. And I'm really glad to have heard from Ian Lacy and also to begin the discussions about the bullet points. So, in general, I felt like we're really starting to hit our stride just in the nick of time, too. We don't have minutes to approve this meeting. Sorry. Double set of minutes at the next meeting. But I think you'll be getting those minutes soon from last meeting.  So more than more than OK if we have to wait an extra meeting.  And I'm not saying it's a best practice, but it's nice to get them always the next week. And you do such a great job. So thank you, Natasha. With that, Jim, I will just say that I believe the meeting, the video has been posted to our website, as well as the presentation that we had last week. So even though that will all be included in the meeting minutes, we were able to get those things up. So I apologize, folks, for the inconvenience and extra reading that you'll have at the next meeting. But gymnastics called. I have to say, I'm probably not speaking to too many people here because I see most people were at our last meeting. But if you weren't, I can't stress or urge enough to review the video, the whole video of the meeting, because it was, well, at least to me, it was very illuminating and very helpful. And answered a lot of outstanding questions we had that, you know, we hadn't quite found someone who could answer. And Ian was uniquely positioned to answer a lot of questions about costs and the differences between the two surfaces and just sort of a practitioner's point of view on these things. So yes, if you haven't had a chance, it's worth the hour and a half to watch, to watch that last meeting. So, you know, we initially heard moving on to the next agenda item, the most important, you know, discussion of the, you know, the first deliverable from each of the working groups. We had started with the environmental group last week and Mike walked. Yep. Sorry, do you want me to just do the correspondence received first? Oh, yes, of course. Sorry. Nope, it's okay. That's my job, right? Keep us on on a little bit of the track here. All right, so the correspondence we received last week, we received quite a bit. The first is an email from Robin Bergman. And I apologize if I butcher anybody's name. I'm terrible with that. This was in regards to an article, tiny particles of plastic now pollute our food, water, and even the clouds. We received an email from one L Evans, and we had five links, which I did try to provide. I'll get to that in a second. The first one was about acute exposure to microplastics, induced changes in behavior and inflammation in young and old mice. The second one was a the Mandaro Monaco Commission on plastics and human health. The third was a CDC fact sheet on per and poly or PFAS. The fourth was an article, I believe from political. Our community has been deceived turf wars mount over PFAS. And the fifth was PFAS free synthetic turf standards. I believe this was a report that was sent along. And we had an email from Beth Miloff chick, who sent over two links. One was a personal injury firms look for people exposed to PFAS from joint base Cape Cod. And the second was why parents and coaches of cancer stricken athletes are worried about artificial turf. I do just want to clarify to the group. We had some difficulties with the size of the packet this past week. So I was unable to send everybody the entire what I try to do is include the links so that you don't have to go searching for them. In one case, I know in I think it was Beth Moff tricks, there was a large document and I could only provide the first five pages. So I I do apologize, but you would be able to and I think I need that in the notes as well, that you'd be able to just click on that link and read the full thing. So apologies for that. I think we're just getting to a point where the packets getting a little big. So I'll continue to do my best to include everything that I can. But in the event that that I can, I'll make some sort of a note so that folks know. Thank you. Yes, I think that's I think if we're all we're all good, Natasha, I think to move on. So we began by hearing from the environmental group last week, and we'll sort of pick up where we left off with the other two groups, Health and Safety. And I think I might do Chairman's prerogative to let to actually, I think my prerogative would be that I'd like the health group to go next. So so does anyone from Marvin, Natasha? We're going to divide it up. Yeah, divide it up so that you don't have to listen to everything at once and break it up to different parts we can talk about. So I was going to start just with, we came to a consensus that we thought the major three topic areas for both natural and natural and artificial fields were access to sports and its impact on mental and physical health, heat impact on human health. And then heat impact associated with the chemicals found in natural and artificial fields. And our topic areas, we are going to proceed in that order, but they don't reflect an order of importance. In fact, I think we find that different people would find different areas of more importance. So our first area is access to youth sports, and its impact on mental and physical health. And so we feel that we found enough research that said exercise in particular team sports improve the overall health of young people. And Arlington should consider working on how to increase playing spaces to ensure equitable access to team sports for all its young residents. It should be considered that artificial turf may uniquely be positioned to allow for continuous play when adverse weather conditions restrict play on natural grass fields. And so under that topic, we had two bullets that really looked at participation in youth sports as impacting both physical health and mental health. And the idea that lack of playing space really impacts our most needy children in town, because those are the children who are most likely to rely on public sports. And then seasonal weather. And we really focused in on I think we had the discussion here that the shoulders the March to June and August to November season. There just is a lot of impact by weather conditions. And the artificial turf would increase playability during those times. And so we felt like our gaps and limitations to research were really the fact that there is no article that says artificial turf lets kids have better health. It's just artificial turf. If it increases the ability to play and allow more kids to play becomes important. So in that case, we would want to know would adding artificial turf fields increase access to playing times and practice times. And we'll add a artificial adding artificial turf fields actually increase enrollment. And so our mitigation there was to be really careful if we were to use artificial turf in selecting sites that actually would increase the ability for students to have access. So we don't we're not condoning just putting artificial turf in to put it in, but putting it in in a way that meets that goal for this one subset. So I don't know if we if people had questions of what else we may need to include there. Yeah, Jim, do you want us to kind of pause here and we'll go through each of our sections? Or do you want us to go through the whole report? You can pause if there's questions. But if there isn't, I'll just keep going. Any thoughts, questions, concerns or think that we need to look at other things? Mike? Yeah, just a quick question. I think that you've made some interesting good points, Jill. My question is, in and it may come up in the next couple of points that you mentioned, you're going to be talking about sort of balancing the playtime versus any of the negative health impacts that have been discussed. Yeah, those will those will come up. So this was the like, I guess, the benefit piece. But I think that has to be balanced with the next two sections and our concerns and mitigations in the next two sections. Great. Thanks. So if there's no other questions, I don't really have anything that I wanted to add to that. Marvin, I don't know if you have anything that you want to add to that specifically. I'm going to tackle the heat impacts on human health. So we acknowledge that, you know, climate change, we're going to continue to see this warming effect and that it's, I'm just going to read right off here. This may become increasingly important issue as we continue to see the warming effects of climate change. The concerns are that artificial turf does have a higher heat load than natural grass. We acknowledge that. In addition, in all types of playing surfaces, exposure to high heat levels has a cumulative effect on the human body. Children are also more vulnerable to high temperatures than adults. And for those reasons, we are leaning towards education and think that there are mitigations are essential in terms of being able to address these issues in both artificial turf as well as natural grass. So within that, we have three bullet points here. We talk about heat related illness being, you know, a cumulative effect we've found with our studies that several days of heat exposure can be detrimental. In fact, you can be exposed on one day and then a couple of days later be exposed again and can still have a residual effect. And so that's something that we want to, you know, acknowledge and definitely whatever, you know, we're moving forward with, make sure that that's taken into consideration. We do think that there may be a lack of awareness by coaches and players of the science and symptoms of heat stress and that there may not be the most appropriate remedial actions. I think when we heard from the athletic trainer from the high school, that was really awesome and great to know that they have some some policies and protocols in place there. I think, you know, it raised some questions that we still have about, you know, maybe some of the other user groups and are there ways that we can continue to educate those in one way or another and bring more awareness to that. As I said, we acknowledge that there is a difference between the natural grass and the artificial turf fields on both the surface and above surface. And these can certainly lead to heat stress for players, potential for burns. And I think, you know, one of the pieces here that we'll talk about is, you know, there is there does seem to be an impact, whether it's it's really a large enough impact or not on the infill color. So using a black material versus a say green or what have you. So just acknowledging that as well and what that temperature difference is. I think some of the gaps in in our research, you know, we were trying to compare, you know, the lost number of comparison of the days lost to rain within the shoulder seasons. And then also, you know, those days that are the higher heat levels.  So kind of considering both of those. So I think one of the challenges is like accurately assessing the air temperature above the field. So we know that the high school has a wet bulb thermometer, but we don't know that that's necessarily accessible to other user groups. And so figuring something out in that regards, as well as, you know, the surface temperature. I think the infrared devices are typically used on those. But I'm not sure how much of that we can really say. There's just a little bit of gap of information there in terms of what the surface temperature may be doing there in terms of the player there. What is currently done for the heat. So yeah, sorry. So one of the questions that we know is that there is currently some training in place for, you know, the user groups at the high school, the coaches. But again, that outside population that doesn't fit within the MIA or the school regulatory piece. And then some of the mitigation measures that we talked about, we feel that there are definitely mitigation measures that can be put into play here, such as, you know, there have to be, there should be some guidelines around when a field can be played on, whether artificial turf or grass. I think, you know, we do see that sometimes in the summer months or in late August when we've got folks having, you know, double sessions or what have you that they move them around so that they're at different times of day or if it's just too high, I remember playing soccer a long, long time ago and because of the the temperature, you know, they would cancel games in those high heat. So I think, you know, making sure regardless moving forward, whether it's this group determines artificial turf is good or not, or we determine just grass, I think either way the guidelines, we should have some sort of clear guidelines to help us with making those those decisions to address the the heat impacts on the user. We loved that the High School Athletic Trainer talked about the acclimatization for the football players and wanted to explore a little bit more about, you know, what what that might look like for other user groups if that's a possibility. We thought there's definitely ways that we can raise awareness related to heat illness for the coaches and players and one thought that we had is you know, I know that the recreation department has to issue permits and, you know, we're wondering if at some point there may be a possibility to attach something to that permit being that, you know, the coaches or whoever is accepting that permit is also, you know, checking off that they've gone through a training and we acknowledge that that's not 100 percent but it's it's a step in the right direction, I think, to have something like that in place. Then we also are looking at, you know, if there are artificial turf, you know, proposals that there be built in mitigations for heat reductions such as shade structures, reflective in color and wherever possible grass fields also this is important, I think, you know, moving forward. If we've got a grass field that doesn't have enough cover in the area, you know, perhaps providing being able to construct benches that have a cover overhead so that you can keep those those kiddos out of that hot sun if if at all possible. So just some some thoughts on that, I will stop there and Joe. Hi, so as I was hearing you talk, I mean this is where I get a little, I don't know, proplex might not be the right word, but I know our charge is artificial turf, right, but also our charge is looking out for the health and safety of Arlington residents and that's why we're doing this report. As well as a comparison of artificial turf to natural grass, yeah. It's a very slippery slope. When, if you know everything you just said, you could attribute that to all of our tennis courts in town, all of our basketball courts in town, all of our rubber surfers playgrounds in town. Heck, all of Mass Ave, you know, are we going to start regulating all, yeah, all our running tracks. Imagine trying to close the running track on a hot day or a pickleball courts or people sitting down at Mass Ave on the bench. I mean it just it just becomes a very slippery slope on what we're trying to control as far as, you know, temperature, excessive heat, temperature. I think obviously the difference would be, you know, they're playing potentially, you know, running around on the field and they're, you know, extenuating themselves. So, I don't know, I just, I just, I just want to be careful because I hear Natasha saying we should have shade structures and they know why you're saying it, you know, at parks and we could have covers on benches and we could have things attributed to the permit and we could have training all very positive. I think we could do that for, certainly the organizations maybe who are undertaken, you know, the load of getting the permit. I just want to cautious us for not taking on the uncontrollable, right, where all of a sudden we, you need a permit to do everything and be able to take a training test to use a playground and not being able to play pickleball if you want, even though if, say you wanted to play pickleball on a day that's 95 degrees but you took water breaks every 10 minutes, are you hydrated or were at fall tap or you were in excellent shape and it wasn't a concern to you, there's a pretty much choice to do that. So anyway, I'm just, I'm just raising a little bit. No, and that is such a valid point and I think that was absolutely not our intention.   Is it a good idea? Probably not, like I don't think that we can control all of those individual things and in terms of, you know, like the the shade structures and things, I think that that's just a consideration, you know, I think if there's a way to consider it into a plan, maybe it's a good idea. I don't even know how much that would that would cost. Yeah, and I hear Natasha, I just think when I read through the packet, yep, and you know, certainly a lot of the articles and, you know, the Philadelphia Phillies article, wherever it was that I just I just want to be, you know, I'm not saying artificial turf is perfect, but I think it sometimes gets the blame for a ton of stuff that could be attributed to many, many, many things in our lives that, quite frankly, probably many of us wouldn't give up. And when that, whether that's PFAS, has PFAS in it, whether it's dental floss, it has PFAS in it, or whatever it is, right? And I just don't want, you know, out of, I know that's our charge, but I'm just having trouble thinking out of fish drugs being this thing that's just getting hit over and over and over and over again. When it's really, plastics is a problem for the computer, it will hold them, the pen, I'm holding them, but my phone case, I mean, it's the table cover and I just, again, I just want to raise the flag that I just, it just makes me pause and think like, are we trying to over-regulate yep, certain things?  What is sort of important is that we really felt when we were looking at heat that some of these have to be incorporated in new design of fields, whether it's grass or turf, because it's going to be hotter. And so I don't think we were proposing that we take and require all fields to be redone, but if you're redoing a field and you're making a baseball field, providing a covered bench seems to make sense at this point, whether it's a turf or non-turf field. And I think what we recognize with heat is yes, heat is going to be hotter, but the world is hotter too and we have to, you know, we have to recognize that in general and we're hoping that, you know, as people continue this conversation, they recognize that heat is a problem, whether or not whatever type of surface we're using. Yeah, I would just add to that, Joe. I think you bring up some really good points and I appreciate that. I think that we're a fortunate committee and that we don't have to look at all those things. We only have to look at the turf fields and I think that if we focus on that we've got enough to do, but I think that I understand what you're saying about, you know, the next steps that might occur, might come up to somebody's attention, but I think that if we just focus on what our small niche is, I think that'll make life a little easier for us. So, Joe, I just want to follow up to and I'm sorry, Mike, did I cut you off? No. Okay, I just want to follow up to how or what do you think in the report like we should, because I want to understand like what you're reading from this report, you have to be comfortable with, too, right? So, like, what do you think that we're maybe not highlighting enough of or are we focusing? No, I think it's excellent. This is everything that we read as well in our, you know, safety group and I don't know, I'm just thinking of some type of caveat or asterisk or something that says, you know, there are other recreational activities occurring in the town of Arlington that may also, you know, have these heat index issues and I don't know. It's almost like personal accountability. It's almost like, you know, providing that education, yeah, and I think, yeah, I know, I hear what you're saying. Yeah, and that and we just need to figure out a narrative. Okay, and again, it's, I'm just saying if we, you know, if we we're targeting turf field and again, like I know not we are, we're just reporting, I understand that, but if turf field becomes, all right, we're going to, you know, you know, make Arlington safer by not having turf fields due to the the wet bulb temperatures, right, then we just have, it has to be consistency about that health policy with everything that we do because I, you know, plankton is again, although I know that's not our charge, but as Mike says, it's not something we would worry about or say, but it is this is going to become a document that people are going to read and go to for factual information and I'm telling you in this document, if we say that we're not going to allow certain things because of, you know, the wet bulb temperature being X, I'm going to get it from my camps, you know, are you having camp today because of the wet bulb temperature? Are you going to the playground today? Are you going to close the, you know, whatever today because wet bulb temperatures, so I know there's not a charge, I'm just, I know what could be coming and so that's why I just want to make sure whatever we, mitigation measures we recommend, they're, they're attainable, you know, across all levels. That's all. Yeah, can I jump in? Can I jump in for a second? I mean, I hope I'm not saying something controversial, but I might be. So I've seen some comments in the chat, you know, in reference to what, what, what Joe's talking about and I guess what I'd say is artificial, from what I've read at least and I'm assuming it's probably what folks in the health group have read about heat because it sounds like there's some overlap on the heat issue. You know, artificial turf, particularly with crumb rubber infill, is leaps and bounds hotter than any other surface. Natural grass, asphalt, anything.  Because they're not even close. They're not close. And by the way that's with crumb rubber infill though. That's what crumb rubber infill. Right, exactly. We're talking, we're talking like 70, 80, 150 degrees warmer in some cases than, than a natural grass field. Right, which I mean again though, is so those with, as we've talked about and they've talked about it, you know, it can be mitigated through the color of the infill and the type of infill and whether I forget what Ian said, it was maybe a green sand. I think he said, and I think the temperature that he indicated, please correct me if I'm wrong, it wasn't as far off. It was still hotter, but it wasn't as natural grass, was it 20 degrees? It was something like that. It wasn't, Brock, Brock, you know, at least the industry says Brock field is only about 20 or 30 degrees warmer. Right, right, right. So again, and like I said from the start, like we're wrong, we're going to report all these facts based on potential crumb rubber infill, not all these, but we're going to be across the board, but if we have no intention of ever using crumb rubber infill, then the wet bulb temperatures issues of being 80 to 90 degrees warmer aren't issues. Do you know what I'm saying? They're not issues, they're not issues for us. They are issues in other locales potentially, but those are not our issues. What we were specifically saying is that regardless of surface type in the summer, we are going to get to the point where we have to have some mitigation. And so, you know, the high school is going to have tons of turf fields that I assume the rec department uses. So how do we have like the football team being shut out of practice in August because of the temperature? And like two days before we have little children playing on the same field. So what we're