Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Selectments Meeting for June 17, 2013. Just a reminder to everybody that from Memorial Day to Labor Day, we have informal meetings, which means some of us choose to take advantage of it and not wear a tie. Right, Diane? The tie is in the back until September. All right. First up is our Consent Agenda. On the Consent Agenda, we have the minutes of meetings for June 3, 2013. We have a vote for the Arlington segment of the Susan G. Coleman three-day breast cancer walk and a year-end transfer from the deputy town manager. I just want to note that we have on our desk who was something that was in our packet a memo from Officer Ratau regarding the Coleman walk, where he's saying there are currently no objections, and Sergeant Kiernan has been in contact with Ms. Ricker. So there's a tentative safety meeting planning on June 25. And, Andrew, did you want to talk about, but you're here if you want to have questions. Mrs. Mohan? If I can ask my colleagues and deltas that first, I make a motion to approve 1A and 1B. I do have comments on them. Okay. The reason why on 1C, I'm going to ask for two separate motions, and I'll explain when we get there. So move to approve on 1A and 1B. Second. Second. Second. Okay. Comments, Mr. Kiernan. I think I record on the minutes reflect under item six, that during discussion I did state that I had no objection to the issuance of a permit for three tables and that my only objection was based on the passage between the bike rack and that fourth table. I don't want it misconstrued. Ms. Kopak, you got that? I'll talk to him afterwards. Okay. So with that, let's accept that change. Ms. Mohan? On 1B, I do as a cheerleading coach at the Arlington High School. Sorry. Where are you? Oh, I'm sorry. On 1B, the Susan G. Coleman. Oh, yeah. I just want to once again just bring to the town manager's attention that not so much of the cheerleaders are involved, but one of the other things that we're asked to do is have the hose, I call it hosing stations, and usually DPW, either Jimmy Dodge or Dan Warren. And it's only on excessively hot days. We set them up, the cheerleaders take care of it. So when the walkers come through, they can walk through a mist. And I was just looking at the CCs. So for that particular function of it, I'll just leave it with the town manager to once again coordinate that through DPW. Okay. Is there anyone here from the walk who wanted to speak? Okay. Any further discussion? Consent agenda minutes as amended and the walk subject to conditions. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Ms. Mohan? Okay. If I could, I have one question to my colleagues and then one question to the town manager and or... Do you want to make a motion first? First, I'd like to make a motion to approve the end of year transfer request with the exception of the Comptroller request. And I've spoken to town council about this. It speaks to transferring money because one telephone operator was out second and now the telephone operator had to fill in. And that telephone operator is my mother. So what I'd like to do is vote the rest of the requests as one vote. And I can vote for that and then take that separate and I will abstain. Yep. Okay. So we have a motion. Second. Second. Any other questions? Ms. Mohan? Just have one question. If the town manager...  If you could provide to the board the... Because we've had two or three vendors on the IT department request because there was a vacancy. I believe somebody retired and we hired an outside IT vendor as well as anticipate either continuing that or going with another IT vendor. If we could just get some information on that. I'm just curious if it's one and the same who the vendor was and what the services were. And I really do... Unless you already know the answer. No, I can provide that for you. Okay. Okay. Any further discussion on this? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. But I have a motion for the remaining transfer. So moved. Second. Okay. So any discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. All those abstaining? Aye. 301. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We have appointments up next. Arlington Historic District Commissions is Charles Berry and Michael Bush here. Because you both... Why don't you come on up to the microphone? And you can go... You can race to see who gets to the microphone first. We've got your CV, your resumes or whatever they sent us. We read it. Thank you very much for volunteering. Could you just tell us a little bit about what brings you to this commission and why you're interested in helping out? I've lived in Arlington for 30 years. Could you start with your name? I can't tell you apart yet. I'm Charles Berry. Good to meet you. Nice to meet you. I've lived in Arlington for 30 years. A degree in architecture. I've been a builder for 40 years. And I've always enjoyed the architectural fabric of Arlington. I think it's a real asset to the town. And I got to the point in my life where I want to start giving back. And I feel I can contribute to that. Okay. Thank you. By elimination, I'm Michael Bush. I've been an Arlington resident for about five years now. I was a restoration carpenter until I was about 30 when my right wrist decided to give out on me. And these days, I'm an optical engineer, but I own a grand old wreck up on Mount Gilboa. And my various neighbors have suggested that I should do this. And it struck my fancy. And so I have. Thank you. Comments, questions? Thank you. Move approval. And I just would say to Charles, both Charles and Michael. David. No, Michael. No, Michael. No, Michael. I know that you have a background in commentary and restoration, regardless of how much you can do as well as I know Michael's here. It's not a conflict or anything, but you are alma mater of the chairman's college of choice. So I thought that was interesting. But I'm so impressed that the fact that not only have you bought in Arlington, that you bought a historic home, everything that comes with it, you fulfill the requirements for the, and I always get this wrong, historic district commissions, but that, as you say, you're willing to not only do that, but as you've cited from the microphone, do it not only for yourself, but for your neighbors, which includes the town of Arlington. And I'm eternally grateful for that, because I have several friends who live in historic homes, and it is a big commitment. And I really say hats off to both of you for doing this. And thank you. Second. Second. So thank you again. Volunteers make this town run, and we get as select when we get to see a parade of them, and we get to say hello, and then, you know, you go and do great things, and we really appreciate it. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Four zero. Thank you very much. Thank you.  All right. So next up, it is after 7.15, we have public hearings on licenses and permits. So we have just a review for those, for people who have just joined us, or people at home, or whatever. And we introduced new licenses, a new licensing system here in Arlington. And at the time, we also put a limit on the number of licenses that can be given out. And so we started the year with some 20 odd that were renewed from previous years, and then we've had a number of requests. So we're at the point where we have two licenses left. And we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven requests here today. I believe that one of them isn't actually here today, so it's probably going to be six. But we only have two licenses to give out regardless. So obviously for the person who's not here, we would have the option of tabling. We have the option of giving none out. I would, if the board, so chooses, I would suggest that we hear and ask from each individual, and then we entertain any motions that we see fit. And I'm also, since it's a public hearing, I'm going to invite everybody, we're going to go through all the licenses. I'm going to ask for input from the public, if anyone has anything that they want to say. And then we'll do our motions and comments. Is that okay with everybody? All right. So first up, and Jambu Sherpa doing business as Everest transportation. You are up first. Are you here? Could you come on up to the microphone? So we've all got your application, and I think we've all had probably had a chance to check it out. If you want to tell us a little bit about your experience and why you're looking to, thank you for wanting to be in Arlington. Tell us why you're looking for Arlington. Pardon me. I started in the cab business in the water town first. I started in 2007. So I drive down in that town for two years. Then I work in the Boston city for three years. And right now I'm working with the Liberia, with the Uber transportation, but this is a very great opportunity. So that's why I fill out the application for the taxi melody. Questions? This is mine. Oh, just Mr. Bernharder-Hins up first. Did you get that first? Mr. Bernharder-Hins. It doesn't matter. Sorry. Yeah, you just mentioned you're working for Uber. Yes. Is that going to be, if so, if I go on my app and I say when Uber cab in Arlington, would you then come pick me up here? Yeah, definitely. But once I get on the taxi, that's going to be separate, different business. So I would probably know better to have the taxi medallion from the town. Okay. So the cab you'll be driving in Arlington will still be going through Uber? Right. Okay. No, I will not attach to the Uber. So that's going to be totally different. But right now, just for like my reference, like I'm working with the Uber, but if I got the medallion on the, you know, from the taxi, then I will just do the regular taxi. Okay. So there will be no Uber at that? There will be no Uber. Okay. We are outside of Uber range. Right.  Maybe someday. Yeah. Mr. Mohan. For all the applicants, I believe with the exception of number seven, who already is, has some hackney licenses in Arlington. I want to pose the same questions. First and foremost, I'm concerned about your, your familiarity, your knowledge of the different streets in Arlington, how to get from point A and point B. Right. And the other thing on your particular application, and you'll hear, I'm going to do this with several others, but not all, for your location of your proposed depot, you have five O Colony Avenue. We don't have O Colony Avenue. Right. We do have O Colony Lane and O Colony Road. Right. So what is your correct address if you were successful? O Colony Lane. So that's, so that's, change that to O Colony Lane. Right. I'm just curious about where you're mostly driving out of Woover in Arlington. You could probably put a lot of Alantonians on certain streets and they wouldn't know where they were. How are you going to be familiar? How are you going to know where you are in Arlington to get to another point? I understand you know how to get to Cambridge, Boston. Yeah, but just, if I got it, you know, I will go through the Atlas map and then I will just find it out. It's not a big deal for me to, you know, find it out. You would go to the what? Atlas map and then you know the, once I start, then it's not going to hard for me to find out. Atlas. Oh, Atlas. Atlas. I'm sorry. You know what? I'm deaf in this area. I'm sorry. That is when I have a little bit of problems. Okay. So you would rely. I'm very good with the, about the Atlas maps. Okay. And the other, an Institute Guide map, you know book. Okay. The other question I have, unless this is, he's already received this insurance information. They don't have to have insurance. So after they get the license, they don't have to have it to us before the license is given. Are you familiar with your insurance liability and what I'm concerned, what I'm interested in. Right. What I'd like to know. Okay. Is bodily injury, collision and property. Right. I have a liability for the $1 million. But those kind of burglies, maybe if I, you know, maybe I'll go through the insurance. So whatever required from the town, I'll, I'll go through that requirement. Okay. And the reason I bring this up, it's not just for you, it's for everybody else who's here. The chairman is working, I believe with the town manager on different areas of the Hackney licenses. And one of them is, as has been identified by the city of Boston, looking at appropriate insurance coverage. Right. So it's not, you know, it's basically the requirement we have now, but that's a concern for me. So thank you very much. Mr. Carroll. Thank you. I also had noticed the old colony, old colony lane, five old colony lane. And I noticed that one of our other applicants also is proposing to depot there. Yeah. Are you essentially working together? We are just kind of friends, you know, so, so I'm planning to move on that a day.  Right now I'm not leaving there, but I'm planning to move on that building. So that's why I put it that as a, you know, reference. So in my friends' partnership. Okay. So your friend actually has sufficient parking spaces for both your cab and his, you know, pending your move? It is in and out. But for the, if I got a, you know, the, I'm planning to apply for the, you know, the apartment there. Yeah. So that is why I put that at this, you know, but if I selected this, I can find out the parking, you know, I might, you know, pay for the monthly parking. So I can do that. Okay. Thank you. Can I just follow up on that? That's a question. Maybe I don't know if the town manager or town council, both number as Mr. Kuro as Joe cited this application and number six site in an apartment on Old Colony Lane. Legally, can we give them permission to have that be a half knee depot? You're not, I mean, if it would be a zoning violation, I don't know that would be a separate issue. Under the old rules and regulations, there was a requirement that the cabs actually be kept in Arlington and this board voted to eliminate that requirement. So they don't have to be kept in Arlington anymore. And if this board approved the license, that wouldn't operate as a special permit and kind of override of the zoning bylaws. So there'd have to be a separate inquiry made to the building department. Okay. I guess that, oh, Mr. Kuro. What would a change of the depot location require the Hackney operator to come back to us or if they would have changed their depot location? It might follow up. It doesn't work out with the apartment. I have a one request like, it doesn't work out in the, I have my own parking in my residence right now. So I can park there until I find the, you know, the location around here in the Marlington. Is that where you keep the car now or you keep it somewhere else? Right now I'm keeping the car with my, where I'm living in Riviera. So for the parking, I don't have any problem. I have a two parking there. So, but I'm just trying to put the, you know, the, you know, address over here. Then when I switch with my partner, the ship, maybe so he can also easy for the, you know, partner. So that is the reason. So I had one comment. That was about the color scheme or insignia. So it's, it's important. And I think that we need to improve our application to make the question more clear. But one of the things that's important is that when someone gets a cab, they know which company they're, they're talking to because that way they can talk about whether the service was good or, you know, they can, or, or bad or whatever it is. And so simply having a white car with a name on it is sufficient. It actually has to have an insignia on it. And so if we choose at some point to make a vote on this one, I'm going to ask that whoever makes the motion note that in their motion that we have to have a more clear insignia before we actually, this description isn't sufficient to approve the license, at least in my opinion. Okay.  