So welcome everyone to the April 8th meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. This open meeting of the Redevelopment Board is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's Executive Order of March 12, 2020, due to the current state of emergency and the Commonwealth through the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, we've been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings and, as such, the Governor's Order suspends the requirement for open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies were allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. For this meeting, the Redevelopment Board is convening via Zoom, as posted on the town's website, identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating via video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other people may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. So please allow me to confirm that all members are present and can hear me starting with Kim Lau. Yeah. David Watson. Present. Dean Dixon. Present. Melissa Tentacolas. She will hopefully join us in a minute. And I am Rachel Zimbary present as well. All right, so the first item on our agenda this evening is the continued public caring for docket number 3647 10 Sunnyside Avenue. And I understand that the applicant has requested a continuance. Jenny was very specific date. That they had requested for the continuance. Yeah, so with this one, I think we need to go to May 17th. Okay. Unless you want to meet on a different evening of a week. I didn't think so, but now you're the following the next meeting that would be available. And all of our upcoming meetings during town meeting will basically be about 45 minutes long. So just realize that a lot of these are continued public hearings. We're going to be in the same a similar situation that we were in on Monday night of this week where there's it's a very compressed timeline. So as long as everybody is understanding of that, the nature of town meeting and the timeline, then that'll be all set at May 17th is the next option. Great. And is there a representative from the applicant for 10 Sunnyside Avenue here this evening to confirm whether that date works. No, no, I've confirmed this with their representative in advance of this meeting. Okay, great. Thank you, Jenny. All right, is there a motion to continue the hearing for 10 Sunnyside Avenue to May 17. Second. We'll take a roll call vote. Yes, David. You're on mute David. Oh, I'm happy to vote yes, but I will not be here. That's, that's fine. You're still on the board and you are here for the original one so we'll still take that as a yes. Yes. Yes. Melissa has not joined us yet and I am a yes. So we will continue docket number 3647 to May 17. That will be at 7pm. All right, with that we will reopen docket number 3646 which is the continued public hearing for 1420 Massachusetts Avenue. Thank you. Good evening. Tom Godfrey here. If you would like to take up to five minutes to discuss the revisions that you and your team have, have made relative to the prior application. That would be fantastic. Right. Thank you. Good evening. Tom Godfrey with their briar development. And with me tonight is our architect Doug Roonett from BK and associates associates, and our civil engineer Randy Miron from Bowler Engineering. Tonight in response to the board's comments from the last meeting, we have prepared two options for the board's consideration as it relates to the architecture and the finishes on the building. Both options what we've done is the Mass Ave facade storefront has been expanded with floor to ceiling glass over probably a majority close to two thirds of that front facade across Mass Ave. I will note that in the front left corner of that front facade. The area behind that houses the ATM and the cash counting area. So the glass did not or storefront did not extend all the way over because of that interior use of the space there. We've actually we've provided some pictures of our butters and other facades in the neighborhood what we've tried to do is to incorporate some of these features and these materials into the design coupled with the board suggestions of incorporate and some brick masonry and clapboards. What I'd like to do at this point is to turn it over to Doug Roonett from BK and associate associates. He can better describe the details and the nuances of each of the options and the details that are shown on those elevations. Thank you, Tom. Good evening, Madam Chairman, let members of the board for the record my name is Doug Roonett and I'm with BK architects and we are the architect of record for the project. We just jumped in here for May for with five minutes. We had a pretty lively conversation the last time of how you feel that the architecture should be improved to better suit the site and we've come up with two options as Mr. Godfrey indicated. The first option that's on the screen right here is a pretty much the Mastav side is cladded with brick as well with a stone base. We've actually eliminated the awnings that were on the last option over those little rectangle windows and actually did a proprietary green band, wrapping across the entirety of the front facade as well as the adjacent side. The comments from the last time was that you wanted the building to look a little bit more urban so I took a lot of design cues from a typical urban storefront which is a layered approach. Typically you have the streetscape human scale layer with their materiality, separated by an element which I'm actually representing by the green band there to actually lead you up to the second story. And it's capped by a traditional cornice and whatnot. That's essentially what I'm doing here. We've taken many design cues from similar context around up and down Massachusetts Avenue. One of the things I'd like to point out is the element that's right above the entry doors is actually it's a one and a half story trance a window. And we've actually mimicked the design of this of the doors above to actually almost look like a Juliet balcony, which we actually found on 87 Massachusetts Avenue. We just like that detail and we decided to implement it here. The facade is broken up with vertical elements of these pilasters which is a smooth PVC. The two story element at the entry is also cladded in a smooth PVC and a top is the traditional corners. If you could actually zoom out a little bit please I can describe the rest of the elevations. So the one to the immediate right is the side facing the parking lot and we're continuing the brick face right around where the storefront is the area that's to the right of that actually is the angle portion of the building. So it actually cancels away from it. We've used a similar covered colored ethos to actually mimic the color of the brick and with decorative score lines to give it a little bit of visual interest as going back with the urban theme. The second layer is typically differentiated by the materiality or decorative design. So we've actually taken a handled ethos design with some caps to visual caps to top the corners or start top the pilasters essentially give a little visual interest. We've actually also continued the Julia balcony detail on the side as well too. Could you scroll down please. So the one that the elevation that's the lower left corner is the far left side is the angle portion you see there is just a larger view of it because it's a different view of the building. We're continuing the red ethos look to the rear completely. And one of the comments we mentioned that you wanted to us to look into doing a white EPDM roof to reduce the albedo effect for the solar he came and we implemented it here in this building. The other side is the side that's adjacent to massive and it has the ATM machine and the far right corner is the two story brick motif that we're showing on the Massachusetts Avenue we're continuing that as you wrap around the corner and terminating that where the the corners ends and then continuing the the top banding. So that is the first option. We wanted to implement at least the ethos option because there are several contextual examples up and down the street. So we just wanted to give it to you as an option. The second option is similar with the layering effect but instead of doing the ethos we're actually doing a dark brown clapboard, and we're adding in some more vertical elements to kind of break up that facade. Instead of the stone base we're actually continuing the brick all the way down to the ground to kind of give it a continuity of materiality. If you can zoom out please. So you can see all of the options. So with the clapboard banding, we could actually have a little bit more continuity for that top band. So that pretty much is continued throughout the facade on all four sides except the rear where the roofline drops. We're also doing the white EPDM here as well too. And that is pretty much my presentation. And I welcome any questions you might have. Great. Thank you. I appreciate your responsiveness and for providing several options here for us to take a look at. Before I turn this over to my colleagues for their feedback. I think I'll just give you my immediate feedback. Jenny, if you could actually go to the second option please. My preference is definitely for this second option here where you've integrated both the masonry at the, we'll call it the pedestrian level and then the half story above really goes to the clapboard. And part of the reason that I am more in favor of this facade is that you've also upped some of the articulation of the bays that you're creating here on the, on the mass avenue facade, and the vertical elements don't stop here at the green corners but they in fact run. They continue in this in this half story above to the to the upper corners. A question I would have for you. We have. Maybe I can see if I can use the annotate feature here. This, this cornice that you have here this more or less this tower elements there reason that it doesn't span the entire bay here on the on the left hand side. All of the textual examples we showed actually showed varying roof lines so we actually chose not to a span it all the way across to kind of give a little bit of articulation in the roof line and kind of give you two sizes of cornices as a corner right below it as well to give a little bit of scale. So, what will I certainly appreciate that I feel that, again, if our goal is to treat this as a comprehensive, you know, fully thought out the side I'll leave it to my other colleagues to see if they agree with me but I'd actually prefer to see this complete the language here and to so that this becomes a singular element in and of itself and almost a secondary tower to what you have in the, in the entry. I think that I also would just like to clarify. The signage isn't shown on this particular elevation, but I just wanted to clarify the intent because I think that's very important to the overall approval of the facade is the intent in the window here to include the Citizens Bank logo there was a, there was a window graphic that had been shown in one of the windows in the previous iteration is that intended to to still occur in this window here. Not that window it's the window to the right of that I believe is where they intended to have that before. I think as long as that is included as well as you know your your signage above the entry. This is certainly moving in a, in a, in a better direction, but I will now turn it over to some of my colleagues for their comments starting with Ken. Can I ask a clarification on your comment. Your intention is not to bring that cornice all the way over to the tower element just baby, you know, top it on top of that first pilaster essentially. What I'd like to do is to to to ensure that that this entire bay reads as a basically a secondary tower element to to the element that you have here so it doesn't need to increase in height, but it. Currently, in the way that it's it's looking it's it's confusing as to visually as to why it, it doesn't span this entire bay as a as a singular element tonight and I think it would again make this not feel like some sort of left over side I understand chromatically what what you have going on behind here and why windows are not desirable. But again I think if that read as a single single element and a real day that it would be that it would achieve what we're looking for it to do in terms of not having this look like a side elevation elevation. The intention was to match the dimensional line of the baby there but I don't see that being an issue to complete the day. Great. Any other clarifications I can just so I fully understand it so it looks like the cornice needs to move or extend slightly towards the main entrance feature. Correct me to kind of line up with that horizontal element and the back. So extended for five feet whatever that dimension is great so that it's a similar relationship. And again is completing the same type of relationship that you have here at the corner. Right. Great. Thank you again. Thank you for addressing our issues this is a lot better which had before north toward our concerns or not. That's what you had before was bad and just saying this is a lot closer to what we're thinking of. I totally agree with Rachel about moving that cornice over so that it seems like it engages that pilaster informs a corner. I also might go one step further and if you look at the center window there. It looks a little off to me. You have a little bit of a brick pilaster there I think if you just move that window over and just move the way to the pilaster. The changing cost is about the same it's it's not this is not a big deal and just make that all storefront. So it looks like it's three days not like a little piece of brick there I don't know it looks kind of a leftover too. The other thing I have is your. The material you have chosen for these palasters is PVC. Correct. Have you worked with PVC PVC before. Not directly, but I've seen it on a site before. Yeah, I'm just saying PVC. Every 10 feet it moves half an inch. In winter and summer. So, you're not going to get a one piece of PVC that height. So they're going to be joints there so you got to think about those joints and how you do the outside corner. And it, I found it when I used to just do this kind of stuff. It moves so much it's too plasticy. Would you guys maybe consider if it's there instead. Yeah, we could possibly do that. That might be a little more stable and you get different, you know, more colors and get a smooth if it's you know you don't have to get every heavy textured if it's and then look more of a masonry building in a smooth plasticy building you know. They go look much richer. In all, you know, that's all I had for the elevations. I do want to go back to one thing that we did mention that I don't think you guys addressed yet or maybe you have didn't bring up at the end of the driveways right before meets the sidewalk. We had talked about some sort of trench drain or area drain to stop the water from running across the sidewalk. We guys be doing that. Yep, I can address that. We have been in close contact with DPW we've mentioned that to them, and we're working with them closely on the other issues storm water, water soar. And if they determine it's warranted, we will install it. If they think it's a good idea would be happy to install it. Okay. Fine. I'm not going to go over if they don't think it's necessary I'm not going to supersede them but you still want water running off your parking lot across the public's public sidewalk that's all. That's all I had Rachel. Great. Thank you can. We'll move to David next. I have no additional comments I, I agree with your, yours and kids comments. Great. Thank you, David. Yes, I agree with my colleagues comments to and appreciate your being responsive. I have a couple of questions though. Yeah, I think at some point. I don't know how we do the signage. Maybe we just delegate that to the planning department to make sure the signage meets the requirements of the code. I don't see any utilities on the roof. What's going to happen with utilities how will the building be heated and cool. So, if you, if you could please zoom in a little bit to the upper left corner. So there's a dash line shown beyond that's the roof line. And then there's going to be a single rooftop unit that services the building that shown in the dash line right there. Those are the only utilities that will be on the roof.  Correct. And okay, thanks. I asked the last time about the possibility of solar on the roof since then the town has come out with its net zero plan. And one of its high priority measures is to have new buildings be at least solar ready on 50% of the roof. So I am wondering if you've talked to the appropriate people at Citizens Bank about the possibility of at least making the roof. Solar ready on at least 50% of the roof and, and the reason is, you know, once these buildings are constructed. You lose the opportunity to get to net zero, which is part of the town's plan. So I am revisiting the issue but rather than putting solar on at least making half of the roof solo ready. I'm not sure I've come across that term yet in terms of solar ready what does that actually entail. It could be ready for solar panels it could be ready for that could be thermal or electric solar. And I've talked to some people about why it's in the net zero plan is and maybe some of my colleagues in happiness, you have to design the roof, so that it will accommodate solar ready and therefore solar. If you go there so it's not requiring you to put the paddles on the roof, just that you at least make it solar ready although I spoke to someone in the field who said, you know, once it's so already I'll use a bank term for this. Putting the paddles on is almost like giving the bank a little ATM for savings and electricity, but we wouldn't require that we just require at least half of the room is solar ready. So I think I understand that to mean structurally for loading. We sold already just talk to your structure engineer and that he should design the roof for 10 additional pounds per foot. He'll know what the weight is. Okay, don't use my thing okay but I'm not an engine engineer but usually it's 10 extra pounds per foot for dead load. It's not a design or if it's minimal when you're doing it from the beginning like this. Okay, I think you have to have some conduits or something to dig with that in later Jean and that's not that's not that's not a deal breaker. It's just as long as the roof can support the panels, the additional load. Yes, and that's, and that's the thing and everybody else could be put in afterwards. But only, you know, according to the net zero plan it would be, it could be 100% of the roof if you wanted to but only needs to be 50%. That's those might that's my only other comment. Great. Thank you, Jean. Any other comments or questions from the board before I open this up for public comments, I believe Jenny please put me if I'm wrong that Melissa was not part of the original hearing correct. Okay, great. And David, any other questions. No. Thank you. Seeing none, we will open the hearing up for public comments. Thank you for joining us this evening. Thank you for joining us this evening. Thank you for being part of the public who is joining us this evening who would like to speak, ask any questions or make any comments regarding this docket number please use the raise hand function in the participant section at the bottom of your screen and zoom. I will call on you in the order that the hands are raised, you'll have three minutes to address the board. I do not see any public comments so seeing none we will close the public comment period. Madam chairwoman. Oh, I'm so sorry I didn't see see your hand raised. It was not you it was me and I'm having a little trouble with no problem would you like to. Yes, I have a comment I see more people on street. I'm a member of the tree committee and I know that what you're talking design details today so this is not quite germane to exactly what you folks are talking about because I'm not sure at what point to to inject my comments about trees is it appropriate. This would be yes please do. I basically had looked at a site plan where there was a tree planting plan including, I'm not sure if, if Jenny or Aaron will be able to pull that up but this would be the perfect time to have that discussion. Okay, and I have to apologize I was unable to attend when we had the earlier discussions about this particular site. Very quickly, then, and this already may be covered. So I apologize if it's being redundant. I just want to say, we encourage the planning of large shade trees, not just small decorative trees but large shade trees on this site in that particular area along Mass Ave has has lost a lot of trees and quite recently Arlington DPW is out trying to plant some along Mass Ave farther along farther west. However, we encourage large shade trees because we've had such a decline of all the Norway maples in this particular area. So, oh, is this the tree plan. Utility plan but we'll squirrel and we'll get there. I just want to strongly suggest the addition of as many trees as makes sense in this possible of the large variety to add to the shade tree urban canopy in town. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your time. Tom, I know that you had addresses previously and that you do have at least one if not several trees plan for the site of that something that you could just address for for the number of the tree commission. I'll just say it and comment. I believe in the first meeting and had a similar comment. And after that meeting I contacted the tree warden in town and sent him the site plan and discussed adding some additional trees and what type would work and fit on the site. And we do have two shade trees in the front of the building. You'll see the pocket park in the front along the sidewalk to the left of that pocket park near the double bike rack right behind there. We have two shade trees plan there, and then we have some ornamental two ornamental trees plan for the back. And we are lucky enough to have one of the few remaining larger street trees in the sidewalk to the right near the entrance that exists today. In the sidewalk, which is shown on the right there by the handicap brand. Yeah, and Tom, if I may, if I can interrupt, this is Randy would bowler did the plan in front of us here is actually a bit outdated. We've since submitted a revised landscape plan that shows those additional trees and you just referenced. Okay, thank you. Great. Thank you very much. Madam chair, can I just do one follow. Please see. Yes, I want to say through the board. Thank you so much for considering those additions. The tree warden is, is the guy to work with so so you've done very well and I'm sorry to be redundant. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, and I, and I do want to thank the, the applicant and your team for being so responsive on that question was asked originally to so thank you. Thank you for doing that. Let's see, I'll open it back up to the so I'll now close public comments because I don't see any other hands raised. And I'll turn it back over to the to the board to see if there are any, any further questions for the, for the applicant. Prior to, to moving to a motion towards approval. I have no further questions. The signage will be taken care later right. So, can there was a previous signage plan that was that was submitted which we had taken a look at in the first and then the second hearing, which we, we did did review and identify was was in compliance with with the requirements and then. So, to tonight, I think just the one question I had was about which of the windows that the decal would. So we're proving the signage to tonight. Yes. Okay. I have no problem with that. I may I just interject Rachel, please. I would suggest that they submit a final plan with the signs to my department for approval so we have it on an accurate plan. Because right now I'm like, you know, we have an old plan with the signs on an old facade now. And the side depending upon what option you've chosen. It'll be out of date. So I would prefer that the final sign plan is approved is reviewed and approved by the department. The landscaping plan as a result of any of these changes along Mass Ave. So why don't I actually run through what run through a list of the items that we would like you to revise and review have reviewed by the department it would not need they would not need to come back in front of the board but would be reviewed by by Jenny and her her team in the planning department. So we have the final signage plan should be submitted to the board or to the department for review and approval the final landscaping plan submitted to the department for final review and approval. So we would like you to update the elevations to substitute epists for the vertical elements instead of PVC on the on the facade will go with option two, as opposed to option one. So we're going to look at extending the cornice at the left Bay of the front facade to the end of the bay to complete that that full element, and then you had identified also that you're currently working with the DPW for site drainage. So, if we can also request that you abide by the recommendations as provided by the DPW. So we have the items. At least 50% of the roof be fully ready. Right. And that one too so 50% of the, the roof should be designed to be full already at least 50%. At least 50%. Yes. Rachel I was actually looking at the drawings when you're saying that the early part of your state. Did you say about the pilaster, the meeting the pilaster in the center. Hey, the brick by last. Thank you for pointing that out. And also removing the brick pilaster in the center, the center window. Thank you. It's my other members of the board feel comfortable with those as administrative reviews rather than coming back in front of the board. Great. So, what are your recommendations for special permit conditions. I'll just, for the sake of sharing the, this is in the memo, but the, the typical general conditions of course in the permit. And then I'll, we'll add the special conditions that we just discussed. I would just say that all of the design elements that you just were mentioning. I would ask just for an updated elevation to include all of those different elements and then separately the sign plan, just so that I can read review all of that material. Great. Thank you, Jenny. Thank you. All right, is there a motion to approve this project with the special conditions and revisions that were just outlined. Second, let's take a roll call vote. Yes. David. Yes. Jean. Yes. And I am the yes as well. Thank you very much to the entire team. We really appreciate you working with us. On the, on the modifications for this building. So thank you. Great. I'll get the special permit in the mail and what we could do something. No. No, no, it's a, it's not that fast. No, we will, we will sign the decision and then file it and there's a 20 day appeal period. So you will be in touch with you, my department. Great. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you. Thank you to all the members of the board and as well. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good evening. You as well. All right. So that will close agenda item number one or continued public hearings. And we will now move to agenda item number two, which is to finalize the report to town meeting. And I would just first like to thank the members of the department for working so quickly in, in pulling this together. I know that this is a very short time line. So, Aaron and Kelly and Jenny. Thank you so much for, for pulling this very comprehensive report together. And I'll turn it over to you, Jenny. Well, first, you're welcome. And also thank you to Aaron and Kelly for their work on this, especially up till about an hour ago, I think, because we were accepting edits from some of the board members. So we'll, I think I'll just kind of roll through and maybe talk about those edits. Some people who contributed. And of course, stop at any time if you have new edits, by the way, I do have questions or suggestions on two items that when we get to them. Okay, not here though. No, no, okay. So this is just our traditional introduction and overview of the process that we are and the process, including the the advertising and notification that's required. And then we've, this is a hyperlinked to the articles, we put in a summary of recommendations just since there's so many. And to the person who may just want to know exactly how we acted at lower what action was taken. It's right here up front. I'll just go back to a date of a hearing. I suppose one other thing we could do is. I'm just thinking out loud but put like a hyperlink to that meeting so that people could get more information about what happened at the hearing if they wanted to watch it, even. And then we run through the articles so with the, I'll just roll. And you tell me to stop if you want. Jenny, not to interrupt, but this isn't. Yeah, this isn't the edited. This isn't. This doesn't incorporate Jean and Rachel's comments. It's such a bummer. Where is that. If you want me to. Yeah, why don't you share it then. I went right out of the folder. Yeah, it's in the town meeting folder. Okay. I have a lot of folders. There's a lot of file management. I'm sorry that I'm. wasn't clear when we were communicating earlier. But everything has been incorporated so if you did make an edit already. We probably received it and made it so. Yeah, so just some minor things here. Okay. Let's just catch up catch us up to where we were. Was article 35 missing from the table of contents. Nope. Right here. Oh, yeah. That's a heading issue that can be fixed. I don't think I've shared live on a ARB meeting. So please let me know if it needs to be zoomed in or zoomed out. It's good. Okay. So we have a couple of things here. Couple items on this one. Some edits in the discussion for article 30. Again, just clarifying. Yes. Again, just some minor items. Minor items here too. Again, minor items. That was the suite of basically administrative corrections. And then a couple of edits related to the marijuana article. So on the industrial uses, there is some minor wordsmithing and. Grammarful type of stuff. Gene did ask for. Some commentary about the pro forma analysis that RKG completed. So this summarizes it and then leads into the discussion about the benefits of including residential in the industrial district, mixed uses. Projects. Thank you for adding that, which I didn't write. So Aaron wrote. Thank you. You're welcome. That. Change addresses my comment. With this article as well. Great. Thank you. Thank you for wrapping it up some minor items here. Can we pause for one second? This one has that as amended. In the vote. And I know, Gene, you had a question about that or a comment. Should we. And there may have been prior ones, but I just, you stopped. I noticed three or four of them like that. I think they probably could be deleted. Because the article is not amended. Yeah. The main motion was changed. Right. Yeah. So. Three or four of them like that. That's easy. And, and Gene, this is the recommendation that you had to change this. It's nice. I think it's helpful in the town meeting members are looking at it. Yup. So I'll just quickly scroll through the, there's like five pages here. Sorry. Okay. Again, just some minor words. I think this came from Jean as well. Yeah, I think, I think 36 is missing from that table of contents as well. It is. Yeah. I think I just need to update the formatting of this heading. And then the table of contents will update. We'll make sure all the final formatting also is, you know, there's some things that are spilling over and probably after this comment. You know, it goes away. All the comments, it'll be aligned better. Absolutely. So, uh, relatively straightforward here. Um, again, just some, I think there was some tense issues in the, this paragraph that were caught. Um, just, uh, both Jean and Rachel actually provided the same edit here. Oh, right. Rachel aligned. Yup. Um, so very minor. Um, this, uh, Jean and Rachel put their touch on this one. Um, just making the discussion more rounded out. And, and referencing back to the master plan. Look good. Um, same here too. Just some, uh, rounding out of the discussion. Again, just some, uh, I also believe this came from Jean. Looks like this is a different font, but that's okay. Uh, nothing here. Um, because this was withdrawn. Uh, some minor edits here relative to ADUs. Um, again, minor edits also relatively straightforward. We just hang on for a second. I had some thoughts on this and I just want to read what's been added. And the font issue is the same in there as it was in a prior edition. Sorry about that. I won't do it while David's reading. So, um, no, go ahead. Um, so I, I think this at least partially addresses what I wanted to add, um, which is to, to make it, make it clear that there was concern about the, um, um, the financial viability of, of the proposal. Um, I didn't know, I was thinking perhaps we wanted to preface this with a statement that, um, that the air be recognizes the need for more affordable housing in Arlington. Um, but for the reason stated below believes that this proposal would not achieve the goal. Uh, or something to that effect. And I, what I actually wrote was, uh, uh, but for the reason stated below believes that this proposal will not achieve that goal and may actually reduce the development of affordable housing in Arlington. And then go through the whole explanation. I do have an introductory sentence. So I, I think, you know, um, feelings were running high on, on this article. Um, and, and I just want to make it very clear where. The board is coming from, um, before diving into the technical details. I agree. Would you repeat your petition? Um, Aaron, do you want a live tape? Okay. Okay. So David, we're ready. Okay. Uh, the ARB. Recognizes. The need for more affordable housing in Arlington. Comma. Um, But for the reason stated below. Believes that this proposal will not achieve that goal. And may actually reduce the development of affordable housing in Arlington. And if anyone wants to further wordsmith it, I, um, Not wedded to the exact language. That's fine. Yeah, I have no. I think that's working well. I think we, is it later in this discussion that we mentioned the housing production plan then. Yes. Yeah. And then I think that's a good bookend. Thank you. If you go back up to that though. It's a worry. I'm just wondering that's the only place where we put the discussion. At that point. What do you mean. Well, look at one of the previous articles, for example. Oh, you mean where the text starts under the heading? Yeah. Like, go up to article 44, for example. Oh, OK, it's fine then. I'm sorry. That's fine. Great. OK. There's nothing here, I believe. Just some words missing at the end. No, I think you captured it very clearly. Great. Some updates here. Nothing too big. This sentence was awkward, so I tried to clean it up a little bit. Excellent. Good cleanup. Great. OK. Shouldn't it be which describes with an S? Probably. Yes. Great. And then Rachel had a, and Jean brought this up, sort of summarizing some of the concerns that the Airbnb had on Monday night. So I watched the tape and summarized it in that first paragraph. I just say where it says maybe needed, it might be better to say this article sees what is needed to meet the stated purposes. I just make it stronger, just the very last line. Oh, thank you. Is rather than maybe. I agree. Thank you for wordsmithing that and adding that section in. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Yeah. OK. I think it's important to include. And then just some minor things in the rest. And that's it. Excellent. Fantastic. Thank you for pulling all of those together. Are there any questions or additional comments on the report? Not for me. All right. Is there a motion to approve the report to be submitted to town meeting as amended in our meeting this evening? Oh, Moe. Second. Take a vote. Ken. Ken, you're on mute. Sorry about that. Yes. Jane. Yes. David. Yes. And I am a yes as well. Great. Thank you. And thank you again to Aaron and Kelly for all their work, especially today, last minute stuff and all of you for providing the edits in advance. So we are going to make all the amendments. We'll accept the changes, clean it up, make sure it's all formatted, capture the vote that just happened on the cover page. And then what we are doing is we're printing them off and providing them in the packet that is actually, there is actually some things get mailed to town meeting members still. So people will receive this directly, which will be, I think important. A lot of people do like to have it physically in their hands, even though, of course, just like the last town meetings, it will be an interactive agenda. And then just lastly, the master plan implementation committee also prepared a report. I'll forward that to you separately just so you have a copy of it, but that also will be uploaded to the town meeting page as well as put into packets. We thought that it was also important to provide, especially to new town meeting members, details about what the Arlington master plan is and the work that we've been doing to accomplish the master plan. Jean. A couple of questions. One is, or suggestions is that we get this to the select board. Yeah, forgot about that one. Sorry. Yeah. So that they know in advance. Yeah. What we're recommending on each thing and if there are any questions, they can talk to you or Adam or the communication lines work with those sorts of things. So to add on to what I said, tomorrow morning I'm also providing the board with a finished the final copy for their meeting on Monday night and we'll be talking with them about the three articles that they were interested in providing their own discussion about for their report to town meeting. They may make a reference to this, which includes the ADU article, energy efficient homes and the industrial uses. And of course it would likely piggyback on things that we've discussed and the information that we'll be sharing with them. And I plan to attend that meeting on Monday night. Great. So for town meeting, is it going to be a Zoom town meeting or are people going to be sitting out in a field somewhere? It's a virtual town meeting. And I mean, people might be sitting in a field but it will be virtual, yes. And should we, can we sort of join the meeting is the ARB, because when we had in-person meetings we were all there, could answer questions, things like that. You could if you do plan to be there. If you could, maybe Rachel and I can talk with you about just preparing because Rachel and I are actually doing the town meeting videos. There's not like a live presentation like there is a normal town meeting. It'll be the same as the special town meeting in the fall. So next week we're recording all the videos and then we would actually be the technical, providing any technical answers for ARB articles and then potentially for petitioner articles. But if you do plan to attend, you're welcome to. I just would need to know if you want to because you'd need a specific kind of login in order to join the meeting. Otherwise anybody can watch town meeting of course because it will be live on ACMI. And then also we are not like it normally or it used to be with zoning articles being first. So it's likely that our articles won't start until maybe the third night of town meeting. I can't quite project right now. Jenny, what's gonna happen with the substitute motions? How does that work? The way that, well, I have not seen anything yet but whenever there is something I will of course let the board know. And depending upon town meeting and their desire to entertain such a special substitute motion, it may open it up. That petitioner will be able to discuss what they had intended to do and the purpose of their article and the body will go from there. In terms of the board's role at that point, all that it really does is perhaps push us to answer some more questions than what was already provided in the great report that we've provided because some people are gonna step in or dip into this process right when they're getting that report but may not have all the nuance of attending the hearings or the various technical memos that were prepared for those hearings. So we might need to bring up some of that more nuanced conversations to town meeting should a substitute motion come forward. And we've experienced that before. So I mean, town meeting did override our recommendation through a substitute motion on one article last time. Yes, that's why I'm sort of mentioning it now to see what happens. And some of these are, that was a relatively innocuous article too. And some of these are much more substantial. And that's the one where the one last year is we got that interesting attorney general's letter. Thank you for sharing. So how does that get distributed? Do we put it up? Do you put it up on the webpage? How do people know about what the AG had to say about that? We did, we put it on the redevelopment boards page. And I think we will try to coordinate with the town clerk who's the one who receives those letters. You figure out a way to distribute it to town meeting members perhaps. It almost felt like a little, I told you so. I thought it was an important caution to think about both in terms of our special permitting as well as amendments to the zoning bylaw and a caution that we have a lot of great ideas and ideals but they may not actually align zoning bylaw or the enforcement of that bylaw. I think that was the primary message but I will note, I think there's some gray areas to that which we don't find ourselves in any gray area right this moment but maybe in the future we might find ourselves walking a line. And I'm glad to answer questions about that memo. I know I sent it just yesterday as part of the, to accompany the report. And that's all, thank you. I just wanted to say thank you for the nice little mention of me in the report. You're welcome. And thank you. When's our last day on the ARB actually, David? Technically the 16th, the week from tomorrow but we don't have any meetings between now and then. So this is it. Well, Dave, best of luck to you. Thank you.  