Good evening. The open meeting in the Arlington Finance Committee is being conducted remotely since the system of Governor Baker's order of March 12, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to mitigate the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, we've been advised and directed to suspend public gatherings and as such, the Governor's order of suspends the requirement of the open meeting to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of the public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with the agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet remotely as long as reasonable public access is afforded so the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is recorded by law. This meeting will feature public comment only in writing by email to Tara Bradley at town.arlington.ma.us. This meeting of the Arlington Finance Committee is convened by Zoom app video conference as posted on the town's website. Please note that the meeting is being recorded and some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks 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. All supporting materials that have been provided members of this body are available on town's website unless otherwise noted. The public's encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda unless the chair notes otherwise. Now we'll turn to the first item on the agenda. The chair will introduce each speaker and they will conclude after they conclude their remarks and I'll re-emphasize this. The chair will invite members to provide comments and questions or motions. Please hold until you're recognized you miss call. Please remember to mute the phone or computer when you're not speaking and please remember to speak clearly in a way that helps generate accurate minutes or any response wait until the chair leaves the yields the floor for you and state your name before speaking. If members would should colloquy with other members please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself. Due to the size of my laptop screen I may not be able to see all the members so again I'm asking that Tara Bradley or any of the court bring attention any raised hand I haven't noticed. Finally each vote in the meeting will be conducted by roll call. So now I'll take the attendance and members when I call your name please respond in the affirmative if you are present. Grant Gibbian. Shane Blundell. Here. John Ellis. Here. Taya Healy. Here. Brian Beck. Here. Here. Arif Padaria. Sophie Migliapo. Here. Jonathan Wallach. Here. Shailene Corford. Here. Darrell Harmer. Here. Annie LaCourt. Here. Allen Jones. Here. George Cozer. Here. Bill Keller. Here. Al Tosti. Here. Wanda Nassement. Here. Christine Deschler's not here. Dean Carmen. Here. And David McKenna. Here. Tara Bradley as our executive secretary. Here. Thank you very much. So we will now move to the first I wanted to make some comments before we go to the minutes. So tonight we're going to address several warrant articles. Next Monday night I hope that we can deal with all the warrant articles that require our recommendation and have not required a scheduled hearing. So please review the the integrated Tara has put up on the Finance Committee SharePoint site. So you can issue articles will be will be handled and what the amounts are that looking for. And normally that's going to be last year's this year's amount. We talked about this some weeks ago but I've sent an email to Doug Hyman and Sandy Pooler asking about the whereabouts of a draft warrant for the special town meeting. The main issue is we require special town meeting to transfer the student growth factor of probably over a million dollars that's in the reserve fund which wasn't used in Fiscal 22. This has to be stabilized. I mean that transferred to the Override Stabilization Fund. This has to happen prior to June 30th. So it can't take place during the regular town annual town meeting. It has to be in a special town meeting. There also may be Comp article which David and Sophie brought to my attention and we made that on Monday's agenda as well. So one of these warrant articles I'd like to follow pretty strictly a procedure that I hope will maintain some efficiency. When we have a hearing we'll hear the presentation from the proponents or opponents requested a place on the agenda. Please hold your questions until after the presentations. In other words let's not be interrupting the speakers with questions. Following the presentations by the guest speakers I'll open up the questions or comments from the members who might have to wait until they recognize before speaking. Following questions and comments from the members I will then ask for a motion on the warrant in a second. At that point I'll ask for additional discussion and if there's a different view about what the vote should be on the warrant article this would be the time for members to make a substitute motion or an amendment which will also need to be seconded and if there are motions or amendments I'll allow debate on the substitute motion and amendments until we have exhausted our creative thinking. Following this further discussion we will take a vote to clear the various motions in the warrant article and then take a final vote as the as the motions have determined. Anybody have any questions on that? Okay so now I'd like to turn to the minutes. Proving the minutes Tara could you explain the minutes as amended? Yes so here are the minutes for 3-9 last week. This was when we had Sandy Pooler and Iida Cody come in about the revolving fund for the private way and the Community Preservation Act committee come in. I have not received comments but I did want to bring folks attention to I guess this this language here which is sort of us are for you all approving or I guess endorsing the budget but with the caveat that the numbers would be varying slightly and so that information did come back in from Julie Wayman after the fact and you can kind of see the difference in the budgets here by a couple of thousand dollars down there. Any questions on the minutes from March 9th? I think a motion is in order to approve the minutes. Then moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Okay I'll take a roll call on the minutes of March 9th. Grant Gibbian? Yes. Shane Blundell? Yes. John Ellis? Yes. Kaia Healy? Yes. Brian Beck? Yes. Arif Padaria? Not here. Sophie McLeozzo? Yes. Jonathan Wallach? Jonathan Wallach is here. Jonathan Wallach? Charlie I was absent so I'm abstaining. Abstaining okay thank you. Shailene Crawford? Yes. Darryl Harmer? Yes. Annie McCourt? Yes. Allen Jones? Yes. George Cozer? Yes. Bill Keller? Yes. Altosie? Yes. Juan de Nacimento? Yes. Dean Carmen? Yes. And David McKenna? Yes. Thank you. All the votes were in favor. There's one abstention. Okay our guest? So we have Paul Schlittman here. However we do not yet have Jenny Rape from the planning department and she they're not scheduled to start until 7 50 so it's possible she'll be joining the next 10 minutes or so. Is she speaking on warrant article 20? She is not but we were hoping for her to be here because she anticipates the warrant article affecting the budget of her department. She mentioned that there is not currently personnel capacity who would be able to okay well let's not debate it Tara. Okay. So Paul Schlittman are you here? I am here good evening. Good evening Paul. So please proceed and present your thoughts on warrant article number 20 and let me ask you a question. Do you have it in the form of the vote that you want to see before town meeting? No I don't not at this point. I was looking for some guidance from Slickford which did prove to be the most helpful thing to tell you the truth. May I share my screen? Yes but let me advise you that we may we may listen to you and debate it but I'm not sure if it's not in it. I mean I don't know exactly what you're proposing but if it's not in a form that is approved by the town council for presentation to town meeting we may not vote it okay. I appreciate the finance committee's role in this process. Let me just leave it at that. I think your screen is shareable. Okay let's see and Paul we appreciate your coming tonight. I'm glad to be here it's nice to be with friends though it's we're trying to get it to share I'm not seeing the document I'm looking to share so have you opened it? Yeah I have I'm in I'm getting a bunch of asterisks and nothing else so what I can talk to you. Let me make a suggestion hang on one minute. Tara do you have Paul's presentation? Yes I do. Can you throw it up on the screen and then Paul you can just ask to have the pages changed okay. Yeah that'd be great that'd be great and and maybe Tara could you make it expand? Yeah that's the idea. So here's the gist of what I'm trying to do the vote would be to see if the town will vote to grant enforcement power to a code enforcement officer in the Department of Planning and Community Development for the purpose of enforcing provisions of the town bylaws and zoning bylaws do not pertain to building standards or take any action related there too that's that that's the article so my intent was not to force something into the budget my intent was to amend the bylaws so that if in the wisdom of town meeting and of course the recommendation of the finance committee which would be super helpful a position were to wander into the budget to do this or in the alternative to have the director of planning and community development designate herself or any of her employment or employees as a code enforcement officer for the purposes of enforcing the bylaws if he could scroll to the top of the second page I want to go through some examples of problems we have as you're aware as you sat through town meeting on many occasions we don't have bylaws and zoning bylaws we really have a compendium of municipal suggestions in that we do not enforce these bylaws and I want to point first of all to the one that gets brought up in town meeting on several occasions almost annually that we look at the bylaw of the zoning bylaw pertaining to signs and window signs are restricted to 25 percent of the area in the window where they're displayed now every year town meeting when we've been in person just point across the street look over there look at gentle dental if you scroll down to the gentle dental sign look at gentle dental and they're certainly out of compliance with bylaw why is it as a town that we cannot find a way to look across the street from town hall and see a blatant violation of the sign bylaw which has existed now for more than 10 years and the answer is usually hem ha hem ha oh that's not a priority and at the last town meeting we heard from the director of inspectional services is we really don't do that and so we need some sort of a way to look at the bylaws and zoning bylaws and find some mechanism to enforce these things and I went looking for places that do it well and as it turns out Fort Worth Texas does it well and and they divide the enforcement into two things one is the building structural safety which the building department the building instructor really feels is their priority and that's the stuff they want to do and then there's the signs and quality of life things that do not affect the safety of a building structure but does violate the bylaws and impacts the quality of life in town so my solution to this problem after years and years and years and years and years of standing in town meeting and saying well why aren't we enforcing the bylaws and looking across the street at violations to look for this mechanism is to provide someone in the department of planning and community development which really cares about the zoning bylaws and the quality of life stuff and designate that person with enforcement powers so basically the gist of what I'm saying is we need some provision in the bylaw that will provide enforcement for somebody who's not the building inspector because the building inspector wants nothing to do with this sort of like the reason why we create parking enforcement agents as opposed to police officers because police officers want to fight crime not right parking tickets and that's the thinking behind this and if we can scroll down a little further I'm not picking on gentle dental just because they happen to be convenient and invisible this is a problem that is sprouting throughout town and the town is doing nothing about it this is the liquor store up in Arlington Heights which is clearly covering their windows it's more than 25 as well and my attitude and I think that many of you will agree with me is that we're spending time in town meeting we're debating the finer points of bylaws we're looking to dot eyes cross tease tweak amend and get it just right coming out of town meeting only for these bylaws to be ignored and this is not a good thing if we don't want to enforce the bylaws if it's the will of the legislature not to enforce these bylaws we should get rid of the bylaw and let people do what they want we shouldn't have bylaws we're not willing to enforce and that's what I'm trying to do now if somebody wanted to go in addition to amending the bylaws to provide a provision to allow enforcement an enforcement officer to be hired and it shouldn't be a full-time position it's probably a point two or something very minor I mean that's up to the administration and the finance committee and ultimately the wisdom of town meeting but I want to remove this barrier from enforcement and provide a mechanism in a place in the bylaws that will enable a enable these things to be enforced and that ends my presentation thank you thank you so