The color of the car is fine. Right. It's what's going to be on the door that matters. That is fine because even in the Boston, they require the white, you know, the cab because it's a visibility thing. Yeah. So if I've selected, you know, I have a car, the black now, but I can paint it and I can make it white. It's not a big deal. Or I can buy the end of the white car. Okay. Yeah. So what I'm, the point I'm making right now is the color of both the cab. Right. It's what's on the door. Right. What's on the door? Okay. Okay. Hey, questions. All right. Thank you. Our next up is Anant Dungal. Did I pronounce that correctly? Yes. Wow. I got lucky. Doing business as sunshine transportation. Yes. Good evening, gentlemen. My name is Anant Dungal. I've been doing this cab business for five years, drove the Boston cab and pretty good knowledge of Boston. And Arlington too. I used to live for a while with the friends, and I'm moving to Arlington next month. What? Which comes with the two parking tour. And I have my own car which is all paid. And if you get a chance, I would be happy to serve to Arlington. What part of town are you moving to? Garden of the street. 180 Garden of the street. Welcome. Yeah, from the next month. Yeah. Questions. I hate to be here. Yeah. Do you want to go first? Okay. Because maybe you might ask some of my questions. All right. I don't want to be. So my first question is, so you're currently working, so you're driving your own car and you're working for Uber? Yes. And so would becoming a cab in Arlington, would you continue to work with Uber? We are just a partner. I have nothing to do with it. If I get a chance to do the over here, I can just quit over there and start the, change my car all around and make a cab. But that's what your intent would be. Yes. That's what I intend to do. Okay. And you heard, I told the previous gentleman that the description about the color screen and insignia, that it's very important that we have a clear insignia on the door so that people can know which cab that they're purchasing from. So you don't have someone specified. So I'm just saying that if we approve this license as a term of that license, you're going to have to specify one. Exactly. The reason I didn't specify it, I want to see what kind of radio service they have here. Yeah. They might have their fleet and I have to, you know, go with them. That's why I didn't specify. If I have to go alone, I'll do the appropriate coloring. And if they have their own color, like any cab company, I will change the color with that thing too. So there is no single dispatch service in Arlington. There is a dispatch that covers the number of the companies used, but not all of them do. Some of them.  If you were working with a different radio, you could work with a different radio service, but if you're actually going to become like, you know, part of that company, you're not a plot. You wouldn't be applying as yourself anymore. You'd be applying as part of that. So is that the case? I'll do everything for myself. I'll start over and I'll put the right color, what color of you to approve from that. I'll put the phone number, business phone number, whatever comes. Okay. Other questions. Sorry. I didn't get to what you wanted. No. No. Again, the question of, because some people have said to me in many cities and towns, not just knowledge, and they get a taxi cab and they feel the ride was longer and the fare was more because the driver was not aware of the streets and roads. So what I would like to ask you, since you're coming from Saugus right now, how would you be able to provide the best service picking up and dropping off in Arlington, say Lennon Road and I want to go to Saugus? Well, I can't tell you the detail now, but there are a lot of apps and the GPS we occupy, my car is occupied, you know. It comes with the GPS, so I wouldn't be any hard to do that. Like going to the airport and coming to the safe, to the Arlington, it's a pretty detail. We have been doing like, even I worked at the Boston cap, I dropped the people here and to take the people from here too. So when they got the car. So you would have a dedicated app and GPS? Yeah, we do have a GPS system. I know you have it, but would it be dedicated to this? Yes, yes, it will be separate GPS system. And then the other question I have just because you said at the microphone, you're planning on moving to Godnister, you said 180 and your applications is 186? So those are the same company because I applied for the 186 and she said it's going to be, you know, it's going to be 180. So it's the same company because they had a two apartment available there, but now I end up on 180, I think. Now 180, okay. But I can give you the proof that I'm moving and I can get the thing from the rental office. Are you moving to, just because I grew up in the projects which is now apartment autonomy manner. And I lived on Godnister Street in Freeman. 186, are you moving to the housing authority apartments? I'm pretty sure that's... I wasn't sure. I have nothing to do with the housing. I just applied it, they approve it. So I'm not getting any benefit from them, from the housing or anything. I guess my question to the town manager or town council would be I'm pretty confident having lived on, let me see, when I lived on Godnister Street, I lived on 203A and that was housing authority. And unless 186 is a private residence, but I don't think it is, are we allowed as a board of select men to let the housing authority apartments be listed as a depo location for a Hackney license? Well, it wouldn't... Anything this board would vote in terms of issuing a license would not grant or restrict any right that the applicant may have to park a vehicle at his residence. So if he's allowed to park a taxi cab at his residence and his residence is housing authority property, then this wouldn't change that. If he's not allowed to, then this wouldn't change that either. He would have to work that out separately. We would have to investigate that. And only because we've been on Godnister Memorial in Fremont, I know then, and it may have changed, the parking restrictions were very, in terms of commercial vehicles and other things. So I would just say on this one, along with the chairman's suggestion regarding subject to more clear insignia that we also have it subject to, on this particular one, that it is a approved parking use by the Allingham Housing Authority. Okay. Mr. Curell. Thank you. You've noted in your application that you maintain the highest customer satisfaction rating with Uber technology clients. Could you talk a little bit more about that? Is that published somewhere? Are you given rankings as... Yes, like working for Uber, they have like a rating system. We have to maintain the sudden rating 4.5 to 5 to 5 to start rating. So I've been always above the 5 rating that are dealing with the customer and explaining where they want to go and how they fit in the car when they got the people in the car. So that's what I was talking about. And how is that collected? Is that based on surveys after you know this? Like after you take a ride in an Uber cab, you rate the driver and the service that you get. So that's how that's based off. Excuse my ignorance. No, sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Further questions? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you gentlemen. Thank you. Next up. Goyubel Jolie. All right. I've got... I'm not seeing anyone. I was expecting someone to be absent, but I wasn't sure who it was, so I think that's who it probably was. Sharad Aryal. Welcome. Thank you for coming. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am one of the residents in Arlington since October 2010. And I'm doing the cab business.  I have hired some people, two people for the first morning shift and night shift. I'm 60 years old. So I want to work until my last breathing. And one most important thing I would like to comment in front of you guys. There may be so many people older than me who may be interested to go to the church or temple. If you give me an opportunity to work for the Arlington and the residents of the Arlington. I will provide aid to 12. Saturday or Sunday. Any days aid to 12 will be free ride from their home to the Arlington church. That is my proposal to the city. And the rest, you have my paper. Okay. Whatever is yours wise. And so you're suggesting free ride from 8 to 12 on Saturday and Sunday. From Arlington residents to the Arlington church. Not beyond the Arlington city. All right. From Arlington. Business to Arlington. Residents to Arlington church. First in Arlington. Church. Got it. I'm sorry. No, no, no. I thought he was wrong. All right. And I do have to tell you we're a town, not a city. You know the difference? It's town, not a city. I'm sorry. It's okay. Just so you know. Yeah. And I'm, pardon me. I'll just, I'm going to question. So, so do you run your own cab company in Boston? Or do you work for somebody else? I work for somebody else. Okay. I leave the Maryland. And I work for them. Okay. Other questions. This is mine. Just to be fair, because I've asked everybody else. Sort of the same questions. In terms of, I will say that I'm a little concerned that you and the previous applicant number three have the same address. This is a court report of that. And I understand what was said, but on my universal question, in terms of being new to Arlington, how will you, I'm thinking of people who feel like, oh, I got a taxi cab driver that really didn't know his or her way. How are you going to pick somebody up on 3rd Avenue in Arlington and bring them down to Brooks Avenue? The first thing, I'm not 100% out of everything. I know something and somewhere. And the rest of, which I don't know, I ask people to guide me. Okay. Okay. And then did you finish? I didn't mean to cut you off. Yeah. Okay. And then my, not really questioned because it's been pointed out by Mrs. Cropelka-Marie. Yes. You don't have to provide the insurance until you're granted the award, but one of my concerns has been that the chairman and others are going to address is that in terms of insurance to not only collision auto, but also bodily injury. What do you plan on not committing yourself, but what do you plan on in terms of that issue? I would like to buy the full coverage insurance for me and for my guests. There will be four people in a cab generally. Also be secured. I will buy that kind of insurance. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Mr. Martin. Thanks. Now do you have GP like a GPS navigation system? Yes. And I would assume that every cab driver has a GPS navigation system. So maybe in light of the question if that's okay, if you could just state whether or not you have a GPS navigation system when you get up here, so we will know that you can get from point A to point B in an efficient manner. That goes for you and everyone. And that's really the only point I wanted to make. Okay. Mr. Carroll. Well, I think the chair is going to note the insignia. Yes, I do. And I'll note the insignia as well. And I think you've heard what our concerns expressed. So do you, I guess I'm going to come back to the insignia as well. So the cab that you're driving for Boston, you said you lease it. Yeah. But this car that you describe here, this is one that you own separately from that? Yeah. Okay. All right. So you heard me talk about the insignia and the previous applicants. Okay. All right. Any further questions? No. All right. Thank you very much. Good night. Good night. All right. Next up. Mr. Shallow has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 cars with us already. Is that correct? I think that's right. 13. All right. Would you like a chair? Would that be more comfortable? Yeah. Can we adjust this? Yeah. Absolutely. Do you mind grabbing just grab one of those empty chairs if you don't mind. Thank you. And then that mic. That mic points down really. All right. Yes. Yes. You can have a seat. Tell me about surgery. I don't want to keep you on your feet. I'm sorry. Thank you. Surgery on my legs. Getting over there. We're recovering. Good. Rick's got a roller-cup surgery. So we're both handicapped, but we're doing the job. So between the two of you, you're one whole person. Good. Yes. All right. The honorable board. Good evening. Town manager, town attorney and secretary. We're requesting an additional license to service the Arlington COA and special needs transportation for in town sped. We've had situations over the winter when demand for an additional unit has been necessary. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would like to address the honorable board about the most recent taxi permits that have been issued. It will only take a moment. We have put together some history on the licenses from the past. We would like to submit that information to all selection for their review. It may clear up a lot of issues that are at hand. It will only be a few minutes of reading, and we would like to submit a copy to the town manager, the town attorney, the secretary's office if I may. You can submit anything. We'd be delighted to read it. Thank you. So is this what you're about to read, or is this something separate? No, I also would like you to read. Okay. I'm assuming after the meeting. Yes. We'll do it. Well, I can only pay attention or read it. I can't do both. New applicants. We are asking that the board be on a fair and level playing field with those new issues. We are requesting and suggesting that the board check new applicants' registrations, registration dates, articles of incorporation, insurance certificates, and dates of insurance, including name of insurance company, et cetera. There's only two insurance companies that write taxis and a commonwealth. As well as vehicle, meter and equipment inspections. We are in accordance with all the above mentioned. We additionally are requesting that the new applicants have signed a tax attestation form individually or corporately, that their drivers all have been approved by Hackney at the Ellington Police Department and specified in the rules and regulations and given a driver's Hackney license. Our drivers are all English speaking and are quarried, vested interest. We have a physical office that includes payroll and staff, a two-way license FCC radio for instant communication, multiple telephone systems, and multiple telephone lines, computers and fax machines for communication. We are currently developing and upgrading our company handbook setting the minimum standards for the drivers, which includes public safety with the emphasis on driver and passenger safety, accidents and radio procedures. Our staff must adhere to cleanliness, vehicle inspection of damages, schedule maintenance, et cetera. We have a non-smoking policy that all must adhere to and our drivers know this time at the back of their hand. They know the front doors, the back doors, the alleyways, the sideway doors because there have been residents here for the last 25 years, 80% of them. Our intentions in the past as well for the future are to maintain our current standards. We have an obligation to the town of Wellington with no exception. We would hope that the new applicants have the same intentions. We feel that the town has a fiduciary responsibility to the community and its taxis as we have a fiduciary response for the town and the community. Our taxis are for the town and its people. We do not own them. We run them for the town and we have in the past. Although we encourage competition and after 35 years of service and without infraction, please bear in mind that we are servicing the residents of this town in public safety and convenience at hand and our number one priority. Finally, regulation. Taxi rate structure and recent complaints. We need regulation regarding pricing, et cetera. The current regulation is unclear. As published in the newspaper after last April's meeting, it was suggested that the rates be increased from 320 to 380 with a ceiling of $4 a mile. Because of the rate confusion and as a result, we have not raised our rates since that meeting of last April. And we have remained at $3.20 per mile. However, we have had complaints of overcharges from other carriers and the ridership due to the overcharging, especially in the last couple of weeks. Nothing we cannot deal with. I would like to reschedule, oh, on the overcharging and if the board would like to reschedule to discuss those issues, we will make ourselves available. We will, however, apply the new rate of $3.80 as a maximum that was approved as of last April, 2012. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you. You know, what I put in front of you is there's only two to three minutes of reading and if you need me to respond to that, I'd be more than glad to. Okay. So I didn't just thank you. I did want a couple of the comments you made earlier about the quarry and the meters and the insurance. We require those for all licenses to be issued. There was one that you mentioned, the tax attestation. That one I don't believe is a member of part of our current requirements, but those other items you discussed, they all sounded like the laundry list of items that must be in our office before the license is issued. Yes. We agree. Yes. Okay. The other thing is if you get complaints about other carriers, I'd definitely encourage you to forward them along to the police department and our office because, you know, we need that feedback. We collect the feedback already from the public and, you know, if you have additional information you want to pass, that's useful. We have done that already, Mr. Chairman. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Glad to hear it. Questions? Diane? I just want to say in terms of the insurance, I've seen it before, so I'm satisfied with that in terms of my question regarding knowledge of Wellington roads and lanes and streets and abs. I'm comfortable with that. I do want to let my colleagues know in the applicants that I was, besides the services that you provide, the council on aging, which is part of the fleet that he has right now, and as a result of the livery changes where you lost some of your livery licenses because we don't do those anymore. You have to do it Massport that has affected you. I did receive a call and I think as my colleagues are aware, I'm somewhat more knowledgeable in terms of the special needs students and the lab collaborative and the likewise, and I know Mr. Kuro is also aware of this, but Rick Ianelli, who is, and I'm probably going to get his title wrong and show you can correct me, but he's the supervisor of transportation for the school system. He called and said that there has been a great need. They do call upon this company quite a bit and they fulfill the request as much as they can along with the council on aging, but he wanted to put his recommendation in that I think it's called under the 7D student transportation, it falls under that, that he really was requesting, if possible he understands there's only two left, we may give out none, we may give out one, we may give out both, but this is besides the common service that's being presented at the microphone in terms of transportation residents and one gentleman said Saturday and Sunday residents to church that there was a school official who is in charge of this who said if there's any way it would help him in that capacity. I actually have a question on that. Are you under contract with the public schools? Yes. You are? Yes. And they're all corey checked through the school, I mean I know that through your company, but I know they also have to do it through the schools as well as they have to comply and they do with lab collaborative. Well I need to be a little clear if I may interject for two seconds. At the police department, when we send somebody up, we send them a letter of introduction, police department then tells us as I've mentioned here before that Tom Sullivan, good name, Tom Sullivan has a very bad driving record and we are recommending to you that he does or he will not be driving in this community. They will not tell us why. So they more or less dictate who's going to drive and who's not going to drive. And so far as the regulation regarding these prices and rates, I mean that's always going to go on, but it's been really bad in the last two or three weeks. You know, we have a major overhead. I'm sorry, I'm going to stick with the board questions for now. Sure. All right. Further questions? I apologize, but I did want to do it now. That's okay, Mr. Chairman. I mean, I understand there's an awful lot to digest here. And I applaud Juliana. She's worked very, very hard on this. I think I'm hoping what I have given you kind of summarizes what's really gone on here for many, many years. I hope that it's digested but digested properly. We have a vested interest and we need to know, my guys are saying to me now, well, Rick, tell them my son, Ricky. Ricky, what should we do? Just to counsel on aging at discount. We've lost a lot of our work and it's kind of unfair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. So on the one of the second to last page where you have the driver list, the people that drive you, I believe there are 14 current panelists. Yes. Now, so is that just an anticipation of receiving the 14th? Those guys are behind the wheel. They work either days, nights or weekends. Okay. And they're current. You have more than one person. No, that may not. I understand. Okay. Yeah, you can't. I really have to be clear about this with the town and the community. And in any town, not a city, in any town, the town needs to come to somebody that they can go to to keep their eyes on what's going on. We have worked very hard throughout the years to do that. If a sergeant late calls us, we need to know this right here and now we know everything is recorded, every call, not just once, but three times here in our office, on the driver's way bill, and then on the daily and weekly summary. We have records. We keep records. And it's bailed this town on a few occasions. I don't need to go into that right now, but every community needs someone that they can go to, somebody that they can trust. And I feel as though I'm not any better than anybody, but there isn't anybody in this business any better than I. Thank you very much. Thank you. Moff to Yusuf. Welcome. Thank you for coming. Yeah, you can tilt that back up. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about yourself and what brings you here? Yeah, my name is Moff to Yusuf. I've been driving five years, two years in Camarid, and also three years in Boston. Okay. Yeah. And so you're driving now in Boston? Yeah. And so do you own your own car or are you working for someone else? No, I work for somebody else, yeah. Questions? Ms. Mohan, you're up. I guess just what I've asked the previous applicants in terms of your knowledge of the town of Allenton and how you would provide the best service in terms of getting from point A to point B, where you haven't driven in Allenton, you've driven in Boston. I understand you can pick someone up in Allenton and go to the airport, but I'm asking you about...  Just mid-time, most of the streets you cannot memorize in your mind. I use the GPS system. Okay. Yeah. Okay, and then the other question would be, I'm sure you've heard the discussion about insurance. Yeah. In terms of collision, auto or bodily injury, if you are successful, what type of insurance will you obtain, get? I mean, depending on the insurance, what type of insurance they have, like most of the taxi, they do, I think, liability insurance or... Do you know what the limits you're looking for are? No, you have to get liability insurance, but you can pick the other level. Different level? Yeah. You can pick one thing, three things, five things. I'm interested in collision, which is really collision and property damage. Auto, which is your car, and bodily injury. Yeah, I want to do three of them, both the injury and auto. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you so much. Ms. Carol. Thank you, sir. You share an address with another applicant also here. Are you working conjunction or applying injunction with another applicant? No. I see your address of proposed depot location are the same as the next person we're hearing from. Depot? No, I don't have depot. 364 Ringiat. Correct. I just noticed that the next applicant who is coming up is also 364 Ringiat. Oh, yeah, a difference. Two difference. You're not applying? No. Okay. So are you working together? Are you friends or like how is it just can you explain the connection? Which means the next application? Mr. Nagash. Mr. Nagash is a different person. He's here.  Are you working together? Are you run a business together or what? We know each other. We work together. Excuse me, Mr. Chair. They appeared to identify two separate departments on that address. Oh, do they? Okay. I actually had to go there. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Are there questions? Oh, I'm not done yet. Sure. Okay. What type of car will you be driving? What type of car will you be driving in Arlington? Yeah, I mean, I request maybe a van, I say. A van? Yeah, yeah. And you understand that what the Chairman is asking for, that we've asked the other applicants to put an insignia on it? Oh, would you be... Like on the door? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sign, yeah. You understand that? Telephone number and sign, yeah. Yeah. It does have to be more than a sign. It has to be distinctive so that people know who you are. Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So on your application, you didn't fill out an e-mail address. Do you not use e-mail or...? I use, yeah. Sometime, yeah, most of the time. Can I...? Sure. Yeah, so... Okay. Could you follow up and pass that along to Marie from our office because... Sure. Yeah, it's not... Okay. We missed that on there. Okay. Are there questions? All right. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you so much. Next up, Shamsu Nagash. Nagash. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Can you tell us about your application? Yeah. My name is Shamsu Nagash. I've been working for almost 14 years in Boston. I'm driving for 10 years. And just... I wanted to drive in Arlington now. So I'm curious. So if you've been driving... I guess I could ask some of our other applicants that I never just... never occurred to me until now. So you've been driving in Boston for years. But now you want to work in Arlington. What is it that made you... What makes you want to make that change? Yeah, the change is in Boston now. I'm just working with somebody. Just I want to own my business and to try my self. Questions? Mr. Mohan? Just the same two questions. Okay. Were you... You have been driving in Boston for, I think you said, 10 years. Driving in Arlington. I want you to tell us how you will be able to give the best service in terms of getting people from one point in Arlington, place in the heights, to another point in Arlington, a place down Kalwin Manor. How will you get from point A to point B? Yeah, that's it. The first thing is, yeah, I know the areas sometimes. And if you don't know, yes, I have to use the street guide and GPS. Street guide and GPS. Okay. And then the other question is it's not required right now, but if you are approved, what are your plans in terms of your insurance liability coverage? Yeah, but that's the best one. I want to use the best... That's the cover of mine and my customer and all the injury, everything. Okay. So it's... I can't right now. What I can require you to do in the rest of the board is what we have currently on application. But my question, what I think I'm hearing you say is collision, property value, auto, and bodily injury? Sure, yes. Questions, Mr. Chair? Yeah, I just asked the question that was asked of the previous applicant. Do you own your vehicle now? No. You do not? No. Do you know what you would be looking at for a vehicle? Yeah, I just... I decided on the car. Sit down, man. Sit down. Okay, thank you. And so I have talked to the previous applicants about the importance of having design on the door. Did you hear my question about that, or my statement about putting the insignia on the cab door? So in the previous conversations, the previous people have come up. I've talked about how the on the door, there has to be something that makes you distinctive so that people know who you are. Yeah, I have to, yeah. Okay. So do you have an idea what you would do? I'm curious, what design would you use? Do you know what design you'd want to put up? No yet. Okay. All right, cool. Further questions? No. All right, thank you. Yeah. All right, so we have just heard a seven... I lost track already. Six applications. This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here who wishes to speak on any of the applicants? I'm not seeing anyone from the public. Motion or comments? Mrs. Mahon. Right now, what I would like to do is, and I'm not of the opinion to give out both licenses tonight, but, you know, and I'm not saying I'm going to be successful on the motion that I'm going to make, but I feel really strongly of approving request number seven from Allmont Transportation Company, where I recognize they already have 13, and this would be 14, but they lost two and a half. Arlington. Not Arlington. Arlington. What did I say? I'm sorry. Is it number seven, Allmont? Yeah, they're doing business as Allmont. Oh, I'm sorry. So the request for... from Louis Tricello, DBA Allmont Transportation Company for one, where I have heard requests from various agencies in the town as well as the school, and there is a need there, and it is fulfilled as well as the explanation of his business and how he operates in conjunction with the town of Allington, as well as the Allington Public School. So I'd like to move approval on the request number seven from DBA Allmont Transportation Company. Is there a second? Not yet. All right. I think it's going to fail for the moment. If you could just withdraw it just for a second so I could suggest another way.  