looking for is regardless of field type, some consistency around temperature play would be a reasonable mitigation. And we, you know, we spent a lot of time in the heat group saying yes, turf depending on what type we use may be hotter, but we felt like heat is an issue regardless of surface type. And, you know, I get the point that like going into like basketball courts and playgrounds gets cumbersome, but if we're if we're using this as part of fields, can we make some some recommendation specific to fields? No, I understand. I totally understand. Yeah. And I just said, I know Marvin wanted to get on this too, I think. Even though I, it's my based on based on the discussions we've had over these last few years, I don't think there's anyone in this group who's pushing for crumb rubber infill. And I asked, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say part of our recommendations are going to be that if you ever have an artificial turf field, that's not one of the options. You know, we're just ultimately we're a study committee. I mean, for all we know, maybe that is on the table for someone, you know, a crumb rubber infill. And so we want them to be very, I know what you're saying, Joe, which is like, why are we wasting so much time on something and no one here, no one here supports and but, you know, we don't know, we don't know on the next level, you know, a year from now or whatever when someone's looking at these options, maybe someone is going to push crumb rubber infill and we we at least can turn to our report and say, well, you know, here's the date on that and it's not very good when it comes to heat. And I totally understand that. And again, I probably a broken record and I just shot my mouth thinking let him continue with the ball points. But I think my issue is that those who might not believe that synthetic turf fields are appropriate in Arlington, they tend to reach for the arguments that are on the upper echelon of the argument, meaning the crumb rubber impacts and whether that's crumb rubber impacts on heat or whether that's crumb rubber impacts on the infill, you know, migrating from the field or whether it's that the impact on the runoff into the streams or the fish, you know, and so when you're when you're having a discussion with someone about the benefits or not of artificial turf field in their, you know, discussion points are all based off the most extreme circumstances and my discussion is based on the mitigation measures that we are going to undertake, you know, again, whether that is Brockville, whether that is not by any stream that has, you know, some type of wetland species in them or whether that is, you know, particular the fields built in a way to capture any potential, you know, migration of the infill material or whatever it might be, it's two different discussions and that's what I just somehow the report I would hope would kind of bring the center and not focus on those kind of extreme points and maybe I'm just confusing myself now, but anyway, that's just my concern because I've had discussions as a recent, no matter what I say, everyone brings up these, you know, horrible turf stories or fears based on the worst case scenarios, something that we would never build and I know where there's the reporting the facts, but maybe there's a way that we could report the facts and maybe we're doing this, so I think maybe we are on our way, but we're just not going to recommend from rubber, we're going to recommend a material that doesn't get as hot, doesn't migrate as much, so on and so forth, so that's all I'm saying. Marvin, do you still want to get in on this?   I don't think that any of us are saying, you know, in this report, you know, we must do this or we must not do that. I don't think that's the intent of this committee. My sense is we're just supposed to kind of do the research on, you know, elements of, you know, things that might be impacted by, you know, artificial turf and bring them to town meeting and ultimately, town meeting or the select board or whoever is going to be making the decisions. You know, it's certainly not for me to wave my magic wand and say, yes, we will do this. We won't do that. And I think I probably everybody feels the same way. I think so. But no, I guess. Marvin, I think you may you may be up next for the next item in your room. Yes. Are there any, I mean, does anybody else have anything else on heat or all? Well, we'll get another bite at the apple on heat when the safety group presents. So don't worry about heat. Okay. So I am going to be talking about kind of the potential chemical issues around artificial turf.  The health concerns are, you know, risk of toxicity. There are carcinogens that we are concerned about. Some of the chemicals in that we find in artificial turf in both the infill and the blades and, you know, the underlying map. We have endocrine disruptors and reproductive system, you know, toxins. In terms of, you know, major chemicals of concern, and I'm not going to go into this in a lot of depth because I, you know, I could spend hours doing this and I don't think that that's productive right now. But, you know, crumb rubber is obviously what has been used by and large in most turf fields. I believe that we, you know, may have some crumb rubber and we do have crumb rubber in town. You know, one of the big issues with that is these are ground up tires so they have all the materials that are in that. We've got polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, you know, many of which are carcinogens. Now, these exist everywhere. If you burn a stake on the grill, you're going to have PAHs.  There are any number of ways that we can expose to them, you know, and, you know, skin, lung, bladder, liver, gastrointestinal cancers are a result. This is a huge issue for firefighters, you know, because of the smoke that they encounter when they go to fires. And obviously, I don't think that anybody on the turf field will be exposed to that level, but these are toxic materials. There are some heavy metals in there also, lead, zinc, chromium, some of which are carcinogens and some of which also have assorted other health effects. PFAS, PFAS is a big deal. These are forever chemicals. They're found in all kinds of, you know, synthetic materials. You know, if you've got Teflon pots and pans in your house, you've got a potential ingestion exposure to PFAS.  There are, you know, there's PFAS everywhere in our environment. We drink it, we breathe it. While a number of PFAS compounds have been banned for using consumer products, there are thousands and thousands of them that are still out there. The issue with PFAS is they don't degrade. They're called forever chemicals because they don't really break down and so they're going to last forever. We do have drinking water standards and some new ones coming up that are going to be a little lower than the previous ones.  You know, the adverse health effects at PFAS, you've got alterations in metabolism, different, you know, thyroid function. It's been a, you know, high level of PFAS exposure has been associated with people being overweight, lower fetal growth rates, and actually, you know, kind of a little diminishment in the effectiveness of our immune system. The other thing that's in almost all plastic are phthalates, which are plasticizer compounds. These make plastics more flexible and also provide some other, you know, some other qualities to the plastic. And again, it's not just, they're not just an battlefield turf. They're in all kinds of plastic materials, you know, personal care products, sporting goods, some food packaging materials.  Anyone who's watched the toddler for two minutes knows, you know, what toddler behavior is like. So it's thought that this may be, you know, more of a hazard for kids and for adults. And again, their endocrine system, excuse me, disruptors. There are some other organ systems that seem to not function as well. There are some child growth and development effects that are seen to be associated with them and also some reproductive system effects. You know, we all are exposed to both phthalates and PFAS all the time. So one of the problems is, and this is one of the struggles with this group, there's a lot of information out there about toxicity of materials. And there's very little information about exposure. There just haven't been a lot of studies done. And for both PFAS and phthalates, there's no, there has yet to be an established medical limit that says, you know, below this level of exposure, you're okay, you know, above the system, you know, above this level, you're not. This is an area that virtually every paper ends with we need to do more research in this because we don't know enough. You know, so this is a problem. One of the issues just, you know, as an industrial hygienist is I'm forever seeing chemicals that we thought, you know, once upon a time weren't too bad and turn out to be, you know, really quite hazardous in the end. You know, trichlorethylene, which is a solvent that gets used virtually everywhere in the industry is one of the chlorinated solvents that's a carcinogen. All of these chlorinated solvents originally came in as safety solvents because they weren't flammable and using them meant that shops were less likely to have fires that we're going to burn them down. But the EPA is currently trying to completely ban its use in the country just because of its carcinogenic potential. Bromocropane is another solvent that gets used in vapor degreasing in, you know, machine shops and other metal things. It was introduced initially as a safer solvent and safer than chlorinated ones. The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists in 2005 set a level for workers as of an average of 10 parts per million. The level right now that they've established is 0.1 part per million. And so, you know, its toxicity has been recognized over the years as being much greater. So the exposure level was 100 times less. So, you know, while we don't have a lot of information about exposure or exact toxicity levels, I think that it's appropriate to be cautious and just to kind of think, you know, things may not be as inert as we think they are. Microplastics was raised again. We're all exposed to this just because of the enormous amount of plastic materials that are out there. There was a big article in the New York Times today just talking about how difficult it is to recycle medical products and the hundreds of tons of, you know, medical products that we don't know what to do with now. One of the issues is the plastic particles themselves, which have seems to, at least mostly in animal studies, show adverse health effects, but then it's also glom onto these plastic particles or, you know, different chemicals are introduced into the plastics and so that becomes another issue. Last September, the European Union banned added microplastics and consumer products and included in the ban things that can generate microplastics during use, which includes crumb rubber. So the EU has basically eight years to phase out crumb rubber completely, you know, in terms of artificial turf fields. In terms of mitigation, you know, there are other infill materials which appear to be much less toxic. Again, there's been very little work done on looking at them. We don't really know what's in them. It's safe to assume that pretty much anything will be safer than crumb at this point and so that would be something to use. In terms of the PFAS issue, I saw a presentation on PFAS a couple of weeks ago and called up the woman who was the, you know, kind of the head of that study. Her company did some work for Portsmouth, New Hampshire because there was an issue of people having tested samples of a supposedly PFAS-free field and finding compounds in it. So I called her up and had a long chat with her. And her concern was that because it was a field that had been installed that it was probably contaminated by PFAS in the air and rainwater that had, you know, kind of brought these particles down into the turf and it really is not viable to do PFAS testing on a field that's been installed. So her company did work on a sample that they got from the manufacturer and, you know, her take was that they found only, you know, little tiny trace levels and that from a functional standpoint there was nothing there and she didn't see that that was, you know, a significant exposure risk at all. So I think it's probably possible to get PFAS-free turf or mostly PFAS-free turf. But again, it requires sampling before it's installed just to prevent any contamination. I'm not sure, you know, what else people would like to know. Again, the big issue is that people have looked primarily at crumb. They've looked primarily at cancer as an outcome. They haven't looked at, you know, at other things like, you know, asthma or endocrine disruption or reproductive system disruption. And it's very hard to do this sampling.  This is not, unfortunately, something that you can do with kids playing soccer or football. So the challenge is going to be coming up with methods to, you know, to develop new sampling methods. There are some that are underway. People are using silicone wristbands to look for certain chemicals, but there just hasn't been enough work on it. So, you know, we're in a position of, of knowing that something has adverse health effects and not knowing quite how much we're exposed to in the course of, you know, you know, working on fields. And this, this is the huge dilemma for us and basically for everybody else who's doing research in the field. So. Thank you. Thank you, Marvin.  You'd come up with one solution and it turns out to be a new problem down the road. You know, at one point it was a miracle, right, that you could find a use for old tires. And the miracle was, oh, you put it in old tracks and you put it in artificial turf and everyone thought this was such a great thing. And, you know, now we know more than, you know, yes, it's a great second use for those tires, but is it really a great second use? I mean, from what we're finding, not so much. So, unfortunately, our perspective is only as good as the research, you know, in the present day. And, but having said that, I think we can all agree that research and crumb rubber is not very encouraging as an infill.  And in some cases it could be much better. Any other questions? Sorry. We're all subject to the law of unintended consequences. Yeah. Yeah. Me. Any questions for the health group, which I think did a great job with these bullets and explaining them tonight? Okay. Well, Come on, Leslie. Anything. Just kidding. Just busting your chops a little.  We know that there's a lot of bad stuff here, but we truly don't. Nobody really knows at this point exactly how much we're exposed to. And nobody knows exactly how much is a problem.  Yeah. Well, I think we'll move on to safety, which you'll see some definite overlap.   And because I think, I think there's some overlap, but I also think you've looked at some aspects of heat that we have, and we've probably looked at some that you, your group has.  That's good. Okay. So, you know, safety working group, we, we really looked at kind of three main areas. One is the effect of synthetic artificial turf on, on user or slash player injury. Also as compared to natural turf fields. Heat, it's effects, you know, heat effects on players and users, as well as comparing it to the effects on, of natural turf fields and then sort of skin, skin issues, which just, I mean, can sometimes be injury and sometimes be heat, but sometimes it can be its own, its own element. And we'll talk a little about that at the end. It's probably the area we've gone. There's the least amount of research and we have the least to say, but there's still some important things to say.   You know, when you read about the original, and you know, by the way, astroturf, which is sort of the very first synthetic turf, isn't that old? I mean, we're talking something from the, you know, 60s and 70s. We're not talking about something that's been around for, you know, you know, 100 years, we're talking about something that's been around at most 50 years. It's, you know, those early astroturf days, which in many people's minds is still what they think of when they think of artificial turf. I mean, the technology behind synthetic turf has jumped leaps and bounds, and that includes the technology around how it's effect on, on the people who use it. I think everyone would, would agree who lived during the early days of astroturf or read about it, astroturf was pretty terrible when it comes to effect on the users, and that's why, frankly, the industry, you know, had no choice but to make it better. But even with those improvements, you know, modern synthetic turf has notable limitations in comparison to, you know, professionally maintain natural turf fields, but we think, you know, limitations that could, that could be managed or mitigated. So, you know, moving onto the injury piece of this, which is something, you know, we haven't heard about from other groups. As I said, you know, artificial turfs moved on taking, taking great leaps since the astroturf days, particularly with respect to player injuries. And, you know, recent studies on these player injuries provide a mixed picture. And many of these studies we looked at and Leslie was fantastic in finding some really good research here, a lot of peer reviewed studies. Some, some from, you know, a decade ago, some from just a few years ago, some from this decade.  And, you know, some studies see a greater likelihood of sports injuries with artificial turf over grass. Other studies see the two playing services is basically equivalent when it comes to injuries. We actually saw one study, interestingly, that showed that they actually, artificial turfs were safer than natural grass fields. And we'll sort of suss that out a little bit, but, I mean, one of the, one of the key pieces here and Leslie is always on me to, to mention this and she should be on me because it's a really important point. You know, a lot of these studies look at synthetic turf, synthetic turf versus, you know, athlete level, you know, professional athlete level, professional sport team level, natural grass fields. That is, you know, an interesting comparison, but it's probably not a very relevant one for Arlington. When we're never going to have an NFL style or FIFA style or natural grass field, I think Ian Lacey made this very clear that for us to do that, that would probably be half of Arlington's, you know, annual budget, you know, to keep, to keep these, these fields as pristine as, as you would have at the professional level. So, you know, you have to look at these issues of artificial, especially with player injuries, artificial turf, and compare it to natural grass, you know, fields that are maintained well enough, but not nearly at the level of, you know, prist, to call them pristine. I mean, there's just not possible for municipality, really any municipality. So, you know, we, we will talk more about, you know, these studies when we hand in the narrative section, but you know, we also looked at the experiences of, sorry, Leslie, were you trying to get in? Sorry, no, I, I have a little cold. Oh, sorry. You know, we looked at the experience from the athletic trainer at the high school and you know, with, with the benefit of her experience, you know, she said, she's really not seen, consistent with what we saw in these studies, any measurable difference in the type or number of injuries associated with, you know, the playing surface, you know, some more frequent types, injury types are just attributable to factors like differing physiology or player preparedness. There was a very interesting piece that I want to thank Mike for sharing with us. It was written just a couple of weeks ago from Mass General Brigham, from the head of the director of, I believe it's their sport, sport science, you know, sports medicine and orthopedics surgery office. And you know, it's a very lengthy piece and it's very interesting, but you know, at the end of the day, he sort of comes out and says, yeah, if I had a preference for what my kid would play on, my preference would be they play on natural grass, but I can't tell you today that there's any more or less likelihood of a player being injured on, on natural grass or synthetic grass or natural grass or vice versa. You know, what we do find is you know, it's just hard to definitively say one is better than the other. I mean, I think there's definitely natural grass has probably more going for it and maybe a little, a little more going for it in terms of lesser effects on player injuries, but you know, what we've seen is there seems to be a slightly higher risk of foot and ankle injuries on artificial turf fields versus natural grass fields, but the difference isn't really dramatic. There's some indication that was with respect to sports injuries, artificial playing services might be better than natural grass, natural grass, including maybe in the year of concussions, but I'd say at the end of the day, it's kind of a wash. You know, natural grass comes out a little ahead, but not much and it really depends the study you're looking at and really the honest assessments from, from people who know this stuff very well say, you know, I'm paraphrasing, but six and one half it doesn't have another and there's just so many other factors that go into player injuries that you know, you're not, if you're looking to player injuries to kind of decide which direction Arlington should go here, it's not going to tell you too much in Joe, Leslie, anything you want to add or anything I got wrong here. Any questions about, yeah, Mike? I think what you're bringing up is so important because there's so many variables involved in safety on artificial versus natural turf that it's really hard to nail down a specific definitive answer. And I think that's important to realize that that may not be a deciding factor, but I think that, you know, what's the age of the player, what's the sport of the player, what's the, what's the maintenance been on the field, et cetera, et cetera. And so I think that you're right that it's very hard to come down with a clear definitive answer. I think that's important to know. Well, and Joe, Joe, I mean, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I mean, you had, you had an anecdote about your own family, right? Like injury, sports injuries in your own family. And for you, it was also sort of a wash, right? And fortunately, I've had the experience of three ACL tears with my daughters. When one was on, one was on turf and one was on natural grass and both with non-contact injuries. And that just, yeah. So that's my own personal, like it's happened on both. So I think it's more of the genetic makeup of my daughters than anything else. Yeah. And even when speaking to what, you know, Ian said last week, I mean, it's also about maintenance of artificial turf too, not just natural grass. You know, sometimes, you know, we think artificial turf is set it in for yet. And I think what we learned from Ian last week was, not so much. I mean, you have to maintain an artificial turf field too. Otherwise, you know, things either get, you know, sometimes the blades get clumpy, which makes it easier for, you know, cleats to get sort of stuck in them. I mean, there's, there's a lot of, you know, a well-maintained synthetic turf field could also minimize, you know, the risk of injury just as much as a well-maintained natural grass field can minimize injury. My daughter had a piece of yell tear and it wouldn't have mattered if it was natural or artificial turf because she just got tackled and dumped and did it in. So it wasn't going to matter which turf it was on. Yeah. Jill? I was just, I listened to Ian's presentation just last night and I don't know where this goes and maybe it is in this section. What I took away from Ian's presentation, I took away that sand was a good alternative infill, but the other thing I took away was that regardless of field type maintenance has to become a greater priority. And you know, I personally didn't realize how much maintenance an artificial field had and now I'm reading Phil's comment that that's usually part of the contract and warranty that fields are tested for performance. So where do we put that like or inform town meeting members that like regardless of the field type we're selecting maintenance has to become a priority if we're going to invest in any type of field. And I don't know if this goes in like the beginning of our presentation or if it fits into safety. But I think it, you know, I think it's peppered throughout, but I think it will be have to be a clear part of, you know, any executive summary or conclusion, conclusion, conclusion section.  Because I do feel like, you know, we, we talk about maintenance, we say the value of it, and then we often kind of do a set it and forget a type thing with, with fields, right?  Our I've been screaming and yelling for many years that our outdoor public assets need to be treated in a much, much, much better manner. You know, we don't do maintenance. We don't, we don't do maintenance. We, for many years, we haven't done maintenance of our town buildings. We didn't do maintenance of our public schools. We have a town hall with a roof that is falling in and that they're going to be taking the clock tower off of because we haven't done adequate maintenance. But we really haven't done or found a way to do maintenance on our outdoor public assets. And for many, many years, Joe and the Park Commission have been talking about it and have been trying to get people involved. And they're, they're, you know, I know now in, in Claire's department, we've got, you know, David Morgan, who has looked at land management. A second bite of the apple is coming on that because it didn't completely take a look at all of our outdoor public assets. But that's, that's just a major issue for the town with respect to parks, playgrounds, playing fields. So many gardens are public spaces need maintenance. And I think people understand that but that the commitment to that can be overwhelming because there's a lot to have to focus in on there. And it, and it's costly regardless of how you do it it costs. Well, you know, whether it's whether it's your in-house, you know, we no longer have a department of natural resources that we used to have back way, way many, many years ago before prop two and a half came into being. You know, the town had a department focused on natural resources. And that got cut. And funding just isn't a priority, hasn't been a priority in that area. So it's coming home to Roost. Leslie, like, and that's a good point. And I was actually had a someone from the finance committee reached out to me today to ask me this very question. And I kind of gave them a very long-winded answer. But if I were to tell I don't know this population 44,000 plus, how many people we have in the parks department? That probably 20, 25, there. We have six. Six people maintain all of our parks, playgrounds, the fields, the common areas, the library, you know, there's some a little bit of it's contracted out. But six people. So you have someone mowing the grass, someone lining the fields, someone empty in trash, someone grooming the ball fields. There's a like a maintenance worker and then someone is following up with a backup more one, two, two more, one on one side of town, one on the other side of town. That's it. And then you talk about you want to pull resources for Town Day, you want to pull resources to beautify Mass Ave. You want to pull resources to do, you know, a number of things that just come up, the issues that just happened in life. You have six people. So I think when you're talking about committing to a maintenance program, yeah, it might be a different form of fertilizing, whether it's organic or non-organic, it might be, you know, going with someone like Ian's company that certainly can provide you with a list of different services that you could put on a field. But you need the people to do it. And I think that's where a bulk of the monies come in. If you were able to even double the parks department size, and then you could really spend time and training in, you know, spending the time that each field needed. I mean, that's one element. And the other thing is resting fields. I don't want to, I don't care if we double our parks department and we increase the budget by, you know, five times. If we don't have the ability to rest the fields and they're being used the amount of time that they're being used now, there's really not much an increased maintenance program is going to do if you're using them from 3 p.m. to dusk, you know, five days a week. And then from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on some cases, the weekends, you know, from mid-March or say April 1 to November, you know, with a little bit of a break season in the summer when nothing grows because it's so hot. So it's, you know, it's just really good to keep that in mind because I've heard that a lot. We need more maintenance. We need more maintenance. It's a much larger issue than just throwing another $200,000 into a fertilization program. I'm going to keep things, I think that's a good point, Joe. I'm going to keep things moving and move on to heat. And I'll keep this actually moving even in a faster clip just because I know we've already discussed a lot of the heat with the health group. So we've looked at heat, too, but, you know, much more less from the chemical side and more from, you know, the just player safety side. You know, as we've said, this is one of the few areas where there's wide consensus that, you know, artificial slash synthetic turf is going to be much, much hotter, particularly with crumb rubber infill. But, you know, even the alternative infills, the early indications are they're still hotter. They're just not as hot as crumb rubber infill. But, you know, we're talking, you know, much, much hotter. And we've seen with crumb rubber, we're talking could be, you know, as much as 80 degrees hotter, the natural turf on a hot, sunny day. You know, we believe the heat-related concerns are very capable of being mitigated, especially in a community like Arlington that's in the New England climate. You know, the heat-related concerns over the artificial turf fields in New England would be, you know, most acute in the, you know, the months you think of, right? The hottest months of the year, June, July, August. And for Arlington, you know, installing new or retaining existing artificial turf fields of any kind, we believe should require, you know, close monitoring of, you know, wet bulb temperature, air and surface temperatures in those fields every day of their operation.    People go out there and DCR or probably at the Arlington Res.   And if it's a day where the levels are high, it's, you can't use it that day and people just accept that. You know, in the same way, if there's a 98 degree day outside and the field temperature at an artificial turf field in Arlington is, you know, 170 degrees, obviously that's not a field that should be in use that day. Doesn't mean it can't be used every day of, you know, September, October, November. I mean, you know, you have to just sort of know that there are going to be certain days of the year. We're going to have to monitor these things. And it doesn't mean we shouldn't have an artificial turf field, at least on a heat-related issue. Doesn't mean, you know, because there's a few days a year you can't use the field that you shouldn't have the field at all. At least that's, you know, on a heat how we came at this. You know, for Arlington's at the high school level, athletic programs, you know, local field conditions, we now are monitored regularly by the staff. We learn this from from the athletic trainer using, you know, the wet bulb temperature readings during warm days in August, you know, we were told that the artificial turf temperatures can be about 10 degrees warmer than natural grass. That's been at least her experience. And, you know, we have things like MIA to follow. They have existing protocols related to practice and play during heat events. They're actually very good guidelines if you haven't read them. You know, so we're not, we're not painting on a blank canvas here. We have, we have some, some guidance from very good sources here as to, you know, if we did have artificial turf or certain synthetic turf fields how we could properly use them and, and monitor them so that they weren't used on, on days where health or safety of, of users would be at risk. And then, you know, we've talked about just other alternative infills like, you know, wood chips, coconut husk, cork, brock fill. Now we've heard about green sand. We just don't have a lot of published research as the health, health group noted. We don't have a lot. What we have in many cases is industry data, but the industry data is encouraging. It's not going to ever quite get to natural turf levels in terms of heat mitigation, but gets a heck of a lot closer to it. And as we're, we think exploring much more than, you know, crumb rubber, which, you know, there's been research the heck out of, and none of it seems very, very positive. So before I move on, I mean, I know we've talked a lot about heat, but Leslie or Joe, do you want to add anything or, and we'll flash all of this out, obviously, in our narrative section and site to a bunch of studies and, you know, best practices and what some other communities have done, but that kind of gives you kind of a high level view of heat. You know, lastly, we looked at skin and bacteria issues, which, you know, relationships to both the heat and player injury, but can sometimes be seen as a separate category. You know, artificial turf fields, when you're talking about very hot fields, you know, it raises the risk of skin injury from the high temperatures. We saw, I think we've seen some, some data that shows that, you know, if the temperature is above a certain amount, like 120 degrees, I think, you know, skin, skin being touching that surface for more than 10 or 20 seconds, I think, can be enough to, to start to, you know, get a, get a serious burn. But, you know, once again, this is one of those things where that sounds really horrible, but then you realize, like, well, who's using these fields? Barefoot, you know, who's using these fields? You know, who's, who's keeping, keeping their hands or their bare feet on these surfaces pressed against them for 20 seconds at a time when 120, you know, when they're 120 degrees. I mean, it's, it's not a great scenario, but it's also an unlikely scenario for us. And there are ways to mitigate, like proper signage directing user of the field to wear shoes at all times or, or as we said, limiting or closing the field to use on the hottest days of the year. You know, the synthetic turf fields also raise questions about bacteria infections, including greater prevalence of turf burns and skin abrasions compared to natural grass fields.   Well, you know, I don't deny that that happened. But now, we read those stories, we read a collection of them. They're almost always from Texas, Florida, California, and they're almost always on extremely hot days in extremely hot places. You know, I don't personally worry about someone using a synthetic turf field in Arlington and having, you know, their cleats melt on them. And if they, if there was ever a day where that was a possibility, I think what we're saying is, that's a day no one should be out on that field anyway. So, you know, this is back to the cautionary, you know, you read interesting things, but you always have to have things in context. Like, you know, a Texas artificial turf field isn't going to have much relevance to an Arlington situation if we had an artificial turf field. I don't know, anything, anything Joe Leslie, I mean, that's sort of a very high level set of our, you know, where we've been looking and what we've been looking at and where we're kind of going with the research or any questions from anyone else. Well, we either did a fantastic job or we've totally missed the mark, but we'll find out soon enough. So, well, I think we've all gotten through the bullet or each of the group's bullets. I know it's getting late. Natasha, I can't remember what's next on the agenda. Yep, maybe there. I just had it in front of me and I just lost it. So give me one tiny second. We may be deliverables project timeline. I think that's where we're at. Yes. So we left. That was sort of where I naturally wanted to go, but it's good to know that's the next item on the agenda. So, you know, we have a deadline this Friday. It's a, you know, coming fast on the, you know, fast on the heels of the the last deadline, you know, and it's because we had to compress deadlines of the narrative sections, which, you know, based on the, based on a lot of, you know, the bullet points we received, you know, it's certainly going to be more work, but I like the direction everyone's going in and hopefully it's just putting meat on the bones.  Mike, I received your email. I'll reach out to you. I think, I think we'll be good to have a, I'll reach out to you, but I think we'll, I think we'll be able to, to find a compromise there. So, I don't, but, but in general, you know, if you haven't ready, send them this Friday. I think I'm a little hesitant to have a meeting next week while Natasha and I kind of take in the everyone's sections and start to go through them and kind of piece them together. And we could have a meeting, but I don't know really what, I don't know if everything would be ready to be shared at that point. I don't know, Natasha, what are your thoughts? Yeah. So I think, you know, I don't think it's a bad idea where we haven't received a lot of, it seems like this group is fairly on point. It doesn't seem like anyone is really disagreeing or feeling like we need to dive into any additional areas. So I think it probably makes sense for us to try and put all of those narrative reports into one. And then share it out. What do others think? Or we can just do the sections and everyone can review each section, but I feel like we've kind of already done that with the bullet points. It might just be more helpful if we're able to kind of get together that draft document that includes not only the introduction, some of those extra points that we wanted to get in there and then just have that kind of a review. I don't know what folks think. Joe. I just got a quick question. And just, so at this point, and I know it's because I I think Phil asked or sent some things to Natasha. And as far as someone else reached out to me, but potentially being a speaker, are we done collecting data? So at this point, so we're still collecting data and then over the next couple of weeks, we can still model. Okay. Okay. I think the only point of not meeting next week would be so that we can have sort of that final document. And then when we do have that next meeting, we would have that as well as any additional information. And at that point, if, you know, there were things that we felt as a group we wanted to include or elaborate more on, we would still have some time to do that. I think that was sort of the thought, but I'm good either way.  And then, you know, we have to talk about kind of big picture, like what we do want in an executive summary, or as a set of conclusions or recommendations. I mean, I myself have thoughts about where we're kind of all seeming to move with this, but I just, you know, we want to be sure all of our thoughts are on the same page and that, you know, if we stand, if we can all stand behind something, it has to be something that we can all stand behind. So, you know, I know someone in the chat mentioned that there is a warrant article to extend our, timeline, you know, our deadline to October. And I talked with the sponsor of that, you know, before, before she filed it. And I think, you know, she filed it with very good intentions, the intention of, you know, it gives us that if we needed more time and we didn't ask for it, we wouldn't be able to get it because the warrant would have closed, the warrant would have closed and we would have missed the opportunity. So it was sort of more of a fail safe. You put it in there if we don't need it, we don't need it. And if we do, there's something there. My goal is still to not need that. My goal is to get this report done before town meeting. I have to admit, I'm not sure it will get done by March 22nd, which technically the warrant article says 30 days before the start of town meeting, which would be March 22nd, Friday, March 22nd. I think we can get this report done before the start of town meeting for sure. But, you know, we may need it to, you know, especially if we want a meeting for public, you know, potentially some public input. I don't want to rush that. I don't want to cut that out. So, you know, we may be looking at something where we need, you know, maybe we finish our work in early April, which is still well before the start of town meeting. And I, and if we were to go that route, I think I'd want to send a letter to the select board in the town monitor, just letting them know. Technically, we won't meet the official deadline, but we will get this done before town meeting, which to be honest, I think was the real intent. I think the 30 days was kind of just an arbitrary, 30 days before was an arbitrary deadline. If we can make March 22nd, I'd like to do that. I just think at this point, you know, I don't want us having to meet every day for two weeks to meet that deadline. I'd rather, I'd rather get it right and then rush it to, to meet a sort of, that's to some degree an arbitrary deadline. So this is a long way of saying stay tuned. We'll obviously let you know. I mean, maybe we will meet next. I think Natasha and I will try to decide the next obviously day or two, whether we will meet next week. And you know, maybe we still have a guest speaker. Maybe we still, there's still a reason to meet even aside from the work on, you know, the bullet points and the sections. But I don't know, Natasha, anything? Sorry, I'm kind of, I'm kind of going on and on. But no, I think if the group is okay with this, well, I guess first, you know, what are people's thoughts? Are you comfortable with Jim and I trying to put together just one document so that you're not reading each different section? Or would you prefer to read each different section? Because I think what's going to happen is we're going to end up with a couple of different documents. One is going to be well, we'll have three documents, right? Like everyone's narrative section. And then we have to put a whole document together. And so to try and make it as easy as possible, we all have to, you know, weigh in on it. Does it make sense for it to be one solid document that you're reading through at one time? And then saying, okay, you know, here's where I think we might need to focus more on or do you want to like, kind of do this discussion as it kind of comes up? So I guess that's the first question. And then the second thing is we don't have to make a decision right this minute. We can certainly, you know, in the next couple of days. And we can still, we can still meet next week, have a speaker, have whatever correspondent has been received, but maybe we don't have that report all compiled and sent out to the group because we're going to kind of piece it together so that it's one report. So two things I think I'm asking. One is, which would you prefer? One single document or all the individual reports? Leslie, I see you single. Jill, single. Marvin? I think single. But I mean, it's like if we've got two groups talking about heat and, you know, the healthy environmental group talking about chemical issues, it seems silly to like, do it twice. Right. Okay. Mike. Perfect. Jim, I know you are an option. And I just want to, I want to assuage any fears like, you'll still see your work product.  This isn't what my words. Where did this come from?  It's just, we want it to flow. Okay. So we are in agreement. We'll make it one document. And so regardless of whether we meet or not next week, that document probably will not be. I know it's not going to be ready for next week's meeting. We just, I will be able to, Jim and I will be able to compile that in time. So it will be on the following, whatever we meet. We can still have a meeting next week. And if we want to bring in any guest speakers or there's additional material that we would like to talk about, I think we can kind of leave that up to the group. We can make that decision now or we can say, you know what, if there's something that you really want to talk about next week or you want to bring in, let us know by Thursday morning, and then we can make a decision by Thursday at 5 p.m. So that I can have the packet out in time. How's that sound to people? Makes sense to me. Okay. All right. And I know David Morgan will be joining us again. And so that will give him a little bit of time to also sort of catch up. Claire, thank you so much for everything that you've done and been here, even being just here. I know you're super, super busy and this was probably not on your list, but we have certainly enjoyed having you here. I know you'll fill David in very nicely. So, sorry. So last night before we just check in on new business and then adjourn, and I haven't done it myself, so it's sort of a reminder to me to make life easier. If, you know, if you've got lists of sources, start sending them to the sources you look to or relied on, or even just read, send them to Natasha so she can start building that appendix, because, you know, no reason why we have to wait to the last minute on that. New business? Anything? I just heard something today that I thought sounded a lot better. We called the things that we would want to put in place mitigations, and I think you used the word best practices. And something to me about mitigation seems like, okay, if you do this, then that's okay. Versus best practices, I think is like, I don't know, a bigger picture statement. And so, I would just encourage in the overall report to be consistent with that language, and personally, I think best practices sounds better. I do. I do too. I will note that the charge uses the word mitigation. So to some degree, we still need to, you know, we'll need to use that a little bit. I mean, you know, I'm, we don't need to be slaves to the charge, right? But we, we do have to stick to it, to some degree. So, Yeah, I'm not sure we can determine a best practice necessarily. I mean, a best practice has a certain connotation to it that I'm not sure we have the real authority to put in place. But I think a mitigation is something that, you know, as it said, in, in what we are looking at, determining those things that can be done to eliminate a bad context or circumstance or something might be the best we can do as part of what we're looking at. It would be the way I would think of it. Yeah, I think that's right. Just my thought. Yeah, I think that's right. The only thing I would note there is that mitigation can be partial or complete. Or I mean, there's a range there as well with best practices. You know, who's best practices and based on what the same mitigation. So it's a fuzzy word, but we'll get there. We'll figure it out. Yeah. Just under new business, I wanted to mention two things. I put this in the chat, but anyone who sent me any materials that have not been included in this packet, it may have just been because I received them after the deadline, just as a reminder, if I can get the materials. So if we're having a Tuesday meeting and there's no Monday holiday, I just need to have them the Thursday before by five o'clock. I use that cutoff because I can't post the meeting agenda myself. I have to rely on other folks to do that. So I have to have it ready by Friday morning. So I'll make every effort to get anything. If you send it to me at like 435, 450, I will make every effort to get it in there. But anything after five, I really have to like cut it off the Thursday before. So I promise anything that was not included will certainly be included. If you felt like there was something that wasn't included and you provided sent to me, there was a lot of materials this past week. So please let me know. And the second piece that I just wanted to let the committee know about is I did finally speak with the town of Brookline. And I was able to speak with one of the select board members, select board member, Sandman, who was on the task force for a resolution in Brookline. And one thing that he had mentioned that I don't know enough about and I promise that I'm going to give everyone, I'm going to provide a memo with what I have learned from both Malden and Brookline in any attachments that I promise will be in the next meeting. But one thing that he said that I don't know much about and I'm wondering if anyone here knows, he said that they had a chemist and the chemist had had talked about exposure to PFAS and something about the PFAS were different in the artificial turf. He said PVDF versus I don't even know what that means, but I need to look a little bit more in that. But essentially what what I got from the conversation was that the PFAS that were in the turf are not the same as the PFAS that are other in other areas are concerning. I have no idea what that means, but I just, I don't know has anyone come across anything like that. I did a little bit of research and I couldn't find anything. So I don't know what that is referring to, but I'm going to try and look into that. And if anyone else sees anything, I haven't seen anything about the PFAS and turf being different from other concerning PFAS. And I think what he was trying to say was that they were smaller particles that were not of concern. But I'm just sharing that to see if I've heard anything. I don't know. Did he refer to it with the, you know, specific to the infill or to the carpet? Great question. And I don't actually have that in my notes. So he did send me some stuff. So I will certainly look at that, but I do see that Susan Chapnick just put something in there. So thank you for that. I'll, I'll take a look at that. Thank you, everyone for those comments. So I'm glad that I mentioned that and I will try and look at that a little bit more, but just wanted to share that. I'm done with my new business. Any other new items? Okay. I'll entertain a motion. I will put the motion to adjourn. Second. Okay. I guess call the roll. All right. So we're going to go with Mike. Yes. All right. Joe Barr, not here. Who else is in that group that I need to talk with? No. Okay. Jim. Yes. Leslie. Yes. Who's the group I'm missing? Us. Jill. Yes. Marvin. Yes. Natasha. Yes. Okay. Okay. We are adjourned. Keep up the great work, everyone. Thank you. Thank you.


May Allah bless all of them from now on to the Day of Resurrection. Dear respected viewers, thank you for joining us once more from this, your show, from the holy city of Karbala, broadcasting to you live. You're joining me, your host, Yahya Seymour, and we're back on your show, Back to the Basics, in which, insha'Allah, we will be discussing some of the most basic details of our ideological, theological, jurisprudential, and ethical differences with those who do not follow the School of the Ahl al-Bait and the particular understanding of Islam that we have. Of course, in the past few episodes, for those of you who have been tuning into what we've been discussing, we have discussed several key and important details. One of the key issues which I wish to establish in the first few episodes is that our approach to the entire discussion of how to engage with others is one which differs highly from the conventional approaches you utilized and used in our very reactionary behavior towards how others try to dissect our particular beliefs. And tonight, insha'Allah, I wish to round off what we were saying in the previous few nights, but also to introduce to you not merely the approach we were taking, but rather what is the issue of worldviews. I gave a brief, very summarized and simplified method of applying the worldview application to the issue of polemical discussions or discussions with those of other schools. But tonight, insha'Allah, I wish to actually elaborate more on what a worldview is and exactly how to build a framework for this discussion, insha'Allah. Dear viewers, you will remember that one of the main issues we looked at, which of course is one of the main issues in analyzing any worldview, is the issue of human knowledge, where we attain our knowledge from. And indeed, in order to attain knowledge, we need certain tools, one of those major tools being the human intellect, another one being language, and we looked at how both of those, if not correctly or aptly addressed, could lead to major confusion. To such a degree that we would have to fall into what I call the skeptical cycle of not knowing whether or not we can trust anything. And I believe we demonstrated pretty aptly that there are certain, dare I say, I would call them Muslim theological schools for I am very cautious to attribute these schools to Islam, which claim to be dominant and true and yet give no value to the human intellect through their inconsistency. And inconsistency, as we mentioned, is a sign of a defeated worldview because as Allah Azza wa Jalla states in the Holy Qur'an, had this book been from anyone other than Allah, then we would have found in it much inconsistency, demonstrating that something divine has to be consistent. I wanted to round off by just summarizing where we left off last night and it was a point I was unable to make. That point was in particular about this particular doctrine that these Salafis or the Atharis call the Doctrine of Bilakef or Bilakefia. Namely, that is to say that we affirm the literal without discussing the howness or whatness of that literal. That is to say without looking into what these words actually mean. Now we've seen in several previous episodes how this, when applied to Allah Azza wa Jalla, has led to quite disastrous statements like saying that Allah Azza wa Jalla gets bored, tired, weary, that Allah Azza wa Jalla jogs, that Allah Azza wa Jalla has a shadow and just leaving us on a cliffhanger by saying that we don't know what this means but we affirm it because venerations utilize such rhetoric and what we're going to do is affirm it because of venerations without going into how and all we affirm is that this is befitting of the majesty of Allah Azza wa Jalla. We've seen that this approach can be quite disastrous but allow us to just test the consistency of such individuals. I wanted to quote this narration yesterday and we'll round off here and after that we'll look at worldviews insha'Allah to Allah. In a hadith Qudsi or what we call a divinely spoken hadith, that is to say words of Allah Azza wa Jalla which have been narrated by the Holy Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa ala which are not parts of the Holy Quran. Allah Azza wa Jalla narrates according to this attribution.  This is that the messenger of Allah has said that Allah will say on the day of judgment O son of Adam, I fell ill and you visited me not. He will say, that is to say that the person who this is said to will say O Lord, and how should I visit you when you are the Lord of the worlds? He will say did you not know that my servants so and so had fallen ill and you had visited him not. Are we to assume from this narration and affirm the literal that whenever we visit this particular servant because we have to be quite literal and take it very literally that we're also visiting Allah Azza wa Jalla quite physically and that we affirm the literal that Allah is physically there with that individual therefore there must be either a form of incarnation or pantheism. I think not and I think that even their own scholars would consistently reject that interpretation of the narration just in the same way that they consistently reject the verses of the Quran which says that Allah Azza wa Jalla is with his servants and they specify and say that this is in his knowledge. So we see there is this doctrine of attributing howness to the statements of Allah Azza wa Jalla when they wish and as I said inconsistency and methodology is a dead giveaway that a methodology is flawed. So coming back to the issue of world views, insha'Allah. Let's begin by looking at what is a world view and we've defined it in several episodes previously. It is a network of interconnected beliefs and assumptions about man that is to say us, life and the universe. Their origin, purpose and future which shapes how we view and understand our experiences and surroundings in addition to our behavior. I've stated previously everyone definitely has a world view because they couldn't function in life without one. They must have one but most people do not realize they have a world view sadly. World views are primarily concerned with the bigger questions which when dealt with actually shape how we act and think in regards to all of the smaller questions. So for example, if I have a major belief on a bigger question such as the nature of humanity I'm going to act very differently in engaging with a poor human being I see on the streets from someone that thinks differently than I do. If I think positively about humanity I'm going to have more confidence in the average person that asks me for assistance. If I think very negatively of humanity it's likely that I'm going to be switched off in such a decision. So a world view is the very lens or prism that which we use to view and understand the data and experiences we have and we witness around us. We rationalize this world with a world view and we understand our experiences using this world view. And as I've said, a world view is something very helpful to understand religion as because every religion and sect falls under a world view and again most cultures teach people to think in a certain world view too. But world views and comparing them allows us to do several things. One of those things is to make useful comparisons between reasonable beliefs and unreasonable ones without realizing that in the past our methodology was slightly more flawed so we find that this methodology is far more apt and accurate inshallah ta'ala. And we also make meaningful conversation with others by asking for big questions as opposed to having to ask specific details. So as opposed to me asking someone are you a Muslim or are you a Christian and making assumptions based on these words when in reality these words could be an expression referring to several world views as opposed to one I could ask a major question which would untap for me and unlock which particular world view a person aligns themselves with without having to read libraries of books and reading about individual beliefs. It allows me to have constructive conversations and make headway in tabligh as well as defense of our own religion against those who doubt. And it allows us to reject methodologies or beliefs because of the bigger picture. So as I've stated, if a particular methodology rejects the role of the human intellect or in applying its methodology rejects it without being direct about it then we know to reject this methodology and there's no need to further question that methodology because it's already not passed the test on the first exam. It allows us to make reasoned evaluations of the different world views and more importantly it allows us to protect ourselves and our children and our families from the absurd nature of certain beliefs out there which garnish and present themselves as feasible rational alternatives to our particular beliefs at the moment. In discussing any world view there are several major questions we need to look at. They are the question of theology or ilahiyat, the question of knowledge or elm, the question of anthropology that is to say what a human being is and what his nature is, the question of morality and the question of human destiny that is to say our liberation. So in looking at questions pertaining to the existence of God and theology we would ask the question does this world view believe in a deity? What is the nature of that deity? What's the nature of the God that this world view proposes that we believe in? How does that deity relate to us as human beings? How does it relate to the universe in general? And how does that deity relate to me personally? When it comes to the nature of knowledge we would ask how can we know anything about the world around us? How can we know anything about Allah Azawajal or the deity that we believe in? How do we know what we know to be true? That is to say can we trust our intellect? Can we trust our sources of knowledge? Are there limits to human rationality? Can we trust our rationality in the first place? And can we increase in our knowledge? That's another important question. When it comes to the nature of human beings we would ask what are human beings? Where did we come from? Are we unique? Are we here for a reason? And what is the nature of a human being? When it comes to ethics or morality we would ask the following question is there such a thing as right and wrong? Are these things objective or subjective? That is to say is it merely because that's the way we've been told it is or is there an objective reality behind these moral decisions? Why should I do good? And more importantly, am I going to be accountable to anyone or anything? And when it comes to the last topic that is to say human future we would look at the question what are the worst problems facing humanity? Is there a solution? What is that solution? And what role do we have in that solution? And more importantly what role does the deity we believe in have in that solution? These are all the primary questions which are concerned with when we're looking at a world view. These are the first questions we ask and after any world view passes the test on these things we would look at more specific questions pertaining to doctrine. Now I've already mentioned in several episodes the tools for interrogation. That is to say the things we would ask in order to understand what a good or valuable or reasonable or feasible world view would look like. So we would ask ourselves is it consistent? Does it provide explanatory scope for what we see around us? Does it collaborate with our experience? Is it coherent? Does it resonate with a fitrah? Is it livable? Dear viewers insha'Allah ta'ala these are some of the questions we will ask after the break we'll continue with this analysis. Salamu alaikum warahmatullah. Salamu alaikum dear viewers thank you for joining me after that short break. We were discussing world views and the tools of interrogation we would use in order to assess and judge these world views. I stated earlier on that one of these that some of these tools were its consistency, its explanatory scope whether or not it resonates with our experience of the world is it coherent internally? Does it resonate with our fitrah? That is to say what we know to be true from our natural disposition. Is it livable? Is it something that human beings can actually live up to? Is it fulfilling and does it provide us with any scope for future hope? Now these are all the tools we wish to utilise in analysing any particular world view and this approach whilst it might seem new and unconventional to some is very much in line with our theology, with our texts and it's the approach given to us by the holy imams may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. What I mean by that is when you observe the previous debates of the imams in books like Kitab al-Ihtajaj, in books like Kitab al-Tawheed, in books like Ayun al-Akhbar al-Rivah, alayhi salat wa salam we would find that the imams utilise certain approaches with their opponents, with their protagonists, with those who come to question them, with those who come to challenge them about certain beliefs and with those who come to challenge them about either the existence of Allah or the position of Imamah or even things like the Prophethood of the Prophet Muhammad and we would see that the Imam utilises certain approaches one of the main approaches we utilise and is utilised till today in any discussion is known as that is to say the principle of compelling someone to hold by the very positions they adopt now in doing so what the Imam normally does is he will compel a person using the very positions they normally adopt in their day-to-day lives and according to their worldview and utilising this very method he would demonstrate that the positions they adopt that the mabadah they adopt, that the principles they adopt will all lead to absurdity in one way shape or form I am arguing that when we look at a worldview when we look at the key assumptions behind every worldview we would see that these assumptions force certain other beliefs and we would see that their behaviour or the way they deal and construct their religion is not internally consistent whatsoever and I will argue that using this Qa'id-ul-Izzam this is how we will assess the different worldviews and will demonstrate that the different worldviews which exist out there are not sufficient nor are they worthy of sitting at the table with our particular worldview but it's not to say that we are forcing our beliefs onto anyone else we are not violent people unlike some other sects which exist and talk in the name of Islam sadly but we are concerned with truth for truth is the most important thing to all of us and utilising this methodology is one of the few ways we can ensure and have confidence that we are giving a fair trial to others that we are explaining ourselves in an adequate manner and that more importantly we are doing justice to the limited amount of years and time that we have as human beings to go out there and search for the truth it does not make sense that I should have to discuss small beliefs, small side beliefs which stem from major beliefs in order to try and demonstrate my religion to someone who unfortunately judges using their own canon of evidence the Quran tells us to come to a common ground and in doing so we will have to essentially find a position from which we can relatively compare with apt analogies in regards to whether or not our beliefs are sound or not one of the ways we can do that is by asking people to bring forward their worldview ask these major questions and compare package versus package what I mean by that is we would compare the entire totality of our beliefs versus the entire totality of their beliefs and we would ask the bigger questions do these doctrines make sense? for it is not just that we would be held accountable for not knowing about the smallest of details where the evidence for them is internally this is not how people traditionally come to a new religion when we look at the Christians who convert to Islam we do not ask them where is the Sahih hadith which states that for example there are 124,000 prophets or where is the Sahih hadith which states that Nabi Daniel was a prophet for example and we don't compel them by saying that how do you know that between this particular scholar of Rajal and that particular scholar of Rajal this one is more sound and more accurate therefore your evidence is at a level of certainty these are not questions which we ask a person in fact rarely will you find that converts who come on TV and discuss why they moved from one religion to another religion will have a intricate understanding of the small, finer details and mechanics of a particular religion's scripture and the authenticity in terms of transmission of such scripture this is what we would call modern day polemics modern day polemics of course is very different to how the real world works in the real world we don't discuss these issues utilizing this very cheap and incoherent approach rather we utilize an approach which respects and gives credence to the human rational ability to trust their fitra and their instinct in judging whether or not a religion seems to make sense and these religions can only make sense if we have accurate information about the bigger questions these smaller questions about where's the evidence for the prophethood of for example prophet Adam this is not a question which makes sense for us to go and ask a person in regards to why Islam is true this might be a perfectly valid question when we are discussing individual beliefs with friends of ours who are already Muslim but it would make no sense for an atheist to start asking us in regards to demonstrating the accuracy of the science of transmission of the principles of tafsir and whether or not that has accurately reached us from the first generation of Islam these are not questions which are fruitful and we wish to save ourselves time in adequately discussing what are the bigger and important questions bigger and important questions such as well I have a concept of Allah Azza wa Jalla and you have a concept of Allah Azza wa Jalla which makes more sense I have a concept of what a prophet is and you have a concept of what a prophet is which makes more sense I have a concept of leadership after the holy prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi and you have a concept of leadership which makes more sense It's very easy to sit back and throw stones at other people. Especially when you're doing so from the angle of I don't have to help, I don't have to reasonably answer for any of my beliefs. This is something that we all witness the new atheists doing. You'll come to them with evidence for the existence of a deity. You'll demonstrate to them that it's impossible that we just emanated from nothing and and that certain things like the certain things like the issue of morality cannot be grounded within standard atheist metaphysics. When we ask them to demonstrate this according to their worldview, what they'll tell us is, well okay, I can demonstrate this but I'm not going to pause at your God, I'm going to pause at Zeus for example. Now I have an explanation. It's very easy to do that. It's very easy to attack others and not offer any solutions from your own internal worldview. What we want is a discussion in which we are comparing two worldviews, mine versus yours. There is no appeal to a hypothetical situation. There is no appeal to any other worldview. Rather, mine versus yours. Insha'Allah to Allah, dear brothers and sisters, we will continue with this discussion in the next few episodes and I thank you for joining us tonight. It's always quite difficult to summarize all of these issues in one episode but we'll be continuing with this analysis over the next few nights and you're always in our prayers and we pray that what I have said tonight has been reasonable and clear. Insha'Allah to Allah, join us tomorrow night while we continue. Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.