I'm just gonna give me a second I wanted to so looking at the warrant as I see it written here and I'm just I'm just saying doing this to give some instructions to the committee and and Paul to you so this is there is no appropriation in article 20 okay so um the I think that the position of the finance committee that the position of the finance committee is in um is to um if they if they have no opinion or support you to do nothing okay by the hand if we find out from a department that there's an extra cost associated this the finance committee may decide to oppose it so I just advise you since there's no appropriation money not even a dollar in here this is not too much this is a board of selection article so with that comment um let me turn the meeting if you're finished Paul we'll see if people have any questions or comments okay oh sure yeah so are there any questions yes Alan Jones thank you mr chair um Paul so I don't have to drag myself through the signage bylaws is there a financial penalty for violations of these yes is there a way that we that you think this could possibly be done in a revenue neutral way maybe something like parking meters I would think you know the select board was making an argument that it's difficult to collect fines I wasn't particularly buying that but one would hypothesize that if we've got fines in the bylaw for violations and we're paying somebody to find violations it should be revenue neutral or even maybe revenue positive I mean good I mean I tend to agree with you about the aesthetic problem and and just ignoring the the bylaw but it'd be great if we could do it in a revenue neutral or positive way thank you there any yes shaleen hi thanks mr chair Paul could you clarify whether you are I see that the warrant and I realize this isn't the final wording but as it's in front of us is asking to grant enforcement to a code enforcement officer so could you clarify that there currently is no such thing as a code enforcement officer if that's correct and then you're planning to suggest it in the department of planning and community development would that require a change to I think this is similar to Alan's question I'm just wondering if that would then mean there would need to be money in the budget of that department to even if it was like a 0.2 FTE which still sounds high to me where would that money come from so like is this a new position which department and where would the money come from ultimately I'm saying that if the town and its wisdom wants to create the position they could but right now there's if they were to create the position there's no mechanism for that person to be legally allowed under our bylaws to do the enforcement you can designate current employees you also have the power of enforcement to the point where somebody in planning and community development could in theory just take a couple of photos and send a certified letter to the owner of record which shouldn't be too terribly expensive some might require more thought and I didn't want to get into the minutiae of telling the town how to run its business but I did look at this as a problem to be solved in that the building department have absolutely no interest in enforcing the bylaws the zoning bylaws the quality of life things and how do we get around this how do we get these bylaws enforced I looked for the department where people care about it the most community development and decided to find a way to prevent present a mechanism that if the town meeting and the town administration uh so chose with the blessing of the finance committee uh could either designate people within that department or add a point one point two a fractional position split a position do something that meets their needs uh in order to do the enforcement I can't yeah I can't this is not proposing that how it gets paid for this current warrant article is not proposing the money side of things is that exactly exactly my my goal was to create the structure from which we could drop a position into the budget if we so chose or through any other mechanism to designate somebody within that department is having enforcement authority okay thank you um have you had any discussions with the legal department and you mentioned registered you know certified letters if businesses don't just pay the fine and fix the problem I'm assuming the legal department that's going to add to their workload are they going to be able to take this on I that that discussion I haven't had I had discussion with the legal department in terms of drafting the original article and it conforms to what we're allowed to do under under the rules of town meeting we are allowed to amend the bylaws to create this uh enforcement authority Dean Carmen you're muted because I lowered my hand and started talking that wasn't it's not helpful um so Paul just so I understand what's gonna eventually be your proposed article so you're if I tell me if I have this right you're proposing to give the town the authority there to your you're proposing to grant them enforcement power to create a code enforcement officer mm-hmm but the article actually doesn't require them to have one correct so like they could get the power on october 1 and it'd be like we don't want to fill the position true yeah I mean I don't think town meeting has the power to force this position on to the town maybe we do but I didn't want to go there uh I just wanted to set up the structure for so that it could happen and if we came back to town meeting in 2023 and still found the same signs up on gentle dental we could have a different conversation thank you hey blundell thanks charlie um thanks paul good to see you um I guess just what I understand this is evolving but it says uh any provision that does not pertain to building standards do you have any aside from like the sign bylaws do you have any sense of like other bylaws that you envision and I guess like I think people have a comment but like you know like if you've been through a pandemic right like where you know these are local businesses um you know I think it's good to have standards and guidelines but also like is there a way to like work with the businesses too to like you know we have a sort of a main street in downtown we want like a commercial sector we want people walking around like I guess well how much power do you envision what sort of other sort of codes or enforcement should we be doing and is there a way to like maybe get some buy-in from like our local businesses who might be subject you know might be getting fines from a such code enforcement officer uh code compliance tends to be on a lot of things it could include in the picture was in the presentation failure removes snow from the sidewalk it can be people parking commercial vehicles in the in their front yards those kinds of things that we have put into the zoning bylaw and the bylaw as quality of life things that don't involve structural safety in other words the building code and the bylaws are full of these things now for the most part they aren't big issues but the the thing is is if we're willing it is a foreign principal and as a school administrator I look at this it's chaos and it breeds total disrespect for the bylaws when we pass things and somehow in the process between the legislature and reality somebody is making a decision now we're not going to enforce this it's giving town employees a veto power that they shouldn't have thank you thank you Charlie Paul very good job on the thoughtful approach to the to address the situation um do you this is sort of a you know an opinion question but do you think that the gentle dental is aware that they're not in compliance well I haven't gone and knocked on their door and told them that but certainly it is popped up in the local news it's been in the advocate it's been in your Arlington so if they google themselves they they've probably have seen mention of this in the past now whether somebody from the town has gone by and said hey you know guys you got a sign problem I don't know okay thank you thank you um grand are there any other questions any so Paul what makes you assume that the building inspector it doesn't want to enforce these codes and that it's not a a personnel issue there uh what he said in town meeting last year can you can you remind me of exactly what he said and why you interpreted it it's him saying he doesn't care uh he basically said now we we don't I asked and he uh and he went through this whole thing of priorities and buildings and such even in the context of budgets where the inspirational services have had cuts and we've asked do you have the staffing required to do the job the answer back is yes even though they've lost the point two or point three here and there and then somebody else came in in a follow-up and said well do you do this he said no we don't we're not going to basically that was the response we're gonna we're gonna focus on on structural okay and and that was our previous building inspector correct that was the director of inspirational services last year correct right and we have a new director of inspirational services so let me just ask you a quick follow on question so it is frequently the case that in town meeting you've got these kinds of bylaws not necessarily the signed bylaws because I think they've been here for a long time but other bylaws that you have mentioned you've got these bylaws we put them in the code we ask at the time the department had to are there what they will do about them and they all say pretty much the same thing we will respond when we get complaints that's all we have the capacity to do so i'm i'm skeptical and you know it's probably not our article because there's no appropriation but i'm skeptical that this will work unless you have a code enforcement officer who's not just a point two but someone who's trolling the town every day all day looking for violations because they are not going to otherwise receive those violations except via complaint and presumably now if somebody complains somebody is required to follow up that complaint like do we have any data to back up the idea that complaints are not being handled i know that people have complained about the liquor store i know that there have been complaints on general dental i know there have been complaints about other bylaws that have just not been addressed thank you paul let's not forget one other thing we're only five square miles paul paul okay yeah we know how big we are thank you yeah uh annie did you have any other questions six take your hand down please thank you uh david wakenna uh thank you chile i just want to remind everybody one of the problems with these bylaws uh when they come up at town meeting they have voted uh favorable action that they're not a lot of them are not thought out completely it's uh it's a direct reaction to the somebody that has a concern i'll give you an example we have a town bylaw that prohibits bud bud bud zappas all the things that killed misheaters in the backyard we have a bylaw that was put into effect and the enforcement of that bylaw was given to the building inspector the only problem is the bylaw is only in effect at night and building inspectors do not work at night so that went on by the boards i can name bylaw after bylaw that has well intended but it becomes the same thing that some of them are unenforceable we all talk about the snow removal if you read the snow removal bylaw and what what it prohibits and and all the actions you have to locate the owner of the property not somebody that occupies the property but they own with the property and then there's a there's uh exceptions to the rule if they're elderly senior citizens now the police have the enforcement of that so there's different problems supposedly jurisdiction or enforcement if you will for certain bylaws um from the get-go i would advise town meeting members from the future when a bylaw such as this bylaw we're discussing tonight comes up that it's fully thought out on really who's going to have the enforcement right from the get-go now we have a bylaw as paul mentions that's really unenforceable until we designate someone somewhere to be responsible um but in these bylaws you have to be careful because there's all kinds of restrictions and and considerations for for different meanings and and the question becomes what about somebody that that's a violation of this i i think david i'm sorry i just want to finish my point child okay what if somebody some that wants to have this bylaw doesn't want to pay it then it goes back to sophie's concern about the legal department and all what happens after that so again my point is we have to think about these bylaws before we vote them and put them into some type of action thank you thank you david uh any any further questions on this uh presentation so um i note that it it specifically um refers to the enforcement officer being in the department of planning and community development and i think the director of the department of planning and community development are meeting and i think i think it would be appropriate to ask her if she would speak as to what she thinks this means in terms of financial impact to her department jenny rate are you there i am here thank you charlie i'm jenny rate i'm the director of planning and community development good evening i have not spoken with mr mr schlickman about this article so i'm learning about learning a little bit more about it tonight as well um but we do not have the position of a code enforcement officer in the department right now so this would in essence be a bit of an unfunded maybe not a requirement