Great. I'll just send us a screenshot. We can use that as our background. Well, you know, I could always just log on to ARB meetings but not actually be sitting here. You can just see the bookshelf. All right. Anything else related to the report or the next steps regarding town meeting? All right, then we'll move on to agenda item number three which is the meeting minutes from March 15th, 2021. Let's see, are there any amendments? I had a few, but I'll start to see. Maybe, Jean, I'll start with you. If you may have caught some of the ones that I did. Yeah, maybe we caught the same ones. We're thinking alike now. Well, it seems like we were last night or this morning when we... I'll start at the very top, the very, very top. The meeting started at 6 p.m., not 7.30 p.m. I looked it up because I was really, when were we starting meetings at 7 p.m.? It was a long meeting, yes. That's all I had. That's like an old header. And I think we probably made the mistake last time. I think one of the meetings minutes we approved last time had the wrong starting time. I think you're right, it's March 1st. These are provided by a transcription service actually. So I'll make that note. Thank you. Yeah, I didn't have anything else on the first page. I had something on the second page now. Is there anything else on the first page from anybody else? I had two. So my question is, where we talk about the votes, there were a couple where Melissa had to abstain. Do you typically show the... It reads as if it's four, pro, one against. Do you typically show the abstaining vote? I typically don't in my minutes. Yeah, it would actually be more like zero, one. Right, yeah. So that's in that paragraph. And it's also again, a little bit further down. Yeah, at the bottom of the page. Great. And then the other in the third paragraph on this first page where we talk, there's, we were talking about the building materials. It's right above there where I said the chair commented on the design state. It says here, she would prefer clapboard. So it's in the third, the third from the bottom right there. I said prefer clapboard or masonry. Perfect. That's all I had on that page. Anything else from anybody else? I have something here. In the paragraph about Nick Stein's comment, I think I'm not quite sure what I said, but what I meant was Mr. Watson replied that the board's concern is not with developer profits, but with the feasibility of investment in building projects. Yeah, I think the rest of that's fine. And if we could go back up to the first paragraph where it says Mr. Benson stated the need, it should say the need to add to the MOU compliance with get rid of four, right? That's all I had on page two. So on this page, we have it, we moved to the, if you can go up actually a little bit, we had that we, we moved to the fourth item on agenda. It says here and opened the meeting to public comment. We rather reopened the public hearing. And then, great. And then I would eliminate absent public comment because there was no public comment to start. So we moved to article 45. And what's missing here is the reference to the proponents presentation, like we mentioned in the other articles that Laura did her presentation and that a discussion by the board followed. There wasn't quite a long discussion by the board. I don't, in the other, in the other meeting minutes sections of the other articles, it doesn't detail what the board's discussion was. I think we can decide whether or not that's what we want to show or not, but at a minimum, we should identify that that occurred. Yes, excellent point. Does anybody want to add to that? I have a vague recollection that there was maybe one article, Rachel, where you took public comment first before we had discussion. Does that ring a bell? I don't believe so. Maybe not. No, I'm pretty sure. I remember that because it was a very long evening that she was the first person on our, this article was the first article on our agenda for the reopened public hearing. And I believe we moved right into it. I don't have anything else on page two. On page three, go back up. Where it has John Sanbo, Sanpo is not the name. It's Sanbon Matsu, S-A-N-B-O-N-M-A-T-S-U. Thank you. S-A, that's it. All right, any other comments on page three? Move to page four. I didn't have any comments on page four. Okay, we'll move to page five. Sorry, I'm just, I just caught something that doesn't seem right. So on page five, the paragraph that starts with Mr. Carson, right? So where it says there, instead of Posse disputing the statement that had been made, I actually disputed it and then Posse confirmed it. And it wasn't Mr. Carson who made that claim, it's Mr. Burruson who made the claim. Yes, I remember who it was who did it. B-R-O-R-S-O-N. So, no one. And then, wait, the chair disputed this? Yes. And then, was there more? Sorry. And then Mr., and I apologize, I don't know how to pronounce Posse's last name, is it? N-Y-N-N. N-Y-N-N, he's the one who confirmed it. Well, he didn't confirm it, what he said was that he doesn't have any commercial interest in it. Right, by confirming, right, he confirmed the dispute. He, he, better to say he has no commercial interest. Okay, thank you. I think it's better to just state the fact. Right. Perfect. Did Mr. Carson appear elsewhere? I think somewhere else, but I can't remember where it was. I think the bottom of page four. I just thought there might also be a Mr. Carson, but you're right, it's personal. Oh, there it is. Yep, person. Okay, anything else on page five? I had something the last line in page five, which is probably, where is it now? Maybe it's on page six now. I don't see it, maybe it's later. What, what is it? I'm sorry, is it in the ADU article? No, I thought it was in the article about the energy efficient foundations. Can we go back now? Yeah, it's right here. Oh, there it is, right there. What does that mean? It still will be 20 tighter than the code. Times, maybe? I don't know, but I didn't know what that meant 20 tighter than the code. There was a reference standard, it might be 20%. Yeah. I think there was a percentage that is in his article that this refers to. Okay. That you're constantly improving. That at least makes it seem better. I had to proceed. Believe me, that's correct. It's 20% greater than what the new code would be. Okay, great. Thanks. Anything else on page five or page six? I had something on the bottom of page seven. There's another Mr. Carson here. Oh, I just saw that too. Is this the bottom of page seven? Yes. So in the second to last sentence, the chair moved to warrant article review. That was relative to the select boards to review the warrant articles that were coming in front of the select board. So I just wanted to make sure it was clear. And then on the following page, there was an answer to Mr. Watson, mis-rate confirmed that the notes were due the coming Wednesday. I think we should just make it clear that it's notes relative to, again, the warrant articles coming in front of the select board. Are there any other revisions? No. All right. Is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes of March 15th, 2021 as amended? Second. We'll take a vote. Kim? Yes. David? Yes. Gene? Yes. And I'm the yes as well. So the meeting minutes from March 15th, 2021 are approved and we'll now move to open forum. Any member of the public wishing to speak, please use the raise hand function. Seeing none, we will close public forum. And that's all we have on our agenda this evening. This is our first non five or six hour meeting we had in a couple of weeks. So congratulations, everyone. And thank you so much, David, for everything. Indeed. Thanks to all of you. I've learned so much over the last four plus years and been great working with all of you, not without its challenges, but I feel like we got a lot done and did some good for the town. So thank you for working with me. And Aaron, best of luck up in Maine. Thank you. Yes, Aaron. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's everyone as well. Wish me luck. It's the big move weekend. So we'll see how this goes. I'll do your last day too, Aaron. Friday. Well, okay. Since we're for us. Yes. And when do you start the new job? On the 20th. So yeah. Yep. Get cars re-registered, find vaccine appointments, hopefully and go from there. You like to say A a lot. Yeah. Mike's been working on his main accent. So it'll be fun regardless. But thank you so much. All right. Do we have a motion to adjourn this evening? So motion. Second. I knew David had to do something. I know I was waiting for David to take his last vote here. I mean, we framed them. David, what you want to. So moved. I'll second it. All right. Ken. Yes. David. Yes. Dean. Yes. And I'm the yes as well. Thank you so much. Thank you everybody. All right. Have a great weekend. Bye bye. Have a nice weekend. See you soon. Bye bye. Bye.


Thank you. So, all growing up, all through school, I hated history. I really did, which is strange because I actually loved school. I was one of those kids, yes, I'm sorry, but I was really focused on the future, always, from a very young age. I had plans, goals, that was where my life was going to exist. I had things that I wanted to accomplish and do, and my teachers were able to help me understand how most of the subjects in school could help me achieve those goals, math, science, language, all this directly helped me affect the future that I wanted. But history, they would always fall back on this saying that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Exactly, I hated that saying. I hated that saying because it was the same one that I heard every year with every new teacher that I talked to, and it didn't get me excited about history at all because I didn't see how that had any bearing on the future, and it focused all on avoiding the bad when I wanted to help create the good, and I think that it ignored this other little bit, that if you do learn from history, you can still repeat it. I think we see that over and over, but my teachers didn't care about any of that. They had to teach me history anyway, so I went through school not liking history, but enjoying the rest of subjects, but as soon as I was out, as I was becoming a young adult, that changed dramatically. I began to develop a love for history because I realized that just because they couldn't explain it to me in a way that I grasped, history really can help you affect the future. It can help you create the future that you want to create. It is a data nerd. It gives me all the data points that I need to make better decisions now to create the future that I want to create. As I'm going to talk about the future of the web and why it's so important to us, I have to start with a little bit of a history lesson. We have to jump back a little bit first. A short little jump to 1991 first. 1991 was a real important year to everyone here, whether you realize it or not, because if you use the internet to make your living or pursue your passions or have your voice be heard, this was when the internet sort of as we know it came to be. Tim Berners-Lee in association with CERN was developing some of the tools that we see as sort of the basis of the internet, the hypertext transfer protocol or HTTP, hypertext markup language or HTML, and the first web browser. All that came out right there in 1991. But that's kind of the top layer of the internet. At the same time, though, the commercial internet exchange was working to take all these individual networks that existed all over the place, mostly at universities and in government facilities, each one having sort of a wealth of information in it, a wealth of data, and they wanted to interconnect all these networks and create the internet, and they succeeded. Right there in 1991, the internet started and it looked something like this. It's not as fancy or as flashy as we expect today, but we can see our roots here. We can kind of see where the internet started. We see the core, the bones of the internet. But really the most important part about this that you have to understand is that at its earliest stages, at its inception, at the birth of the internet, if you will, the internet was extremely open. See, all these networks were not just connected, but the commercial internet exchange pushed really hard for what they called a no settlement policy. They wanted to make sure that these silos of information shared that information all around freely rather than staying silos with some sort of digital gatekeeper. Even all these tools that CERN developed, they were actually open standards that anyone could implement. At the very beginning, the internet was extremely open and focused on sharing information. That was its goal and its purpose. That's where it started. As we look at where it's gone, this will help us have a starting point to be able to track its direction. Before we leave 1991, while it was an important year for all of us that used the internet, it was particularly important for me personally. It really affects my story and why I care so much about some of this. Looking back on my life, 1991 was a year that set the direction for where I would go, for what I would do. It may sound a little crazy considering that I was nine years old and going into fourth grade, but it's true. It's okay that it seems a little nuts, because nine-year-old me didn't really get the importance or what things in my life were important at that time, either. As a matter of fact, if you could travel back in time and ask young Aaron what is so awesome about 1991, I'd completely miss the point and talk to you forever about this, right? Super Nintendo, it was amazing. It was the first one that I had sort of saved up my money and bought my own console. It was this huge jump forward in video gaming and I was addicted to video games back then.  Who recognizes this game? Yeah, there's quite a few of you. That's fantastic. Super Mario World, right? So much better. The graphics were stunning. They were amazing to me. I mean, look at those Super Nintendo graphics. The gameplay was smooth and complex. It was cool. It was so exciting, but it wasn't the Super Nintendo games that set me on the course that I went on, but it was a video game. It was this one. Who recognizes this one? Yeah, like a couple of you. This is Gorillas. Gorillas was distributed in 1991 with MS-DOS 5, so like pre-Windows-ish era, right around the start of Windows. And as you can see, the graphics were terrible, and the gameplay was equally terrible. It was turn-based, and when it was your turn, you would type in a number for an angle and type in another number for a velocity and hit enter, and your gorilla would throw an exploding banana at that angle and velocity, and you would try to hit the other gorilla. It was really bad. But I spent a lot of time playing this game, even though I had the glory that was the Super Nintendo out in my living room. Why would I do that? Well, it was because of this. See, that game wasn't distributed to show what graphics PCs were capable of or even what kind of gameplay they were capable of. It was actually distributed to showcase QBasic, which is Microsoft's integrated development environment for the basic programming language. And so it was distributed open source. It came with the source code. As a matter of fact, it only came as source code. The way you played it is you opened up this development environment, you loaded the source code, and you pressed Shift F5, which is compile and run, and you would play the game. And it was super intriguing that I could scroll down through all this text and see that somehow that turned into the game that I played. And it was this openness. It was my first experience with openness around computers. I was always interested in computers and technology, but suddenly I was interested in what actually made those possible. What was under the hood, so to speak. And of course, that intrigue turned into curiosity. And pretty soon I was making changes and breaking stuff most of the time. But eventually I was able to do all kinds of modifications and changes to this game. And that is where my desire to learn more about the things that power all this technology that I enjoyed. And it's important to understand in this part of the story that nine-year-old me couldn't have made this game. I didn't know this programming language to start with. It wasn't easy to learn a programming language, especially back then. You couldn't just Google and get a tutorial and work your way through it, right? But I was able to take this thing that these extremely smart developers at Microsoft wrote. And then I was able to learn from that and build on top of it. I could kind of pick up where they took off and move forward. And at first it was tiny little changes. And then eventually it was more and more until I did know how to program in the basic programming language. And this concept of learning from what other people have already done and then building on top of it, starting from where they left off, is extremely important throughout all of history. So if you thought that we were only going back to 1991, I'm sorry, because this dates back at least to the early 1100s. Bernard of Chartres, who was a philosopher and teacher, he would tell his students that the reason that they that they were able to accomplish more than the philosophers that came before them wasn't because they were better or smarter or more capable. It was because they were able to learn from those people and pick up where they left off. He said they were able to sit on the shoulders of giants. Lots of you have heard a statement kind of similar to that, right? But you probably have no idea who Bernard of Chartres is because we all learned it as Isaac Newton, right? This scientist who some 500 years later penned in a letter. If I have seen further, it's by standing on the shoulders of giants. I get why teachers teach it with Isaac Newton. We look back and we see him as a bit of a giant, right? He sort of changed the world, trying to imagine what the world would be like now without the things that he gave us. It's tough. He gave us Newtonian mechanics to help us understand how things move. He gave us calculus. Before him, no calculus. After him, we all had calculus in school, right? Whether you liked that subject or not, the fact is almost everything that we consider modern requires calculus. Everything from skyscrapers to jet engines, you have to have calculus to make them and to make them safely. Even though we see that history sort of turned and made a drastic change at this point, Isaac Newton said, it's not that. It's not that I was a giant. It's not that I was the turning point. It's that I was the culmination of all these things that came before me. I was able to sort of compile that altogether and build on top of that and add my little piece. We all recognize his little piece is very important, but the truth is it could never have happened without the people that came before him. To start working our way back up through history to where we're at today, this concept dates all the way back to the very beginning. This ability to take the information that people before you have worked to create and build on top of it, we've gotten iteratively better at that process all through history. Every time it happens, historians can see sort of a jump in productivity, a jump in new things being developed, dating all the way back to when we first got language and then written language and then writing on paper instead of tablets. Then we were able to compile things in whole libraries that you could go to and learn. Then the printing press for being able to distribute all that, and that's around when Isaac Newton came in and had access to all this information, but we've still gotten better. We developed computers which could take those whole libraries and put them on your desk. Who remembers installing an encyclopedia program on your computer? Who did it from disk? Floppy disks and who did it from CD? It still blows my mind. I remember that feeling of looking at the bookcase of encyclopedias at my grandparents' house that had all the yearly updates to it and filled this whole set of shelves and then just installing it on my computer and it sat on my desk and had more up-to-date information than theirs did. It's amazing how easy it was for me to access information at that time, but it's gotten even better since because the internet improved still. Now that information can move around like it was never able to before. The internet is the single most efficient information sharing tool ever. It has ever existed and every time we've gotten better at sharing information as humans, we've made more progress than ever before. We can see that now. Things are progressing extremely fast in technology and in medicine and all these areas because we're able to learn more faster about what other people had already figured out and then just pick up where they left off and continue forward. Imagine what potential this has for the future, like not just my future, but the future of all of humankind. It boggles my mind how much potential the internet has. It's huge, but there are dangers, right? It's this mind bogglingly amazing tool, but there are some things that put it at risk and I think it's important for us to look at those and understand those and understand the importance of protecting this amazing tool. The first one that I really want to focus on is closed systems. I think that these put the internet at risk in a way that almost nothing else does. Close systems, when I'm talking about close systems, I'm talking about any platform that we build on or rely on that is owned and controlled by someone else, some other company. This includes Facebook and Wix and Weebly and Squarespace and Shopify and Twitter and tons of these tools that we see and use constantly. First, let me say they're not necessarily bad, right? Technologically, they're probably quite good. That's why people use them. Even ideologically, they're just tools. They're sort of only as good or bad as the people that run them and use them, right? But I still think that they are a risk to the internet, but I think that it can be very challenging to see this risk until it's already hit us, until we've already gone so far in that we're stuck because we're so tightly involved with the internet. Everyone here interacts with the internet daily, right? Yes? Every single one of you. We're really close to that. It's hard to see it sometimes. So I want to talk about something that seems so far removed from the internet for us to see what can happen and then show the parallels. I want to talk about farming. Yeah. Farming has changed a lot over the last, well, over a long period of time, right? Dating way back, everyone sort of farmed. Everyone grew their own food or every village grew their own food, but we've gotten better at it over time, right? Much, much better at farming and the better we got at it, the fewer and fewer people actually had to farm to still produce enough food for everyone. And as that's happened, farms have gotten better and better tools and better and better systems for growing food. And it's what has allowed them to accomplish all that they've accomplished. Modern-day farms are a marvel. They are amazing. They're huge swaths of land tended by a pretty small number of people using some pretty amazing tools. Tractors aren't like what they were when I was a kid or certainly not what they were when I pictured them as a kid, right? I thought it was just an engine in a chassis for pulling things through the field, which is kind of where they used to be, but not anymore. They're amazing, huge machines that can do all kinds of things that they were never able to do before. Leveling a field. Modern-day tractors use laser leveling to level fields extremely, perfectly level. That makes a huge difference in the amount of food that can be produced because it controls how water flows through that field. Evenly, every plant gets some, extremely effective and you can never do that by hand. But these computerized tractors, they can and it's amazing. But the farmers have realized now, more recently, there's a bit of a problem here because they have purchased these tractors, which are feats of engineering, computerized feats of engineering that can do these things that they were never able to do before, but as much as they've spent a million or two million dollars on these machines, they're not cheap. They own the machine and they've licensed the software that runs it because that's all closed source and owned by, in this case, John Deere. It was okay because the software was good. It was extremely good at what it did, but now they're so bought into that that they've realized that when it comes time to say fix the tractor, they've got some problems. They used to be able to take their tractor into their barn and fix it, which was important because a lot of farming is time sensitive. Things have to be planted and harvest often in very short periods of time, at least to be as efficient as they are nowadays, and it's not that they're not capable of fixing computerized equipment. It's that they aren't allowed because it's not their software and you can't fix a tractor without first plugging in and diagnosing it using the computers, but the plugs are all proprietary to these systems. So they started making their own and plugging into a computer anyway. Like homemade cords by these farmers to hook up to their tractors to find out that everything's encrypted and they can't actually use it. And so now there's this sort of resistance of farmers that have started working together with hackers to break the encryption on these tractors. And then they had to write key generators because if something was broke on the tractor like the GPS dish on the top, if they were to get another GPS dish and replace it, the tractor still wouldn't use it because it has to have the key that matches. So now they have these key generators to generate it so that they can repair their own tractors because the alternative, the thing that the company wants them to do is to load that tractor up and ship it to one of the manufacturer's facilities and have it fixed, which puts them completely at the whim of what that company wants to charge and how long that company is going to take. And farmers were starting to go bankrupt and actually lose their farms because maybe they could afford to get the tractor fixed, but maybe they missed their window for harvest and suddenly their farm isn't making any money. And they did not see this coming. They were too busy being excited about how much better these tools made their lives. They were too busy seeing how much more they could do with these tools, how much faster they could do it, and how exciting and amazing the tools were. They were even worried about losing the competitive advantage. What if another farmer has all these shiny new toys, but you don't? There's no way that you can produce as much as them. You are not going to be able to compete. And so they were excited to run down this path. And yes, we know that John Deere owns all this software, but it's good software. We like it, right? Yeah, we know that Facebook owns that whole playground that we use all the time, but we like it. It helps us keep in touch with people that we wouldn't otherwise be able to keep in touch with. It helps us reach an audience that we wouldn't otherwise be able to reach. What if our competitors use it and we don't? Then what? All the same things that these farmers thought as they were excitedly going down this path. But now they're stuck. And instead of being able, instead of being good for them, they've realized this is a problem. And now there's about eight or 10 states that are currently currently have legislation that these farmers are arguing for called the right to repair. They say if we spent millions of dollars on the machines and we own them, we should be able to fix them, which sounds a little bit logical to me at least. But legally, right now, they can't. These farmers, if they repair their own tractor, they've broken the law, not to mention broken the terms of service and are no longer technically allowed to use the software. And you know how useful these tractors are without it? Not at all. Can't even start the tractor. You can do nothing without the computer. And this worries me because I see this path that we're walking down with the internet. Is the internet a decade from now? Is the internet of 2028 going to be the American farms of 2018? Are we going to get to that point where we've been so excited about the new tools, about the new things, about how cool all of it is that we've missed the risks until it's too late? Right now, you see a lot of people using these closed tools on the internet, but you also start to slowly see a trend towards people and businesses being completely reliant on them. Instead of having a Facebook page, they maybe have a Facebook page instead of having a site, a website. So they don't own anything. They push everybody using Twitter and all these other tools. They push everybody to this one thing that is in someone else's playground. It's something that someone else controls. Or maybe they wanted to build an online store and the easiest and simplest way to do that was with Shopify, but again, that their business is revolving around this thing that they don't own or control. And that worries me that we're walking down this same path and just not seeing it, just like the farmers didn't see it. The importance of this, I feel like we often miss because when you think about the internet, you don't think how important it is that information be shared in order for humankind to continue to make forward progress. When you think about the internet, you probably think about some favorite website or favorite tool or even game. Who knows what? But there's all this shiny, exciting that distracts us from recognizing how important it can be. But the truth is the internet is extremely powerful and useful. And it's not even the future. People say the internet's the future. It's not the internet's right now. We have this tool. We have this extremely powerful information sharing tool. Are we using it to its fullest? I don't know. But we have it. We have no excuse. I mean, we have access to more information than Isaac Newton did by a long. But while the internet's not the future, because it's right now, what it does do is it sets us up for a better future. It has the potential to positively impact the future. But only if we can keep it open, only if we can keep this information being able to be shared around. And as the control of the tractor companies grew, at first, it wasn't a big deal at all. So they controlled the software. It wasn't a big deal. There were alternatives. You could always fall back on your old tractors or whatever. But eventually, eventually, they had gone far enough in that these tractor companies had enough control that they could essentially put them in a stranglehold and demand whatever they wanted from them. And we're not there yet with the internet, thankfully. But I don't want to see us ever get there. So what are a few things that we can do to make sure that it stays this useful tool that it is? I want to make sure that I leave us with a few things that we can do. First, use open platforms, open alternatives. As long as there are always alternatives to these closed platforms that exist on the web, as long as there are open alternatives like WordPress, which is a fantastic open alternative to a lot of closed options, as long as there are these things that people can move to, then the closed platforms don't pose the same risk. Because they don't have the stranglehold. They don't have enough control to force the internet into what they see it as, into what they want. Additionally, we can spread the word. I'm an information addict, admittedly. I love information. But I don't love it just for the sake of information. I love it because I think that it's one of the keys to progress. And no one is going to care that much about keeping these closed platforms in check or keeping the internet open if they don't understand the importance of it. And I think that a lot of us here probably understand the importance of it, but are we helping everyone else understand the importance of it? Are we helping them see through the shiny, fun entertainment part of the internet and see just how useful and powerful it is and how important it is to keep it safe? And lastly, the thing that is probably easiest for all of us to do and also likely the most effective is to vote with our money. Support the people and platforms and companies that support the open web. And don't help fund the ones that want to control it and limit it and close it for their own profits. I'm Aaron Campbell. I lead the WordPress security team, but I'm absolutely passionate about the open web and its importance. I would love to take some questions and chat with you all about it. Come on, someone's got questions. No? Oh, back here. Perfect. So I read quite a bit, researched quite a bit about this as I was putting together the talk, but I can't recall those numbers. I more recall some of the stories of a couple farmers or a few farmers that have lost their farms because of this, but I don't know what kind of numbers or percentages those are, unfortunately. Which by the way, this link to my slides up here, if you go to that and you go to the slide with the tractor on it, there's a link to an article with all kinds of additional information about that, kind of a good starting point, if anybody's just super curious about that, because I know I was. Yeah. My biggest nightmare around kind of the closed system specifically, I feel like Facebook is right up there, not because of the social network aspect of it, but as businesses begin to rely on it for their livelihood, that worries me. Google is always a scary one. They're not actively doing anything terrible, but so much of how we interface with the internet is through them. It's these companies that have the potential to control information and who can and can't see it, who can and can't find it. That's scary to me. That includes any company that, the big ISPs as well that can control whether traffic even flows from certain sites. The net neutrality is terrifying stuff to talk about from the stage because it's such a divisive topic and there's people that are absolutely passionate about both sides of the argument, but I think the ideal behind it, more than the specific bits of legislation, the idea that traffic needs to be kind of treated equally rather than having any small group of people, whether it's a company or a government or a, you know, some combination thereof, if they have the control over what people can and can't see, that's scary. That's one of the biggest downsides of the way everything's currently set up. Net neutrality, legislating it, wouldn't necessarily be as important if there were a lot of choice and if one ISP wouldn't give you access to something that you wanted to know, you could just move to another one easily, but that's not the case in most places. There are actually, there are a lot of places where you only think you have more than one ISP that you can go through because the truth is, you know, the three or four others that you think you have are just leasing the lines from the one and it really all comes back to one company and that choice is a problem. Right now, even if you have two options, if one behaves badly and you and everyone were to move to the other, that kind of message would get through quickly, but we have to kind of all do that. We all have to be willing to put up with some frustrations and stuff in order to send that message to them and tell them, hey, we want this to stay open and if you look like you're closing it down, then we're not going to pay you anymore. Yeah, I don't know the answer to that.  The vast majority of those lines are AT&T. Yeah, yeah, so the specific question, since at least I'm having a hard time hearing them, so I don't know if everyone else is too, but it's about the state level blocking of governments blocking certain chunks of the internet or certain types of traffic. And I think it's extremely dangerous to do that. Yes, there are things on the internet that I personally don't like. Not even talking about things that are illegal for other reasons, like there are things that are perfectly legal that are on the internet that if I were solely in control of the internet, I'd probably get rid of them. I said that I'm an information addict. I love information, but I love accurate information. It drives me crazy to get all these things that my family shares around no matter how many times you tell them to go to Snopes, right? They're not gonna, but like if I were in control, I would probably weep that stuff from the internet, but at the same time, I don't think that that's actually good. Like any person or group of people that can decide what other people can and can't learn is a risk to our forward progress, right? Because historically, there have been all these times where the commonly accepted belief, the truth of the time, turned out to be wrong. And how do you overcome that if some subset of people, be it a government or a company or whatever, is saying, no, this is definitely true, and so we're not even gonna show anybody this other stuff, right? How do you get over those humps as people if the small group hasn't figured it out? It makes the assumption that they are smarter and more right than like everyone else put together, and so I think that's risky. I think one last question, and then we'll end because I think I'm out of time. In what ways does WordPress promote the open web? That's a fantastic one and probably not the fastest one to answer, but I will try to answer it quickly. WordPress is open source. We all know that. That's important because you don't have the data lock-in that you risk having at these closed platforms, right? Because if the goals and needs of WordPress were to diverge from your own, you would still have the capability to continue to maintain or some small group of people to maintain WordPress or develop it in another direction. But on top of that, the licensing is boring as software licensing can be, helps ensure that that will always and forever be the case. There's no way for it to ever be closed back down. The GPL is extremely boring to read, but it's also extremely useful in that it focuses on giving all the rights to the user, which is fantastic. That's how it should be. To me, those are the biggest ways that WordPress promotes the open web. Thank you all.


I think the best piece of advice for getting started is to be true to yourself, not to try to be a professional reporter with quaffed hair and a mic flag standing in front of a camera. The things that resonate are the things that come from real people. It's as simple as looking around you and finding something interesting that you think someone else might need to know about.


Ladies and gentlemen, I'm doing great! Thanks for asking. When did you start learning English? How many English books have you read so far? Who taught you English when you were at primary school? Do you know how people avoid making mistakes in English? In this lesson, I'm going to teach you how to make questions easily. So stay tuned! I've noticed that a lot of students have problems making questions in English. This lesson, I want to dedicate to making questions and make it as easy as possible for you. So when we ask for when or the object of a sentence, we use this kind of formula. So we have the WH question word, which is when, how, where, what, etc. Then we need the auxiliary. An auxiliary could be do, does, did, be, have, will, can, could, etc. Then the subject, that it could be a pronoun or a noun. Then we have the verb. It could be a present participle or a past participle or the base of the verb. Then we need the object, maybe, sometimes. If we ask for when, we need the object. If we ask for the object, obviously we don't write the object in the question. So the object sometimes and then the time expressions or the time expression if we ask for the object. So the time expression could be yesterday, today, last week, last month, etc. So I'm going to give you an example of this. So when did you start learning English? When did you start learning English? Look at the auxiliary. The auxiliary is the blue color. Did you start? The start is the base of the verb. So it's the verb. Learning. Start learning. English, which is the object. Here we asked for when. So that's why we need the object. Now in this case we are asking for the object. So what is she doing now? In this case we have the verb to be. So is as an auxiliary. She is the object, is a pronoun. Then doing is the verb, the main verb, so is the present participle. And then now, which is the time expression at the end. So what is she doing now? Then we can have a yes or no question. So we don't need the WH question word at the beginning. So what we need is the auxiliary. So the auxiliary in this case is to. Do you is the subject. Do you like eating is the verb. Do you like eating pizza. So eating belongs to like. What do you like eating? Do you like eating pizza? Sorry. So pizza is the object in this case. So this is for or when we ask for the object or when. What happens if we have or if we ask for the subject of the sentence. So the formula changes here. We need who or what at the beginning. Then we need the auxiliary sometimes and I will explain why sometimes. Then we need the verb and in this case we need to conjugate the verb. Then we need the object and then we need the time expression sometimes. So we do not use do does or did in this type of questions when we ask for a subject. Let me explain by giving an example. For example, who taught you English when you were in primary school was the question. Who taught you English in this case we have who is the WH question word. Then we have taught which is the past participle of the verb to teach and is a past simple question.   So as you can see we do not use the auxiliary did in a subject question. Let me give you another example with the auxiliary who is going to cook tomorrow. In this case we ask for the person for the subject but we need the auxiliary to be who is going to cook tomorrow. So for example John or Peter or he is going to cook tomorrow. As you can see we need the auxiliary so in this case we need the auxiliary because it's not do does or did. Now I'm going to give you another example of other types of questions. Now if you want to ask for more information about the object of the statement we use how much and how many. Plus now if you want to review these two you may click here. Now I'm going to tell you more or less what they are used for how much is used for uncountable nouns. What do I mean? I mean singular nouns for example water or flower or anything that you cannot count or coffee. They are just uncountable nouns. Meet how many how many is with countable nouns for example apples oranges anything that is plural that it can become plural. So let me give you an example how much water do you drink a day how much water do you drink a day. Obviously I'm asking for more information about the object so water would be the object here. So how much water do you drink a day I drink three liters of water. So for example with how many how many English books in this in this case we have English books. So is accountable noun how many English books have you read so far. I have read 50 English books so far. One last thing that I want to mention about questions indirect questions these are more formal and thus more polite. So we use could you tell me do you know do you have any idea would it be possible is there any chance. Remember though that this is a question but the next part of the statement is a positive one. Let's look at my examples do you know how people avoid making mistakes in English.  We don't make a question here many many students make a question even here no is incorrect. Let's look at the second example could you tell me when the train arrives. Okay could you tell me is the question and the positive statement when the train arrives. Let's look at a conditional sentence or question would it be possible would it be possible if I called you tomorrow. This is the second conditional in this case is a question would it be possible if I called you tomorrow. So is not a question here is a positive statement the only question is would it be possible. So now let's recap in this lesson we looked at how to make questions in an easy way. There are object, subject and indirect type of questions. Object questions ask for the object of the statement. Subject questions ask for the subject of the statement obviously. And indirect questions are a more polite way to put a question. I've also mentioned how much and how many plus a noun just to ask for more information about the object. I hope you enjoyed the lesson if you have comments requests or if you want to type your own question under this video you may do so. Don't forget to share it and if you haven't subscribed to my channel please do so so that the following week you get another new lesson. Have a great day and I see you next week take care bye bye.