Yeah, I have not. Okay. I was wondering if it might not be an order, you know, in some other situations where we've had a very limited number of licenses to give out and a lot of applicants, we've gone through and taken a straw poll of the members of the top two choices, and I don't know if that makes sense in this situation or not. I'm open to it. I think you... Or one. I'm trying if you want to do top two. The only reason just because they are businessmen and, you know, I have no problem saying no, but it's... They're in my top two. Right. So if you... I would yield to Mr. Curell if you... Okay. I think that would make sense seeing if I could get a second order. It just might have a sense it might be a role in the motion. Mr. Curell, since you just... You go first. I go last. I go second to last. My top two, if we were to grant both licenses this evening, would be Arlmont Transportation as well as SNS Transportation. What number is that?  Yes. I... I... My top two would also be Arlmont Transportation and Sunshine Transportation. I... You know, I'd like that he... He kept a high rating with Uber, which I know is not, you know, always an easy thing to do. I really appreciate that experience. And I think that would translate to a successful, you know, cab business in Arlington where an if you've never been in Uber cab, you know, they do are very well-capped. And they... I do believe that they provide an excellent service. And that's why I'll be supporting him. Okay. Can I just get... So you're seven and four? He was. Okay. And Mr. Curell was... Was it six and four? Seven and six. Six and seven. Six and seven. Sorry. Okay. I'm going to go with seven for the reasons. And I'm going to go with Mr... I'm going to agree with Mr. Brighton. On seven and four. Seven and four. And Mrs. Mahoney, you certainly clearly signaled seven. I did signal seven. Some of the applications, I was concerned with the addresses. And also with... I have heard from some people and I stood on Howard Street. My name is across the street. I don't want to say their names, but if I have to, I would. I saw a cab go up and down Robbins Road forever. And it was one of the newly licensed. So I'm going to keep an eye on that. So I was prepared just for seven. However, I am willing to support, in light of my colleague's comments, the Sunshine application with the subject to first, the chairman has pointed out, actually, who wants to make the motion. I don't want to... So I think what we'll do... So hearing what we've got is let's... We've got one that was pretty clear. We've got one with two votes. Let's... And I suggest that we'll entertain a motion and see if it... It's still, in my mind, as possible. We could end up two, two and then we see where we go. All right. But let's start with number one. So Mrs. Mahoney, why don't you make your motion again? In regards to number seven. First, I'd like to move approval for request number seven. And I would like to submit to a more clear designation to the board of Selecman. And all conditions. And all conditions contained therein. We have a motion. Second. Second. Any further discussion on this one? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. So we just award a license to our online transportation. Mr. Bernie. I... Excuse me. I... I would like to move the order of the awarding of one hackney license to sunshine transportation and that. Dungal. Subject to all conditions. And specifically the conditions of the insignia. The parking. The parking. Yes. And could I add a friendly amendment to that? Also subject to that, it complies with if this is an all-in-tune housing authority apartment. Yeah. I think it's a depot. I think the depot parking being approved or permittable covers what you're looking for. Am I correct? Yeah. Having lived there unless the rules have changed. So could we just make sure I don't want to grant something and have the housing authority? I agree. So the motion is that it be a legal and permittable depot location. And if it's 180 or 186. Maybe 180 is a private residence. I know 186 of 99 percent shares housing. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Keara. And I will join you in supporting this. In the straw poll, I think that they would have been my third choice, but the straw poll, I supported SNS primarily because the gentleman has been in the community for several years. I figured there's some familiarity with the community as a result of that. And I should have made that clear as well as this offer of a public service. But I do defer it to my colleagues who have experience with the other taxi network with which the Sunshine operator has worked. So I will support you. Okay. Any further discussion? All those favor, please say aye. Aye. That's four zero. Okay. So now we have a number of licenses outstanding. We have the option of rejecting them or we could remove them indefinitely. And one of the and I think depending on which we choose it has an impact on their fees. The fee now like the application fee. Part of me says let's table them indefinitely. I was going to say one a table in light of the fact that you're working on some information you're going to provide. Maybe we'll have one will become available and still move to table. Second. Okay. Four zero to the table. All right. So we have made it through licenses and permits. Next up we scheduled for 7.30 not that we really thought we'd be there. It's here at 7.30. Well the revised CDBG requests for FY 13 and 14. Town Manager Chapter 8. So early this year the board approved and forwarded the town meeting which town meeting approved preliminary budget for CDBG for this upcoming fiscal year. That budget was based on a expected or projected 5% cut in CDBG funding. So several of the public service programs that we cared very deeply about very deeply about were cut had their funding cut from what they were funded at last year. Somewhat surprisingly we received our funding allocation from HUD and we actually received $119,000 more than we expected to receive so we were able to reallocate funds back. So the CDBG subcommittee made up of Chairman Dunn, Mr. Byrne, myself, Carol Kowalski and a witness met and discussed where to reallocate those funds. So the board has before them this revised budget. We were able to reallocate more funds to the affordable housing program. Their funding was increased by $28,348 able to allocate more funds to the Arlington Home Improvement Loan Program. Their funding was increased by $15,000. If we look at public services what we did was anybody who was cut was brought back up to what their prior year budget amount was and then several other programs including the Adult Day Health Scholarships, the AYCC, the Monotany Manor Homework Support Program actually had their funding increased from the prior year's budget. So overall $17,000 was added back to the Arlington Girls Club locker room accessibility request. It's a capital improvement. They had asked for $25,000. The prior budget had awarded them $15,000. We were able to give them the full $25,000. And the facade improvement program had been funded at zero and we were able to fund that at $15,000. And the final amount we were able to put back was under planning number one under comprehensive master planning. We were able to increase that amount. This is the bottom. It may be that I had a long day. But I'm looking at what's before us. What's in my packet. And I just want to make sure I'm reading this right and maybe I'm not seeing it right. If we go to public facilities and employment improvements, boys and girls club, I have town manager, preliminary budget of $25,000 . I'm sorry, I was telling you that. That's what I'm saying. You're telling us that. What is actually being awarded is requested or preliminary budget? The column to the far right under town manager board of select preliminary budget, those are the new funding amounts that we're asking the board to adopt tonight. Okay. So like am I reading this correctly that housing authority, life and skills center building is going from 400 to 100? No. No. Is it the other way around? This is where I'm getting confused. I'm sorry. The column amount requested, that's how much all of these groups, agencies, programs requested several months ago. Okay. There was then an amount that was awarded a month or two ago when we thought we were going to get less. The column now under town manager board of select men, that is now the most up-to-date column of what we're recommending with the new funding amount that we expected. Okay. So the column I'm looking for, you're telling us from the microphones is what I'm saying. I'm just trying to, as you were saying that, and then the other question that I had was master planning. Is it at 70 or 50? 70. And do you know, because I know we're limited on planning, what previously encompassed that 50 now 70,000? Like what, has that always been a planning consultant study group? No. What I would say is in past years more of the planning staff has been funded by CDBG. Okay. However, HUD in recent years really in the past three fiscal years has started to urge the town to push full-time planning staff off of CDBG onto the town budget and we've done that. That, however, has freed up planning money that can be spent on planning or administration. There's a cap on planning and administration of 20% of the total allocation. So moving money onto the general fund for those staff positions has freed up master planning money. When their master plan is done, there will be some planning funds available to be allocated in a different manner. Last two questions and I apologize to my colleagues. Under administration, the audit costs, that's an audit specifically to CDBG, is that HUD or is that Powers and Sullivan? Powers and Sullivan performs it on our CDBG program. And am I reading it correctly that we're not allocating any money for legal services? That's correct. So if the need arises and I'm not saying it for myself personally, but for legal services, whether it's affordable housing or the like, how do you anticipate funding that? If there was a need that arose in terms of legal services, we could have a discussion about reallocating some unallocated funds. From CDBG or unencumbered caps? From CDBG. From administration or somewhere else? It would be from unallocated funds. We're under the 20% cap, so we have room if we needed to allocate it. And is there a figure on here of what the unallocated funds are to date as well as could I leave on the table one of the things that we've done in the past and past years similar to what you're doing now is to have a 3 quarter review, 3 quarters of the year through if for some reason similar to what we've done here, you've allocated 40 and you've only spent 17 that the town manager and the CDBG committee subcommittee has made aware of that and we can reallocate that. So I'd just like to at your convenience no rush if you could just provide the board is in the unallocated funds right now and then if I could just leave it on the table that's one of the things we had asked under Carol Kowalski. So what we did in the this year is so when it comes around time to start doing the CDBG budget process that's also roughly the 3 quarter it's actually even a little bit before it's more like the 60% period. So this fund runs from July 1st right? Yeah. And so when we meet in February getting ready for the April public hearing and I'm trying to remember I'm trying to remember if we brought that information back to the board this spring. We've never done that yet. I'd like to but maybe the case didn't arise. Yeah. Maybe the exercise was done and there wasn't I'm not saying come back with $6,000 is left but I'm just saying okay. I am I can tell you the full group. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Further comments discussion? Okay. So I I do have a comment and that is just that one of the things that I really liked about the putting the money on the comprehensive master planning is because it is essentially kind of a it's a one-shot deal and I don't mean like one plan we never plan again but this is an expense that we don't plan on doing on a regular basis. And one of the things we need to emphasize to all of these groups that we're serving through CDBG funds is that this year is like increased amount of damage as we're really doing to speed these numbers declining as we have to push everybody off of CDBG and we are kind of doing our part ourselves by saying we're spending this on a one-time money so next year if we did get a big cut where is it going to be for us it's going to be really obvious and for us it will also be not that painful unfortunately it will be more painful. And I think this is one of the crazy votes where the time manager gets to vote. Oh that's right you're right you're right. So can I have a motion from the board? Yeah I moved to approve the CDBG budget as presented. Second. We have a motion and second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Everyone say yes including the time manager. All right. Thank you. Next common victor licensed transfer transfer Joan Ping Lin at Great Walk. God bless you. Welcome. Hi, good evening. My name is Angie. I'm the power legal of a currently common service. Tonight I represent the applicant Joan Ping in the DBA Great Walk restaurant on the application. We are sitting the board to approve our application basically it's just for the transfer change of ownership. The new business owner is going to keep the same operation. Chinese take out mostly take out have a few sitting there for patience waiting restaurant. They will keep the same name same menu same hours of operation remain unchanged. We will be happy to answer the question if the ball have any questions. From the board. Does Joe work? I was just wondering does the applicant has the applicant been I wasn't clear. Have you been working at Great Walk or is this a new restaurant? No, he hasn't been working at the Great Walk. He actually it is the first business he will own if the time to approve his application but he has he has more in years experience in working at restaurant. He currently employed by the picking Tokyo restaurant at Cambridge as a serve. You anticipate most of the staff staying on for now? Yes. Yeah. I mean obviously some changes. My understanding the couple the seller is working at the restaurant themselves. After they sell the business of course they will they will gone to somewhere there. So Mr. we manage the rest the one in his family will be helping him. Okay. Great. Thank you. I have a few questions and I think one the chair usually doesn't in terms of serving alcohol and that so I'm not going to ask that question or give that recommendation in terms of you know what they might want to do on your application what is it? Now I believe they have and the reason I ask this is there's no listed seating capacity and am I reading this correctly? There's only going to be two employees. I think God bless those two people if they're working 24-7. No. Now they have 12 I believe. Okay. Well if you could because on the application there's no seating capacity. I don't know I think there's an error there's a mistake they have maybe three in the kitchen and one in the fun so they will have four in total. Do you want to double check that? Yes. With waitresses and hostess No waitresses. Okay. They will just have one fun taking the order and three in the kitchen. Okay. And that's seven days a week those four So it should be four employees I'm sorry I'm just currently is about 40, 60 No seating capacity. Okay. And then the last point I had was on your maintenance program. Yes. One of the things that I don't see there and I just want to point it out because the business is already there and it's established but I just want to make sure it continues because of you know any neighbors a trash maintenance program. Of course. That's in accordance with the town bylaws in terms of this time after that time. So if you could ask them just to update that and or obviously as far as I know I haven't heard any complaints. I'm going to assume that they're going to continue with the existing trash maintenance collection. I can sure without asking them because when we do the health plan review application we have already asked the same question to them. They answer they will keep the same trash removal company to provide service to them which I believe they have a two yard dump site in the back parking lot right now. Okay. Yeah. There will be the same service. No, I only ask it because sometimes you know when neighbors come in and they say you didn't ask so it's very important. I give my usual speech for alcohol there's no alcohol license here. Oh, okay. I went wrong. Sorry. Mr. You'll be continuing the same delivery service. Yes. Yes. Thank you. For the public. I think we move motion. Second. I can't even say my words public was here for this public hearing. Any further discussion? Thank you for choosing our for all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next up build on doing business as retro burger and ice cream. Welcome to Arlington. Why are we your last obstacle? pretty much. All right. We'll try not to be too difficult. All right. As you know, my name is Bill Maund. I am an Arlington resident. I've lived here about 19 years. My wife and I moved here in the early 90s. We've raised our kids here about three years ago. For better or for worse, we went to the restaurant business. We started on Cape Cod in 2010, and we are working hard to transfer it into the Arlington business. So we're occupying space at 795 Mass Ave, and we hope to get up and run sometime with this summer. Are you still running a business at Cape Cod? No. No. We're trying to move everything here. All right. So we're all in. Okay. Questions from the board? Mr. Carroll. I just want to say I'm thrilled to see that space has been vacant for a while. So I'm thrilled to see you coming in and willing to take it on and fill it, and I hope you bring some of that Cape Cod tourists this way. First, I'd like to move approval. Second, I have no questions, because you have everything in here from your trash maintenance program on. And we have insurance with a million-dollar liability. There you go. Notice I'm a court reporter during these days. But what about your collision? Yeah. I don't think I'm going to need that. And third, I want to say hats off to you, not man enough options, because when I looked at that, he has burgers that's like, I think one's like the Yarmouth burger that my husband could devour, too. And then the not man enough option. Absolutely. I think that's a great, you know, restaurant tour, marketing. My family's in the restaurant business, and when I saw that, I said, oh, I'm going to have to pass that on. We'll give it our best shot. So thank you. You'll be renaming some of those burgers to more Arlington burgers. Yes, yes. I didn't want to jump the gun and change the menu just yet. Now, if Mr. Greeley were here, he would ask for, did you bring any samples and name one after me? So in his steam. Yeah, we will have an Arlington burger. I'm sure we'll probably. Don't name any after us. We'll do away with the Yarmouth burger. I'm pretty sure. All right. This is Mohan's booth. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Thank you very much. Welcome to Arlington. Thank you. All right. Next up. Adam Rosario, second hand dealer license. Thank you for your help with the chair earlier. You're welcome. I knew he was in need. So tell us about your business, please. Well, currently I own a business in Auburn, Massachusetts. It's called Adams of State Jewry and I've been in a business for over 10 years and I've learned everything from managing and sales to actually learning about the back end of the business, which would be actually the product pricing development, a little bit of everything. So with my knowledge, I opened up that location and it has been very successful in doing so and I do a lot of business in and out of Boston and a lot of people were pointing me in this direction that Arlington is a great town, great location, surrounding towns here. It's a good, good, good, I guess I would say surrounding support area. So I believe it's the heart of the area. I've been looking at the map and the location that I'm looking at currently is a ready to restore. So it's in a good area. There's a barbershop next to it. I could see a lot of potential success. The clientele's a little bit older than I am and that's the majority of my clientele. Questions from the board? I'm trying to find it. If Mrs. Kruppalka or my colleagues could help me. Just where you put change in awning. Do we have something here from planning or is that just building has to approve that? It has to approve it also. Is it in here or am I missing it? All right, I would just point it out that as we say when we make motions to approve which I assume we are subject to all conditions. I just usually this planning report in here. It's in here. It's here. The business owners encouraged to apply to inspection services for signs from the private fabricating. I thought we used to get something from planning also on awning. I think the bottom line is make sure you get your plan approved before you get the sign in the awning built. Because it's very awkward when you shut out the money and then it doesn't meet code. And that's always unpleasant. It works much better if we get it approved beforehand. Absolutely. I understand that only 25% of the window can actually be labeled. So that's something that I've already taken into consideration. I understand there is historic areas within Arlington. So I would love to stay within those borders and actually hopefully add to it because I am in a state store. And everything I do, I do as tastefully as possible. And I try to add to the town. I actually brought some ads that I did here over Christmas. And just, you know, here's a statement that says that Adam's a state jury. Our showroom collection is all about quality and character. We believe heirlooms are created so that legend can live on. It's our mission to bring the beauty of unique antique estate and vintage jury to our customers. Come visit us this holiday season for a gift that makes sure to make sure that special someone smile. So it says Adam's a state jury where exceptional quality meets rich history. And I'll move approval. And I really appreciate the effort you put into this. And thank you for choosing Arlington. It seems, and I like that you were told by someone else. And hopefully you go and tell someone else that this is a great place to run a business with that. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Is there further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Four zero. Thank you very much. Thank you. I love Arlington. Appreciate it. Next up, Citizens Open Forum. Accept an unusual circumstances. Any matter presented for consideration of the Board shall neither be acted upon nor a decision made the night of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which the Open Forum was established. It should be noted there is a three-minute time limit to present a concern or request. Is anyone here for Citizens Open Forum? Mana. How can we help you tonight? I am going to a swan place. I'm town meeting member precinct six. The difference the year makes. Basically, I'm here and I want to express some concern about the way that us, the 94% of people that pay taxes in this town, the majority of the taxes are being treated. When we come to a public hearing or we come in to discuss anything matters with the select men, we're put on the agenda at the end. And I think that taxpayers and if we're the base of the town's taxes, we should get a little more respect. And the reason I became a town meeting member was because I had issues with the select men. A revenue issue seemed to me. And it seems that the revenue issues in this town are based. They seem to be going up to the middle class in the elderly. People I talk to on the street, the elderly are moving out as soon as they retire. They can't afford to live here. Their children can't, if they stay in the town, their children can't afford to buy here. This town's got a valuable real estate market. And if an elderly person moves out down off of Wheaton Road in that area, down by the projects, they take the top of the house off, put another top on top and make it a two-story, sell the house twice the money. People outside of this town waiting to come in and take it. You're losing a lot of history by forcing the Allentonians out of this town. I think that the residents of this town, the backbone of this town should become town meeting members and help to change the way the direction the town's working. I don't believe that all the elected officials and in town meeting members are not working in the best interest of the taxpayers. So I hope, I don't just fall on deaf ears, I don't have a bigger audience than you got, but I hope that the citizens, the hard working class citizens of Allenton, get together and start participating as town meeting members and try to make a change. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Legger. Is there an analysis we should speak under Citizens Open Forum? Seeing none, we will move on to item 15. Vote water and sewer rate adjustment. Mr. Chalkley, Mr. Rodemacher and Chris Woodcock of Woodcock and Associates. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So before the board tonight is a proposal for water and sewer rate adjustments for FY14 that is really the culmination of a year's worth of work. So just going back a little bit to provide a little bit of background, about a year ago the board voted to increase rates for FY13. At that time we talked about how in the past the board had voted on multi-year rate increases, but we were asking for a one-year rate increase to support the budget while we performed a rate study. And that rate study was going to be focused on several factors that had come before the board and the board had been interested in as well as some factors that had been raised by members of the Finance Committee, most notably Ryan Ferrara, who has really spurred us to move forward with this and gave us a lot of help in setting this stage for a nice comprehensive rate study. The factors that we were looking at were the increasing MWRA debt costs and the pressures they were putting on our budget, questions about seasonal rates and second water meters for irrigation use, unaccounted for water, and what a meter replacement program would do to make up for some of that unaccounted for water. The frequency of billing, as you know, we're currently semi-annually billing and there was talk about whether or not we should bill more frequently. And finally looking at our usage tearing to determine whether or not the rate blocks or the tiers of usage that we billed at were appropriate given current levels of use. So we went through a process of finding Chris Woodcock who's here tonight and he's been before the board to introduce himself and talk about his methodology in the past. And we worked together with Mike Rademacher and Chris on a study to make a recommendation that's before you tonight. So before I ask Chris to talk about the study he went through and talk about everything that he found, I just want to quickly talk about the recommendations that are before you. So there's really two sets of recommendations. There's rate adjustments that the board is being asked to vote on tonight and then there are other proposals that are before the board that don't need to be acted on tonight but address a number of the other matters that prompted us to do this rate study. So the two things that the board is being asked to vote on tonight are a 7.5% rate increase for water, sewer, and the administrative fee as of July 1st and then as of January 1st creating new water and sewer rates as well as new private fire service charges and further amendments to the administrative charges. And those are in new tiers. We currently bill at tiers of 0 to 200 CCFs per year and over 200 CCFs per year for water and 0 to 1000 CCFs every six months for sewer and over 1000 CCFs every six months for sewer. The new tiers being proposed would bill at tiers both at six month intervals as opposed to a year and then six months of 0 to 30 CCFs, 30 to 60 CCFs, and then over 60 CCFs. So those are the two issues that the board is being asked to vote on tonight. However, as of July 1st, 2014, we're telling the board that it's our intention to convert from semi-annual billing to quarterly billing for several reasons. First, there's a benefit to cash flow but also that will allow us to set the stage for capturing quarterly usage data that then in July 1st of 2015, we can start to bill for winter usage of water to figure out how much people are irrigating so that they're not paying extra for the water they use during the summer that's not going back down the sewer. So we'd actually be billing sewer at the winter water usage rate. One further thing to point out, the conversion to quarterly billing is still an ongoing internal discussion. We've had meetings with IT and the Treasurer's Office and the Treasurer's here tonight and that's something we're hopeful that we can do successfully by July 1st of next fiscal year. So with that, I'll turn it over to Chris if it's okay with the Chair. Mr. Whitecock. Thank you. I think Adam's probably covered much of what I was going to say so I'm going to try to skip over some of the remarks. He certainly talked about what it is we were looking at, the various tasks and the elements that we looked at. In going through and doing this, the first overall thing we really need to look at is what are your expenses going to be in the future? We know what the budget is this year. What are they going to be in the future? I've projected out 10 years. There's a spreadsheet that has the 10-year projection on that. It's provided to the town. It's yours to do what you've paid for it. What I'd admonish is that's a long period of time. Anything after three or four years is pretty speculative with financial projections. They're there but look at them with that. John DeStuy, if you will. In general, what we looked at is about a 2% increase going forward in the town's operating expenses. We looked at the MWRA assessment separately because they're huge. They're half of the water expenses, two-thirds, three-quarters actually I think of the sewer expenses, and we've taken the projections that the MWRA has publicly put out there. Now I will tell you I use those public projections. They're typically a little bit high. If you will, these are a little bit conservative on the high side, the projections of expenses. On the capital cost, we've used the town's engineering consultants, I believe it was Western and Samson's, projections for water department expenses. They vary from year to year, but it was basically about a million dollars a year that they were looking at. To finance those, we looked at a $900,000 a year loan from the MWRA. They loan money out. They do it at a very great deal. It's 10 years, 0% interest. You can't find money that cheap. The other $100,000 of those capital projects on the water side would come out of the annual water rate, water revenues. The one exception is a $2 million loan that we've projected in fiscal 2015 that would be used for the meter replacement program, to put in new meters. The payments for those would probably be starting and happen the following fiscal year and fiscal year 2016. On the sewer side with the capital costs, again, the town has a fairly detailed capital program for what's needed for the sewer side. It's initially about a million dollars a year, a little bit higher than that, drops down over time to about three quarters of a million in the latter years. To fund that, what we looked at is to continue to get loans from the MWRA for the sewer side. These are a little different. They're not offered annually. They're offered every other year. It's about three quarters of a million that the town could expect to get every other year to help towards the sewer expenses. Even better deal in the water, 55% of it's actually a grant. So principal forgiveness, if you will. The other 45%, at 0%, over five years. The impact of that, though, is that in the years when there isn't any MWRA loan or there's not enough from the MWRA loans, what pays for that? And what we've put together is a plan that would initially start with about three quarters of a million dollars, go into a capital fund. And I use that term somewhat euphemistically. But if you think of a separate sewer capital fund, money going into that every year, some years it'd be a positive balance that would go the next year. The idea was to try to keep a somewhat steady amount coming in every year from rates. As I said, it started out in about three quarters of a million dollars the first year, dropping down to a half million dollars in ladder years. Again, those are somewhat speculative. I suspect there'll be more projects and that may come up to three quarters of a million in some of those ladder years. I know there was a question that was asked about doing that much funding out of revenues, three quarters of a million dollars out of rate revenues. What about borrowing that? And we did look at borrowing that. We're borrowing all but $100,000. So we just got $100,000 a year from rates. The town would then issue its own bonds. And I've assumed 20-year bonds, 4% interest rate on those. And what it does is it saves in the initial years, as you can imagine. You don't have that big expense that's spread out over the years over the term of the bonds. But at a point in time, and I didn't go out far enough to see what that is, but probably after seven or eight years, it's going to start costing more because you're going to be paying for all of those bond issues in the initial years and then all the future bond issues that come with it. So if you were to bond it, what you would do is you would save in terms of lower rates. How much would you save? A percent or two each year. But in the ladder years, you'd be paying much more than that because now you're paying interest on those bonds. I think this is a somewhat typical case of pay me now, pay me later, or sort of passing the buck onto the next generation, if you will. The next task we looked at is water sales. Once we had all the expenses, how much water are you going to sell? There's a chart in the report, the memorandum that you have that shows that those sales have been dropping, and that's been happening all over the Commonwealth. It's been happening all over the country for the last dozen years or so. And there's a number of reasons for those, and I think we maybe even talked about them at the last meeting. If you'd like, I can go into that a little bit. For purposes of this study, I'm projecting that they're going to level off now, that that's going to stop, that the drop isn't going to continue to happen. I hope I'm right. Fortunately, you're in a position in Arlington where you have sufficient funds and reserves that if I'm wrong, if sales do drop, if it continues raining like it did last week and tonight, if sales do drop, that you do have enough to cover it. You're cheering for a drop is what you're saying. I don't know, I got a lawn and my wife's planted an awful lot of really nice stuff lately, so no, I'm not. Sorry, I'm just kidding. I know. But anyways, I've assumed that the sales are going to stabilize over time. I think one of the reasons for the drop in sales is the economy. The economy seems to have picked up a little bit, so I'm hoping that that's sort of going to be part of the reason why it stabilizes. The only exception is in the fiscal year 2016 when I have estimated a 2% bump, I'm going to increase in sales as a result of putting in the new meters from that $2 million meter program. It'll stay stable after that. Once we have the expenses in the sales, it's really divide the dollars by the gallons and so many dollars per gallon in the simplest turns. One of the things that I looked at is the current rate structure. Again, Adam described that, and just increasing across the board. If you need 10% more revenues, just increase everything, your water rates right now are a little unusual. They go from zero to 200 cubic feet. It's sort of an arcane instead of gallons. I don't know why, but everybody uses 100 cubic feet. It goes from zero to 200 cubic feet is one rate, and anything over that in a year is a higher rate. And it accumulates throughout the year. That's very unusual. I've only seen that one other time in 40 years of doing this. It does that. On the sewer side, it goes from zero to 1,000 cubic feet every six month billing period. So they're very different rate structures on the water and the sewer. The sewer where it resets at the start of the next billing period is the more typical. And there is a $20 and 31% administration fee right now that's billed every six months to everybody. It doesn't matter how big, how small you are, what size meter, what kind of customer. You have that. That's a little unusual. Typically, those types of charges vary with the type of customer or water meter side. And I'll explain that a little bit more later. In the report, I've listed what the projected increases are each of the fiscal years. Those are projections. I don't think anybody's asking you to, if I'm correct or if I'm wrong, to adopt those at those points. Those are more informational as to what kind of increases you'd be looking at in the future. The secondary we looked at is new blocks. Changed that zero to 200 a year, zero to 1,000 every six months. And based on the analysis that we got, and we got detailed analysis of every individual account within the town of how much water they used every six month period. And we're able to, with the wonders of computers, to say how much in different ranges. The blocks that Adam indicated we're looking at for both water and sewer are zero to 30 hundred cubic feet, 30 to 60 hundred cubic feet, and then anything over 60 hundred cubic feet. I understand there's been questions about where did those come from? Why did you pick those? The zero to 30, about half of the people in Arlington use less than 30 hundred cubic feet in six months. And about half of the use is less than that. So it seemed like a very good point where I can say, okay, half the people use less, half the people use more. This may be a good cut off where the price is going up to start to encourage some conservation, some wider use of water. The over 60 cubic feet, there's only about 10% of the people, of the customers. And it's mostly businesses within town would be subject to that. 90% never go over that amount. But it is about 25% of your sales would be at that highest tier. They're also picked to be easily modified for quarterly use. So instead of zero to 30 hundred cubic feet and 30 to 60 per six months, it'd be zero to 15 and 15 to 30. If the board agrees to go with quarterly billing, it's something that could easily be done. The rates would stay the same. It's just even dropped the usage by half. As Adam said, the other two elements of that are to include a new service or administrative fee. The intent of it is to recover the costs of billing, collection, meter reading, things like that that are the same for everybody. It doesn't matter whether you're housing authority, MyRex, Chevrolet, you know, whoever. Everybody costs the same for the stamp for a meter reading, that type of thing. The collection costs from the treasurer's office. The other part of it though is related to the costs of water meters, buying them, testing them, replacing them and the service lines. The pipe that goes from the street to your house. Those sometimes need repair. And those do vary by size. The larger the service, the larger the meter, the larger those costs are. And that's the difference, the reason for a difference in those fees that are presented to you in that memorandum. In total, those revenues would generate a little over a half a million dollars a year of additional revenue. One of the reasons for those is to help fix the revenues. Water and sewer systems are basically fixed cost operations. Almost all of your costs are fixed. The MWA assessments are fixed and that's the biggest piece. Your debt is fixed. There's very little that varies at least in the short term. In the long term, you can impact the MWA assessments a little bit. But most of your costs are fixed. And if everybody stopped using water, those costs are going to be the same for the year. The idea behind having this service charge, this meter charge, would be to help stabilize those revenues, make them a little more predictable so we don't have to decide whether we're going to have a drought or not. It'll help with that a little bit. It's only a half a million dollars. The other part was the charges for private fire sprinkler connections. Buildings that have a connection to the system of pipe running in, the little sprinklers you often see in buildings that have those. Those people are getting a service that others don't. It's a valuable service. It saves tremendously on fire protection. It saves tremendously, frankly, for the fire department too in terms of time and effort for the fire department. But there is a benefit to the user for those and they should be paying for them. It's a fairly common fee around the country to have that type of fee. So we've recommended that. And again, that fee is really just paying for not the water. The amount of water that comes through and goes to the sprinklers is, you know, I could master card it. It's very small. But the cost of providing oversized pipes, storage, capacity, that's where the real cost is and that's what's included in that charge. The other alternative that we looked at and I'm not going to spend much time on this unless you have questions was to look at seasonal rates. It was one of the things that we had talked about out of Michael and I and I think I may have even talked to the board about it when I first met with you. We're not recommending anything like the seasonal rate. The seasonal rate is typically something where higher rate in the summertime when water is more expensive, lower rate in the wintertime when there's lots of capacity available, lots of water available. It's very popular in the West, Southwest places that literally don't have enough water to encourage water conservation. We shouldn't be wasting water and I'm not suggesting that we waste water but there isn't that urgent need that there is in other parts of the country that we have here. The MWRA would love to sell more water. They have lots and lots of water. The reservoirs are full. The other problem with the seasonal rate is it almost requires monthly billing but certainly quarterly billing in order to find out what is the winter period that you're using. Does everybody getting billed in December, January, February, March to say that's your winter period? No, we don't have that necessarily at this point because you're billed every six months. We haven't really got the information to do it so it's really more of an implementation problem and a lack of necessity for it. As Adam mentioned earlier we also looked at billing frequency changing from semi-annual bills to quarterly bills. This is starting to also happen an awful lot in the Commonwealth to make that type of change. 20 years ago, 30 years ago semi-annual bills were not uncommon. They're pretty uncommon now. The MWRA does a survey every year. In their latest survey only 10 of the 60 community survey billed semi-annually. Everybody else is quarterly and there's I think a half dozen or five of them that bill monthly now. I also looked across the whole Commonwealth. There's a company tie in bond that does a study of water and sewer rates of all 351 cities and towns of what their rates are and their billing frequency. Across the state only about a third bill semi-annually every six months. Much more than the MWRA survey. I think that's skewed by a lot of the smaller communities. Little towns out in Berkshire County or Hampton County that only bill every six months, small budgets and that's all they do. I think I can almost guarantee you that within the next 20 years you would certainly be billing quarterly despite what you may decide tonight and you will likely be billing monthly within the next 20 years. If you think of all of the other utility services you get, cable, television, internet, telephone, gas, electric, everything is monthly. Water and sewers the only thing that isn't and frankly New England were somewhat unique in not billing monthly for it. The next item we looked at, this is a big item, was second water meters. As the cost of water and sewer has gone up, particularly sewer, the Boston Harbor Cleanup and what's happened with that and the cost for treatment at the MWRA more and more people have said, wait a minute, my water use isn't really indicative of the amount of sewage that I've put back in the system. I water my lawn a lot, I fill my swimming pool, I have a car wash that I run, that type of thing and you shouldn't really be billing me on water use because it isn't necessarily what comes back in sewage. Now frankly that's true of just about everybody. Not everybody's, all their water comes back as sewage but for the most part 85, 90% are but there are people that have a much lower percentage return. 30, 40, 50% a car wash I think is probably a very good example of something like that. In some cases a laundromat, water that's lost in the drying process that doesn't come back. Nurseries and people certainly with big lawns. I'm not asking you to take pity on people with big lawns and huge irrigation systems. However there is an equity question there. That's water that's not coming back from the sewage system and you're charging them for that. This is a problem that's running across the Commonwealth and it's gotten to be a bigger and bigger issue in recent years in a lot of cities and towns. I can assure you you're not the only one dealing with this question. I'm looking at it for a number of cities and towns right now anyways. There are several solutions to this. You can allow a second meter. Arlington used to allow a second meter. No, you didn't. You can allow a second meter. Somebody to put in a meter that measures what's going on to the lawn, what's going into the swimming pool, what's evaporating through laundry machines, that type of thing. That's quite common to do that. Frankly it gets to be a bit of a pain in the neck. You have to put in a second meter, read the second meter, test the second meter, take care of it, check the phones and who pays for it. There gets to be issues in a lot more meter reading and billing and putting in new billing systems that will take total consumption, subtract the other meter, that type of thing. Another way of doing it is to base everybody's water and sewer rates on just a percentage of your water use. Okay, I understand all the water doesn't come back with sewage, so I'll bill you sewer based on 80% of your water use. Worcester does that, Norwood does that. Frankly I think people in Arlington are bright enough to figure out that if you're only billing it on 80% and you raise the rate 20%, six of one half dozen or another, it doesn't really do anything. But it is done and it's fairly common to do it and a lot of people are happy with it, thinking they're getting a break because they're only billed on 80% of their water use. The method that we're recommending for Arlington that's getting to be used more and more is to look at the winter water use of every account. It's going to take some doing to do that and that's why this is the recommendation is to implement this a few years from now. But to look at what people use in the wintertime when there isn't irrigation going on, when there isn't people filling pools, washing cars, that type of stuff, and say I'm going to base your sewer charges on what you used in the winter. I was on a sewer board in Whalen for many years and that's what we did. We just said I'm going to get the water department's winter water use. I'm going to figure out everybody's bill once a year in March, once I have that winter water use, and I'm going to send you the same bill for four quarters and then I'll recalculate it the next March. In terms of the revenue stability, it's even better than property taxes. I know exactly what's going to come in every year because once I figure it out in March, I have it and it's going to be the same bill for everybody for every quarter. It's going to take some doing to put in a system like that. It's going to take some work on the billing system to implement it. That's what the recommendation is though for the second meter. The last thing we looked at was the level of debt service assistance that's provided by the town to mitigate water and sewer rates, essentially transferring a portion of those costs to the general fund, to the general tax rate. So taking it off of water and sewer rates, putting it on your tax rate. It's now been set at $5,593,112 a year. And getting the debt from the MWRA, I can split that between water and sewer and how much is each. One of the things we were asked to look at is what happens if we change that, either up, down, eliminate it. And in the report, there was three different examples. Eliminate it, I think cut it in half and then increase it to $7.5 million.  That's clearly a policy decision if the board as to how you want to do that, how you want to recover those costs. There is only one other town in the Commonwealth who's doing it. It was a provision of the statutes of the Commonwealth that allows towners to do that. When the MWRA sewer cost started going up, Harlingen availed itself to it. Winchester did in terms of residential accounts only, not for non-residential. Lastly, there was the implementation schedule. A lot of this stuff is going to take, to implement, will take changes in the billing and collection system. And I probably can't emphasize enough how difficult that is. I think we tend to look at having computers and the power of computers and others is something we can do very easy. It's not, it's very difficult to implement a lot of these changes within different billing systems. And so, again, working with the staff, we've come up with a proposal to go ahead with the 7.5% increase now that you've been talking about. You were talking about when I was here last time. I think Michael's given it to you in years before. That 7.5% increase each fiscal year.  It's going to cost you a bit more money. You need more revenue than a 7.5% increase will give you. It'll cost you about $600,000 on an annual basis. Again, fortunately, you have sufficient reserves to cover that, so that's not a problem. And that plan of the 7.5% increases, envisioned drawing those reserves way down. I wouldn't draw them down much more than that, though. And in fact, what we're suggesting is come January 1st of 2014, you go ahead and implement the new tiers, 0 to 30, 30 to 60, the new service charges, meter charges, and the new fire charges. And that will then cover all of the costs for the second half of the year. The net loss for the fiscal year would only be about $300,000 for the water and sewer enterprise funds. Then on January, I'm sorry, on July 1st, 2014, six months after that, convert to the quarterly billing. It'll be difficult. I'm not going to candy-coat it. You'll hear problems, there'll be issues with it. There'll be screaming coming from this building, from people who work here having to do it. It's not going to be an easy thing to do. But as I said, it's something you're going to be doing anyway sooner or later. You might as well bite the bullet and do it now. I think it will help in a lot of ways. Again, a lot of that is discussed in the report to you, and I won't repeat all of that. And then in July of 2015, implement the new sewer rates based on the winter water use from that prior winter of end of 13, beginning of calendar 14. So we have the quarterly water consumption for that period. You can use that and use that for all the sewer bills going forward from July 1, 2015 forward. That was an awful lot of information for you all to absorb. I thought he said Adam covered most of it. So let me stop there. I'm sure you probably have questions. Adam, did you have more on the presentation you wanted to go? Did you have anything you wanted to add, Mike? Okay. John. Thank you very much. Thank you. Very thorough presentation. I also want to thank the town manager and Mr. Rademacher, the DPW director for actually briefing, you know, they briefed each of us on this also so that we could be sure to understand what was being undertaken. I think none of us here would like to be having to raise the rates every year, which we do unfortunately have to do, but I think it's important to remind folks why we are at this point. I think if you go back over a quarter century now, we'll all remember the morass that was Boston Habba that used to be administered by the Metropolitan District Commission and it was a great place for, you know, you'd have ribbon cuttings in the towns for, you know, the new sewer and water projects and then just forget about it. Water was considered and sewage was considered basically a free commodity and the costs were never really thought of and that's why that, what used to be the flounder capital world now has no flounder left in it at all. The beaches were unswimmable and it's not really that far from here and it's easy for communities like ours and the other 59 communities in the MWRA district to forget about that, that we helped to contribute to that problem just as we draw on the water infrastructure out in the central and western parts of the state and the vitality of that I think was driven home to all of us. Just a few years ago when we had a big failure and we were without water for a couple of days and a boil order. So those are some of the things that drive the cost. I mean right here in Arlington we'll be seeing this, I guess starting this summer we'll be seeing a major replacement of our water and sewer infrastructure and when some of those pipes are what, 70, 80 years old, that's what drives a lot of the costs as far as the increases and so I think it's important that, you know, any of the rate payers who may be watching that that's why we are at this point where we have to continually meet our burden to make sure that that system is brought up to the 21st, brought up to the 20th century, never mind the 21st and a lot of progress has been made. I really like the thought that's gone into this. I like the fact that price sensitivity is being put into the model where no longer is water looked at as a free commodity and I think in the future as we break this down into more tiers there'll be more price sensitivity there. One thing that as we discussed this I think is important also to remind rate payers and maybe watching at home though that as they look at this escalating rate structure it's an incremental rate structure just like your income tax works. It's not as if you're going up to a higher rate per gallon or per cubic foot for your entire water use as you increase in usage. It's a stepped system so I'd encourage anyone who's interested to, I know it was posted online to pull it down and take a look at that but I think that is important that that price sensitivity is there and it gives individuals and families more control I think over their costs by having that rather than just having the two tiers that we currently have today. I like in this proposal the quarterly billing in terms of allowing families to control their expenses on a more regulated basis rather than being hit with two larger bills throughout the year. And I recognize that we got a memo from the treasurer and I recognize there's going to be a lot of strain on the treasurer's office and the postal operation as well and I sympathize but I think that for the residents of town and consumers especially when we are forced to assume ever greater burdens in this area that's important Mr. Woodcock mentioned that Arlington is one of the only towns that adopted some debt assistance that was to avoid rate shock back in the day. But we probably can't really tweak that too much lest we pass that through to the taxpayers. There's a lot of dynamic tension in these models. I mean in that between the taxpayers and the rate payers and there's also dynamic tension between our need to meet our revenue targets but also our conservation goals and not wanting wastage of water. You know lastly I appreciate the creative approach to the issue of summer water usage that doesn't get returned to the system. You're right there was a town meeting warrant article that was submitted I think last year and it was not I don't think it was recommended by this board and it was not adopted by town meeting but it was an issue that was recognized and I think that this is a creative approach. So I only have two questions really on the proposal before us. First on page three you make reference to the water meters and changing that the customer meter service charge. It says these costs are greater for customers with larger meters. It costs more to purchase, maintain and test larger meters and customers with larger meters can require the use of more of the fixed capacity costs than customers with smaller demands. I understand why it would cost more to purchase. I'm trying to understand and this is not understanding how water meters put together. I look at testing and I think a heck to test the brake lights on a fiat is the same as to test the brake lights on a Hummer but maybe I don't know how a water meter is put together. Does a larger water meter necessarily, does it have more connections typically and therefore more moving parts that need to be tested? No, it's actually the physical process of testing it. Most of the 95, 98% of the meters in Arlington are 5 8 inch meters.  And those are really easy to test. Somebody comes in and does a couple of fittings, puts in a new one, takes it out and tests it usually. When you get to the bigger ones, the two and the three inch ones, it's not possible to do that. And generally what you have to do is bring somebody in from a meter testing company and do it right there on the spot. The small ones you can do, it gets me more difficult as they get bigger. But the two and three inches is the largest that there is in Arlington, but the two and the three inch, maybe even the one and a half, get to be pretty difficult to move there. They're big. And you don't really pull them out and you bring somebody in to do test them. And frankly, they should be tested more frequently too. A lot more water going through them, a lot more money, if you will, going through them. And sort of the protocol is to do small residential ones every ten years or so and the large ones, particularly three, four, five inch ones, three, four, six inch, even annually. Some of them do it. So it's the cost of doing it in the frequency, both. Thanks. And I just have one more question to know.  I'm always a fan of phasing. I always like a cautious incremental approach, but I do see that there are a lot of phases in this phasing in. And the particular area where I have a question is why the implementation of the new tiering and the implementation of quarterly billing is not phased in conjunction with one another. I understand why the winter usage would be put off a year because you're looking for that quarterly billing to be able to accurately monitor what winter usage is, but I don't understand why those other two phases are split. I think and you started off mentioning the work of Adam and Mike, you know, and I would echo that. I mean, the whole analysis was made easier and made more smoothly because of really deep involvement of both of them throughout this process. And one of the things that we looked at was going ahead, let's go ahead and do the quarterly billing in July. Why don't we just do it right away? And it's a difficult process. You had mentioned a note you have from the treasure. I just briefly saw that this evening when I got here. It's a difficult process to do that. You have the capability now to read the readers instantly. The radio reads the network that you can read them. So it's not a matter of sending somebody out and, you know, looking at meters the way it used to do. But it's taking that information that's now being put into the billing system every six months and doing that twice as often, doing it every quarterly.  But there's the postage, the stamps. Again, I looked at the Treasurer's report very quickly, but there were things in there that I noticed about the bill stuffing machines, the environment down there, things like that, that I think will take some time to look at and address and make sure everything's working because what you don't want is to switch to quarterly billing and have it not work. That's all clear to me. I'm just wondering why the quarterly billing is not implemented at the same time as a new block rate structure? It could be. You could put off the block rate structure, you know, for a whole year and do it later like that. I think the idea was to try to get it into place now, get the new idea of those new blocks in place so people are used to them at this point and frankly stop some of the bleeding that's happening. The 7.5% increase, as I said, is going to leave you short $600,000 or so for fiscal 14. If you put in the new blocks in January, it will cut that in half, basically. I would just quickly add it was the financial reason of getting the new tiers in January that kept it there. We did work with the Treasurer myself, Mike, to look at a January 1 date for going into quarterly and that was just too quick to get the operation up and running so that's why we have those stages as you pointed out. Thanks. I think we could do it later. We can choose to do that. It drills deeper into our reserve and we'll let it go. Who's next? I'm going last. I'm going to let you guys ask them all first. No, I feel like I'm being piggy. Thank you very much. I'm not going to say too much because I think Joe covered most of what I was thinking regarding the report. In other communities, I know you've worked in many of them. Have you ever seen online bill pay for these bills? Yes. Yes, I'm not sure exactly what you're saying. I could just sign online and pay these bills as many communities. Through your MasterCard or something like that. Often there's a charge for it because there's a charge for MasterCard or Visa for processing. Sometimes some communities' water departments will eat that and just incurred as part of their costs. Becoming very common. And online seeing in real time what your actual water use is too and graphs of it and things like that. I wasn't sure which, but both of those, it's a lot more frequently that's starting to happen. Yeah. And I appreciate that. And just going through Mr. Gilliam's report, I think that a lot of these concerns can be taken care of with technological updates. And I hope that's something we continue to work towards. Thank you. Sure. Steve, do you want to go or do you want to step up now? I'm going to go down my list and then I'll call.  All right. Just a couple. I don't think I have any questions, but I just have a few comments about the process and output and so on and so forth. I definitely don't want to be increasing the rates that Joe talked about. The MWRA sends us a bill. We have to pay the MWRA. So as a board, we have to choose the most sensible and fair and appropriate way to distribute that cost to the people who use water. And I think that the proposal that we've got in front of us significantly improves the way that we're passing that cost on to the people who live it down. And so I very much support this. I'm really happy with the process we've got here. I'm really happy with the way we looked at so many of the elements that are included in this question. It isn't, we didn't just take one dial and turn it. We looked at everything we've got and we said, okay, what is the right and bottom? So I'm really happy with this whole thing. And that said, there are some tweaks and changes that as a board we can choose policy-wise and differently, but I think we're entirely appropriate. We still have all the knobs and this report gave us a good idea of what knobs we can turn.  We want to do fewer phases and we accept the cost. I think that's a very appropriate conversation for us to have. But we have to pay the bill. We all know. Second, I'm really happy with the proposed solution about the, how to handle the, to remove the need for second meters going forward. Joe, as you noted, this did come up in a previous time meeting. One of the things we said was we were going to study the issue. And this is the study and this is the result. And I think that Mr. Carabello should be really happy with this proposal. But now he'll be unhappy with the year that's on, attached to when we actually implement it. But at the same time, this does, this more fairly puts the cost of sewer with the people who want. And as an engineer, I would describe the solution as elegant. And I think that elegant is a high praise for a solution. I think I'm really, so to, in order to pull out that elegant solution, we have to move to quarterly billing. I also think a quarterly billing is good from a customer service perspective. I think as a town resident, you prefer a quarterly bill because you don't get runaway meters or the runway meters are found faster and stuff like that. I do look forward to being able to pay that, you know, like if we can make this be the first one, it's like that you can subscribe to this as an online bill and not get like this. For me, it feels like a bill that we can make in our first true, totally electronic bill. The taxpayer's subsidy element of this, where the part of the debt is on the, if we weren't looking at a seven and a half percent increase in more revenue in December, I would be advocating trimming that number down. And one of the things I kind of ran on was saying, you know, I'm going to continue to try to freeze that and roll that back. It's appropriate looking at these numbers to roll it back any further. The rate increases as, you know, it's big enough, but I just wanted to signal that if I had an opportunity, it certainly wouldn't be to make it bigger. It would be moving to make it smaller. Can you come home with me tonight and talk to my husband? Sure. Does he want to be bigger? He wants lower. Oh, he wants, yeah, yeah, I mean, he wants the trimming. Yeah, okay. And the one thing that I don't feel like this, we've totally nailed yet. And so I've said this to Mike and to Adam in private and in public. And I'll say it again, in private and public, the unaccounted for water is still higher than I'm comfortable with and higher than other towns. And I know that part of your analysis was looking at unaccounted water. I know we've got a series of programs that are looking on unaccounted water. I just want to, you know, as far as I can further encourage the research into that because the one thing that we can do that actually, you know, if there is a pot that if you dig out enough holes, we'll find a hole and at the bottom of that is going to be all of our unaccounted for water. And that'd be nice, you know. All right. That's the end of my list. Unaccounted for water. That's like unencumbered cash. We've gone from free to unaccounted water. You see, I actually don't, I never use the words free cash. I always use unaccounted for water. You've got me saying it, so. But unaccounted for water, I think is like, you know, yeah, diplomatically correct. Some questions and 10 words of less is fine. I'm not looking for big substance. If I am, then I'll schedule a meeting with any of the individuals. And some of the questions I have, I think when the treasurer gets up, he'll address them. Not that he hasn't addressed the memorandum, but first of all, I'm just curious historically, the 7.5%, who came up with that originally? Was that just the town doing the computation, the 7.5% increase? Was it a consultant? My understanding is that was the cooperation between the prior town manager and prior DPW director. Okay. That goes back probably four or five years now. Okay. And I raised that in the sense of, I understand what we're doing right now, we're just doing the 7.5%, and we have a possible scenario of estimated revenue increases in future years. What I would like to see in terms of what I'm looking at right now is something that's more balanced. And what I'm saying is what on page three, where it says 2015, 3.4, 8.2 sewer, and then 6.0 the next year, 9.4, and then if you jump ahead two years to 2018, 0.5, negative 0.25, in terms of managing and budgeting, part of the reason why we're going to quarterly is to say, okay, you can get a handle on it more. I would just ask questions come before us. If we can get something that's, if it can't be a flat 7.5% or 5% and 2%, if it can be something that has not quite a varied fluctuation there. And I understand this is just sort of a guide, but in terms of going with, and it seems like we're going to do that, but there's going to be some logistics quarterly billing to say to people we're trying to give you a handle on it. I'd like to see the other questions that I had was it's been cited right now. We can do the 7.5, but we'll have the $600,000 deficit loss. But we have $2 million in the Water Enterprise Fund. I'm just wondering, either the tail manager, the former Finance Committee member, what's our bare minimum balance on that Enterprise Fund? So that's a good question. Can I ask that in the sense, the reason why am I asking that, when we're going to do future years, and it's not going to be 7.5, when we're going to do 14, 15, 16, 17, can we factor some of that in? So we would, we have never agreed to an actual number, but we would want to have somewhere around two months worth of revenue or maybe 15 to 20% of revenue. So we probably don't want to go very much lower. In fact, we want to be in a position to be able to protect against rate spikes or fluctuations based on a dry or excuse me, a wet summer or just some unexpected matter happening so that we wouldn't be in a situation where the board would have to consider very large increases to make up for a problem. Can you sort of investigate that? What is the Finance Committee, whether it's Powers and Sullivan, whether it's Mike Rademacher in concert with the consultant in terms of as we start to get a handle on, you know, it's 15 to 20% it's just a matter of executing that as a town financial policy. Can I actually answer that? No, definitely. So we are losing, or we're spending our reserves at a rate of $600,000 a year, but if we execute the proposed plan by doing a rate increase in July and then the tiers in December or January 1st, that's only $600,000 a year, that's only six months, so we're talking about spending down six months. I got that correct. But just as the Enterprise Fund fluctuates, where it does, if we can just get a formula. And I just didn't want you to think that we're spending all six because we're only talking about three. Right, no, exactly. I'm challenged by these funds and everything. Sorry to interrupt. I do like and I want to thank the consultant, Mr. Woodcock and the town manager and TPW director for spending that time. I just want to clarify, just so people know the point when you were talking about the 0-200 cubic feet per year, the rate of 482 and then over. So basically, one of the question I had was I saw 0-200 482 over 210. And what was told to me was that you wouldn't be charged, if you were little Miss Piggy and you were $4.82 for the first 200 cubic feet, then once am I saying that right as a cubic feet? Correct, yep. And then once you hit 201, 201 plus, then your fee is $710. That's correct. So it's not, because some people could look at this and say, geez, I'm 312, I'm going to get that. And the same thing accordingly with, and I'm just saying this actually to get it on the record, so to make sure it's my understanding. Same thing with the cubic feet. Again, it's 587 and then when you hit 1001, anything from 1001 there on is 1172. You already answered the question about the private fire charge, how it stays, I just want to note that it stays the same flat right now for the next, up until 2016, up into a two inch diameter fire prevention meter, and that's just for the regular home owner, to go up consecutively over years past from what the consultant has cited. You know, you check the citizens once every 10 years, you know, annually for someone larger than that. Okay, so, I anticipate that the treasurable get up because I was just concerned, I would like to see in the future because it seems we are going to go to quarterly billing, what the schedule would be and what the recommendation would be from the treasurer and whoever else he deems appropriate in terms of I have no idea because I don't pay the bills. What the schedule for real estate and primary excise taxes, so taking that into account, what would be the best opportunity for sending this bill out, as well as we have a description of equipment, personnel and storage that would be needed, but what those would come from on the water meter replacement program, is that something that we are already undertaking because people have said to me, you don't have to replace my meter, they did it, so the guy can stand outside and not come in my basement? So there's two different issues. There's the automatic meter reader and then there's the meters themselves. So the automatic meter reader program has been done townwide. There has been a lot of requests to inspect for some pumps or other matters, but townwide there's still a meter replacement program that needs to be done. Separate from the automatic meter readers. And one of the things I had asked Mr. Audemacher and Mr. Chapter Lay, when we do that, we ask council on aging, senior center to come up with some sort of senior plan because I know a lot of elderly residents don't like you know, whatever council on aging or because I know they're very sensitive to those issues. I did ask the town manager and I'd leave it also to the treasurer that what the postage, how much we can actually put in this new quarterly envelope if on occasions, and I'm not saying this should happen all the time, but if there's for some reason we can mail out four sheets if there's for some reason we have a town issue or a town notice do we have another sheet of paper that we can put in there that doesn't add to the postage. If this quarterly billing is that's it you're maxed out that's fine and it should not be political purposes it should be something else you know, new trash program things like that and then besides the treasurer answering my question I think we really need to renew this. I'd like to get something really substantive out of our state delegation and maybe one of it is the MWRA debt assessment if they can get a some relief on that we have these meetings we talk at each other and we're going to get you more money and you know we want more money but one of the things when I met with you all and that I heard from the speaker at the microphone is we're kind of bearing the cost for that and when we have our goals and our mission meeting we have whatever amount of number five, eight things from our state delegation and say you've got to come through on one and if we went through that sort of exercise if everybody agrees I think that getting some sort of relief from the MWRA debt assessment is the thing so leaving my questions on the table about the logistics anything Mr. Gilligan how's that for a segue? Thank you Mr. Chairman I thank you members of the Board the questions have doubled my time from three minutes to probably six but I'll try and be succinct first and foremost my memo of May 30 to the town manager was a response to his request for what impacts would occur with treasury operations with respect to changing the water and sewer billing cycle to quarterly let me start out by saying I don't like that term quarterly for a specific reason people think either fiscal year or calendar year quarters if we look at a calendar year the first quarter would end in March to answer the specific questions that was asked by each of you earlier real estate taxes go out on a quarterly basis based on fiscal year they are due August 1st November 1st February 1st and May 1st they are mailed out approximately five to six weeks ahead of that due date so having a receipt and a receivable date that coincides with the real estate tax collections coincidental with water and sewer is going to cause issues would you have a different term you'd rather we used I'd like to use 90 day billing cycle we can call it quarterly so long as when the time comes to establish what those quarters are we pay a focused attention to that because it is a critical issue now also motor vehicle excise tax billing and what we call commitment one or primary bill one which is mailed out processed in February and due in mid-March is 30,000 bills that also impacts the water and sewer billing cycle that you're anticipating now I want to be very emphatic what I'm discussing