Okay. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Board of Selections meeting for November 9, 2015. A couple of points up front. First of all, to all of our veterans in Arlington, first and foremost, thank you for your service. And we want to invite all veterans and all citizens on Wednesday, November 11, to a parade and a ceremony honoring our veterans and the service they provided to all of us. The parade will take off at 1030 from the Walgreens parking lot, and we would ask that any and all veterans would join us there and parade to Monument Park at the Arlington Center Fire Station where we will hold the ceremony. This will be held rain or shine, so please, we welcome you. Secondly tonight, Mrs. Mahine will join us shortly. We have a little bit of a split meeting tonight where we'll deal with the first part of the agenda here in the Selectman's Chamber. And then, I don't know, somewhere, I guess around 8, we will move to the Lions' hearing room for the discussion on the mill and mass traffic lights. And then we will return here to the chamber to close the meeting. Item number one, Mr. Gilligan, our treasurer, sir. Bond approvals. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. I'm very pleased to appear before you this evening and ask that the board vote the approval of the sale of $4,362,000 series A bonds, general obligation bonds, $3,225,000 series B refunding bonds, and $9,232,000 in bond anticipation notes. You have my memo before you, Mr. Chairman. I will not read it, but I would just like to point out some highlights. With respect to the $4,362,000 general obligation bonds, the winning bidder on last Thursday's sale was Fidelity Capital Markets. And those series A bonds attained an average interest rate of 1.854 percent. The series B refunding bonds, the winning bidder was also Fidelity Capital Markets, came in at an average interest rate of 1.5066 percent. And Eastern Bank was the winning bidder on the bond anticipation notes with a net interest cost of 0.397 percent. Mr. Chairman, I want to point out to the board that coupon rates for bond issues continue to edge up slightly as time goes on. But as I've mentioned to you before, especially at our last meeting, that we were doing our best to look at projections in the market and basically try and come back with the best results possible. I just want to point out the day after the bond sale. The average interest rate was up a quarter of a percent. So we did very well across the board. A contributing factor to the incredibly low interest rates for the bonds was that we received a premium on both series A and series B. The premium we received, which is in essence a cash payment creating a discount, was for $554,176.76. The series B bonds included a premium of $244,307.05. I must point out, Mr. Chairman, that that premium will be deposited in the refunding escrow account that's part of your vote this evening to defuse the called bonds. That's the best way to accrue the savings. With respect to the refunding bonds, Mr. Chairman, the actual savings on refunding those previous issues from 2005 and 2006 has realized the savings of $313,116 to the town. Phenomenal results, Mr. Chairman. I also want to point out that, again, for the 11th consecutive time since 2008, standard and pours rated the town or affirm the town's long-term credit rating as triple A. In addition, the bond anticipation notes were rated as an SP1+, which is also the highest rating attainable on bond anticipation notes. You'll also notice, Mr. Chairman, that in the back of the memo is a rather long vote that the board is asked to take. The vote is a little longer this evening because of the three issues, series A, series B, and the notes. But also because bond councils across the state are asking that the best practices that cities and towns employ now be included in the votes. So that's why you'll see language in there relating to the escrow account, full disclosure, and things of that nature. And if you have any questions, Mr. Chairman, I'd be more than happy to answer them. There are questions from the board. Yes, Mr. Hero. Thank you very much. Thank you for your work on this, Mr. Treasurer. I was just curious. You mentioned that the day after we floated this that rates went up a quarter point, is it considered that's factoring in already anticipated Fed action? Some have argued that. I don't think so. I think it was just a combination of demand on the marketplace more than anything else. But it is something that is hitting the bond market because the Federal Open Markets Committee is discussing increasing the interest rate come their December meeting. And that's something we all have to take a look at. Great. Thank you. So am I looking at the right thing, vote to approve the bond sale, Stephen, or there's a different vote? Yes, the actual vote is the last two sheets of the memo. You'll see it says vote of the board of selectmen. It includes the payment schedule. It includes the other votes which require an escrow account, full disclosure and things of that one. Okay. Does that have to be read? It does not need to be read. All you have to do is say as voted as it appears on the memo. Okay. So is there a motion then, please? Mr. Dunn? Move. We approve the sale of these bonds using language as specified in the second, sorry, third and fourth page of the Treasurer's memo. Second. Second. Further discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed. Thank you, Mr. Gilligan. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the board for its time. Thank you. In the future, is there any way that we don't have to sign like 118 pages for these? Any way at all? Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, the answer is no. My signature. No. They cannot be stamped. They must be signed. I know. And we all have their financial instruments and it's for the benefit of the time. Of course. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, the Wi-Fi is back on. Okay. Let me just make sure I'm, because we definitely need it for this next, okay? Minor technical issue we're trying to work through. There is quite a report that our comptroller has put together for us. So I know that Mrs. Mahan wants to be able to access that. No, that's all right, Diane. It doesn't. Mr. Chairman? Yes. Mr. Hansen. Yep. We'll just do that. Take this. You can figure out how to minimize it. Thank you. All right. So it is with great pleasure that for his first official meeting that we want to welcome our comptroller, Mr. Richard Viscay, who is here to make his first quarterly report. Mr. Viscay, welcome, sir. How you doing? Doing well. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Have you noticed the superb leadership in this town? Oh, yeah. This is other towns that you've worked in. Yes or no? Yes. Emphatically. No. Go ahead, please. Thank you, Anna. Thank you, Mr. Dabut. When I had got hired here, back about two and a half months ago, there was some questions about reports that should be of, were interested in being reviewed by the selectmen. And I have taken the time to try to put something together that I hope represents what you're asking for. And if not, I'd be happy to change it, shorten it, lengthen it. But the cover page, if you're looking at it, on the left is a summary of the reports that are within here. It's a revenue summary going over the property taxes, overlaid deferred taxes, local receipts in your state aid, and then some summary documents on the enterprise funds, the capital budget for the town, and yet a date summary expenditure reports for the school and the town. On the right-hand side, I just listed some of the balances from the balance sheet that I think would be of interest to the Board. Fiscal stability fund, $20,789,000. The stabilization fund, which is the general rainy day fund, has a current balance of $2.98 million. Health claims trust fund, $2.8 million. Cemetery perpetual care, $5.8 million. And the OPEB liability, that's the other post-employment benefits, there's $8.89 million in there. You'll see on the bottom is to be determined on the free cash and the retained earning balances for yet a date balance sheet that closed June 30th. Those balance sheets have been submitted to the Department of Revenue and we are awaiting their certification and I should be able to update you hopefully very shortly on both the retained earning balances of all five enterprise funds as well as the general fund free cash balance. So I'm not sure how you'd like me to go through this report, but I'm happy to give you a quick summary. The revenue is summarized in Excel spreadsheets, basically for property taxes. I put the current year of budget, estimated, which is the first and second quarter, preliminary tax bills, show you what we collected last year at this point, what we've collected this year at this point, and give you an idea where we stand. This year, I believe the first year, the Community Preservation Act, so you'll see that we do have a commitment in there for those funds and we're on schedule collecting what we anticipated at this point. Right underneath that is the reserve for Ovalet, reserve for payments with your Ovalet. You'll see that we have the 2015 Ovalet that we raised, balances from the prior years, yet a date decreases, which would be the batements that were given through June 30th and then the balances as of June 30th. Deferred taxes are just taxes that are deferred through Mass General Off, around specific or particular purposes, that's the summary of what those receivables were at the beginning of the fiscal year and what we've collected and the balances as of September 30th. Those are pretty much the tax revenues. The next one is the local receipts. Local receipts are all the estimator revenues we anticipate that we collect through the Department of Revenue, page three of the recap, which is motor vehicle excise, mail's tax, fees, rentals, et cetera. Again, not to read the whole report, but I wanted to put on there what we've collected last year at this point, what we've collected this year at this point, and give you an estimate on, give you an idea of where we stand on the benchmarks there. Same, same exercise for the state aid, the cherry sheet money, what we've anticipated receiving through the estimates from the Commonwealth and what we've actually collected through this first quarter of fiscal year 16, and increases and decreases. And then for the Enterprise Fund, I just did a summary rollup of revenues and expenditures for the five Enterprise Funds of the town, water and sorenth, the Enterprise Fund, the Veterans Memorial Skate and Rink, the recreation, council on the age and transportation, and the youth services. So that is, that's a brief summary of what we've put together for the revenue portion of the ledger. I'm happy to stop and answer questions or continue on however you'd like me to proceed. So what's your initial impression? Are we in good shape here? Yeah, the revenues look like they're coming in right what they need to be. It's revenue estimates on the conservative side, which is nice, which allows us to hit the mark and create some surplus and generate free cash. So nothing odd has stuck out yet. It's still two months in, I'm still learning a lot of the systems and how some of the money is coming in and out in the different particular ways. But for the most part, there's nothing I've seen that would cause an alarm or cause concern at this point. So I believe from revenue perspective, we're doing pretty well. Colleagues, questions, comments, question? Mr. Curell. Thank you. I did have one question on the revenue. I noticed that we're about a million down on real estate collections versus this time last year. Is that a typical variance? It's hard for me to tell exactly what happened. I'll be honest. I saw it went down a bit too and that could just be timing of post and it could be lock box at the end of the quarter and the way it's posted. I was, this particular $51.9 million is your first and second quarter estimated tax bills. The tax bills were due at the end of October. So you got one more month to get that 50% money in. So for the first quarter and then September 30th, it doesn't fall well for real estate taxes because you'd rather it be that August 31st and October 31st so you could see if you got those first two quarters in. It's actually November 1st that the second bill is probably due so. It could just be a timing issue. I mean, your quarter, you've collected half of what you committed at this point because I look at it so I don't see any concern. I think it's more of a timing issue than a real estate collection problem. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Anybody else? Ms. Mahan. First, I want to thank you for all the information that you have provided. I think it's about 45, 46 pages of it. Definitely do appreciate it. If I could just take one category, just oppose my question to make sure that I'm reading this appropriately. If I go to Enterprise Funds Revenue Expenditures for Youth Services, which I believe is on page 9 of 45, and then if I look at Intergovernmental CDBG, it says 17,000, and then it lists 15,455, am I reading that correctly that of the 17,455 has been spent or am I reading that incorrectly? And that was on page 9 of 45 under Enterprise Funds for Youth Services. That's revenue? Oh, that's revenue. So it's what we've received. So we've received 15,455 of the anticipated 17,000 CDBG. CDBG. And that's usually just a posting. Not necessarily money we collect, but it's just an entry we'd make on the control. So yeah, that's not an expenditure. That's revenue. So I just want to make sure I read it correctly. Sorry. But I'm now confused because the top does say revenues, expenditures, summary. So where's the expenditures? Oh, right underneath it, you get your personnel and your expenses. Oh, I know. So it says revenue, and it gives you five categories, and I'm right underneath the expenses. OK. I was testing, and you're correct. All right. Thank you. Glad I passed. Sorry about that. And I know we're asking you to give us stuff, three quarters of the year through, which is really difficult to do. So just two more questions that I would just pose as examples. The first one is, I don't know, if you are Mr. Viscay or the town manager could point me towards that. Where would I look in a report like this and or is it something, if it isn't in here? And I'm sure it is because you provided so much documentation. I'm going to use an example. The elevator at the high school, unanticipated expenditure, needed to build, I guess, a brand new piston of like $90,000. Is that somewhere contained in here, or is that something that isn't in here, but we can look. One of the things that I'm interested in, the reports that we get, is sort of unanticipated expenditures that we have when they occur, how much they are, and where they're coming from, and what gets left out. Is that something that's in? I wouldn't expect it to be, but is that something that's in here? Well, this particular report, it won't be because we haven't probably received the bill and paid it. But the schools, when we get to the report from the schools, I found a summary document that the school, CFO actually does for the school committee, that I've included in here. It's a rollup of a report that I had initially wanted to put in this package, but my report was about 85 pages. She added into three. I figured that three would be better. The short answer is it won't be in here, but all expenditures of the town are in our reports, where exactly they would pay that from and how they would get that money. That might be unique to each situation. Now, the schools have a bottom line budget. If they have an emergency repair, they may find the money within their budget, but how they go about offsetting that anticipated repair, I would actually have to probably defer the town manager on how those take turns to handle all the school committee. But we do have a reserve fund in the town that handles that. But on the school side, I'm not going to declare on where that money's coming from for the emergency repair and how they're going to address it. Maybe you have an answer. So if you go to page 43 of Mr. Viscay's document, the final line on page 43 references elevator maintenance and repairs. It says what? Elevator maintenance and repairs. It lays out that the FY16 budget for elevator maintenance and repairs is 40,000. However, in the third to last column, it has a new total estimated expenditures of 120, so the variance of 80,000. Like any department, you'd ask the school department to make it up within their bottom line at year end. And if they weren't able to, the reserve fund is open to both any town or school department to come and make a request to the finance committee. Okay, and then in terms of, I know on the town side, we're utilizing the munis system. Is that, if you know, is that the same on the school side in terms of munis, or are they still doing? For the general ledger, we use munis school in town. What the schools do, because of the volume of the reports, is they'll sometimes dump it into an Excel spreadsheet and modify it for reporting purposes. But we are using the munis system for school and town on general ledger. My ideal situation would be when we can get to that point that everything is munis totally, just because I think it's the software we've adopted. And then the only other thing I sort of put on your to-do list. And I know it's come up at finance committee. And I know when I've watched the meetings, the town manager, Mr. Chaplain was there. Individual members of the finance committee have talked about sort of really redefining and getting a better handle on special education funds, how they're distributed, how they're allocated, and how they're estimated. Now, that isn't your purview per se, because that is the school side. But just in terms of, I know a few years back, we were talking about consolidated finance committee, et cetera. And a lot of that was to open the door between the town and school side. So I'd be interested in the future if the opportunity presents itself or avails itself. But it seemed to me that it lost you as finance committee meetings, that that was discussed and that would be something that we'd try to get a handle on. And I don't know if I'm encapsulating this correctly, but I just want to give you sort of a heads up that in terms of sort of tracking special education, I think what I was hearing from some members of the finance committee was that we really kind of break that down more, get a better handle on it as well as allocated as a separate, I guess, line item or something that we can really keep track of more along the lines of there has been a trend that money gets allocated for special education. It goes back to general education, which is fine, but it kind of falls in the field of how that's tracked. Am I getting anywhere close to that, Mr. Chaplin? So I feel as if the CFO tracks it pretty clearly and brings it to the finance committee and lays out where special education expenditures have been that discussion is really focused on. We allow it within the budgetary plan, within the long range financial plan to grow by 7% a year. There have been years where it's exceeded 7%, in recent history, the actual growth in expenditure has been below 7%, so the discussion has revolved around whether or not 7% is the right number, if spending is under 7% should it go into reserve fund and how that should be handled. Okay, so that really wouldn't fall into your umbrella. In terms of reporting, I think it does fall to the school department. Okay, all right, so whatever we can foster in terms of working cooperatively on the school side, and I know you're definitely capable of doing that just by evidence of what you've produced, and I do wanna thank the chairman who I know met with Mr. Viscay and brought forth my colleagues and myself's interest in terms of reporting vehicle to us and any and all information that we can all get, I think we definitely do appreciate that. More is more, I definitely do appreciate it. Not a problem at all, I'm happy to try to follow up on any particular questions. The special education certainly is on a macro level, I can give you budget actual numbers, but some of the details of that would probably defer the CFO in the school itself, but I cannot certainly do some research on it. And once you've got your feet wet, which you already have, and you're firmly planted down there at the comptroller, I've certainly, along with my colleagues, appreciate, which is something we talked about during the interview process, getting the 15, 30 minutes of your time in your office at your convenience just to kinda pick your brain and then you tell me what I should be asking for and I definitely appreciate that. Any time, that's what I'm here to do. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chairman. So just to continue on, one of the items I thought you'd find interesting is a summary of all the capital appropriations that have been done since, I think it goes back to 2003 and the report before you is the appropriations that have been made, the carry forwards from each fiscal year, which would be represented as transfer as adjustments and then give you yet a date, what we've expended, what we've encumbered in the available balances, so that's about a four or five page report. That goes back and gives you detail on every single appropriation for capital and where they stand. So hopefully that summary document will give you some idea where we are and I sit on the capital planning committee, as you know, and these available balances are being contemplated now whether they need to be carried forward and continue on all the projects or if they can be repurposed for future capital needs and those conversations are ongoing right now. So if there's any particular question on any of those, I'm happy to answer those. I don't know if I can do it off the top of my head, but certainly would follow up with you on that. And then the last part is basically, for the town side, I printed out right from the Munis ledger, a yet a date budget report that summarizes expenses and salaries. Again, trying to keep it as brief as possible. I didn't give every particular line on each particular department, but the summary, as I believe it's voted by town meeting, so it represents what's been voted, any revisions, transfers, adjustments, what's been expended, what's been encumbered in the available budgets and the percentage of how that's been expended. So that's the Munis report. And then the last three pages are the school expenditure report that's been rolled up into a summary document. Kind of both of those in there so it can get a feel for if you like the summary on the spreadsheet better, we can modify if you like to see it out of Munis with the fancy title on the top and everything we can do that as well. And again, these reports, what I believe would be of interest to the board, but happy to give you more, give you less and work with you on delivering these goods every quarter. Yes, Mr. Dunn. A couple items. First, thank you very much. Really enjoyed it. This is definitely the type of thing that I've been looking for, that I was hoping to get and I'm really excited to see it. So thank you. My first question was, I guess it was kind of a question to comment. So in the section that you just covered most recently with their talk, the Munis report that talks about the one that maps the votes of town meeting. There are parts of that that map really easily to town meeting, like just eye to eye. Like for instance, when you look at town clerk expenses and town clerk salaries, town clerk expenses and town clerk salaries and what we vote are really pretty clear. But then there's a couple, but then some of them for good reasons, I think we lump together and that when we do our votes in town meetings, so for instance, like police indemnity. I'm pretty sure that's gonna end up under insurance. Actually, one of the general warrant articles. All right, so see, so there's a couple of them and I'm not sure exactly how much I've heard this is worth, but it's just to think about, is there a way to generate a report that matches a little bit, either change actually, so one way to do it is to talk to Al Tosti in the finance committee and say, hey, this is the way we actually track it, the Munis system, maybe we should modify our votes somewhat to match. The other thing is maybe we should just say, Munis is doing what it's doing, town meeting is doing what it's doing and we should try to do a report that match a little bit closely. I say this loving what I have right now. I'm just trying to make it a little bit better. The Munis reports can be, there's a crystal report module that allow you to manipulate the data into formats that you'd prefer, so that's certainly something that could be done. It may take a little bit of an effort. I'm sorting the data, but it's nothing that we could accomplish. Okay, that's good. My second thought is that, so we do some really things that I'm really proud of in terms of putting data online, in terms of including the visual budget. You've seen the online visual budget? Okay, good. Of course you have, and the open checkbook. And so I really liked those two things and I would love it if this report were just, I mean, because it's being here in this open meeting, that means it's on the town website under the Board of Selectment, but I think you could also put it up under, like a different section and just have like, or you know, like this is essentially, not just a report to the Board of Selectment, but a report to the community and you could put it in fostered as that and it could be one of our tools of transparent government. And I think, so thinking about ways to making it available and accessible and understandable to, you know, the general reader. I know what some of these things mean, so yeah. Oh yeah, looking at the website for the Comptroller, there is, it could use a few more bells and whistles. So this is an extra school department that actually puts all their monthly reports online. So when I was talking to Diane Johnson about this report I was gonna present to the Selectment, she had actually pointed me to what she does online and I printed the section of the schools right off theirs and I actually liked the way she did it. So I may just take a little of how she lays out her monthly reports to the school committee and mirror that. I think it's a great tool too, so happy to do it. Thank you very much. Sure. Okay. Are we all set? Yeah, I guess, one thing I'll say, I do like the collaboration that you're talking about with the schools already and I think you're going in the right direction with this. So I know it's early, but look forward to see what else is in store. Thanks, Richard. Great, appreciate it. So is there a motion to receive? We'll receive. Second. Second. Do we need 45 pages? The next time Mr. Viscay comes back here. You want it. Yeah, I would. I say it's all just electrons. Do add another 15. All right, Mr. Burns. I think that on a monthly, on a quarterly basis even, I did like having Rich here today, but I think even just getting the report is in the right direction. I know it takes a lot to come here at night and I don't know if Rich will be needed every quarter. Maybe we can spread that out or discuss it moving forward. But I think just the report's good with me. Okay. Sure. I would ask any of my colleagues, if there is any changes you'd like made or additional information, please contact Rich. He and I have had our 30 minutes and I hear Diane, you'd like one and I'm sure our other colleagues as well. So all those in favor of receipt, please signify by saying nine. Five. Those opposed. Thank you, Richard. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Consent agenda. First of all, the minutes of the meeting for October 5th and October 19th. Request for a contract to drain later's license. Jay Durrenzo, company out of Brockton. Reappointments of the Arlington Cultural Council. Joseph Burns. Reappointments of the Arlington Historic District's Commission. Steven Macalca. Beth Cohen, John Warden III. Reappointments of the Zoning Board of Appeals. Roger DuPont. And a request for free parking for first lights and holiday shopping. This would be for the Saturdays starting after Thanksgiving and through Christmas. Anybody here wishing to speak on any of those matters? Move approval. Move approval. Is there a second? Second. Second. All those in favor, please signify by saying nine. Five. Those opposed. These are now appointments. And we ask the appointees to be here to the Arlington Cultural Council. Lauren Richmond. Lauren, please come forward. We have to grill you, Lauren. Hi. Thank you very, very much for your willingness to serve on the Cultural Council. Why are you willing to serve on the Cultural Council? Well, I moved to Arlington in September of 2014. And I've been very eager to be more involved in the arts community locally. I work at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. And while I enjoy that, I want to be more involved locally. OK, great. Thank you. Comments, questions from the board? Move approval. Move approval. Is there a second? Second. Second.  No, I just want to thank you very much for volunteering and for getting right in there. I think you know there's a lot going on in the town. And the Cultural Council has funded, directed funds, towards a lot of great efforts, some of which have been really recognized on a statewide level. So we look forward to your energy and enthusiasm. Thank you. On the motion, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. All those opposed. It's unanimous. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. And according to the Park of Recreation Commission, Elena Bartholomew. Good evening. Very nice to see you. Why would you like to serve in the Park of Recreation? Why not? I should look at that. I've been there as an associate member to sort of learn the processes going on. And with the passing of Jim, that position opened up. So it's sort of a natural flow to move in. And I'm involved with a lot of the youth activities I was in town. And I thought it would be a nice step to get involved. Thank you so much. Move approval. Second? Second. Discussion? Yes, Ms. Mahan. First, I want to thank Elena. I know when I first got involved in Alley, did an upper bracket school, and got roped into a PTO, sort of roped with and along with Elena, which was sort of my first experience. And I know from firsthand, working with you on the PTO efforts that we have, as well as I know that you and your family has long been invested in youth activities, sports activities, and other youth offerings. I do like the system that Mr. Conley and the town manager have set up with sort of associate members, if I'm going to say it correctly. And I know Mrs. Bartholomew-Lane has served in that. And I do know that Jim Robillard spoke very highly of you in terms of your services as an associate member. And I know you'll fill his shoes well. And I really want to thank you for stepping up to this, first as being an associate member, because it's really sort of a unique position that, well, from what my understanding is, you don't necessarily get to do the ultimate vote. But the associate members are really active and involved with discussions of current issues before PAK and Rec Commission. So it's not like you're kind of jumping in there and trying to learn and get your feet wet. It's a great model for committees. For somebody as opposed to just jumping in and trying to figure out how it works. And it's great. You can comment on everything. But not vote yet, right? No, not vote, yeah. And I know from your experience as an associate member, you certainly have participated. And I believe there's one other position that is an associate member. Both positions are very active. I'm glad you're making the foray into you're basically going to be doing the same thing, but voting now. And I look forward to working with you on PAK and Rec Commission. Mr. Dunn. I want to thank you as well. I wanted to note in particular that you're stepping in, as you know, but not everyone else does. This is one of the, there's a scarce resource, which is our playing fields and so on and so forth. And you are trying to make hard decisions about how to allocate that scarce resource.  And so this is a difficult volunteer position because of that. And I really wanted to acknowledge that and acknowledge the patience that that takes. And thank you for it. Thank you. I think it'll be interesting with the whole CPA piece coming into it now, too. So I might be coming in at a real funky spot, but we'll. I agree. Yeah, let's look forward to it. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you very much. Citizens open forum. Anybody signed up? And citizens open forum. Marianne? Anybody signed up? Gordon. Jameson. I was going to do that kind of thing earlier. Gordon. Jameson. Longest speaker at Selectman's meeting this evening. Who is Howard Jameson? Howard Gordon. Gordon. Gordon. Remedial. It's been so long since you've been here. You changed your name. Well, we can change that. Yeah. Yeah. How may we assist you, sir? Yes, Mr. Greeley. I'm here to just give a quick update on recycling, but particularly comment on community collection day, which is this Saturday from 9 to 1 at the DPW yard on Grove Street. As the board knows, Arlington has done a great job collaboration between the committee, the DPW, and the residents in reducing the amount of trash we send to the incinerator in North Andover by over 30% in the last 10 to 12 years, saving us over $2 million over that period of time. So thank you out there to the audience and to the board and to the DPW. We've made great strides in reducing our waste by weekly recycling, a variety of new things. We have all these textile bins in town, books and things that people can drop stuff off, and the new monthly recycling center that people can learn about more at the website. And we get to the point of the matter here, which is the semi-annual community collection days, which I think this is the 10th fall we've had that going on. For information, people are best to go to the website. If you go to the website on your little devices, you'll see that right on the front page, the first picture that shows up is about the community collection day. People can go to the link there and find out that, yes, it is. November, Saturday, November 14 from 9 to 1. As I always say, don't come early, don't come late. If you go to that link, you'll see that there's a couple things beyond the 9 to 1 and the location. People must remember that on that day, during the period of the event, Grove Street is one way in a northbound direction. So you need to loop around and come in from the Mass Ave side. If you come in from the other end, that summer street is closed. That's pretty much the easy way to say that. There's a wide variety of things that you can't. So different from the labors. The stuff you can put out on the bin every week, you don't bring to this event. You bring things you can't put out in the recycling bin every week. These can include clean bicycles. Gently use toys, books, and clothing. Now textiles that are really at the end of their life, you should just put in one of the Planet Aid bins or bring to Goodwill. Those will just be work for our staff and volunteers to take care of. And there's going to be 600 cars in four hours. So imagine how much stuff is there. Medical sharps only. Drugs go to the public safety department. People love the paper shredding of private documents. We do ask for a donation to the food pantry. So again, as I've discussed to the board in the past, this is a great event because it's fun. The DPW staff, I think, really has a good time. And we do good while we're doing good because a lot of these things end up being resale. And there's a whole long list. Sneakers, rigid plastic, foam, scrap metal, rechargeable. Outline batteries go in the regular trash. We need mobile bottles. Go to the Save Club. Electronics, there's a charge for that. You can get those big sucker televisions picked up at your door on that Saturday by the DPW. But you need to get your request in by Thursday. No appliances. So go to the website, folks. Find the information. Community Collection Day, November, Saturday, November 14th, 9 to 1. Again, don't come early. Don't come late. And enter from the Massen's have site. Any questions on the board? Questions? No. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead. See you guys on Saturday. All right, buddy, thanks. Anybody else under citizens open form? Item 11 for approval. Handicap parking sign at 12 Laughland Avenue. Linda Pappas-Zion, if I'm saying that correct. Is she here? No. She was for me. OK. So are you checking the other room? No, I think we'll leave it for now. Motion to table. So moved. Second? Second. All those in favor, please say them by the same name. Aye. Item 12 for approval. Letter to the governor on the Green Line Extension. Howard Muse, Chair of the Transportation Advisory Committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. As you may have heard through the news and media and so forth, the proposed or the estimated costs of the Green Line Extension through Somerville and Medford has experienced a rather large increase in the cost estimate. Originally, it was about $1.9 billion. And now, based on some recent bids that came in, it's on the order of up to $2.9 billion. Anywhere from about $700 million to $1 billion more than originally anticipated. And as a result, there's been a lot of discussion about what would be the fate of the Green Line Extension, including the possibility that the project would be halted. And then there are also several items being considered as ways to save money on it, including taking some of the money for the ultimate extension of it to Route 16 and putting that back into the project that takes it to Tufts University. Supposedly that would not endanger the ultimate extension of Route 16, but it doesn't sound like a good sign to those of us on the tack. But in any case, what we wanted to do was have the town reaffirm its commitment to the project and provide that information to the governor and his transportation team and our legislative delegation. And so we prepared a draft letter solely for your use if you would like to use it or if you would like to convey that information in some other form. But it's our recommendation that the town, through the Board of Selectment, register their concerns about the financial status of the project and reaffirm our commitment to it being completed all the way to Route 16. OK. Yes, Mr. Currow. Yeah, I moved to authorize and direct the chair to sign the draft letter presented to us on our behalf in support of the Green Line extension to West Bedford. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Second. Discussion. All those in favor, please stand by by saying aye. Thank you very much for taking leadership role in this. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're now going to take a 10-minute break. And this meeting is going to move into the Lyons hearing room, where we will conduct have a discussion on mill mass of light changes. Thank you, everybody. Welcome to a continuation of the Board of Selectments meeting on November 9th, 2015. I'm Kevin Grilly, chairman of the board. To my right, we have a member of the Board of Selectment, Dan Dunn, Joe Currow from the Board of Selectment, Diane Mahon, and also Mrs. Stephen Burns in the Board of Selectment. Next to Stephen, our town manager, Adam Chapkelein. Next to Adam Marianne Sullivan from the board's office. And next to Marianne is Town Council, Doug Hine. So we have seldom had as much input on an issue, especially related to traffic as we have about this intersection of mass and mill. So this board has requested this be put on our agenda this evening. We've moved in here so that we could make room for all of you. And it seems like we have just enough seats in here for everybody so far. So what this board, based on the number of phone calls, emails, conversations we've had, we have asked for this to be put on the agenda. And we have asked Mr. Chapkelein, our town manager, and his team and the representatives from TAC who we first met with on this issue about two years ago. Also our director of public works, Michael Rademacher, to be here tonight. And so we're going to first ask that they, we're going to ask a series of five questions. We'd like to have them answer. Then we will take public input. After the public input, it will come back to the Board of Selectment and we'll see whether any of the members of the Board of Selectment would like to make any changes to the traffic rules and order. So to that end, and please, my colleagues, if this isn't an accurate reflection, please correct me. So first one we'd like to ask is, you know, what has been done? What are the changes that have been made here at Mass and Mill? Why have those changes been made? What has been our experience so far? What about the concerns about safety in certainly traffic and pedestrian safety there? And also issues related to handicap individuals crossing at that intersection. So let me hand it from here to Adam Chapter Lin. He'll take it over from here. Adam. All right, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just so everybody's aware, including the members of TAG, I don't think we have amplification, so we'll all have to speak up during this discussion as best possible. Mr. Chair, there's not much more I would add other than echoing this has certainly been an item on which I know I have received, I know the board has received, my office and the board's office have received a great deal of feedback and concern raised in regards to the matter. That said, I think the questions that the chairman has laid out will give the Transportation Advisory Committee and also Public Works an opportunity to explain what has happened, the reasons behind why the changes were made, and then also try to address some of the concerns that were brought forth. So with that, Mr. Chairman, if it's okay with you, I'd ask Jeff Max Tutis, Chair of TAG, to begin answering some of those questions. Right in front. Oh, you gotta come up to here, though, Jeff. Yeah. Okay. He likes his seat. Can you blame him? So the microphones are for the millions watching at home, so that's why in a moment when we ask for public input, we're gonna ask you to line up behind that microphone, but Jeff Max takes it first. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Board of Selection. With me tonight is Jason Sobel, he's a professional traffic engineer who consulted on this job, both to tack into DPW on the design of this intersection. Howard Muse is also here. So I'll go through the questions as stated, and you can interrupt me at any time for any questions, and I'll give the responses the best of my knowledge. So what changes have been made to the intersection? So this goes back a couple years, mitigation money based on CVS project of this intersection. The traffic controller, which was quite old at the time, was replaced. So it was a new traffic controller as part of this project out there. There's new pedestrian countdown signals and audible signals also at the intersection. There is a new left turn beacon for Eastbound Mass Avenue at the intersection. There are new lane designations on Mill and Jason Street to designate the operations of those lanes. Let's see, the width of Jason Street approach was modified, that island was narrowed slightly to try to create a two lane vehicle approach to that intersection, and I think those are the changes that have been implemented so far. So I want to say that the chain and of course the signal timings and phasing were changed to allow split the Jason and Mill Street approaches. Previously they were running at the same time, which led to a high accident rate at those locations higher than the average Mass DOT district and statewide crash rates. And there was previously pedestrian phase and was changed to a concurrent phase where pedestrians are operating and crossing concurrently with the traffic. What's with that is a lead pedestrian phase, a lead pedestrian interval, so pedestrians get about a four second advance crossing the intersection before traffic moves with them concurrently. So initially a couple items, the incorrect timings were installed initially at the intersection, so it was not working correctly initially at that intersection. I understand those have since been corrected, so those times as designed are in there. Also the pedestrian phases are coming on automatically, each phase it's not supposed to operate that way, it's supposed to operate on a push button when pedestrians are there pushing the button, so it's not operating that way, which is making it less efficient for traffic. We understand that some of the pedestrian buttons are broken and have to be repaired so they can't operate as intended or designed until those buttons are fixed at that intersection. So right now it's operating at every phase. So if they didn't come up every phase, there'd be some additional green time, which would make the traffic a little more efficient than it is today. So it's not operating exactly as it was intended. Can I just? One question on something you just touched on. If you know, you indicated that because of traffic accidents before Mill Street and Jason Street, both went at the same time. You indicated now that they're staggered because of the number of traffic accidents. Do you know what number you're referencing? Because I'm trying to think of that occasion. Yeah, between 2009 and June 2012, I think a three and a half year period, I think there were 27 accidents reported. Do you know the nature of them, Fender-Benger? There was a combination. I think they're mostly angle accidents because of the left. The right of way is unclear when they run together because the intersection's offset. So it's not clear when someone's turning or driving through. So there was a lot of angle collisions there. There's some rear end collisions also. In the island on Jason Street, just when I've gone down it, it's very rare that there actually are two lanes coming down Jason Street, crossing over Mass Ave to Mill. Is there any thought to somehow doing something else so that you actually can get two lanes there or what we have is what we have? Yeah, of course, it's tight at that intersection. So you can probably, we like to keep the island to separate traffic, but if you could reduce the island, you can get probably a few more cars, but you can't extend it back very far onto Jason Street. So even if you did that, you can maybe stack four or five vehicles in two lanes, maximum. But after that, the road's gonna narrow down and you're not gonna get that two-lane effect. So it's really just for stacking at the approach at that intersection, not so much as an official two-lane going across the intersection. Thank you. Jeff, do you have any data on accidents since the change? Is it two months? I don't have any. Do you, sir? Oh, okay. His eyes open wide. It's like, don't look at me. No. Okay, about a month and a half, okay. Thank you. Sorry, go ahead, Jeff. A little louder if you could, please. Okay, sorry. That's just the back of the room. Yep. So, attack is very concerned at this intersection. I don't think it's operating as it was intended, obviously, on several fronts. There are, unfortunately, there were some issues beginning with the signal timings, the pad buttons are broken. It's not operating as it was intended. So, unfortunately, that's not as it was designed. We understand the public's concern about conflicts of pedestrians and traffic and it's a difficult location. We did the study about two years ago to try to have a balanced approach. One thing I want to mention is the exclusive pedestrian phase previously was not up to standard. So, there was not enough time based on industry standards, state standards to cross. There was about 21 seconds. So, we had to increase, if you had to increase that time, that was one of the decisions we were looking at at a challenging intersection. Can we do concurrent? To try to protect the pedestrians with the lead phase going across, limiting those to right turn conflicts on Jason and Mill, Mass Ave. We still have the left turning conflicts at that location. So, we're trying to improve safety, but we're realizing there are some issues at this intersection and it's not working as well as intended. So, we're concerned also. So, was anything else for me? The handicap? Is there anything that you missed? The handicap, are they working properly? Is there, those visually impaired? Because some of the pet buttons are not working, that includes the audible messages to cross the intersection. So, some of those are not working properly, as I understand it. