ACMI productions are only made possible with your support. Visit patreon.com slash ACMI to learn how you can help. Good evening. I'm calling to order this meeting of the Arlington Select Board on March 18th. I am Select Board Chair Eric Helmuth. Tonight's meeting is being conducted in a hybrid format consistent with provisions in state law for remote participation in public meetings. Before we begin, please note the following. This meeting is being conducted in the Select Board chambers and over Zoom. It is being recorded and simultaneously broadcasted on ACMI. People wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. People participating either in person or by Zoom are reminded that you may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate, we ask you to provide your full name and place of residence in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. Both Zoom participants and persons watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials found on the town's website, specifically the Select Board's agendas and minutes page. If technical difficulties sever the remote connection to one or more participants in efforts to reconnect within a reasonable period of time fail, the in-person meeting will continue at the discretion of the chair provided that a quorum of the board is physically present. Zoom participants are encouraged to retain the phone number provided in their confirmation email for a backup audio connection to the meeting. This evening there will be some opportunities for public comment during items that are marked as a public hearing and also and especially during the warrant article hearings starting with item 14. We also have public comment and item 13 and common vitual license working backwards and the items that are previously marked on 9 and 10 for public hearings. So if you are attending by Zoom and want to make public comment at that time, please raise your hand in Zoom when I announce the public comment period for the item. If you do not know how to raise your hand in Zoom, now would be an excellent time to Google for how to do so. Let's see how much of the town's business we can get done tonight. And our first item on the agenda is the consent agenda. So we have on the consent agenda, the Arlington Farmers Market Banners applied for by Arlington Eats, reappointment to the Board of Registars for Bill Logan, William Logan, termed to expire March 31st, 2027 for approval Memorial Day Ceremony on May 27th by our Director of Veteran Services, two requests for special one day beer and wine licenses, one on March 30th and Robbins Memorial Town Hall for a private event, Jody Palmer, and another on April the 6th, Leslie Ellis for a private event by James Bethel. We have also on the consent agenda a request for the annual Arlington High School Ice Cream Fundraiser for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Wintermoor Park on May 18th. And finally, on the consent agenda a request for a contractor and drain layer license, champion environmental services from New York from Steven LaVosano. And I'll turn to the Board for Mr. Diggins. I'll move on consent agenda, we'll get some agenda and I just want to add, I think it's really nice on Memorial Day that we've added the old burial ground visit to the root, I mean, so apparently we'll go there after the main ceremony and then proceed on to the cemetery, I think they opened that mean to the public, not to the public, but we celebrated the revitalization of that space, I mean, last year on the Juneteenth, it's a really good space and I think it's really good, once again, that we've incorporated that into the Memorial Day ceremonies. Do I have a second or other? Second. Any further discussion? On a motion for approval of the consent agenda by Mr. Diggins and seconded by Mr. Hurd, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? It is in unanimous five, nothing to vote. That brings us down to item nine. We have two public hearings, we'll take them separately. Both of these are ever sourced petitions. The first is by Central Street at Mass Avenue and we have Ms. Duffy here or in Zoom for that item. Ready to go. Good evening, Ms. Duffy. Go ahead and unmute yourself and turn on your camera. Thank you. Be able to do so. Didn't. How are you tonight? Very well. Thank you. My cousin is shot, that's why I'm coming through from Zoom. Ever source would like to install approximately 13 feet of conduit in Central Street. The purpose of this work is for capital improvements to support the network and increase reliability in the area. And the board does have materials and documentation in its packets. Mrs. Mahan. I know we have public hearing on this, but I'll move approval, yeah. I'll second that. If the bookends go into the picture. All right. Any, before we have the public hearing, any questions or discussion from the board? Okay, at this time we have a public hearing for this petition. If anybody in the room wishes to comment on this petition, please raise your hand and if you are in Zoom, please raise your hand in Zoom to comment on this item only. Ms. Marr. Seeing no hands raised. Okay. At this point that concludes the public hearing, do we have any further questions or comments from the board? All right, I think we're ready for a vote. So a motion to approve this petition by Mrs. Mahan and seconded by Mr. Diggins. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? It is unanimous vote. Now we have item 10, ever source petition at Medford Street at Mass Avenue and uncoincidentally, we have Ms. Duffy to speak to this one as well. Please go ahead. Ever source elector would like to install approximately 10 feet of conduit in Medford Street. The purpose of this work is to, for the capital improvements to support the network and increase reliability in the area. Before the public hearing, do we have any initial comments for the board? Motions? All right, let's go ahead and do the public hearing for this petition. So if anyone on Zoom or in the room would wish to comment on this petition, please raise your hand at this time. Ms. Marr. Seeing no hands raised. Okay. Move approval. All right. And do I have a second? Second. Okay. Any discussion from the board? So, Mr. Diggins. So, in the engineer's report, you just mentioned about the fact that work had been done in that area recently and that we would hope that there would be measures taken to mitigate the effect on the businesses there that were being affected when they last did work there. So, and I just, I mean, that was pointed out. And I don't know if there's any explanation that we can get for what may happen when we do that work there from ever sorts. But, I mean, if there is, I mean, I'm ears for it. But nonetheless, I'm going to approve it because it's work that needs to be done. Did you want any comment from the town manager or from Ms. Duffy on that? Either would be fine. Mr. Feeney? Yeah. I'm afraid I have nothing to add, Mr. Chair. All right. That's fine. Like I said, I just pointed out, because it was there and it was interesting and I was kind of wondering myself, I mean, if that was the area where I was thinking. So, all right. Good. Yeah. If you have any questions, if you have any questions, you can just email me and I can get back to you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Duffy. You're welcome. You're welcome. Mrs. Mohan? And I was just going to add, with several of the items in here, it's also the end result is subject to review and approval by the engineering department. Thank you, Mrs. Mohan. Any further discussion by the board? We have a motion to approve this petition by Mr. Hurd and seconded by Mr. Decorsi. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? It is five-nothing unanimous vote. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Jack. Okay. This brings us to item 11, appointments. We have an appointment to the Commission for Arts and Culture and that is Greta Mustrow. Hi, welcome. Please come up to the table and thank you very much for your willingness to serve. Just have a seat and just introduce yourself. A few words about your interest in serving. We do have your wonderful letter and just expand on that as you wish. Well, yeah, as you already said, my name's Greta and I'm a senior at Arlington High School and I have been involved with lots of different art projects my entire life and the art and culture I've been involved with with many things like Climate Futures Arlington, which was a public art installation that went around Arlington. And so then I was informed of a way to make this commission more accessible to youth like myself and make important town matters that affects people in Arlington more accessible to all. So I have this proposal to be the first person to kind of make the system where youth can be more involved in this commission and things in Arlington in terms of voting and taking part in matters such as like art installations but also, for example, the Youth Banner Project and I think it's very important for everyone to be involved in that sort of thing, especially from a younger age so that they feel that they are also just as much as a citizen as the adults at the table. So that was kind of my goal in applying for this. Wonderful, well said. Now I'll turn to the board for discussion, questions and emotions. Mr. Herd. Move approval and thank you for your willingness to serve. I know when I was here in high school, serving on a town commission wasn't top of mind but hopefully you're setting example like you said for other younger people to get involved because decisions we make here affect your lives in the town so thank you. Mrs. Mohan. I'd like to second that and I'd like to thank Ms. Mastro Greta for doing this and getting involved compared to me at a young age. I also see that you are a long distance distant runner. That was, I was cross country in track in high school and I got so many things done when I would be competing in races or training so I kind of ought to know your personality and I really do mean it sincerely as does the full board for you. Not only volunteering for this committee but you've done so much leading up to this with your internships and composting and probably lots of things that we don't even know about because I can tell you go get her and you get a lot of things done and look forward to your service on this committee but also what you're gonna do here in the Allington community in the future and beyond because I see a little kindred spirit. My first organizing effort was in high school way back when so I'm glad you're starting off and giving us volunteering your time. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. DeCourse. Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you Ms. Mastro for your willingness to serve. I was very impressed by your submission here and all of your experience and the fact that you started a novel at age 10 is really impressive so I wanna thank you and wish you the best of luck for the remainder of your senior year at the high school. I can say a lot. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I could definitely say a lot but I'm afraid it would seem like it's talking about me because as with Mrs. Mahan, I mean there are lots of similarities, not with the running, definitely not with the running, but certainly with the interest in art and as Mr. DeCourse said and you're writing a novel too so what I really like about that though is that you haven't let the setback discourage you in fact it probably encouraged you to try even harder and that's an important thing to learn in life because there are just lots of setbacks and certainly with the big goals that we have before making the world better in terms of the environment and there are gonna be lots of setbacks with that but we just have to keep trying. So more power to you, look forward to working with you in some way as part of ACAC so thank you once again. And I wanna echo my colleagues gratitude for your willingness to serve and express my special appreciation for your work in climate sustainability. I was fortunate to be involved in recognizing the Launch of the Climate Futures project and I think it's a really good example of how important art is, art is always important but it can help the community look at things in new ways and ask questions and say why is this here and I think that project has succeeded because I see the discussion in the community, people puzzling and wondering what it's about and they're stopping and they're thinking and we need to do that about this and so many other issues. So I'm really excited for your service on this commission. I think that they're lucky to have you with your fresh ideas and I look forward to seeing what you do next. Any further discussion? Okay so we have a motion to appoint by Mr. Herd and seconded by Mrs. Mahan all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? It's unanimous vote congratulations, thank you again. The timing of this appointment and Greta's work I think is especially, will become especially poignant when we take up item 13 tonight, the community electricity renewal. So it was just to item 12, license and permits is the continuation of a hearing for approval of a common, virtual license from Boston Pizza and Euro at 1323 Mass Ave. And is Mr. Bezatis present tonight or in Zoom? I appears to be not the case at this point I asked the town manager to give the board an update on the conditions that the board expressed to the applicant two weeks ago about what conditions the board would be likely to be looking for in order for us to approve this license. Thank you Mr. Chair. So as the board may recall at its meeting on March 4th we obviously had a preliminary hearing and identified a number of conditions that needed to be met prior to tonight's continued hearing. So with respect to that there was an inspection of this establishment conducted by the Arlington Fire Department and Arlington Inspectional Services Department on March 6th at which point a number of conditions were identified for correction. Those conditions were provided in the packet but if I were to outline them for the benefit of the public there was a rear egress door that was insufficient and led to a set of stairs that had no landing. The basement stairs were not illuminated. There was far too much signage on the front of the building and it exceeded the maximum allowable size per hour zoning bylaw. One of the fire alarm pull stations was clearly obstructed and not able to be accessed and there are pictures of each of those conditions in the establishment. Separately a hearing was held with staff at the Board of Health on Thursday, March 7th at which point there was a follow-up report provided by Lead Health Compliance Officer Pat Martin and signed by Mr. Bayastas identifying a number of conditions that need to be met over time, including working with a food safety consultant moving forward. I will know that the dates on that were to begin on or before April 5th and that Mr. Bayastas was to notify Health Department staff of whom the food consultant was going to be that they hired. As of today's date, no action has been taken with respect to hiring a food safety consultant to conduct comprehensive inspections and trainings at this particular establishment to hopefully prevent routine inspections yielding the same critical violations at each routine inspection. With respect to the items that were identified during the March 6th on-site field inspections by Inspectional Services and the Fire Department, we had scheduled a follow-up inspection in advance and that inspection was to take place at 10 a.m. today and that the date and time had been properly and regularly noticed to the applicant. However, upon arrival today, unfortunately, the business was locked up tight, the lights were off and no one was present. The best we could tell in terms of looking at the signage on the windows and again, using daylight to peer through the windows and observe some of the other observable conditions. It regrettably looks like not one step has been taken to correct any of the violations or deficiencies that were noted during the March 6th inspection. And beyond that, not much to report, given that, again, the owner had been notified multiple times about his need to appear this evening, but we received no response. Thank you, Mr. Beane. I'll turn to the board. Mr. D'Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to deny the application for the common vigil or license and Mr. Feeney pointed out everything that's happened since the last meeting. We made it very clear what needed to happen in the two weeks from March 4th to March 18th. I do note, and I think several of us have probably gone by the business since that meeting and every time I went by, it was during posted business hours, but the store was closed in every instance and I believe that's consistent with what Mr. Champ's experience was up and through this morning. So I don't think the business has even been open since March 4th, but given what needed to be done and what was made clear, it's, we can't even think about approving this. So that's my motion. Thank you. Second. Whoever got there first. Mrs. Mahan by a hair. A question I have for the town manager is, if I'm reading the room right here, that we'll deny this license when we take a vote. What measures can the town take to ensure compliance with this, the non issuance of this license? Sure, thank you, Mr. Chair. So of course, if the board were to proceed with ultimately denying this application, the applicant would not receive a license and would not be allowed to operate their business without a license. I do believe though, I haven't heard this firsthand that the owner has been looking to sell the business and will be making attempts to do so, but were they to attempt to operate without a license? There's a series of escalating fines that could be issued through the non-criminal disposition or ticketing process. And then ultimately, if the owner continued to attempt to operate without a license, there is a criminal enforcement mechanism allowed for under statute. So we would continue to regularly monitor the establishment to ensure they were not opening, which we have been doing, whether it be through calls during business hours or sending various inspection agencies by the business at various times of day, but that would be how we would proceed. Jordan Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And just to note that the legal department will work with the town manager's office, inspectional services and all other agencies to make sure that the business is not open without a license and that we will work with them on making sure that enforcement provisions are put in place to make sure that doesn't happen. And if I could further ask the town manager to brief the board on, I believe there's a new procedure in place with the issuance of moving forward, issuance of occupancy permits and how we've put a measure into place to prevent the situation, which we didn't see coming because it's never happened before, but prevent this from happening again. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Sherry. You're correct that it is not often the case that an establishment seeking a license will sort of neglect their responsibility to adhere to the requirements of the local licensing authority. And of course, the board's office staff reached out to this establishment multiple times to correct this issue, but it ultimately persisted perhaps for longer than it should have, but we now find ourselves in a situation where we have an electronic or an online permitting platform through OpenGov that's operated via inspectional services that allowed us to, once this was identified, program a prompt or an inquiry, if you will, into the process of obtaining a certificate of occupancy so that we could determine when someone was applying for their certificate of occupancy if they are going to serve either food or alcohol, that it will sort of create an entry for that and will automatically notify select board office staff so that we don't have someone proceeding to the phase of receiving a certificate of occupancy and believing that they're duly authorized to conduct business unless and until they have obtained all proper licensure. Thank you. And can you confirm that when a business just changes hands, even if it's continuously or to be operating, does that involve the triggering of a new need for a new occupancy? That is correct, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Any further discussion from the board? Anything further from you, Mr. Beanie? Okay, so we have a motion to deny the vital license from Mr. D'Corsi and seconded by Mrs. Mahon. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? It's a five nothing unanimous vote to deny. Okay, that brings us to item 13, the Arlington Community Electricity Contract Renewal. I believe Ms. Fox will be coming up to make a presentation and we have some slides available in Zoom. I will be taking public comment on this. So what we'll do is have Ms. Fox do a presentation. We'll have a round of questions in discussion for the board. Then we'll open it up, I'll open it up for public comment. Then we'll have a final round where the board members can make motions and have further discussion before we vote. One thing I will clarify this evening is, I think Ms. Fox may hit this as well, is that the board, I think if my colleagues are so inclined, can vote to make a recommendation to the town manager. The decision, the business decision about choosing the actual rates are up to the town manager itself. So we'll go into that this evening. Good evening Ms. Fox, introduce yourself and do we have a presentation available? Yes, good evening. My name is Talia Fox. I'm the sustainability manager for the town. Thank you so much for your time this evening. I will be presenting briefly on the context for the upcoming contract renewal for the Arlington Community Electricity Program and the opportunity to increase the level of renewable energy in the program's default product. You can, and you give us a second here to try to work on our technical problems with the. The top one may not be working, so I may just share. Yeah, that's fine, yeah. Yeah, looks like that conked out. Sorry, hold on one second. It's okay, we're making good time tonight, so. And I'll just reiterate that following this presentation, the goal is for the select board to provide the town manager with guidance regarding a target percentage range for the default product to inform the supplier bidding process that will occur in approximately two weeks. Great, so as you may know, electricity customers in Massachusetts are required to pay for electricity distribution for the utility, but we can choose to purchase electricity supply from competitive suppliers. Arlington Community Electricity or ACE was launched in 2017. It is a town vetted municipal aggregation program enabled by state law that allows the town to purchase competitive electricity supply in bulk on behalf of residents. This has several benefits, which include increased environmental impact because ACE enables us to purchase clean electricity like wind and solar beyond what the state requires. The program provides stability in that ACE rates are fixed for the contract duration, which is typically two to three years, while utility rates fluctuate with the markets. The program also has historically provided competitive rates, resulting in significant savings over the lifetime of the program. Future savings cannot be guaranteed. The program offers consumer choice in that ACE has different product options with different levels of additional renewable energy and corresponding prices. And finally, the program also provides continuity. For example, discounts for income-qualified residents are unaffected by participation in ACE. Next slide, please. The town is currently in a two-year contract with supplier next-terra energy services, which began in November of 2022 and concludes in November of this year. Our current program has four products, one of which is our default product. And this is the product that anyone who opens an electricity account in Arlington gets automatically added to unless they choose to opt out. Approximately 90% of accounts in the Arlington Community Electricity Program are enrolled in this product. This product has 30% additional renewable energy, class one renewable energy, above the state requirements. And class one means that the additional renewable energy comes from local solar, wind, anaerobic digestion, and low-impact hydropower sources. We also have three other products in the program. We have products that add 50% and 100% additional renewable energy above the state requirements. And we have a product that does not add any additional renewable energy above what the state requires. Next slide, please. I'd like to emphasize some of our program successes. We have very high participation. We have over 15,000 accounts enrolled in the program, which is approximately 75% of all of the eligible accounts in town. And I want to correct that, oh, thank you, the correction was made. So that's about 75% of the 21,000 eligible accounts. Many people have opted up to the 100% option over 1,200 accounts as of December 2023. And this is really due to the success of our opt-up campaign, which is led by community volunteers. We have seen tremendous savings cumulatively over the lifetime of the program, totaling about $10 million, which is on average $672 per account. And I want to note that over 3.4 million of these savings are actually just from this contract alone because of the spike in ever source prices last winter. And Ease's environmental impact is significant in that Ease customers are currently collectively purchasing more than 33,000 megawatt hours of additional renewable energy annually, which is equal to the output of approximately seven land-based wind turbines. Next slide, please. We have an opportunity, this contract, to select a default rate of renewable energy that is higher than our current 30% default rate. And I'd like to offer some considerations to this point. The Towns Net Zero Action Plan has a goal of achieving 100% renewables in the Ease default product by 2030 in total. So that's total, including the state requirement for Class 1 renewables. The current Ease default, should I hold for a second here? One second. Okay. Yeah, give us a second to... So the current Ease default has a total of 54% Class 1 renewables because we are adding 30% on top of the 24% that is required by the state in 2024. And that state requirement is going up 3% per year until 2029, at which point increases, it increases 1% per year. So by 2030, when the state requirement is 40%, we'd need 60% additional renewables in the default to achieve the 100% goal. So we're at 30% now, we need to get to 100% in 2030. And we will likely have one more contract after this next contract to increase the default to get to our 100% total goal in 2030. So there are also some cost considerations because the additional renewables add an additional cost for residents. The good news is that global energy markets have settled some since our last renewal. And the cost of the underlying electricity may decrease some if current projections hold. And this slight decrease would allow the town to increase the default level of renewables to 45 or 50% additional without increasing the average Arlington customer's bills. If the town were to increase the default to 55 or 60% additional renewables, that might yield an increase in bills for the average resident on the order of roughly $45 per year, up to $45 per year compared to the current default rate. Next slide, thanks. It's reasonable to assume that the cost of the underlying electricity is going to decrease one to two cents per kilowatt hour compared to the current ACE contract. And while it's not possible to precisely predict what the rates will be in the bids, based on where the market is today, this table here presents estimated ranges of total bill changes to the average Arlington residential customer for different amounts of additional renewable energy in the default product. So for example, if we say, taking the left column, the town were to increase the level of renewable energy in the default product to 45% additional class one. It's estimated that the average resident would see annual bill reduction compared to the current ACE contract of approximately $10 per year if the price of the underlying electricity falls one cent per kilowatt hour or up to $65 reduced per year if the price of the underlying electricity falls by two cents per kilowatt hour. So there's ranges in that second column of what changes we might see in bills. And what I flag here are two potential options just for discussion. That 45% default is approximately halfway to our goal of 100% in 2030. And that's because, as I mentioned earlier, we're currently at 30% and we need to get to 60% in 2030. Halfway between 30 and 60 is 45%. Now the town could also choose to adopt a roughly 100% total default sooner than 2030, which would mean adding approximately 70% additional renewable energy on top of the state requirements. And that would yield bill changes for the average resident, ranging from roughly $46 more per year to roughly $9 less per year as represented in that last row. Next slide, please. Now an additional consideration for the contract renewal pertains to the ACE program product options. If the percentage of renewables in the ACE default product increases to roughly 50%, the town might want to eliminate that middle 50% option because that would be duplicative. There's also an option to add to redefine the ACE 100% product as 100% total rather than 100% additional class one renewables. And redefining this product would both decrease the cost of that product slightly as well as decrease the amount of renewables that customers enrolled in this product are supporting. And many of the residents enrolled in this product are voluntarily going above and beyond. And whether these changes make sense depends somewhat on how close the default product is to 50% additional or 100% total renewables. So these are just some considerations we might want to discuss right now. Next slide, thank you. So briefly to summarize the next steps, tonight the goal for the select board is to provide guidance to the town manager on the approach for the procurement. That procurement will take place in early April, after which point the town will finalize the contract with the lowest bidding supplier. And this fall we will begin marketing the new contract rates and products to prepare for the transition to that new contract. And with that, I will conclude my presentation. We also have the chair of our clean energy future committee, Ryan Katowski and our consultants from Good Energy, Rafita Rahman and Stefano Loretto. Stefano, I believe is on Zoom. And they are all available to answer any questions that you might have. So thank you for your time and I look forward to the discussion. Thank you very much. I wanna invite the chair of the clean energy future committee to come up. If you have any additional comments you wanna make, Ryan would be happy to hear them as part of this presentation. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't know that I have any additional prepared comments to make. I think Italia's laid out a sort of two or three choices that need to be made with respect to the default product and also with respect to how we handle what we call the opt-up products. And I think at this point it just makes sense to hear your questions and respond accordingly. Sure. And Hoover's doing the slides right now. Could we keep this slide up for the purpose of the discussion to a couple back where we have the table of that one here. Just keep that kind of in front of us. I think that'll inform the parameters of our discussion as well. At this point does Mr. Feeney, do you have any comments you wanna make to the board before we get started? Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity. I have nothing specific to add but we'll just note that I do appreciate the board in sort of setting some guidelines or parameters to follow once we're ultimately in the room on bid day with respect to potentially maybe setting a floor for where we hope to see that default product could be helpful on that day. I also would like to take the opportunity for thanking both Talia and Ryan for all the work that went into this presentation. And the only other thing I would add is the assumptions for the decrease in the underlying electricity will likely hold pretty close to true in that range and that's something we saw recently in buying for our municipal and school building portfolio which is separate from ACE but that we procure separately and we have done that recently and saw a similar price reduction. So these numbers should hold pretty much true. Okay, so before we have a public comment and this I'll turn to the board for any initial questions or discussion. Mr. Dickens. So you only want questions, you don't want us to like tip our hand or anything at this point? That is all up to us individually. Okay, all right. I might suggest that just traditionally we usually do our motions and things after we hear public comment. Yeah, and I wouldn't do a motion now but I'm inclined to tip my hand because that could influence the comments that we get. You know, so yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, so just to understand if we max out at 70, there's the maximum, potential maximum cost to someone would be $46 a month. I mean a year, a year. A year. Even a month to me. Those are annual figures and it's based on the assumptions in the table. So if the underlying electricity price goes down by one cent and we add 70% additional renewables to the default product, yeah, that's the annual rate impact. All right, so I talk with both of our guests a little bit so I don't have a whole lot of questions. They just want to get some things out in the public sphere, you know, so that they understand where, why I'm, where I am, you know. So, but this is one thing we didn't discuss. I mean, so I'm sorry to throw this one at you. I mean, so it seems like the worst case scenario is that it goes down one cent. We're assuming that the range is going to be one cent to two cent less. So, I mean, that's what we've been informed by our consultants from Good Energy is that that's roughly the range and decrease that we will be looking at. All right, and once again, explain the assistance that people can get if let's say we go to 70% and it goes up $46 a year. I mean, what assistance can people get and that they're getting now that will be retained? Yes, so there's a few options if somebody is not comfortable paying that additional cost. They could opt down to the Ace Basic product, which doesn't add any renewable energy above what's required by the state, and that'll be a slightly cheaper product. And then for anybody who is income eligible, we have outreach programs where we advertise the energy efficiency upgrades that are often at much reduced cost. We have the discount rates through the utilities. So, ever source offers a 42% discount for any income eligible customers. There is also fuel assistance and all of these programs were working hard to advertise through our Electrify Arlington program, especially with the hire of our new energy advocate through the Community First Partnership grant. So there are options for individuals who aren't comfortable with that additional cost. Thank you. And do you have a sense of how many people are getting assistance now? I think it's several thousand. In Arlington. In Arlington. Yeah, all right. I would like to confirm that number. Okay, yeah. Yeah, so that's it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions. Thank you, Mr. Degas. So the last time that we did this, we went up from, I think 11, the default from 11 to 30%? Correct. And what do we know about how many people opted down or left the program after that? I understand that it's difficult and impossible to know if that was the reason, but can you give us some insight into that? Yes, so around when the contract turnover occurred in fall of 2022, we did see a couple hundred opt down, but relative to the total enrollment to the program, that didn't feel very significant. And then enrollment actually increased quite significantly once the contract began. That was probably because the winter ever source rates were so high, but that just speaks to the potential benefit of the program. We can't guarantee future savings, but that is one of the objectives of the program is to provide that stability when there is volatility in the market. So we saw a very slight dip and then an increase following that. So I would not say that that increased to 30% significantly affected enrollment in the default product or in the program overall. I don't know if anybody from Good Energy would like to... Sure. We'll let that respond. And if they are on Zoom too, we could just bring them in so that they could respond quickly. And what was the name? I'm sorry. Stefano. Thank you. So while we're bringing in... There we go. Good evening. Thank you for joining us, Stefano. Did you... I know that's all he asked if you had any insight into that particular question. It's fine if you don't, but we wanted to establish connection with you here. Thank you for having me. I will... The program has been really very successful and we constantly are monitoring the participation. Obviously, if somebody moves out of town or if somebody even moves within town, we have these periodic sweeps to pick up these newly eligible accounts. So there's kind of an ebb and flow to these programs. And I just have the numbers up here now. And really, we haven't seen any material drop since the last contract. We really are at almost all-time highs with participation. Nothing outside of the normal steady decline that you see for a couple of months as there's the people moving within town or out of town. And then we do a sweep to pick up the newly eligible accounts and then it hops right back up to we've kind of always hovered around this 14,000 number down to 12, up to 15, down to 13, up to 15. And we're right at 14 now. So I would say, as far as thinking about the impact, we're not concerned, right? If this was the first contract and it was launching with potentially 40 or 50% more, that obviously poses a significant disadvantage to the ever-sourced basic service rate. But at this point, going on this, you know, the fourth contract, there's such a solid track record here. I wouldn't feel at all uncomfortable if the town wanted to pursue whatever it chose here. Obviously there's significant community backing in. And there also is the basic option. As somebody said that if somebody chooses not to wanna participate in the default, there is always that basic option which might be significantly less based on whichever of these options ends up being the default. Okay. And when we did the increase last time, can someone remind me, if we know, did that increase, did that result in that small increase in the bill of the people who were then on the default rate? So last contract was in the middle of, it was right after Russia invaded Ukraine, which had a very significant impact on natural gas prices, which then affected electricity prices. And so we actually saw quite a large jump in the prices for the program overall. So an increase in the underlying price of electricity. So there was an increase. I don't have the exact figures off the top of my head, but there was an increase associated with that last contract. Okay, cool. Mr. Course? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Fox for the presentation. So question on recommended term, like two of the last three contracts were two-year terms, I believe 2019 through 22 was a three-year term. And again, this is guidance from Mr. Feeney, but I think it does go to what we talk about in terms of setting a default figure. Is a recommendation that will probably seek a three-year term, or is it not known yet what you'd be recommending to us? Because that's a difference between two or three contracts between now and 2030. That's true. That's a good point. My understanding is the recommendation is for a three-year. And perhaps, Stefano, you can weigh in here, but because the market is relatively favorable right now, I think it would make sense to lock in for a longer period of time, just in light of the uncertainty of the future. So I don't know if Stefano, you have anything to add to that, but my understanding is the recommendation is for a three-year contract. Okay. Yes, that's correct. Right now, when we look at the forward price of electricity, it's considerably lower in some of those forward years, the future years that go further out. And so that provides an opportunity when you see value in those years. It's often the opposite where, similarly to a 30-year mortgage being more than a 10-year mortgage, or a 30-year life insurance policy being more than a 10-year life insurance policy. When you see the compression in the forward curves, that means that now you can get a longer term, often at little to no premium. So that's what we're seeing in the market now. Some of the key metrics, obviously we've had a really mild winter this year, mild winter last year, and a mild summer, which brought us from really unprecedented levels of energy pricing to really what is now an excellent buying opportunity for the long term. So that's what we would recommend a three-year. That's what we have several communities that are renewing this spring. That's also why we're looking to do this renewal now. Often we get asked, why are we doing this now? The contract doesn't expire until November. That's one of the positives with energy contracts. You don't have to wait until they're imminently expiring. You can see value in the market and execute it. And then to the end user, it becomes a seamless transition from one supplier to the other. So we have almost two dozen renewals that we're looking to do right now at the same time. And we're recommending three years for all of them. And given that things are so favorable, it's three years the maximum that you can do.  We do. We do. The issue really comes around the fact that in New England, one of the big components of your energy price, electricity price is something called capacity. And there's an auction that goes out three years. So suppliers know what that price is gonna be three years out. Once we go beyond that, it's a bit of an unknown and suppliers are gonna account for that with significant premiums that might make it unfavorable. So we are trying to figure out a mechanism to do that, but for this contract, it won't be something that will be available. So three years will be the longest term. Okay, thanks. It's effectively a max. And then just a question on our rate in the past, we've always chose one rate on top of the state standard. That is not something that can, that's gotta be fixed to the contract, even though the state figure is going up 3% per year, does the town default figure have to be constant? So no, we could actually do something. So let's say we decided we wanted with this contract to pursue a 100% total default. Stefano might be able to explain this better, but my understanding is we could blend the rates for the different additional percentages of renewables across the three years of the contract. So we'd still have a fixed rate, but each year, the additional renewables that we're adding would decrease as the state's requirements increase, which would still allow for that fixed price, but would sort of allow us to shift our percentages accordingly. Okay, thank you. It's all the questions I have right now. Mr. Diggins. I'm sorry if this is behind, because I mean, was that the question you asked? Mr. Diggins. Of course. Was that the question you asked? I was hearing a different question, you know? No, no, that was an example. No, no, that was responsive to my question. All right, then I'll have a different question, but I'll defer, you know, so. This is behind. Sorry, I didn't tickle, I wasn't. Just sort of procedurally housekeeping. Right now, and it's a recommendation, to achieve the 100%, is that 100% a rate that the manager would increase it to? Or is it 100% which is really 70% right now because the state renewable program portfolio is 30? And if we did do this for three years, when, I believe I heard either tonight or earlier when I met with Ms. Fox, that the state will go from 30% to 40%. When do we anticipate that happening? Within this three year contract or after that? So the state's requirement for class one is at 24% right now, and it will increase 3% every year until 2029, at which point it increases 1% per year. And so if we were to take an approach where we went for a 100% default now, we would sort of do what I was suggesting to Mr. D'Corsi, which is we would basically add only as much as what the state, only as much to make the total 100%. So we would be adding on top of the 27% for next year to get to that 100%. So we would never be exceeding, if we took that approach, we would not be exceeding the 100%. This table to that end is a little bit misleading because I don't think we would wanna take it, the town could choose to take an approach where we're always going with 100% total, but that would require that each year we're decreasing the amount of renewables that we're adding on top of the state requirements. Did I answer your question? You did, and I think what I heard in that answer is if we go for the 100% and for some reason if the state goes off their, right now, initial calculation, which is 24%, 30%, 40%, that just because we have a three-year contract, those adjustments can be made accordingly or no, that would have to be negotiated on the next whatever term year contract. That's probably a question for Stefano in terms of the flexibility of the contract if the state policy were to change. Or maybe just take that as when you're having the conversation and ultimately the town manager makes the decision, if there is an option for some reason, if the state does get a little bit more aggressive, is that something that will be taken into consideration with the contractor or is that something that needs to be renegotiated in the next contract? So I don't need a definitive answer on that tonight. I wouldn't take bets, but the 3% per year increase that we have now was the state getting more aggressive. I forget what year it was, but when the renewable portfolio standard was first put in place, it was 1% per year essentially with no sunset. And then there were I think at least once or twice legislation that up that in the interim. So we're currently in that interim period where the state has said between now and 2029, we're gonna do 3% a year and then we're gonna revert to that baseline 1%, but it's conceivable they could come back and change it. My sense is 3% per year growth is probably as high as the state would wanna go, but I would never say for certain. And I just say that similar to later on, we'll be making our recommendations because we need to hear from others, but if all this really great energy and advocacy continues, which I think it's gonna be reflected on the board's recommendation, the town manager, Ms. Fox's and Mr. Kotoski's and everyone else's, same thing could happen on the state side, but maybe I'm too optimistic, sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Yeah, I'll just note that I was lucky enough to meet with Ms. Fox last week and she explained and went through all my questions. So my lack of questions is not lack of enthusiasm. And I wanna thank her for attempting to explain to me what it is we're buying when we're buying renewable wrecks. I'll cut into it for next one to make sure I understand that. But for now, I'll take your advice on it. I had one more question, if I can just remember what it was. I guess it's what we were to do is sort of the new 100% model. And I think right now, like in my house that we do, we opt up voluntarily to the 100%, which means that we're actually buying additional wrecks, which I don't mind doing, but I think that's not everybody may know that. And we're the board, I don't know where the board's gonna be tonight, I think we'll find out in a little while. But if we were to go with an effective, a high rate that would get us to effective 100% renewables very quickly, and so we would do that. If we were to take the recommendation of having, as I understand it, kind of a dynamic criteria for the 100%, so that we would adjust our mix to keep it at a real 100%, would you recommend that we have a voluntary additional layer on top of that for people who'd wanna purchase additional wrecks effectively, as sort of I do now unwittingly, or is that a good idea, is that just not worth doing? I think it could be, it's certainly an option that the town could pursue to basically keep that same product as it is, I think in speaking with various residents in town, there are a number of residents who have very willingly opted up and understand that they're paying for more. I think certainly we would want to clarify how we market that option, which I think we could do now, even if we were pursuing a different default, but we should absolutely make it clear that that product is sort of a 100% plus, or however we wanna market it. The extra credit or something. Yeah, the extra credit product, so that it's very clear to whoever is choosing that product that it's above and beyond. Good, I had one more follow-up to that. And this might be for Mr. Kotoski. When trying to figure out, I guess I'm gonna just state this plainly, it does affect sort of how we think about 100% now and later. The minimum, the state requirement now is just minimum 124% class one renewables that's required. And then the ones that we're buying, which are, and I forget the terminology, but they're specifically for New England-based. They're the same. Yeah, they're the same. And it's very intentional that our voluntary recs that we buy are the same as the obligation under the state policy. So there's not a difference in quality of those recs. They're exactly the same, and that's exactly, it's very intentional because that's what creates the additionality because you're increasing demand for that same clean energy. So we're sucking up more of it, which means that someone else has to go build more clean energy that qualifies as class one in order to meet everybody else's obligation. Perfect, great, thank you. Mr. Hertz. Yes. Okay, any other discussion with the four before we have the public comment. Okay, so at this time, I will invite public comment for this. And so if you are on Zoom and want to comment on this item, please raise your hand and zoom in if you're room. Well, in the room, raise your hand in the room. Let's do a three-minute time limit for comments just to give everyone a chance to participate. And please raise your hand if you would like to participate, comment up please. And just introduce yourself to the, and if you're resident of the town, let us know what you would like to say. Three minutes please. Good evening. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. My name is Anju Joglakar. I live on Winter Street in East Arlington. And today I'm here on behalf of the Arlington chapter of Mother's Outfront. Let's just place the T-shirt. To express our support for a bold and ambitious increase to the ACE default level. The ACE program has accomplished a lot while maintaining stable and competitive prices. We know that using Arlington's purchasing power to negotiate competitive renewable energy prices for all residents is a huge opportunity for system level change. A higher default rate coupled with discount rates for lower income residents and opportunities to opt up and down provide flexibility for the diversity of Arlington residents, including expanding equitable access to renewable energy. The town's net zero action plan requires that the ACE default reaches 100% renewable energy by 2030. We feel that 2030 is a bare minimum target date and emissions savings achieved now will be worth a lot more than those achieved six years from now, say 2030. We need to move as quickly as possible to shift off fossil fuels. And if we can meet the 100% target sooner, then we should do so. Basically what we are urging you to do is to meet the 100% target renewable energy in the upcoming contract cycle. And it could be by the end of the cycle, which could be 2026 or 2027, but to increase the default level in the upcoming cycle now to either 67% or 70% so that we don't wait till 2030 to reach that level. And the reason we say that it's because it's a low hanging fruit for meeting our net zero plan commitments. And also the urgency of the climate emergency seems clearer than ever before as the world experiences climate related extreme weather and struggles to meet climate targets. And this is something, town of Arlington, we can meet this climate target, we can meet it sooner, then we should do so. Some others out front, Arlington chapter urges all select board members, all of you and the town manager to approve as high a default level as possible. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much indeed. Now I'll turn to, so we have anyone zoom with their hand raised? Okay, let's go ahead and bring them in. There's one person with their hand raised. Okay, great. I'll promote them now. Excuse me. We'll bring that person in. Hello. Oh, that's disturbing. That looks like a chair. Hello. Hi, I can't see myself. Can you see me? Yeah, give us just a minute to work out a zoom issue here. There we go. Good evening. Hi. All right, just if you would just introduce yourself and we have three minutes. Thank you very much. Excellent. My name is Noga Hirsch. I'm a senior at Arlington High School. I live off Pleasant Street in Arlington and I'm also one of the presidents of Arlington High School's Environmental Club called Students Against Violations of the Environment Save Club. And just as a student in Arlington and as a resident, I wanted to voice my approval of raising the highest possible default rate of local renewable energy as much as possible. I think that I have me and like like as a representative of my club we have concern about the climate crisis and want to ensure a more renewable future for ongoing generations and increasing the renewable energy content of the electricity used by the ACE program and its participants would support renewable energy development. So I just wanted to voice my approval. Thank you for your work with the high school group. Thanks a lot. Okay, and even in the room, else I'd like to comment. Come on up, please.  Good evening. Thank you all of you chairman Helmethin and all the rest of the select board and town manager Feeney. Thank you so much for the real thoughtful and welcoming approach that you take to this project. And I also want to thank the past board and town manager Adam Chack-Delane for going high for the last period which has put us in an even a better place. I will, oh I am Amy Slutsky, town meeting member for a few more days until I have to get elected again, hopefully 17 is my precinct. I will admit to you I am not a model earthling and that is why I have joined Arlington's chapter of Mothers Out Front and why I am asking you to do what I cannot do to put the brakes on how much harmful fuel we continue to use. The crushing reality that it has been our own human integrity, ingenuity that has, I mean ingenuity, that has caused this enormity of harm and destruction to our earth continues to confound me. Every day I cycle through thoughts of hopelessness, I resolve to act with urgency and I am frustrated at the weakness of my own response. So I'm giving you guys the responsibility and the opportunity to do the great work for all of us in finding the best balance to move us forward with clean energy as boldly as possible at the level that our community can support. Thank you again for all of your work on this and I feel so fortunate to be in this town at this time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good luck with your reelection. Thank you. Do we have anybody else in Zoom with a hand raised? Seeing no hands raised in Zoom. Okay, anyone else in the room wish to come in? There's one hand raised. If you could bring in Ms. Moulton, please. I think you were telling the truth at the moment. At the moment it was, no one, she was quick. Good evening, Ms. Moulton. You are now able to unmute yourself and turn on your camera. Thank you. I hope you'll forgive me for not turning on my camera. It is, I'm Lucy Moulton, precinct 12, a member of both Sustainable Arlington and Arlington Mothers Up Front and a longtime supporter of Arlington Community Electricity and a proud participant in the 100% opt-up category. I strongly encourage reaching 100% renewable electricity at the earliest possible opportunity as Anju has so clearly indicated the climate emergency is urgent. The need to address it is best met by acting sooner rather than later. And this is a low-hanging fruit because what we do, what many of us are able to do on our own is expensive and this is low cost with a big impact. So I hope you will seriously consider moving to 70% if at all possible. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Moulton. Do we have any additional comments from the room? Anybody else in Zoom? Oh, for sure. Yeah, come on out. Just introduce yourself, please. Hi, I'm Rachel Oliveire. I live in precinct 10 in Arlington. I'm also the school sustainability coordinator for the Arlington Public Schools. And I just want to raise the voices of the youth that I work with. I believe, hopefully, you all received the postcards that we collected from our green teams at Gibbs and Audison. These are students that I get to meet with every week and they are so inspiring. And I also work with the wonderful high school students like Greta and Noga, who you heard from tonight. And I just can say that from all my time listening to them and hearing how they're feeling about the climate crisis and their very real concerns about their future, I hope you will take that on to consideration and approve of this highest default rate for Arlington Community Electricity. So I appreciate that so much and thank you. Thank you. And we deeply appreciate the work that you do in this goal. So I hear so many wonderful things about the program and the way that you're inspiring the students is so evident. I got this tonight and I just, I've heard, I think I've counted at least 50 communications from residents about this issue and that might be the record for my three years on the board of how much I've heard from people on a given agenda item. In addition to that, we have Cato and Shane and Isaac and Oliver and Jonah and Iris. So that's pushing 60 at this point of people and it makes me really proud of the community for how much everybody from middle school, onward up to maybe a lot older than that, deeply care about this and really want Arlington to be a leader and I know that folks like you and your green team are a big part of that. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other public comment? Okay, seeing no, let's close the public comment period and I'll now turn to the board for further discussion questions and motions. Mr. Diggins. It'll probably come as no surprise that I'm going to make a motion that we get to 100% in this next contract as soon as possible. Just the fact that at 70% there could be even a reduction by $9, it's compelling to me. But the most compelling argument is that, and this was an argument that was compelling to me last time, was that the good that we do now is compounded and so if we, the longer we wait, the less effective any good we do will be. You know, and so we can slow down the rate at which we're doing damage if we do more now. And so I don't want to bring a motion into this because I prefer that we make dispassionate decisions, you know, based on the facts and the evidence and the reasoning, you know, but it is urgent, and it is a crisis, and it would be good for us to say that and show that we're doing all that we can to meet this moment, you know, and so that's my motion. But as I've said to everyone, I will go as high as we can go. So that's it, thank you. Mr. Heard. Just because it was a motion. Yeah, okay. I'll second the motion. And then I think we have to discuss the secondary default rate too, which I'm guessing that one should have some pretty easy consensus that we'll get, like I would suggest that we have the default rate, 100% rate, and the opt out rate as opposed to a rate in between. Yeah, which is correct. That's what is being requested, right? Just have the three levels. Correct. As opposed to the four right now. So I don't know if we're gonna add that to your motion or I'll make a separate motion to have just three. Are you fine with that? I'm fine with that if you are. Yes, I am, thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I'm happy to support the motion. I think, you know, it's a good time to take advantage of some good rates. I don't want to trivialize any increase to anyone paying any bills in Arlington, especially since both the past few years, we've asked residents to increase their taxes and whatnot to support improvements at the local level, but I think there's a pretty clear rationale to be aggressive here. And again, we're taking advantage of anticipated good rates and at the end of the day, if someone doesn't want to participate, then as Ms. Fox said, at any point, they can choose to opt out of the program. I think the responses of people who have, we're 90% of the people are just at the default rate is just, you know, most of us have so much going on that we don't even have the minute to go in and change one way or the other. But I think the enthusiasm of the amount of people that have opted, gone in and opted to 100% shows a clear indication that among residents to be very aggressive with this program. And I think it's been successful. And, you know, I think the quicker we get there, the better. And if we put ourselves in a position right now to be aggressive in the event that in the next contract, rates aren't as favorable, we can, you know, be a little more conservative with any increases that we contemplate at that time. Thank you, and I will get to the rest of the board, but just while we're kind of refining and honing our motion, do we wanna include something that would be guidance about what to do with the 100% rate? I think that the staff have suggested that we consider making that fluid, you know, so that that, the default product is a net 100% and sort of not the extra like right now if we did that would be 124%. Yes, yes, so the maximum will be 100%. So the real, yes, right, so we blend, we blend as the state rate changes, you know, 3% a year, we just decrease our renewables, but it's very simple that it's 100%, because I still don't quite understand how you have a mix that's higher than 100%, that's okay. And is it okay with you for the second on that, if that's the intent of the motion? Yeah, so I admit I'm not the most knowledgeable person in this area and I rely on experts, but so the 100%, so we'll still have 100%, an opt up to 100% option, right, and that would be 124% right now, so anyone that's enrolled. Let's bring our experts back and I think they can provide some insight into that, yeah. You would require some remarketing.  I'll start, I guess, Ryan Katowski. So the current 100% product is the mandate plus 100, so it's actually at 124% currently. If, from what I heard from the conversation you're discussing the default product, which is currently plus 30% to be maintained at 100% over time, so as the state requirement ramps up, the voluntary additions will ramp down so that it maintains itself at 100%, so that's the difference. So the, if you were to maintain the current opt up product as is by 2027, it will be 130%, 33%? If that were to the default. If that, no, if you maintain the opt up as a plus 100% product, it's always gonna be, it's always gonna be over and above the state requirement. And I wasn't sure if I heard any discussion of eliminating the 50% product. I think Mr. Heard clarified that, yeah. So I guess what I'm saying is we would say, all right, our deep, you have opt out, got rid of the 50%, so we'll go up to 70%, or I mean we can float it so it gets, so we say, all right, we just wanted to be 100% always, or we could say, can we say it's 70% and then as the state adds our default product actually gets beyond the 100%, which to me is fine. And then there is still an opt up to 100%, which will go from 120, Florida 127 to 130. I mean, I assume that's what is being requested because we still want people to have this option to go to 100% and be at 124, 127. We want the default to be higher and then the opt out is obviously always gonna be whatever. And it's an opt just to be clear, it's an opt down. Opt down. So it's not opting out of the ACE program altogether, but it's opting down to a product that just meets the state requirement. Right. But that's correct as to what you mean. That sounds correct and that opt down product is always gonna be available. Yep. Mr. Diggins, sure. So now we're in territory where I need to understand what is meant by the over 100% because I mean I'm happy to vote for that, but now I feel that I need to understand if I'm gonna explain it to people. I mean so. I will do my best. So it doesn't change the amount of electricity that you buy. Obviously that is the electrons flowing through the wires, but associated with each electron we purchase a certificate that is related to clean generation that is somewhere out on the grid. So you can buy as many of those certificates as you want separate from the physical electricity that you consume. So that's the currently the 100% opt up product is doing just that. It is buying more attributes which are associated with the certificate than the actual electricity those customers are using. And you could, I could go and outside of this program I could go find somebody to sell me even more certificates if I wanted. There's nothing to stop me from buying as many certificates as I want. And what's the benefit? What's the benefit? The benefit is it creates additional demand. So there's this class one set of technologies that qualify the wind, the solar, the anaerobic digestion. There's also, there are also locational requirements. So it has to be power that is produced within New England or delivered to New England from outside. So you actually have to, there's a geographic component and there's also a temporal component. It has to be capacity that was put into operation after the start of the policy, which I think was 1998. So if you had a really old project that predated that date it wouldn't qualify for the class one. So there's multiple requirements that say this is a class one renewable energy project. And therefore you can mint a class one certificates that then are used to meet the statutory obligations and also to meet the voluntary requirements that we have. I still, so increasing demand, does that mean that it gives incentive to increase supply? Absolutely, because there's the only place you can get class one recs or from these qualifying projects. So as we increase the demand over and above what the state requires, there's only one place for it to come from over time, which is from new projects. Still won't, so it increases the incentive to create the supply more quickly than increases demand that could increase the price. So because if we increase the demand without increasing the supply, do we also take the risk of increasing the price? Because... So there are dynamics in the market. This is, there's a fixed amount of clean energy and as you increase that demand for it, you have to come up with new projects and I can predict where that's gonna go. The pricing for the certificates for this round are just slightly higher than they were than they are in the current contract, so it's not like there's a huge, this my understanding, not a huge sort of dislocation between supply and demand currently. All right, well, thanks. Well, Mr. Heard, you big, that's a poker player because you raised me, so I'll tell him. I'll stay in there though. This is the conversation me and Todd had last week. I'm done Mr. Heard, okay. Mr. Gorsy. We'll have a workshop for the select board on that. Yeah, I see what you're doing. Energy recs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I just wanna say, as we've talked about that the history of the community aggregation and I think we're all, I'm very proud of what this board and what the community has done since 2017. The first meeting I participated in where we gave guidance at that time to Adam Chapter Lane, we increased the renewable rate by 11% and we end in odd and at that point, the RPS, the state rate was in the teens and at that point, there was a concern that we should have that 50% rate because the fault rate is low. Some people may be concerned about going to 100% and we want to maintain three different levels and you see where we've gone in 2022 and it looks like where we're going now for 24. I certainly support getting up to 100% during this contract. I think just going back to the early discussion and Mr. Diggins questions, I think just being candid with everybody, I don't think a lot of people realize that 100% five years ago was 100% plus. In fact, one of my former colleagues who supported it talked to me three months after and said, Steve, I didn't realize those tanks are 160% but that's why I did it. So I think if that becomes the opt up, okay, and we go to this mathematical equation to get to 100 in terms of guidance, I think you've got to make it very clear to people that if you opt to do this, you're doing it perhaps to create more demand but you're going over 100% just to be absolutely clear because as the state default rate has gone up, that gap between 100% and what you're really paying for has, you could argue, has become material for people. Just in terms of being exactly clear what you're doing and people want to do it, great, but I think you've got to be really, really clear about it. Another thing I would say is going back to 2019, there was a real concern is, okay, if we're too aggressive with this default rate, are we going to lose subscribers and people just up down to the basic? It looks like and based on even the studies you've done in terms of if we increase things comparing to the current default rate, there may even be a savings or marginal increase depending on what happens, but I don't think that fear of losing customers is anywhere near what it was because that's our worst case, right? We get too aggressive with what the rate is and people up down to the basic and then you're back to 24 and 27% for a lot of customers and that's the part where we've always said as guidance to the town manager, this is what we'd like to see but if you go through this process and maybe some of the bids come in or the parameters are the expenses are going to go up, you've got to balance that a little bit because you want to maintain, subscribe to people who are participating in this and hopefully increase it right beyond the 73% that's already there. So I support what Mr. Hurd has proposed here with again the guidance that we make it absolutely clear what 100% really is going forward. This is where I'll say, I agree with you 100%. I'll go to 124%, that doesn't sound like enough. Just 100% really? So just to be clear, sort of what's on the table for, I think our guidance is shaping up, I know we need to hear from Mrs. Mahon too but we've got, we seem to have consensus so far the members have spoken of a default rate of being 100% and then perhaps an opt-up rate if it's clearly marketed to sort of bonus or extra credit but the default rate would really be sort of the true and dynamically adjusting 100% okay. Mr. Chairman, I mean essentially what that would be this year is 76% plus the 24 to get to 100. Correct, yeah. Mrs. Mahon, did you have anything? I guess the benefit of going last near the end just about everything I've wanted to say has been said so I'm not going to repeat that and I'm totally cognizant aware of the fact that ultimately it'd correct me if I'm wrong but it will be the town manager and Ms. Fox will it be next week on a phone call? I mean what's the next, right now we're giving, you're getting a sense of the board, sense of the community for the town manager, I believe along with Ms. Fox too. Hear the bids, hear what the contract could be. Does that process happen next week? Is it a phone call? I'm certainly, and whatever we do moving forward if you call it the 100 plus club and then explain what the plus is. It's a state renewable 24, 27, 30, whatever but just in terms of this board's making a recommendation I know the manager and Ms. Fox and others have been certainly hearing a pretty unified message including from our high school seniors which I'm very excited about in Otterson Middle School but so am I correct what the next step is if I could Mr. Chair ask? Of course, yeah. Ms. Fee? Sure, thank you Mr. Mahan and Talia, correct me if I'm wrong on the exact date, it's approximately two weeks away so it wouldn't be next week, it would be the following week that we'd be receiving. It was the following week, we pushed it back a little bit so you're not wrong about that. Yeah, the date recently changed but it's approximately two weeks away where we'd be receiving those bids and having to make that decision. And typically we will, if I may, we, the date of so, the bid day I believe is set for early April at this point and the day before we'll typically do a pre-bid where we'll get some preliminary pricing information from the consultants, from suppliers via the consultant so we'll have an opportunity to sort of take these considerations and look at the real-time pricing or projections for that pricing so we'll have a little heads up. And then the other thing moving forward which is what the town is already doing with the people that we have here in the room tonight with Ms. Marzilli, who's our, I think, civic engagement, I'm gonna get her title wrong, but on the other end, in terms of education as well as for those who may feel this somehow disenfranchises them, I feel very confident and just wanna add my support also to our town employees, department heads and others in terms of whether it's your utility bills, electricity, or anything else that a lot of times I found that the first biggest step is education in terms of what something is and then what something costs and how that affects you. And I have seen the three pieces in place for that and I want that to continue. So for those where it is something that even once they get the education and get to the second, but then get to the third step that the town certainly has and will continue to work with all of our residents, owners, renters, or otherwise, to make sure we can keep everybody in the community educated as well as able to be sustainable and sustain in Arlington. And I'm really very, very proud of that because I can tell you someone sort of coming from that roots. One of the best things I think that this town does now, I won't say what I was a young child in those circumstances, is educating and helping out residents wherever they are in life and just doing it to get done versus turning it into a sort of a campaign. I know when you're in that position, the last thing you want to hear is, oh, I was able to help Mrs. Mahan because she wasn't able to afford this or didn't understand that. No, do the education, get it done and it just happens and that's what's been doing. So please, I know you'll continue on doing that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Course. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sorry I didn't mention this earlier. Again, this is in the form of guidance to the town manager. One of the things we did previously is basically say, circumstances may change and you may find yourself in a different environment but there's a floor like, to no circumstances, we don't want to see you go below a certain level and I would say for me that's 60% for it. Like you know where we'd like to be which is 76 plus 24, but if things change I'd suggest a floor of 60%. So you have parameters again as maybe as a worst case if that's acceptable to other members and then the final thing I'd like to acknowledge is all the letters that we received from the public. The chair mentioned that earlier and I believe Mrs. Mahan did either but we read everything that's sent to us. We may not respond to everything but we want to acknowledge everything that came in, I got it from neighbors, I got it from town meeting members, students, residents. So we really appreciate that input from the public. Is the addition of the recommended floor acceptable? Yes, yes it is, it's higher than I thought. We've said it, so I'm happy with that. I'll just briefly chime in. I think it will come as no surprise that I'm very, very happy to support all of this. I'm very proud of my town right now as always for caring this much about it and being willing to clearly make a little bit of an extra investment. I think the worst case scenario of these projections if we go with the 70% rate in the coming year would be a little less than $4 a month on an average utility bill and I'm really confident that the vast majority of the people participating in the program would happily bear that extra cost and it may end up being in that reduction of $9. And I would personally suggest to the town manager that I think it is wise to include in our guidance a contingency of a somewhat modestly lower floor. Personally, I would recommend only doing that if our assumptions about what we know and to expect now about the electricity rates if those were to tank or to go wrong. I think that's where I would feel comfortable with your doing that but would hope otherwise that or there'd be other major changes in the conditions but otherwise I think since a lot of community support and support in this body for being as aggressively possibly clean. Any other discussion before we vote? Any other comments from Mr. Renie? No, the board's recommendations and guidelines are clear and I do appreciate Mr. DeCorsi advancing the concept of a floor. I mentioned that in the opening. I think that was the one helpful caveat that now knowing the board's general direction is also a firm figure to have recognizing that in a way it could be sent we're spending other people's money. So if the assumptions we're basing that decision on do not hold true in things very wildly on bid day it's good to know exactly what sort of the baseline is so I appreciate that. Well we'll see how long we can hold our breath two weeks. Okay so on a motion for the board's guidance is articulated and refined by Mr. Diggins and seconded by Mr. Herd. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed. As unanimous five nothing vote. Thank you all. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. So now bring us to and we can unshare the zoom. That's very much. Bring us to warned article hearings. So we have articles for review so we'll take these individually each of those will be a presentation by a proponent that could be a town staff member it could be a registered voter and we'll have board questions opportunity for public comment and then final board discussion and motions at that time. So let's start with article six by law amendment vacant store front maintenance registry Ms. Luzi if you please introduce yourself. Yes hi my name is Katie Luzi for the record on the economic development coordinator. Thank you Mr. Chairman select board members for having me this evening. So what I'm proposing under warrant article six is a few clarifications to the existing vacant store fronts by law. So to provide a little bit of background here this evening so this by law was passed in about 2016 and was brought to life in 2017 by my predecessor Ms. Carter. As you are all familiar with there is a $400 annual registration fee for vacant store fronts. So the vacant store front by law is applicable to any non residential commercial or industrial space in Arlington. So this includes commercial industrial medical office spaces in Arlington. This does not simply include any store front which is why I am bringing some clarity to the by law. These fees can be waived for property owners who either demonstrate fiscal hardship or who currently choose to display public art or otherwise activate their store fronts. This by law was put on pause during the COVID-19 pandemic and was resumed in December 2023 under my tenure. For a bit of context I began this position in late August of 2023 and me and my director Ms. Ricker decided to start the 90 day vacancy window in September of 2023 to allow everyone a grace period and to start fresh. So I started to send letters and enforce the by law in December of 2023. Next slide please, thank you. So to date the impact of the by law it has greatly increased greater awareness of vacant commercial spaces in town. People are aware of the by law and have engaged with me to talk about the vacant store fronts and it has given me an opportunity to engage with folks in Arlington about the vacant spaces in town. It's ultimately allowed me to cultivate relationships with different property owners which has been an incredibly beneficial outcome of the by law. I otherwise would not have had an opportunity to approach different property owners and it has really allowed me to have more of a a casual approachable relationship with property owners who may have previously had more of a maybe hostile relationship with towns or maybe simply just have related through bills or paper or have not had that personal connection. It's ultimately a tool for intervention as I've previously mentioned. It's also increased public discourse around vacant store fronts in other communities such as Cambridge. And since 2018 it has generated about $9,000 in revenue though ultimately this is intended to cover costs affiliated with inspectional services division. So the first amendment that I am proposing is to clarify the intention of the by law first this includes changing the by law title to Main Street Store Fronts. So I will be changing it to and I'm reading it off of the slide purely because I'm nervous about the legal definition aspect of it Main Street Store Front as any unoccupied non-residential commercial or industrial real property ground floor units with frontage along either Massachusetts Avenue or Broadway. So currently we have a lot of vacant properties that are not necessarily along Mass Ave or Broadway. And I believe the intention of the by law is to really target those high footage high trafficked areas I apologize to those high trafficked areas of commercial spaces. Second please. Here are a few examples of some of the spaces which technically the by law qualifies and that I am technically supposed to enforce. Could you please move past this? Thank you. Next slide please. The second is removing the public art waiver. So after discussion with the Erelington Commission for Arts and Culture, I've decided to propose to remove the public art waiver. So the public art waiver is an option for those property owners who do not want to pay the vacant store front fee. However, though well intentioned, it is not necessarily well executed. The public art that property owners choose to display is ultimately up to them in their discretion. It is not curated by any public art expert. And no, the ACAC, the Erelington Commission for Public Arts does not want the responsibility of managing that public art curation. There are no fees or budgets that they want to associate themselves with curating this public art. And they discussed it as feeling like it takes advantage of the artistic community as an unpaid opportunity to display public art, but it still requires work on their part. Next slide please. Oh, I apologize. This is an outdated presentation. It's okay. Are there any questions about the vacant store front bylaw amendments? Okay, so thank you very much. That concludes your presentation. So great. I will first, so the chair at this point will facilitate the discussion. And I'll first turn to the town manager. I know that we appreciate Ms. Luzai's initiative, but I'm cognizant of the fact that the request was made this article by the town manager and the director of planning community development. So if you'd care to speak to your degree of support for the recommendations and any other comments that you wish to make as the requesting body. Sure, thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity. And in being the requesting body, I will note that I supported this effort as initially described by Ms. Claire Ricker, but I guess on behalf of Ms. Luzai to essentially take what we have learned from our experience with the bylaw as we've lived with it for a few years and potentially try to correct for some of those things that perhaps we were not entirely cognizant of at the time we passed the bylaw. And I will say that, especially with respect to perhaps some second floor office space in a building that someone may not even recognize is currently classified as a commercial vacant storefront. So I think that there were certainly some instances that made clear we had to pursue some changes here. So thank you for the opportunity. Thank you, and thank you. So at this point, I'll turn to the board for initial discussion, Mr. Hurt. Something was just funny about Jim referring to himself as the requesting body. That's why I wasn't laughing today. I think I may have started that. I'll take it. That's right. I'll second it. Mr. Dickinson, what's up? I'll second. Approval. Oh, did we have an emotional approval? Okay. We'll pause the action. Sorry, we're not clear anything. Oh, that's right, yeah. Okay, so, and we will have public comment if there's any, let me just get this down. Did you have additional comments? Mr. Dickinson, on your side? Well, I might, but I see Mr. DeCourts here. No, no, no, go ahead, please. Oh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Tsai, for the presentation. I just want to clarify. The presentation that we had in our agenda pack, it's also had a proposed amendment on removing old signage. I just want to confirm that is no longer a proposal. Yes, yes. After advising with town council and attorney Munson, who is our new deputy town council, we have removed the explicit note in my proposed amendment to remove old signage as it is already existing under the zoning code for regular building code maintenance. Okay, all right, actually I'm glad to see that it was removed. Yes, thank you for asking. Sure, and just in the markup, and again, when we get to a vote, Main Street Storefront is defined as an unoccupied commercial or industrial real property ground floor unit. Later in the proposed law, there's discussion about a vacant Main Street Storefront. So it seems, I think in talking with attorney Cunningham and attorney Munson, I think unoccupied probably should come out of the definition of Main Street Storefront. And we could talk about that on final votes. But if I may, Mr. Chairman, I think, you know, the bylaw, even without the bylaw, people notice vacant storefronts. And that's one thing that as a member of the board, just this weekend, a Foster Street resident came up to me and said, I'm sure you hear a lot about this, but what's going on with various vacant storefronts? And the one that comes up the most is Tango, which in June of 2020, a Tango left in that space is still vacant. And I know this registry, one of the things we may want to think about, and I want to ask maybe in your experiences, upon the initial registration, the owner is to tell the planning department what efforts they're making to relet the space. But then there's an annual registration fee requirement. It doesn't seem like as part of that annual registration as any requirement to continue to say what's happening. Because I think at a certain point, and we all understand that there are challenges in the economy, there's challenges with retail. But when four years goes by, and I'm just using that as an example, because it comes up in an awful lot. And maybe there's other properties as well. If there's not much happening, I almost start thinking, do we start thinking about powers under Chapter 121B, urban renewal and looking into that as a community? Because I just think it's a long time. And that's an extreme situation. But it's a situation that's troublesome. And other sites, you know, we've heard about the 232 Mass Ave. Now, that's a family that is trying to make a go of that property. They had issues with the package store that wants to go in there, but they've made an effort there. They're out there. I don't hear much about this other location in particular. And I wonder if you feel that that would be helpful to have additional requirements, or maybe the town manager too, or can come back to us on this. Upon registration, is there a further obligation for the owner to let the town know what they're doing? Yeah, maybe I'll use this as an opportunity to reset. So the vacant storefront registration program is really that opportunity for me to engage with those property owners. You mentioned Tango, you mentioned 232 Mass Ave. Sending these letters and engaging with those property owners is my opportunity to have those conversations with them. There's a lot of discretion under this bylaw for me to make those determinations with Director Ricker. And, you know, determine if these property owners are making a bonafide effort to lease their spaces. There is, when property owners pay the vacant storefront fee when they simply give me a check, there's a benefit and there's a challenge. They send me a check, which is in one way great. They're doing their part by sending the fee. In another way, there is a challenge because I'm not capturing that information. So that's why the bylaw really is great in creating those relationships because there are those property owners in town like 232 Mass Ave where I'm able to have those conversations and talk through, oh, you're having difficulties with the package store. Let's talk through it. Oh, great. You signed a lease. That's fantastic. All right. I'm seeing the steps. We're having those conversations. There's a little bit more discretion to it. If they're not coming in six months, is there anything that we can do to activate that storefront? So there's a lot of, you know, there's a little bit more leeway and I'm more flexible with the bylaw than what it is on paper. So as long as property owners are showing a bonafide effort to lease their spaces, then I'm great on my part. There's a lot of great property owners in town but like spaces like Tango, there's a lot of property owners who aren't necessarily as considerate to the neighboring businesses and all the really wonderful, active property owners in town. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Corsi. Before we turn to the public in the digital, okay. So at this point, we will entertain public comment on this warrant article and if you are in Zoom and wish to comment on this article, please raise your hand in Zoom. Same thing if you're in the room. Are we okay with our Zoom connection? Yeah. Seeing no hands raised at this time. All right. Anybody in the room? Okay. That's conclude your public comment. Any, we already have a motion and a second. So any additional comments or questions for the board? Yes. Quick questions. Mr. Corsi, I could ask you offline. That was Chapter 121A. B. Okay. Thank you. Let's take a look it up later on. I'll just add that I appreciate the discussion Mr. Corsi initiated with Ms. Lusai. I think I'm glad to know that your thoughtfulness and creativity in addressing the circumstances, I think like Mr. Corsi, I also hear quite a bit from residents about what's the town doing and when I get done explaining that with our strict limits of the law to what we can compel property owners to do, it's really helpful to be able to point to this discussion to say that we are really doing everything that we can and that this bylaw is a tool. I'm glad that you are applying it flexibly but more importantly glad that you are doing the really hard work of looking at things case by case, establishing relationships with the property owners because we know from past experience that's really the path to success here. So I want to express my appreciation for all that unseen work behind the scenes and giving us the ability to be able to, as board members explained to the public that it's part of the good work that's going on. Thank you. And if I may, I do also want to note that this bylaw is an example for other communities in town. I, you know, not only Cambridge has initiated their own vacant store from bylaws, the state has as well but other communities like Belmont and Lexington most recently have contacted me to try and initiate their own bylaws. So this like in 2017, we're talking about local bylaws that have made a big difference, this one has as well and it really serves as a role model for the greater community. Fantastic, thank you for pointing that out. Okay, so on a motion for, what was it? Favorable actions at the turn we, yes. By Mr. Herd and seconded by Mr. Diggins. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Is unanimous. Thank you very much. Let's now turn to article eight bylaw amendment annual style meeting start date and I'll notice that we have three town meeting related articles but we'll take them up was the time we are privileged to have, by the way in the room with us tonight the moderator and I expect that he will want to speak to some or all of these at some point. So the first one start date is this, and this is the one that's, is this the town meeting procedures committee or nope, turn it again. Mr. Chair, I believe the first one article eight is by a registered voter, Phil Goff. Okay, yeah, okay, thank you. Yeah, so I believe Mr. Goff has queued up and good evening, Mr. Goff, please introduce yourself and talk to us about your article. Sure, thank you. My name is Phil Goff, I'm at 94 Grafton street in East Arlington and I am a town meeting member precinct seven for the last 10 or so years. Happy to be here with the first time that I've actually offered to a warrant article. It's a pretty simple one. And the one thing actually, I'll probably need some clarification on the warrant article that I wrote up, it had a part A and a part B. Are we discussing both? Cause it's my understanding that the part B might be Moot, the part B that related to the whole fourth Monday of the month in April. Should we talk about both? Or is that one now? Yeah, I think you should talk about both since this was the components of your warrant article and I think it'll be up to us to sort of sort out any duplication that there may be with the different warrant articles. Okay. Yeah, go right ahead. Okay, yeah, and obviously there's duplication with my point, part A as well. So I have no presentation, I'll just sort of speak to this, it'll be very brief, it's not very complex of course. As many of you or perhaps all of you neighbor call, it was probably five or five years ago or so at town meeting. There was a warrant article to change the town meeting start time, move it from eight o'clock to seven PM and end at 10 PM. And that was rejected, I think, relatively comfortably. There were many concerns that it just was a little too early and a number of people just simply couldn't make it, especially parents with young children and that was understandable. Since then the eight o'clock start time for me personally, I guess hasn't been too much of an issue, but on occasion when I try to recruit people to run for open seats in town meeting, what I do hear quite a bit from people, there's a whole range of opinions people have about potentially joining town meeting. But one thing I have heard a number of times is people, they're accustomed to going to bed at 10 or 1030 and they know that going to town meeting or being part of town meeting means twice a week, going to bed usually at 1130 or so. So I thought it's probably not unreasonable to think about a 730 to 1030 runtime for town meeting which provides there have been nice compromise in some ways between seven, which was too early for some people for sure, and eight o'clock start time, which I feel is a little late and I think many others do as well. So that's really kind of the core of this warrant article as two other town meeting members who will speak. So there's as well soon after mine and I'm hoping for support from the select board on that. Good, thank you very much. Attorney Cunningham, so can you give me some guidance about these are separate warrant articles but there's the obvious overlap with respect to two components in a couple of cases. Should we just have discussion and clarification of votes sequentially or try to combine some of the presentations and discussion as we go along here? I would recommend that the board take these matters up individually but then perhaps take a final vote on a collective because they are so interrelated. The issue of discretion regarding the start date of town meeting and then the time, depending on where the select board lands, I think that essentially the board would be well advised to recommend some sort of action, favorable action if so inclined on one particular course rather than doing three separate but there are separate hearings. Okay, yeah I think my principal concern here is I wanna make sure we avail ourselves of the insights of the moderator including on this discussion of this just because he leads the town meeting procedures committee which is weighed in on at least one of these issues and also has may have information for the board and in recommendations just based on his own experience as the person in charge of town meeting. So how would you suggest we kind of integrate that into this discussion? I think the, thank you Mr. Chair. The best way to proceed would be for the board to conduct a hearing on each individual warrant article. Perhaps at the end of each hearing, a table discussion and then at the end of the third and final warrant article relating to this matter gonna take one collective action that relates to all three. Yeah. Does that sound generally all right to my comments comments and procedure from the colleagues? At town meeting aren't they gonna have to vote on all these individually? They will, but it's gonna be, they'll have the reference in the select board report that this is essentially whatever the preference might be from the board. Whether there's a preference to change the start date to provide discretion, do neither. At that point they'll be best able to deal with each individual warrant article and vote on them individually but at least they'll have one collective thought from the board that'll be I think more clear to town meeting than it would be to provide three separate thoughts. We just write one thought and just put ditto. Also, I think we've got public comment in the last one. I don't know if anybody wanted to talk about about the storefront. No, the chair did call for public comment. Yes. Yes, you did. Yes, you did. Thank you. I'm glad someone started. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mr. Heard. Gotta pay attention to you. That's right, that's right. Yeah, okay, so Mr. Diggins, I'll look at my reference material. I mean, I'm not seeing anything for eight. I mean, did everyone else get, you know, I think I didn't, I think that might have been omitted from our packets. All right, all right, inadvertently as well. That's fine, all right, so. You want me to read the actual language that was in my warrant article that was signed? You can give it, just take a minute, attorney calling him. You do have. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Diggins, in my memorandum, there's a discussion of article eight as well as draft motion language that I believe is consistent with Mr. Goff's intent. Yeah, if you go to Cunningham Memo or Town Council Memo, everything's in there. Oh, thank you. I thought I'd read it, you know, go read it from afar. I guess it's Mr. Diggins, okay. Oh, okay, I see it now. Yeah, I see it now. It's a discussion of, all right, thank you. Sorry I missed it. Yeah, I'm gonna read that stuff. Let Mr. So, yeah. I just want to clarify. So what I'm hearing, and I don't think we've asked, maybe we've already done it for eight, but after eight public hearing, make a motion to table, which I will do right now if you tell me we're at that point with all the different discussions and sidebars and not, okay, that's, all right, and then when we get to nine, hear everything, move to table, and then when we get to 10, basically we're gonna take them all up because it's such, okay, so. I think it's our Council's advice, attorney Collingham? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I know we certainly have the moderator with us tonight, so the conduct of town meeting and how it approaches these articles is likely to be different. They will have to take individual votes on each one in time, but I think it'd be, that's a suggestion for the board. I think it's the best course, it's the most clear course. It's gonna provide guidance to town meeting about how the select board is feeling on these three articles, which are so interrelated. Yeah, that sounds fine to me. Let's proceed with that. So Mr. Goff has made his presentation. So let's have a public hearing now on article eight and invite public comment for article eight and what we'll do is when that's done, then we'll table that, we'll just move to the article nine presentation. So ultimately I think there'll be number of opportunities to comment on the substance of this due to the overlapping nature, but that said, any public comment now, please raise your hand in the room or in Zoom on article eight. Mr. Christiana, thank you very much for coming tonight. Of course. Good evening, everyone. I apologize, I didn't get these published in advance. I did send them to Ms. Maher online. So she has a digital copy and I also have several, is it appropriate for me to hand these out here? Yeah, yeah, you handed them to Ms. Maher and she could distribute them. They're in, yeah. They're in the system. We have them. I updated Nova. Oh, you updated Nova? Okay, so actually I do need a great copy. These long rums. So shall I just go ahead? Yeah, please go ahead. So I just want to give a little background. Greg Christiana, town moderator. We conducted a survey of town meeting members in December of 2023. That survey closed in January of this year, 2024. And this survey covered a range of topics. And the one that's relevant here to the article hearing tonight is that there was a question about the town meeting members' preference for start times. Now to be clear, my intention in asking this question of town meeting members was to get their preferences for determination that I and other officials would make such as select board chair, town clerk, town council and so on to figure out if we wanted to adjust to start time of town meeting for not the first night but subsequent nights because the first night start time is specified explicitly for APM in the town bylaws. So my intention was just to get a read from town meeting members for a decision that we as public officials would make. And what's being discussed here obviously is a hearing for amending the town bylaws. So it's not exactly the same question but I figured it might be useful to the select board to see the information that I have. I'm in the process of analyzing and preparing a summary of survey results to be published. And so I thought it might be helpful to give just the small bit of results that I had processed that's relevant to the hearing tonight. And so I've provided these handouts. And basically there's two questions that might be relevant. Particularly relevant is it was question 13 from the survey asking town meeting members their preference for three different time ranges. And so as you can see here, most, this is on the first page, the front page, a plurality of town meeting members preferred a start time of 7 p.m. Assuming that it would run for three hours till 10 p.m. It was very limited options and then the next most popular, again, these are small samples so we can't read too much into it. And then this was 154 responses to question 13 out of 252 town meeting members. And then the least popular option among the three was a start time of 8 p.m. and running to 11 p.m. which is the status quo. And I took liberty of cross-referencing that with another question which you'll see on the reverse side, question 16, just so we can see just how this breaks down across different ranges of town meeting members based on their tenure of service as town meeting members. And so you can see that there's some slight correlations here, again, we can't read too much into the data because these samples are relatively small. But you can see that for town meeting members serving less than five years, the most popular preference was for a 7 p.m. start time. And then looking at town meeting members at the bottom who were serving for more than 10 years, the most popular preference among that population was to retain the status quo at 8 p.m. So you can see like, and that's just one cross-section here. There's lots of other ways that data could be sliced that didn't have time to provide other cross-sections but hopefully any of this information might be useful for your decision tonight. Thank you very much, Deed. And did you have any comment on the other portion of this particular article with respect to the date, the starting date? I know that you have the town meeting procedures. Right, so we can cover that when we cover article 10. Yeah, that's fine, sure. Thank you very much. Can I just ask one question? Yeah, it was mine, yeah. Am I reading this correctly? I understand it's 154 responses you said in total. Yeah, I mean there were different numbers who responded to question 13 versus question 16. And then I cross-referenced to ones where they answered both questions. So for me to maybe try to figure out how that 154 breaks down, is it on the flip side second page that town meeting members less than five years, you had about a little under 60 responses, is that what those numbers mean? And then town meeting members who responded, who are serving five to 10 years, it's like 42 people are in that. That's right, it was a, yeah, I can get the exact numbers, but it's roughly 55 or so who responded, who served less than five years, a little over 40 who served five to 10 years, and about 40 who served more than 10 years, yeah. Okay, thank you. Just, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, so. Okay, any other public comment on this article, or Mr. Crescent? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Crescent, for coming this evening. I just wanted to clarify, we received an email from you with potential proposed language for article 10. It does incorporate the eight o'clock. Did the town meeting procedures committee talk about 730 versus eight o'clock, or were you just focused on the select board potentially choosing a different start date? Yeah, the discussions at the town meeting procedures committee prioritized the selection of the start date and how that's specified in the town bylaws and relaxing the current kind of hard requirement that we start on the fourth Monday in April because of the conflict this year, obviously with the first time of Passover. So that was the highest priority, and I don't recall if we specifically discussed changes in the start time. Okay, thank you. We'll have to pass through to. Sure, thank you. And also the, I'm still contemplating whether to convene the town meeting procedures committee to discuss any of these, obviously we weighed in on the one that we submitted for article 10, but that's still being decided whether we're gonna, yeah, convene to discuss the other two articles. Okay, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Mr. Christian. I appreciate you weighing in. We're seeing you soon, sure. Any other public comment on this article? Anything in Zoom? Seeing no hands raised, thank you. Okay, so at this point, I'm gonna turn the motion to table the hearing for article eight. Move to second, Mr. Heard. So we have a motion to table by Mrs. Mohan, seconded by Mr. Heard. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, so it's a unanimous motion to table the hearing for article eight. This will now bring us to the hearing for article nine bylaw amendment revised on meeting start time, and it's Ms. Kelleher in the room. Yes, come on up. Good evening. Please introduce yourself. Thank you. I'm Krista Kelleher from 153 Medford Street. I'm a town meeting member from Precinct Five. I filed article nine with the intention of having town meeting begin earlier and end earlier each evening. I'd like to offer the following top 10 reasons why town meetings should begin at 7.30. Number 10, late night policy decisions aren't necessarily ideal. Number nine, there might be town meeting members who struggle to stay awake until 11 p.m. Number eight, it's important to respect the time and needs of town employees, board and commission members, ACMI staff, town consultants, legislators, select board members and others who watch and or speak at town meeting, including students. Number seven, an earlier end time might allow for increased sleep making for healthier habits and more rested town meeting members. Number six, the later into the evening the meeting runs the more likely it is that town meeting members depart before adjournment. Number five, sticking within 11 p.m. end time might deter some residents from being willing to serve and run for town meeting as the other proponent, Mr. Goff, suggested. Number four, starting earlier might allow town meeting members and others to get to the bake sale even earlier. Number three, February 2023 town meeting member survey results indicate that 61% preferred in end time earlier than 8 p.m. I didn't have the most current numbers just presented by the town moderator. Number two, town meeting members who have early morning work obligations and or caregiving responsibilities might appreciate having more time to rest. And number one, a modified start time or the top reason why we should change to 7.30 is a modified start time. We'd affirm that traditions can adapt over time in response to changing needs. Saying all of that, I'm completely open to withdrawing my article. If it's considered duplicative, give an article eight and I'm happy to do that procedurally. Thank you. Thank you very much. At this time, I'll see if there's any additional public comment on this article. If you'd like to comment, please raise your hand in Zoom or in the room. Seeing no answer. So I think we're looking, any discussion for the board? Looking for a motion to table article nine, hearing. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. So we have a motion to table the hearing for article nine by Mr. Decorsi and seconded by Mr. Hurd. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Unanimously tabled. All right. Now this brings us to article 10, my law amendment start time for annual town meeting. And this one is the town meeting procedures committee if I'm not mistaken. So, Mr. Christiana, the chair of that body further go into half of the issue. Hello again. Hello again. For the record, I make no commitment as moderator about the fact of the start time on the break for the, for the base set. So yeah, the town meeting procedures committee requested the inclusion of this article in the warrant. Felt that there was there was discussion between myself and the select board chair and others about what to do about the conflict that we had this year and the main thrust of why we put this article forward was to avoid this sort of conflict in the future and to give the select board latitude to do this in a way that was clearly specified in the town bylaws. And that's about it. Jordy Collingham. Yeah, just thank you, Mr. Chair. I know we've had this discussion with the board before but title one article one does give the board discretion when setting the town annual election date. It did not give similar discretion when setting the time for town meeting which is the fourth money in April. And as Mr. Christiana, the town moderator indicated for the first time since 1967, the fourth money in April is the first night of Passover this year. This will occur again in 2035. However, just the discretion to avoid any problems is something that this bylaw amendment seeks to provide. Yeah, thank you very much. I appreciate the town meeting procedures committee thinking about this and helping us think it through and recommending language because I think that, you know, I suspect there'll be pretty good consensus that we really lock this down but making sure we do that right is worth doing. So thank you very much. Okay, so let's have invite public comment on article 10. If you would like to comment on article 10 in Zoom raise your hand or in the room and we do the same. Ms. Marl? Seeing no hands raised. All right, so turning Cunningham, do we need a table 10 or do we bring the other two back at this point? Bring the other two back. And I think if there's one motion collectively that addresses what the board wants to do on these issues, the draft vote and comments would reflect essentially all three of them would list the same draft motion. If the board's able to come to consensus on what it wants to do, that draft motion will exist in the comments for each of the three board articles. All right, so I think I need a motion to bring the other two back. Mr. Heard? Motion to bring the other two articles back. That's fine. Question and clarification. All right, you get you. Do I second the motion? So we have a motion to bring back from the table articles eight and nine to this hearing. And seconded by Mr. Diggins. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Suppose they are back in the table, we are now open for discussion, questions and motions from the board for all three. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just to make sure, does article 10, does it specify that Tom, you can't start earlier than any given date? It says no later than the second Monday in May, but does it specify that it can't start any earlier than the fourth Monday in April? Will you get an opinion from Tony Collingham? Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, it doesn't specify. Okay, so we need to lock that down. I would say, you know, because we, I think we do want to specify the earliest it can start. Although I guess we have discretion over the election day, but then I think at that point we want to make sure that we have a certain amount of time between the election day and the first day of town meeting, so that's something we'll need to work out. And I'm going to recommend to the moderator that he does reactivate the town meeting procedures committee to discuss that. And also the ramifications of changing the start time, meaning to not only 7.30, but also 7 o'clock, because it seems like there are people who are interested in 7 o'clock, because I'll tell you someone who falls off the cliff at 10 o'clock, and he's like kind of getting us done, by 10 o'clock would be my preference. But once again, I mean, one of the reasons we have hesitated on this, well, there are two. One was that the previous town moderator was just adamant about not starting later. And then one of his arguments was that, well, we have these other meetings that happen beforehand sometimes. And so we need to take into account me that people may need to meet before town meeting and how that affects their schedule. So I'd like for the town meeting procedures committee to take that, help us understand the interactions, so that we can make a decision that is more cognizant of the impacts of changing the start time, be it 7.30 or 7 o'clock. That's it, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Horsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I agree with Mr. Diggins on the article 10. And I think when this was discussed, and maybe we can follow up with the town meeting procedures committee, I think the intent was it would be a, if it had to be changed, it would be a later date. And maybe we can talk about that and come back because it would just really be a matter of, unless the select board votes to establish a later date in time, because it is the end date, no being no later than the second Monday in May is already there. I mean, I don't know if there would be a scenario with we're having this started earlier, it's always going to conflict with the vacation the week before, so probably it would be better to be later. And I just want to throw this out, as far as the start time is concerned, I mean, I think this, because the first night of town meeting is in our town by-law, that's why it's here before us. But once town meeting starts, it's up to the body to determine when they meet at subsequent meetings. I do wonder if this is something that, you really want as much town meeting input as possible and I appreciate Mr. Christiana providing these survey responses, but this could be a matter of us just holding off on our recommendation and let's see what happens at town meeting on the first night or second night in terms of what the vote is for the next recess. And if the will of the town meeting is, yeah, we want to do 730, we want to do seven, then we're in sessions for our town meeting, we can then make that recommendation. Because to be honest, I'm indifferent, I mean, I'm a late person, so I'll go until 1130 at midnight, isn't a problem for me, but I totally appreciate what people are going through in 730 may be the right time, but that's a way to get the town meeting vote and get our recommendation. That's really the 252 town meeting members and really who we want to hear from on that. I'll just make a quick comment along that regard. I think it's an intriguing suggestion of Mr. Decorsi, through the needle that I've struggled with on this is that although the select force required to make a recommendation, this is really something town meeting needs to decide for itself, it's town meeting's decision, it always has been. I'm actually really glad that this came back this year, I think it's really healthy that we ask at how many of this question every few years because as has been pointed out, the composition of town meeting has changed. So I mean, I'm sort of more with Mr. Diggins, my coach turns into a pumpkin around about 10, but I think the point being that I've been known for quoting Mr. Spock in one of the Star Trek movies that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. I think this is a really good argument for giving town meeting as much power as it can, or the one, oh, another trekker, or the one. Giving town meeting as much of a voice is possible on this, and so I was, if we could take a vote about what we individually think town meeting will want to do, but ultimately if there's a way to do that and let town meeting really take the lead on this, that's really appealing to me. I have some more questions, but I'll leave it to Mr. Herb. But I should say, I mean, my comments were kind of following what you're saying, but we have done this in past warrant article, warrant articles that affected this board that we essentially passed, we moved positive action for the purpose of putting it in front of town meeting. And in our comments, we actually put the board that takes no stance on this warrant article and one particular article stands out for me on that. So I mean, I think we could do, I think, I don't think you're gonna get consensus because I'm pretty on the opposite end of what we've heard so far because I, you know, I'm happy to move it to town meeting for a vote. I would not vote for it because 737 just doesn't work for me, so eight o'clock is much better. If it's at seven or 730, I'll just be late for a lot of town meetings, but that's just me. And so I think, you know, it's something that has to go to the members for a vote. So I mean, I think what we would do is move, I think we're all in agreement on having discretion to not have to have town meeting on religious holidays, but I think as far as the start of time, we just push it, the question to town meeting in whatever form that that needs to be condensed with these three articles. And then in the, in the, you know, comments, we just say that the board takes no individual, the board as a whole doesn't take a position on a time. Chair, any comment? Thank you, Mr. Chair. If the board is inclined, it could take three separate votes because there's article 10 doesn't deal with time. So then articles eight and nine could be a certain vote and comment and recommendation from the board and tend to be something else. I know you have questions, so when I want, you can tell me when it's appropriate. I just want to focus on article 10 in that issue, but I want to. Okay, great, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I have a question on the setting of the time. So the scope of this, of these warrant articles really seems to be limited to changing the bylaws definition of the first, the meeting time, seven, of seven, 30 or eight o'clock on the first night of town meeting. And I think as most town meeting members know, although maybe haven't really thought about what really happens and was alluded to earlier is that what happens for the subsequent nights of town meeting that's not controlled by the bylaw, that's actually controlled by tradition. And the tradition is to date that this elect board chair makes a sort of a prearranged, preprinted motion and it's actually handed to you by the clerk to say if we don't finish our meeting tonight and everybody groans, then we will next convene at this date at this time and that controls a meeting at a time when we do this. I think the tradition has been that that preprinted motion follows the first night of town meeting just to kind of respect the intent of that. But that's not actually what the bylaw does. So should we consider and would it be within scope to recommend that town meeting really wants to hue to a certain start time every night, whether that be seven, seven, 30 or eight? Suggesting a further bylaw change that would actually specify the start time for all sessions. I guess the first question whether that would be in scope and it's probably a question for the moderator in a different context. But the attorney calling him might have an initial opinion on that. I don't know if it's a good idea. I'm just putting that out there as it's an opportunity to kind of fix that ambiguity. Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this stage, the select board has pretty wide discretion in control of the warrant. If it chose to include something like that in a draft motion, it could do so. You know, any action related there too provides a lot of discretion for this board to act in a way that seems appropriate. And in the town meeting itself, that body is held to a stricter standard and scope standards based on the draft motion language it's facing. Yeah, okay. So I don't, like I said, I don't know if that's something we'd want to do, but it has occurred to me before that that's kind of a, I wouldn't say it's a loophole. It's just sort of an unspecified situation. My other question is on the other end of this, and that is the implication is a three-hour duration of a meeting. We go from eight to 11. The suggestion by the proponents of these articles is that we would go from seven, 30 to 10, 30, or perhaps even seven to 10. But again, that's not controlled in bylaw. That's controlled by, I think, when someone makes a motion to adjourn and the moderator has a lot of discretion in recognizing that motion. Is that your understanding, Ms. moderator? Yeah, I guess largely tradition and custom. Yeah, I tried to do custom. So again, I'm not suggesting that that be codified either, but I'm just kind of pointing out for the larger discussion of that, that the actual scope of the proposed change is really just kind of around the margin and the tradition and the custom would take over from there. So it's just something to consider since we have an opportunity to potentially do some surgery on this. Mrs. Mohan, I'm done. Can the one add one more consideration? The one, especially since the one under the full Star Trek quote, which warms my heart. I know other years when this has been discussed, not that this should guide anything, but there are three committee and boards, the redevelopment board, the select board, and the finance committee, that the way it works right now is every night there's town meeting, those three finance committee redevelopment board select board, meet at seven, sometimes 645 until eight. So in years past when this has been discussed, usually each of those committees, somebody gets up and represents what A, if they went to 730 or seven, what a 630 or six or 530 start time would mean. And that's just another consideration. That's not something that should guide it, but that's no matter what, some of us are here, four to five hours, and that's just how it is. Anyways, but when we get to, since we're still on 10, I'm still gonna wait for the chair, but I would like to, when we can, just to meet 10 as a standalone. There's some overlap with eight on that in terms of further defining the discretion that this current board and any future select board has regarding setting the first, the commencement of any annual town meeting.  Okay, yeah, I think, because it is separate. I think that we might want to contemplate since the Language Fentany Procedures Committee does include sort of that carryover of the default 8 p.m. start time. If attorney coming in, do we need to try to fix that in our motion or is that something that would be overridden by the order we take this up until meeting, if town meeting votes to change the start time? I'm just trying to understand it clearly. What are you suggesting on Article 10? Oh, in our motion for Article 10, do we need to do anything with the sort of the default 8 p.m. start time that was included in there, you know, giving the town meeting town meeting might change that start time under a different article? Which one would clobber the other? To me, Article 10 has to do with start date. It doesn't talk anything about start time, does it? Yeah, and I think, thank you, Mr. Chair. At this stage, I think it might be best if once the board is done with its discussion to take up each article individually just for clarification at this point. So Article 10 does not deal with the time change. It deals just with the start date. I don't think the board would necessarily need to consider that there to the extent that the board wants to consider time changes. Eight and nine provide those opportunities and the comments could reflect those desires. Okay, yeah, that's fine. All right, so it does say, I mean, to see if the town will vote to try to start dates and times, I mean, so. Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. Yeah, this was at the scope of 10, you know, and I'll say that I understand, I mean, in fact, I had the same thought as Mr. DeCorsi, is that town meeting can change me in the start time, but I think it's really important that