or mandate but it would certainly not be something that our current staff have the capacity to do nor do we currently do at all um so it would come with eventually you know potentially creating a new position which is what it says right here on the screen in the department which would mean a new job description a new process for hiring somebody to actually perform the work as outlined the goals of the position i think are laudable um but the exact description of what they're actually enforcing is a little bit unclear to me it's also unclear to me how this person intersects with other enforcement officers in town which are outlined in the town bylaws as well as that of the director of inspectional services since there are multiple bylaws that are enforced by different departments fire department the police department the health and human services department as well as inspectional services and the department of public works even so it would require a new position to be added my current budget could not accommodate this particular position or any portion of it at this moment in time thank you thank thank you jenny any further questions for mr schlickman or for this rate so as i said earlier i think thank you for all for your presentation and jenny i thank you for your comments as i said earlier there's no propagation in this article so we don't have a a dog in that hunt so to speak we have only i think one two options here one is to take a vote to do nothing about this article just let it let it and whatever happens the town meeting happens or the other is to vote that we recommend against it because we think it has a financial impact on the budget so um and i'm open to any comments on those alternative positions uh dean karman so i would like to make a motion and then i would like to explain why i'm making it please go ahead okay so i moved that we um thank mr schlickman and ms rate for the time that they spent with us tonight and their contributions to our meeting and then we um moved to do nothing with it and let the slack board deal with it at the time of the meeting is there a second there's there's there a second second did by johnson oh okay good johnson did you want to comment or you just wanted a second emotion i just lowered my hand because uh dean dean's taken care of me i think you know pristine usually beats me so tonight was my mom let's stay under control here any further questions or uh comments or discussion on um on this article i don't see any okay so uh i'm going for a vote it's moved and seconded moved by uh dean karman uh article 20 um i'm just going to call it no action okay uh grant give me yes mr chairman yes sir so it's not no action no no no no action by the finance committee thank you appreciate you i just wanted to um put it in a formal term do nothing sound irresponsible you know about no position no no position okay thank you uh no position i better uh okay that changes everything i vote yes yes shane i just i i just have a point no ryan we've we've moved on we're taking no but i just want to understand what no position meant that's all that is that is it's not a finance committee article okay that's all i want to know yeah um john ellis yes for the motion thank you makaya haley yes brian beck yes uh rief's not here sophie yes jonathan yes yes jaylene yes daryl yeah uh handi the court yes alan jones does george closer yes bill keller yes al-tasi yes yes one did nascimento yes yin karmann yes given me kena yes thank you so the vote is unanimous that this is um not a finance committee article and will take no position on it so um paul thank you very much for coming tonight and i think i think you heard a lot of generally supportive generally supportive uh comments about your concerns but i think uh people are also nervous about the structure of the article and what it would have become and the fact that it financially have a financial cost to the town uh thank you i you know when i wrote this i didn't anticipate it having a finance committee vote for the structure and i'm very grateful for the chance to just sort of explain it to you and appreciative of your thoughts well we appreciate you thank you the next um warrant article is warrant article 60 blue bikes um director rate i hope she's still here there she is i'm still here thank you um jenny ray director of planning and community development i'm also joined by my colleague daniel amstutz who is the senior transportation planner dan hello hi thank you um all right good evening again everybody so this is a an appropriation request we actually had initially i had initially proposed this as a capital planning request but it was unfortunately the capital planning committee decided that operations and maintenance were not squarely under capital planning so it indeed became an appropriation request separate warrant article which is what you see before you now and i'll give you a little bit of history we've been a part of the blue bikes regional bike share program for uh we're in the middle of it we're in a two-year contract right now that began in 2020 we have six what are called docking stations they're basically a a place where all the bikes are parked and there are six stations with 38 bikes total in the last year there were 10 000 rides just to give you a sense of you of riderships and users um our linkedin is actually one of five additional municipalities that are added on to what was sort of the original four core communities that operated the bike share system which used to be called hubway it's gone through some iterations so as i said we joined to a couple of years ago we're still in the midst of that contract we're hoping to re-up that contract for another two years but the $100 000 in special appropriation request is for that next two years worth of operations and maintenance which is not currently covered by any grant funding or prior capital planning funding that is currently in the system or will be part of the future capital planning so there's also still a request in capital planning just for blue bike stations not operations and maintenance there's bikes and operations and maintenance sorry my hands are telling you a story but i hope that it's clear it's important to fund the operations and maintenance because we anticipate that we will sign on to that two-year contract with blue bikes the operator is Lyft as in the car you know ride share program Lyft they do business as motivate so our contract technically is with motivate currently we anticipate that we will sign on to that in august and this funding would actually allow us to fulfill our obligations for that next contract so the funding also would allow us to make a modest expansion to the blue bike system in Arlington which would include places in Arlington Heights which we heard quite a deal about needing to expand the program offer more bikes and particularly provided in locations where we're not currently serving the community so Arlington Heights and be able to leverage federal funding from the community connections program that we have already received in the past so we would not be able to expand the system however without ensuring that future operations and maintenance costs are covered which again they are not right now the funding that we're asking for allows us to fulfill goals that are also part of our connect Darlington long range transportation plan as well as the master plan and we're hoping that we would be able to stretch this funding as far as possible to eliminate costs like what we call winter storage it's basically moving the docks off of the street so that the Department of Public Works can you know do their plowing operations on street so hopefully eliminating that and any other unnecessary station relocations by finding locations for the docks that are off street and we would not expect to come back for additional funding requests for at least another two years and hopefully by that time we will also be able to explore some sponsorships and other sort of more creative funding opportunities so that we wouldn't have to come back at all but in the meantime the request is $400,000 in order to cover the operations and maintenance so I would be glad as well as Dan Amstutz would be glad to answer your questions about this request and I appreciate the time very much thank you thank you Jenny you're welcome Bill Keller you have your hand up you're muted take two thank you Jennifer it's a very nice presentation and I recall a lot of these points that were made back in 2020 I guess one question I would have is just even though there may not be a direct offset per se how much revenue was raised for the 10,000 rides you mentioned I'm going to see if Dan can jump in with them so Dan actually sits on this committee of other municipalities with the original municipalities attends their regular meetings and he is essentially our point person for the contract that Arlington has with Lyft our motivate rather so Dan do you want to take a stab at that I can I can take a stab essentially the current contract that we have with Lyft is that Lyft is receiving all of that revenue that is actually coming from those people buying the day passes or the annual passes or so on for the station but sort of in return we have not had to pay any operations and maintenance fees for this two-year period and they were the part of that contract was to see if we were able to get to a certain point with the number of trips over these two years to see if they could sort of break even in a way and we're almost there but it's it's unlikely that we'll be able to get there so the rest so the revenue is really being plowed back into the system and being you know used to cost offset the costs of operating operating and maintaining the system along with sponsorships that they get from the Blue Bikes uh or sorry for not from Blue Bikes but from Blue Cross Blue Shield which is the title sponsorship of the program thank you great give you yes thank you thank you mr chairman um you had mentioned um exploring in the future exploring any uh sponsorships um um are you currently exploring any sponsorships and then when i mean sponsorships i think this is more kind of related maybe to what bill was saying is that uh money that comes into the town directly yeah i'm gonna start that off and then i'll hand it over to dan to finish up um as we have been more recently exploring the idea of sponsorships we have not needed to but now looking into the future we are going to be looking at that we haven't needed to because we had a grant covering the cost of the of the contract and then we also had the capital planning money we haven't needed to explore other funding resources the other funding resources that we typically go to would be through the state as mentioned through that community connections grant but it won't cover these operations and maintenance costs the other thing is the additional municipalities never had a requirement to raise funds through sponsorships and sponsorships by the way is like a business sponsoring a docking station just to give you a like some perspective of what we're talking about so it could mean you know for potentially advertising or other offsetting other costs like operations and maintenance we currently haven't had that structure but we are exploring it and dan has looked into sort of the framework for what might be required for that and we do have a sense of the kinds of businesses that we would potentially go to to ask for you know that type of sponsorship dan could you just very briefly talk about what that sponsorship model entails please sure and there've been um i think jenny mentioned there's a few other municipalities specifically newton chelsea revere and watertown that we've been working with very closely because we all entered the system at the same time about 2020 after the other major municipalities but there's ways that businesses can sponsor a station either the operations of that station or the purchase of a new station which they've done in like boston and cambridge and summerville as it's sort of a popular way to get into the system have something like at your development and also to offset some of their like transportation demand management so the other thing i'll just briefly mention about sponsorships is that the blue cross blue shield was able to extend some sponsorship money to our communities to help cover some of these costs but it's not going to be enough and it's kind of split between six different communities that have entered the system again after the sort of core four boston cambridge summerville and brookline have been in uh in the system thank you daniel uh grand is your hand down or up it's still up actually it sort of leads to another question but i'd wanted to wait for you to ask thank you um so if we his arlington received any money from blue cross blue shield no we haven't received money directly from any title sponsor that only goes to those four original municipalities um and it's you know it's not currently part of our our current two-year contract as dan noted some of it spreads out from that title sponsor but not we would need to find other types of sponsorships if we if we chose to in the future okay one one final question um um is there any general or large-scale plan business plan back of the envelope plan high level projection about the sponsorships and that they could cover let's say 100 000 or whatever the gap is from the grants um and to make up for that we're not getting any blue cross blue shield sponsorship money that other communities there any high level plan or i mean i understand you're discussing ideas and stuff and i think that's great but i'm wondering if there's anything in place now that you're working toward any strategy or high level goals or something you you plan that you're looking at i think high level yes we have certainly explored some options it would not offset all of that one you know what's included in this appropriations request because some of that appropriations request we can knock down by changing our winter operations and changing the location of the docking stations which we hope we can do anyway but like regardless um the other part is related to increasing ridership and if we can meet some of those ridership goals again we may not need a full sponsorship or offset from a sponsorship so i think just yes theoretically at a high level your your way of putting it um at a high level yes we have talked about it so i'm sorry then one more question so um it sounded like there was if you it sounded to me like if you increased ridership we get more money but i don't understand where we get more money from if we're not getting any now is that going to be negotiated in the future dan will you clarify that though uh what you were talking about before about the increase in ridership uh sure and how it's tied to money our money our linkedin money our linkedin well yeah it's not under the current contract necessarily but yeah sure so well i guess to clarify there's a provision under the current contract that if we meet a certain number of rides that we can continue the existing contract as is to essentially not have to pay for operations and maintenance but it is very unlikely that we will actually reach that number and none of the other communities that have been added on including newton and watertown revere and chelsea have been able to reach that number um so this is where we've we've come into um we we were unsure um and we tried to push against having this in the contract but um it was something that was that was put in by lift the operator we have negotiated with them you know additionally over the last several months to try to get some sort of tiering of of uh if we get enough rides that maybe the cost goes down um or that it's sort of tiered based on how many rides we have right now so it's not it's tied to money in the sense of um reducing the costs that we would have to pay and we have come to an agreement that's um if they basically there there is a tiering structure where if we reach a certain number of rides that we can get the monthly cost for that specific month lowered by a certain amount um it's not a whole lot but it it can make a difference um but because of the sort of undulations of the ridership over the period of you know over the year we probably only meet that you know get a discount on that three or four months out of the year all right well your questions but thank you very much uh and answering that it's a interesting negotiate must be tricky negotiating with and trying to get them in maybe in the future you know they might they're understanding that if they didn't have our links in the contract they would be out 10,000 or 100,000 or whatever let's let's just keep it to questions very good thank you though thank you uh any of the court you're mute yes no i'm coming i have two quick questions one is do we have any uh realistic ability to tie those 10,000 rides to an environmental impact number of cars car trips not taken number of cars not registered in town or anything along those lines it's okay to say no i'm not sure i could immediately answer that but i think that it's something that we can explore how what that environmental impact has been uh the information that we received from Lyft is somewhat limited but Dan's got his hand raised so i'll let him see what he has to say about this more broadly sure so um the funding that's um so the funding that we have the grants from the community connections which is a regional transportation grant that um we have we we actually have received that already use it to expand the system we're just sort of trying to figure out how many stations we can actually expand by that money is from a program called the congestion mitigation and air quality program uh it's a federal transportation program to you know try to reduce congestion and increase and improve air quality and as part of that application i think you have to be able to show a um a carbon uh a benefit or like an air quality benefit and so there was a calculation i believe that was done for that application that i could probably dig up to get so it's more of an estimation based on like okay you you're adding somebody's station you're adding somebody rides uh and it's also it was done in conjunction with um revere no not revere i'm sorry chelsea okay dan let's keep it just to answer in the question any yes no i just have um uh one additional comment which is that i want to be sure that i understand how the money works so the contractor has a certain number of rides in it because people are paying for a ride and lift needs to make a certain amount of money in order to cover their costs correct and so the reason that we owe money as part of this contract is that if we don't get up over those rides you're not breaking even or making enough of a profit that they don't need that contribution is that a correct description of how the contract financing works and can you describe that that i believe yes broadly yes but there's some you know components to this that if we shared the entire budget we could give you a little more of the sort of nuance the details so maybe what you want to do jenny rather than um you know take a lot of time right now is forward that to us with maybe an explanation we can do that yeah uh but i think i understand the funding model and i think i understand why volume is what is the issue um but so thank you thank you any al toasty yeah um i guess i'm having a basic problem with why we're doing this um lift is a profit making entity um now when we this came before us two years ago um we've we appropriated i think twenty thousand dollars because it was a state grant and i think this was sold to us as uh steed money to get this whole program going we're tied in with all the other communities uh and now all of a sudden we hit we're requested for a hundred thousand dollars and i'm just not sure this is the town of arlington's responsibility if left can't make money as a private entity doing this why are we subsidizing a hundred thousand dollars of our own money all that that we need in other places for this thank you al um ryan beck um al may just have stolen some of my thunder i was just having a basic plumbing question where's the hundred thousand dollars going is it for the purchase of of bicycles of docking stations of maintenance is it going as payments to lift or what where's the actual hundred thousand dollars going what's what what what have you budgeted and can you walk through the three components of what uh creates the one hundred thousand dollar request please sure so um it has to do primarily with operations and maintenance of the system which is a public system and it comes down to uh rebalancing the bikes maintaining the bikes maintaining the stations there's also a cost to store the bicycles and stations for the winter as jenny mentioned earlier they get taken up in the winter the ones that are on street and they put in a warehouse and they redeploy them in the spring um and then there are also other costs related to relocating these stations if we need to if there's in the wrong place or there's another issue that we need to relocate it so there are staff that they have to do all of that our town staff does that and so those are some of the things that we pay for it doesn't uh this isn't for stations or this isn't for purchasing new stations thank you dan uh john ellison uh thanks um if we got more stations would the appropriation still be a hundred thousand dollars the appropriation would still be one hundred thousand dollars yeah our intention is to be able to stretch it over the two years of the contract and if we can get additional funds through a grant we could potentially add another station but there's a lot of variables to potentially doing that we also want to add a station in arlington heights as part of this proposal so what one more station and there are how many did you say that now six eight six right now six okay 38 bikes and what what do you think is the potential if it's 10 000 rides now what's the potential for just i mean based on i don't know other communities how many rides could we get get to with one other station or with one other station or with you know just people changing their habits or you know better weather i don't i don't know you know do we think it's going to be consistently 10 000 or we think over time it's going to be more i my personal feeling is that it's going to be more i mean we were measuring a lot of this is measured during the pandemic which i think is different than looking forward and potentially also looking forward in terms of improvements to arlington's bicycle like biking infrastructure to which would accommodate potentially more people wanting to ride a bike so i i can see that ridership number increasing and that would of course that is our goal has been our goal pretty consistently but per docking station i'm not sure i have an exact number dan do you have a sense of what would be a projected amount of ridership growth with adding one more station to the system so the ones so the stations that are next to the bike way are doing the best last year the one at the railroad lot and linwood street got over 2 000 rides for the for the year and the one at magnolia i think also did very well but also along the bike way so those ones are frankly doing the best for the next station we do have an idea for a place that would be on the bike way and also on mass app which we you know that would definitely help people get to businesses and important destinations and so on so um so potentially 2000 but we have already seen um we have three stations that are all that are off street that are active this winter and they have basically doubled the amount of rides that this year then compared to what we had last year so getting the stations off street and working all year round is really key to that okay so then it's if my math is right in word about 10 000 now and maybe it improves a little bit we get one more station then maybe we get be at say 12 500 rides just to make the math easy over two years so it's 25 000 rides over two years for a hundred thousand dollars so basically our elington is subsidizing four dollars per bike ride is that a fair way to look at this one way to look at it yes based on that based on that calculation if those are the you know the you know ridership okay all right i guess then the only other question is is there any other method in public policy to get people to ride bikes for four dollars a ride or 350 a ride or a dollar ride those are the things that we've been looking at and also dan as a member of that committee i mentioned i mean this is a discussion point for other municipalities as well to try to encourage you know and increase ridership some of it is being done by blue bikes on their own through their marketing and advertising reduced cost of you know for people who make lower incomes you know trying to really promote the option working on it towards as part of transportation demand management goals which we do as part of some of our special permits that we grant through the redevelopment board and there's been a variety of ways to promote it but i think that even more will need to be done to really hit bigger ridership goals in the coming years thank you jen so john i'd like to i'm going to ask a question that's a sort of a corollary to yours um but jenny mentioned that um you know there was a difference between the two years because of the pandemic but in the past we had the green bikes how many rides did we get with the green bikes the line line bikes yeah line bikes yeah yeah that's a good question i you know i'd have to go back and dig into our line bike data which was a little is was reported differently to us compared with blue bikes to see what the how the the two stack up that was a completely different system as you might recall where there was a there was actually like a geofence and limitation and how you could ride it you didn't have a dock it was a dockless system um but well i wanted to know is how many rides did we have how many rides total um i'm sorry Charlie i don't know but i can find out unless dan do you know offhand um i can only think of right now of fall of 2018 where there's something like 3000 rides in maybe august and 4000 in september and another three or so in october but the difference was also that there was many many more bikes that were on the ground for that that program like 100 or 150 i would say that i i like the line bike financial arrangement better um but we were in reality spending the money of a large hedge fund called soft bank which was the funder of line bike and they were losing money to gain market share and and i think those halcyon days are over so thanks for taking my questions thank you john sophie excuse me thank you and so just to understand i appreciated al's comment regarding subsidizing private company so and in the follow-up by dan so is the distinction really that what we're providing is public transportation it's sort of like the mbta or whatever we're sort of funding public transportation is that the position that's the position we see this as a public good happens to be provided by a private company hey lean thank you um as a flu likes user i believe it is a public good but um that's not my question i had a quick if you could quickly address um in the warrant article it says to to also fund a pilot program for uh income eligible users i don't need a specific dollar amount but like is that a tiny portion of the hundred thousand is that a is that a third of it and just briefly comment on what that means could you break down that piece of the funding request and please in brief uh so there is an income eligible program that is run by the blue lake system and um we need to one of the things we we should do and we need to do is actually create a uh location where people can go to sign up for the income eligible system um it may not necessarily mean we need to pay for that i think you can get a very very low cost say annual membership through that income eligible program but we need to have kind of a place within town where people can go so that's i think that would be the main thing is is determining that and um make sure that that works right thank you any other questions um from the members on this article wanda hi so i'm new to this so i'm having a hard time understanding a little bit about the process i guess the warrant is asking for money and the fincom committee is voting whether or not to allow the funding of the of this request the way this works is the the town meeting will vote or not vote in favor of this article the finance committee will make a recommendation on the article that it the money should be spent or not we and then the the article isn't whether or not to have the blue likes but whether or not well i'm that's a question you might ask jenny uh or dan but the you know if this article should fail do we have the blue likes or not is that a question you want to ask yeah i think so and i and i guess i wanted to to push about the that this is for commuters because i find it i don't know hard to i i see this as more of a tourist type activity and recreation activity and not necessarily even for low-income commuters i think it's kind of expensive for the average person to rent these bikes but i just i just wonder how that if that's the purpose is to ease our transportation system or is it to what is so i guess try to try to parse those into a couple of questions that um they can wonder i suppose it's it's that is this is are we funding a tourist industry or how is it or how is it specifically good for arlington to have this and pay for this as like other people said whether to have this company pay for it themselves or okay um so i i think that this this fulfills a number of the town's goals including our master plan or connect arlington long-range transportation plan which is about sustainable mobility so providing transportation alternatives it also fulfills our net zero action plan goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so in terms of how it advances things in arlington that's just one part of our planning it also helps our business districts by providing alternative ways for people to get there but the typical user is not just somebody who's engaged in the tourism economy or anything to that effect because in fact the the communities to the west of us don't actually participate in the in the program which is where the you know if you were talking about tourism you'd probably go to the west this is about commuting it's also about convenience it's also about reducing the types of trips that people take in a car to get around the community to do regular activities so it actually serves multiple purposes and i think that's probably not even all of them um and a number of community goals i know you had other questions baked in there but i hope that answered a couple yeah i think so i guess it's the connect arlington do these bikes connect people to l life for example they do yes yeah they connect to the regional transportation network including rail and other you know forms of transportation as well in somerville light rail like the green line so there are other ways that you can use the blue bike system beyond just arlington you can connect to cambridge somerville and beyond boston of course as well as as dan noted uh you know the other the other additional municipalities newton etc they don't have to return the bike to where you picked it up no you don't it just has to go back to a docking station otherwise you get a penalty okay thank you thank you grant give you a second time yes thank you but so what would happen if uh you didn't get the money on this warrant article well i think it would be very challenging to participate in the next two-year contract with blue bikes without some way of paying for operations and maintenance so we would if we cannot if we do not receive this funding i think we will have to significantly potentially cut back on the number of docking stations we have been exploring a number of different scenarios but in all likelihood the most sort of um conservative situation would be less docking stations which would mean less bikes overall in order to be able to continue participating with the amount of money that we currently have and any grant funding that would cover it but i think that that would be it thank you jenny you're welcome in time oh yep i didn't hear you too my name thanks try just two quick things one is that um to want to help wander out maybe um some businesses subsidize blue bike memberships for their employees so uh one of the companies i used to work for made blue bikes very available affordable and i was able to utilize them but we did not have blue bikes in arlington at that time so the second point i wanted to make is that um i do believe having blue bikes throughout the community make cuts down on the use of cars cuts down on maybe cuts down on the use of the amitya it just gives riders another option for how to get around and um that it's not as expensive as you might think given if people have some other discount programs available to them that's all thank you shaleen one does your hand down or up shane blundell i think this is also the second time oh no first but thank you first okay can you can so i know i remember from two years ago we voted for a sort of a small contribution can i don't know if this is maybe for for the planning folks or for others on the committee but can somebody just remind me what we like we approved 20 000 and what was that for and how was how do we contrast that to what we have before us tonight i can explain charlie yes go ahead thank you um so that it was two hundred dollars two two two hundred dollars wow that would be amazing two hundred two and two hundred thousand dollars um to be part of the two-year contract that we are currently in which expires at the in august i believe um and as part of that lift actually knocked off a hundred thousand dollars we received an eighty thousand dollar grant from through mass dot the mass department of transportation and we needed twenty thousand dollars as sort of a like a map a local match so the structure has changed as dan noted in the negotiations on this committee some of the conditions have changed i think that answers the question thank you jenny yes it did thank you are there any other questions on this article okay so grant third time yes sorry uh it is important to a degree so there's going to be a new contract negotiated in august of this year i think the contract has already been discussed uh and is being discussed dan can you give an update just timing wise please right the contract that we're currently in was started or signed on august 2020 so we need to sign a new contract in august of this year and so we're working on getting a draft contract from lift uh as we speak thank you thank you so um i'm going to close off um comment at this point and ask uh if there's any members that want to make a motion on this warrant article i'd like to make a motion annie lecourt oh annie okay make your motion annie i move approval i move that we we vote positive action on the article second is there a second second from john um any discussion on this i'll toss the grant i'll toss you first we are hitting the taxpayer over the head for about 800 a year for a new high school which i supported because that's a fundamental service that the town of arlington provides its residents in about two or three years we're going to hit them over the head with the two by four again because we'll need an override to maintain the basic services of the town uh to to be able to explain why we need this additional money in two years when we spend a hundred thousand dollars to provide a four-dollar subsidy for a bicycle uh to get to our wife's station uh i think it's going to be really difficult this is not a fundamental uh responsibility of the town of arlington we gave them seed money to get the stuff going it's obviously still not making a profit i think it's time to to uh not pour any good more good money after after bad uh this is going to be very difficult to explain to the taxpayers uh it was uh a lot of these places are taking out parking spaces that we could use uh i know down in east rarlington it is um i i think we should vote no action on this uh and let the private business either make the profitable or get out of the business uh we subsidize the mbta because people can't buy their own buses uh people can buy their own bicycles uh you can go down to the police station in april when they uh police department auctions off their bikes and get them fairly inexpensively this is not a prime function of the town of arlington and its government we should vote to stand thank you thank you i'll grant him thank you mr chairman um i like bikes um i ride bikes i think it's great that you know everybody else rides bikes um i'm not going to support this because i think that the contract could be better negotiated um other towns get blue cross blue shield money but we don't and i'd be more inclined to support this if i had heard better information about um what was going on in the negotiations and it doesn't sound like negotiations in contract it sounds like they're just going to tell us what to do so that's i would wish that there was a better negotiating structure in place we asked the art committee for to go ask for additional sponsorships and that's for five thousand dollars so um i'd like to see uh uh something better in the contract before i support this article thank you thank you grant uh any so what we're fundamentally trying to do here is we're trying to train to train to change people's habits and choices about transportation to reduce their environmental impact and it's actually a pretty crucial thing for us to do at the moment i think it would be out of scope for me to give you the list of reasons but i think that we're all pretty aware of the direction in which the planet is headed at the moment we are subsidizing market making at the moment the hope here is that its habits change more and more people use blue bikes lift will make more and more money on the per ride component of their business model and we will not be as the institution that is contracting with them responsible any longer for a not per ride component to cover maintenance and operations we're not subsidizing lift we're not helping out some profit making company the profit making company is only going to provide the service if they make a profit we need to contribute this hundred thousand dollars for them to make a profit we're subsidizing our riders the subsidy will be reduced per ride as ridership increases and we need to give this a chance because we need to put ourselves on a different trajectory in terms of the increase in climate change that is right now putting us on a pretty deadly trajectory any idea how to scope yeah well thank you any any other questions on this article i have a comment charlie this is shea oh what happened you moved on me shea lean yeah i'm i'm just i lost your box here okay go ahead shea lean thank you i just want to second what annie said and add to her comments that we are coming off a pandemic where the number of riders was probably depressed and that we should see an increase in ridership i just wanted to add that to her comments and second what she said that's all thank you shea lean any other questions comments okay so we'll move this to a vote on article 60 of blue bikes as written or as proposed for a financial impact of a hundred thousand dollars grant gibbian vote no jane blundell yes john illis yes mackayah helie now brian beck no sofi magliazzo yes jonathan wallach yes saline pokers yes yes uh darryl harmer yes annie lecourt yes alan jones no george coser yes bill keller yes al tosti no wanda nascimento dean carvin now david mckenna yes okay um 123 let me see one two three four five six seven eight ten eleven in favor one two three four five six against so the article is passed thank you very much jenny and dan for your presentations let's move on to the next article is on warrant article uh subject is warrant article number 65 design design standards jenny rate again you're busy tonight jenny busy evening for me um design standards okay so this is a $50,000 appropriation request um it is similar to a request we've made in the past for um that I embedded actually in a zoning zoning amendments uh article request where we used $50,000 to hire a consultant to help us to create residential design standards um and guidelines for the for single family and two family homes um we currently have commercial and industrial standards that were created in 2014 and 2015 as part of the master plan process we used an architect etc you know similar certainly a similar situation that was actually funded by capital at the time because the master plan was funded through the capital uh plan um we found however that those design standards are less useful than we uh than we need them to be much less useful primarily because there's a lack of precision and sort of applicability to our typical permitting at the redevelopment board level as well as our review processes um I actually invited with me tonight uh Jean Benson who is one of the redevelopment board members to join me in helping to answer any questions as well but the board just to explain they review architectural plans you know physical design site plans other site elements as part of any review process that we conduct and if we had improved design standards I think it would help to both uh guide the board a lot in their decision making and ultimately create better decisions which is the special permit decision that we provide two applicants to build a better building as I said this appropriation amount is exactly the same as a couple of few years ago when we hired a consultant to help us form those residential design guidelines and I would like to do exactly the same thing again but focused on our commercial areas in the community um so with that I'll stop and turn it back to you Charlie. Thank you Jenny um Jonathan Wong. Thank you Charlie um Jenny or Jean uh perhaps you know for those of us who know nothing about this process um you could explain to us what design standards are and what role they play in the process the permitting process. So the design standards would be there are essentially a set of standards that say these are the types of things that we would like to see with a certain type of building so the redevelopment board reviews buildings that are usually mixed use or commercial sometimes all residential but rarely uh that usually it's just commercial and mix or mixed use and they would help us to understand how a building might look better on a streetscape uh different uh perhaps building materials or design elements so um literally the look of the physical look of the building but also the position of a building on a lot um so literally all elements of design uh get reviewed by the board and design standards would help to guide both the staff who provide like an preliminary memo to the board with you know some that sort of outlines our our suggestions and sometimes recommendations to the board on a particular project that's being reviewed by the board but then would help guide the board as part of their own deliberations and decision-making process. Jean might if you know it's okay with Charlie um add to that as a board member. Thank you and I'll let Charlie I'll let Charlie decide if that's okay. Yeah that's all right go ahead. Sorry and hello Charlie nice to see you um so we have there are five members on the redevelopment board and when we had our last retreat we talked about what we needed to do better and differently and one of the things came up was that the current design guidelines for commercial buildings weren't really working. I'm not an architect there are two architects on the redevelopment board and both of them felt we needed new design guidelines to help people who are coming to the board with a proposed building on Mansav or Broadway so that the buildings look right and they make sense and for us to have some way um to respond to those proposals we've had some what I will call very interesting buildings proposed along Mansav where we pretty much had to send the developer back to the drawing board for a complete new design and I think we could speed up that process if they had to design guidelines in place. I will say one other thing though I don't they're not intended to say your building must look like x or look like y or be made of brick or be made of stone that they allow a lot of creativity a lot of ability of the developers to make decisions about what buildings like I don't think any of us would want all of Mansav looking the same it's the major thoroughfare in the town one of the nice things about it is the nice melange of buildings that we have throughout Mansav and this would just help in that process it would speed up I think redevelopment activities and just make it smoother and better thank you thank you thank you both uh Allen Jones thank you mr chair could you sort of summarize what carrots and sticks um are possible to encourage developers to design according to design standards well but so the redevelopment board is a special permit granting authority so a lot of things can happen as part of that process to encourage better design different positioning of a building and um you know that all takes place as part of the special permitting process it's not really a carrot or stick per se but it's just imbaked into what is already a discretionary permitting process um but design standards are really just that they're recommended standards for how we want a building might want a building to look but as jean said a lot of creativity is still um you know possible as part of that process I think that the board though if they had those standards they'd be able to better say with the confidence this is what we're talking about this is what we're looking at that we would like you to achieve and then after things you know sort of take shape and we have a lot more examples of things getting built according to those standards I think we'd be able to point to things inside as that property developer did so there would become sort of that that part of the process as well but it's not exactly a carrot or stick it's really just baked into a discretionary permitting process well so it seems like the carrot is you'll get your special permit or not possibly depending if you ignore the design standards how in a typical developments in the commercial districts how many buildings require special permits is it like all of them or just some of them we grant uh annually it's been about nine special permits annually so it's not uh you know that's definitely not all of the types of things that get that happen along the corridor so some buildings are built by right without some buildings and they and they would and they wouldn't have any motivation to adhere by design standards it depends on the building type and the use uh thank you so yes thanks down um silphie um i'm sorry if i missed this bit so are there any no written standards that people refer to i mean there's no way for somebody to know what you're expecting after the history of the board the only standards that we have are the ones that were developed as part of the master plan and they're called the commercial and industrial design standards they're part of the redevelopment boards page we have staff have tried to use those standards as well as the board over the last number of years and to very little success they're not the same as the more recently developed residential design guidelines which are much more detailed and provide a lot better examples of things that are really more applicable um and we would like to do the same type of thing for the commercial corridor so no we don't really have a set of standards right now that we follow and to gene's point we have a couple of architects who are serving on the board right now that has you know tremendously helped and we of course have you know people with some urban design background and you know design background within the department of planning community development staff but that does not that's not a good enough that's not a substitute for having some standards or guidelines thank you so much uh al tosy could you give me some examples of what types of standards i mean you have a lot you can build up to three fours uh you can go to seven and a half feet on each side what kind of standards do you think this consultant can give you and why can't they be done by the by the board or the staff of the planning development department the residential design guidelines that are referenced as being a good model that we would like to emulate were developed by an architect people with who are registered architects and we would want or you know also have a specific degree in urban design while we do have architects serving on the board i don't know that they're in a position to take on developing a full suite of design standards or guidelines for the entire corridor i think we would typically hire somebody to perform that activity the types of standards that we're talking about would cover pretty much all building elements whether we're talking about adding a coin to a building corner or looking at certain certain types of windows that you know for example the the board has talked about commercial windows you know that we want a certain type of window facing mass av but we actually don't have a lot of information about the types of windows that we are often referencing or talking about so we might have design standards that help us to talk about when we're talking with builders the types of windows that we're looking at the type then and how we want that window to look in a building and on a building or if we're talking about you know you mentioned stories and height we might talk about the massing of the building in the way that we want it to look against the street in relationship to the streetscape the zoning bylaw only does so much of that it's not it does not codify design it just simply tells us what we can and cannot build that's it thank you thank you jenny darrell al-tassi is that the end of your questions yes darrell harmer um thank you thank you jenny are there other comparable cities or towns that have standards that we could emulate or even reuse that would it just seems that we're almost starting from scratch reinventing the wheel here and i would think that there were other communities that could have standards that we could leverage there are other communities that are similar to arlington that have design standards but my experience working into arlington is that is very important to pay attention to arlington and not to necessarily emulate or model after say summerville or cambridge which are neighboring communities that it do in fact have design standards that in fact we would want to look at and appreciate the sense and spirit of place in arlington so which is what we tried to do with the residential design guidelines and i think did a really bang up job on that one because we looked at the neighborhoods we looked at the different conditions and then we created some you know recommendations for design standards we would want to do exactly the same thing here but base it on arlington thank you jenny grant any other questions um yes this is my first round on this this particular one um so you're asking for 50 000 or consultant um for the specific design plan what would 25 000 buy and also was this put out to bid uh or is this just a general amount oh no i haven't put anything out to bid you mean now did i put something out how do you come up with the amount of 50 000 thank you um clarifying that um the 50 000 is based off of the 50 000 that we used to hire the consultant who did the residential design guidelines so i was using that as my number that it it cost that amount to develop those guidelines so i believe it would cost about the same to develop these guidelines that we're talking about um if we had only 25 000 your other question i think we would have to reduce the scope um and we might not do a study we might just get an architect to give us some you know prescribed um sort of scenarios or looking at like sort of past cases they might be able to give us some guidance and uh design standards based upon the typical buildings that we review would just be a reduced scope of work thank you jenny grant did you have any other questions no that's good thank you very much thank you dean karman i think i have a couple questions um the first one is do you think these standards will encourage or discourage or have no impact on um people's willingness or desire to do commercial development in arlington have no impact so why do we care about this because we care about good design in the community from what i've experienced um when you build a building that nobody likes you hear a lot you hear a lot about it um and i think that the board would like to develop buildings especially buildings that are going to last for a very long time in a way that is uh pleasing within arlington um that's what we're interested in doing so it does have a lasting effect i don't think anybody is opposed to that including the people who come before the board they actually are often looking for that kind of that level of guidance and like to gene's point earlier on in the process rather than later so i think it would be beneficial to many people in that way thank you jenny dean do you have another question dean do you have another yeah i'm kind of confused by the answer um so you're so you're basically saying that commercial developers who are building to make money don't build buildings that people want but so the town officials are going to do it i don't understand that i don't understand your response like i build i i deal with design plans for restaurants all the time and trust me i build things people want like because if no one wants to walk in there you don't make any money so are you saying that the government understands how to make money for commercial business but residents like businesses don't i don't understand i was saying the book gene is raising his hand i'll let gene take a stab at it but i was not saying that exactly so gene please yeah let me try to say it as as sort of somebody who's been on the redevelopment board while clearly somebody proposing a building wants to make money about it they're not necessarily concerned with does the outside of the building work for the town of arlington do we want to have a building that looks like that on our main thoroughfare in arlington or not they're basically concerned as as you said with can they make money on the building we have a different concern which is is this something that should be on our main thoroughfare let's say may i say in arlington and one of our charges is how does it fit in with the streetscape how will it work with the streetscape how will it help the whole business district up and down mass avenue and the way to do that is to give them some guidance i think it will actually make it easier for some of them because they won't have to come before us and have you know the redevelopment board said look this is just not an acceptable design for the outside of the building for these particular reasons if they have the guidance ahead of time they're going to have a head start on getting the building done and the building approved thank you gene dean did that answer your question you're good okay and ellen jones thank you mr chair just a very specific example of what might happen there are the the two three-story buildings between the high school and stop and shop and i think they're no one thinks that they are appropriate they're somehow they got built they're terribly ugly would having published approved design standards have resulted in a better product for those spaces for the one of those buildings that's actually fully constructed and occupied than the other one is under construction you can tell what's going to be just as ugly that that is out for full open for a subject to opinion by the public but with that said i will say that that second building that is not yet completed so we don't know exactly what it will look like actually went through multiple design iterations and i think is actually a pretty good example of where design standards would have been a huge help to both that developer as well as the board the developers original proposal changed quite a bit over the course of time but only after a lack of pains of going through the board's review process and many months of that back and forth with the board i think if we had had design standards it probably would have been a lot more straightforward about what the board was asking and looking for but also would have provided that model to the developers to exactly what we were asking for rather than a lot of back and forth and you know multiple meetings with the board to get it right which ultimately the board approved unanimously and permitted it through the environmental design review process but so that's actually that is a good example of where it would have been beneficial okay well the developer actually might have appreciated design standards and it would have been appreciated okay thank you so are there any other questions on article 65 oh sophie how long could you please so i'm just trying to think through this for a second my experience i'm thinking of the historical uh commission when we live in a historical district and we go before them they don't have design standards written out right and in people go multiple times before them is that sort of i mean i don't do commercial work so in my experience in the residential that's what i do is that what you're trying to avoid is having people go multiple times before them and if so i mean are we saying that the historical commission would need to also i think that's a little beyond the scope of this article we're talking about commercial buildings on assay of sophie right but you can can the redeveloper do its job of enforcing the standards it wants without these because i guess my question without what can't can the redeveloper do its job and enforce a design standard without having them pre-written by a consultant um genny i so the first of all there's the historical commission and there's the historic districts district commission okay so that the the districts actually do have design design guidelines the the historical commission does not just to give you the the difference between those two so if you run an historic district actually you do have to abide by their design uh guidelines in order we're talking we're talking about commercial sorry to write let's get back to i'll stay on task okay um just wanted to give that nuance so i yes i think that the the basically the standards would be helpful regardless of whatever the process is but also they can be enforced by the board as part of a special permit that's the special permit that is granted is the way in which we enforce the standards in a in any process thank you i just wanted to provide that grant second time yes thank you mr chairman second time i'm reminded of the presentation we had earlier by mr slickman makes me kind of wonder well what's uh use grant that's not we're not talking about that just ask the question about this part okay we can't stop um businesses from putting large signs in their windows sorry i'm not sure grant grant please please this is not the subject if you want to ask about enforcement on design standards that's fine but it has nothing to do with science uh okay it's i think it's in perspective of how enforcement's done what is the special permits um how many special permits have been turned down in the last two or three years one all right thank you i mentioned that there were nine about roughly nine annually and thank you mr chairman any other question uh on uh this article okay hearing none one question um and that is this $50,000 is a one-time cost and we're not going to see for it next year or the year after correct on both accounts yes thank you so a motion on the article on warrant article 65 is in order does someone want to make a motion for against this article so move charlie second that was jonathan that it was me yes okay so jonathan has moved favorable action on warrant article 65 uh $50,000 for design standards uh is there a second second it's been moved and seconded um any further uh discussion yes there a chance to make when does one make a substitute motion this is the time i'd like to make a motion that we uh make the amount to 25,000 here a second there's no second so it doesn't stand i got it so um any other discussion questions all right so we'll go to a vote on um article 65 grant give-in no chain blundell no john ellis yes kaya healy no brian beck yes so if you make me as a stain jonathan wallach yes chaelene grufford no daryl harmer no annie lecourt yes ellen jones yes george coser yes bill keller yes yes altos the no one de nascimento yes dean carmen no and david mackenna yes yes so one two three four five six seven eight nine in the affirmative we have one two three four five six seven in the negative and uh one abstention so the um the article is approved thank you very much jeffy thank you jean appreciate your time this evening so uh we're running a little bit behind schedule uh we have some members of the commission for our arts and culture here this mr uh polt toziki yes thank you mr chair did i say that right pol poltoziki right enough um thank you i say poltoziki but poltoziki okay that's that's better yes so thanks um and i'm joined today by uh two colleagues my co-chair steward ikeda and the treasurer of the commission uh christin bagnell um i'd like them to take just a moment to introduce themselves because they'll be helping answer any questions that you may have but i'll go right ahead yeah christin hi christin canibari bagnell as steve said treasurer of a cac i'm glad to be with you again this evening thank you for coming and the other colleague is i'm steward ikeda and i'm co-chair with steve this year and um yeah it's it's fascinating to see you guys work and uh we're glad to be back wonderful thank you so i have a presentation um and if um who are you who has christin a presentation may i share screen yeah i all mean sarah can you enable screen sharing for christin they should be an aid okay thanks for that so um so thank you so much for this opportunity uh the main focus uh no just stay on the first one if you don't mind christin the main focus will be on the numbers um but uh and what they represent but we also want to get just a little bit into the context uh you know we're before you only once a year memories fade and there may be new members of the finance committee uh so just very quickly run through some little bit of context next slide christin um so you know several years ago town government uh including fincom um asked that the various uh town affiliated um arts and culture committees and groups be consolidated on the one roof uh so there'd be just one organization to deal with one organization to fund uh and that was done uh it became a cac or nothing commission for arts and culture uh so some of the pre-existing constituent organizations are shown here uh and and several of them have been separately funded um by the town and also we have representatives from a number of other town constituencies so which is really to make the point that we're not just an arts and culture silo next slide um so you know what we do flows from what is important to the town as as we understand it there was a master plan which was created in 2015 which acknowledged of public art attracts visitors and business patrons and helps draw the community together uh then there was an arts and culture plan that was approved by the select board in 2017 where it indicated uh the mission ought to be to strengthen and grow arts and cultural opportunities in allington thriving arts and cultural life for all and that's what uh what we take to heart which is that we believe that arts and culture are a differentiating asset for the town which creates opportunities for economic growth it attracts people to live in the in the town raises the quality of life for the residents and this is an asset that we are committed to to growing next slide so there been some studies that show what the impact of arts and culture is on a local economy for example there's one study that shows for every dollar spent there's it generates two dollars and 30 cents worth of sales for nearby businesses which is I guess some substantial leverage and then people who come to arts and arts events spend over 30 dollars beyond the cost of admission for local for local businesses so this is just one one factor among many but it's you know people have looked into this and it's it's a moneymaker next page so um we have taken to heart the uh the uh the goal of helping establish allington is a cultural destination and there are a number of things that we've been doing to uh to make that happen uh first of all we've been promoting allington is a cultural destination one of the things is that we've just recently created a professionally produced audio tour of the cultural district which is essentially the geographical space between allington center and roughly the capital theater uh in east in east arlington and we have a local historian uh ed gordon who's the director of the oshrall mill he's the leads people through this audio tour and and talks about the various historical and cultural highlights so you know very proud of that um the the chamber is a recent magazine uh visitor allington which went out to number of residents but also the people in surrounding towns 63 percent of the content of that is focused on arts and culture because that's one of the things that's a draw uh to the town uh over half the hits on our website or the traffic come from outside of allington and a number of media mentions um and so that's the promotion part of it but we also there's meat and potatoes they're events um we've had over a dozen outdoor performances and now we're talking about the this current fiscal year fiscal year 2022 in in the heights there was a project called neighborhood haiku where haiku poems were solicited from the community and then local artists painted the words of the poem and illustrations for the poems on I think around 25 or 30 shops in allington center there was an opening celebration of the 300 people came they visited all the shops then hundreds came after that to check out the various uh storefronts and it was it was a big deal it was very well received by the store owners very well received by the neighborhood just an example of the kind of that that you know brings people in for both uh uh in town but also from out of town to check it out because it was it was a very well done uh a very big deal um the allington center for the arts which is uh one of our sort of um organizations that are wouldn't say not part of us but affiliated uh the open studios porch fest over 1500 participants and one of our fundraisers is called cheerful where you sit which uh draw it's drew hundreds of folks to come and bid on these artistically designed chairs and so on those are events um and performances the and also you may be familiar with some of the uh art that's uh you know outdoors uh there was a major project called reflections on our pandemic experience where one of our local artists drew sketches every day during the pandemic and then turned those sketches into flags or banners which were then about a hundred of them were displayed uh around trees in monotony rocks park and then another 50 or so at the king stand kickstand cafe uh and you you all may have seen the painting utility boxes the recycle doors along the bikeway the youth banners the uh the black history month banners a major project now involving high school interns is members of climate futures which asks them to think ahead uh to what life will be like and you know down the road let's say in 2050 and sort of track what all of them may have done in response to climate change over the years um we have a project by artists and residents who are who's creating portraits of members of the black members of the allington community and a number of other uh projects along the bikeway so um it's essentially when when COVID hit um it was it was thought that we'd have to scale back on our on our activities but if anything our activities increased um and it's all to me the needs of town residents and visitors who were essentially hungry for the I guess a spiritual uplift that arts and culture can give um so and and it all relates here to the making our alternate cultural destination so it's it's about dollars but it's not just dollars next slide so uh speaking of dollars um it's by the way christen I can't read on my screen the the bottom most part of the the slides I don't know for anyone else's that's okay um so um again speaking of dollars we leverage the funds that the town provides us and just by way of a reminder this current fiscal year we were funded at the $30,000 level we leverage the funds the town provides and we raise a significant amount on top of that the the numbers on this chart do not reflect the town funds they were they reflect everything that we raise on top of that and so this year our budget is around $103,000 on top of the town funding we have raised um the bulk of that already and the rest the rest of it is pledged so we're essentially at our at our budget uh revenue budget uh already so two-thirds of the year have gone by and we're almost at 100 percent of our revenue target um and the town funds only comprise about 23 percent of our overall revenue budget but it's important to understand that the town funds help us raise all this other money whether it's because of the need to have matching funds um or whether it's because and a lot of what we raise is through um foundations and other sources of grants some of those don't like to cover certain kinds of expenses like overhead and so on and we use the town funds to cover those those those kinds of expenses next page this is just to show that we're not siloed uh that we work with a number of town departments number of committees um nonprofit organizations for profit organizations a whole bunch of them we we work in the realm that mentions before education for example with the the high school interns working on a climate futures project we work in the realm of public health with that um uh that those banner flags that relate to the reflections on the pandemic experience we work in the deisphere with the uh portraits of black allington residents uh and and economic development in terms of the performances the parklet beautification uh the cultural district uh audio tour so we're woven into the fabric of what goes on in town and also regional next page um but don't just take our word for it because we have a number of letters and memos of support um that show the kind of value that we deliver to the community it's numerous testimonials showing how we boost the local economy how we enrich the cultural lives of the community and how we help these some of these other town organizations deliver on their own missions of doing good in the community um and i think you've also sort of highlighted the uh a couple of uh select board members also the town manager sent a memo of supporting um a budget request next page so the numbers um so um our revenue sources um include a heavy dose of grants uh both and this which shows both our budget and what's been raised so far uh year to date um it's uh and grants comprise a lot of what's already been raised in pledge but also a respectful amount of individual donations and amounts raised from from businesses and we can sort of get into the details of these things uh if you like us to know that things are shaping up the way they're shaping uh we've mentioned the sort of the leverage the the town funding gives us in in raising the other funds that are needed for operations but one more point on that is that um the town funding gives us sort of necessary stability to be able to ensure that we can work with our contractors and projects that carry over from one year to another so there's a certain base level of funding that is helpful for that purpose uh most of what we spend goes for programs or program um it's uh you know the art exhibits the performances any events that are sort of highly valued for the for the community um so this is the situation sort of year to date next slide what we're proposing for fiscal year 2023 is funding at the $35,000 level $35,000 is what we have received in the fiscal year 2020 it was what had been allocated in fiscal year 2021 but that's when COVID hit sort of early that calendar year it was decided that um because it was thought that our activities scaled back our funding was scaled back $5,000 but as we mentioned the art there was not in fact scaled back and so what we're asking now is that after having lived at the $30,000 level now for two fiscal years that it'd be restored to the $35,000 level essentially as it was before the pandemic hit and what we're planning is that in this upcoming fiscal year we'll continue to be putting on those kind of performances that bring visitors into town we're going to commission art to be enjoyed by the public that'll be be enjoyed mostly outdoors and we're going to present other other kinds of programming we'll get the community involved in the types of creativity that's embodied in arts and culture and for succeeding fiscal years at which I guess I should have said 2024 or 2025 we're asking for a level that was originally provided fiscal year 2021 at $35,000 and it just plays out you know town funding and also what are our assumptions as to other sources of funding we expect you know we got to arguably we got to bump up last year in terms of COVID relief kinds of funds from grant-making organizations so we still think our fundraising activities are strong we're strong and experienced people who are dedicated to this we have a good fundraising committee and I think we'll be able to continue on along this trajectory and we hope to continue to incrementally increase the kinds of programs that you know the town enjoys so we'll take your questions thank you very much Steve for a great presentation so are there any questions for the council the arts and culture council for steward or for for Steve he ends up Brian Beck thank you a couple of questions I'm not sure that this is relevant to us per se but how much cash do you have currently on hand and separately your expenses seem to be running a little bit less than what you had budgeted do you anticipate a higher expenses in the next coming months or what do you expect as far as that's concerned christlyn can chime in on this one because I think she knows the answers yes so we have the we have about $50,000 on hand and as you see we have significant grants pledged that aren't in yet and the answer to the question about how our expenses run through the year so we have two things one is we have substantial activity in the fourth quarter because we are to some degree especially during covid seasonal we've been running primarily outdoor activities so we spend the bulk of our we make the bulk of our program expenditures in the fourth quarter we also have a number of program a number of expense lines that are the work is done throughout the year but the contractor or um entity is paid once so for instance arts boston we have a license with them to use their calendar to feed our website so that any arts activity in our linkedin feeds through our website we pay them once a year in the fourth quarter but we use the calendar all year so for those two reasons more of our money is expended fourth quarter and we do expend to we do expect to fully spend our um what we budgeted this year thank you christian um any other questions this point that must have been a pretty spectacular oh there we go i was going to say it was a spectacular presentation but looks like you got another question here go ahead thank you mr chair i was just you know being what i do i see the website going 10,000 10,000 10,000 and then 3,000 3,000 and what happened there uh so the story question actually i can i can take that if it's helpful um so the website has been at 3,000 for a number of years um the website is now steward four years old five years old about yeah so we're planning a significant rebuild in fy 23 so eight maintenance has been around three set threat 3,000 every year we're doing um substantial work on it in 23 and then we'll return to maintenance steward is there anything you want to add uh simply that we've we have greatly expanded all of our communications um channels so the needs the our needs for strong web development support have grown as we have grown so we've now added you know the hosting for the audio tour we've spun off you know podcast channels we've you know expanded um the the kind of interactive components of the cultural district map and tour um and so our hosting needs have changed um our constituencies have continued to grow so we've added several new features to the website um and our and the other thing is our our security needs dictate that we um are looking to find a new hosting environment and develops new features so that's that's the plan there's a multi-year redevelopment kind of development project for the website okay so the 10,000 is an upgrade and then back to the 3,000 for maintenance yeah create no maintenance thank you thank you uh el tosti uh mr chairman if there's no other questions i'd like to make a motion um let's find out if there are any no other questions first are there any other questions for the yes go ahead now um i'd like to make a motion that we appropriate or recommend uh the 35,000 to the arts and culture council is there a second second moved in second did any further discussions i just wanted to add that two years ago when we were entering the pandemic uh and we had no idea what was going to be happening to the town's financing uh i went to the council and i said we really need to cut back uh i'd like you're okay to cut back from 35 to 30 and the council said we understand uh and agreed to the cut back uh and they said hopefully we could get it back in the in the future so i wanted to thank them for their cooperation and your predecessors at that point and think you're doing a great job in uh in raising money uh for your projects from other sources so again thank you thank you thank you very much thank you al sophie yes thank you sorry i might miss on the discussion my computer shut off um and i appreciate i just popped back in when al made the motion so um i appreciate that because i do have a a question or question for the committee other committee members having been new and specifically out um in 2019 at the town meeting i had asked about the the increases because before 2019 the amounts uh arts were five thousand and then and it bumped up to 40 000 and i think you explained that it was that 40 000 in 2019 it was supposed to be seed money um and that you expected that it would go down in future years so now i'm seeing it hasn't gone down but it sounds like you're okay with that so i'm i just want to make sure i understand sort of the history of going up to 40 you think it was going back down but actually now it's staying there and it's okay now well it's not at 40 i think the finance committee didn't see wanted to see at the time that this is a town funded program uh that would continue to go up that we saw it as seed money uh i think the council has gone out and uh raised a great deal of money as they've demonstrated um and and really helped themselves so i think uh continuing to fund it at a slightly lower level than it was uh at 35 000 seems very reasonable to me okay thank you any further questions or comments on the arts and culture council okay we'll move to a vote for $35 000 uh grant gibbian vote yes yes shane blundell yes john ellis yes mackaya haley yes brian beck yes sofi mcmagdezzo yes jonathan wallach yes shaleen corford yes daryl harmer yes indy lecourt yes allan jones yes closer yes keller yes one dana cement i'm sorry al-tosti yes one dana cemento yes yes uh dean korman yes david mckenna yes uh the the 35 000 is supported unanimously thank thank you for a great presentation good information and congratulations on your continued success thank you we appreciate the time and the thoughtfulness that you put into this request appreciate it thank you so much this has turned into a really a wonderful relationship coming back here every year and and meeting with you we really appreciate your support and we really like it when it's the same number we'll do our best okay thank you thank you okay have a great night thank you you too so we're at 952 is there any uh business that we haven't done in the past that uh it's been hanging over that anybody wants to address okay um any new business i i've i've sort of given you a heads up on the business coming up next monday any other things that are going to be popping up no okay so in case i think um it's it's about seven minutes before the hour but it might be appropriate by the way i just want to say that um i appreciate um thoughtful discussion and uh debate tonight by all of the members on these various issues i think um i i you know i think the uh the analyses and the questions uh in the comments were um very uh both high level relevant so uh i think a motion to adjourn is in order moved to mature second moved in second if there's no objection we'll unanimously adjourn no objection adjourned thank you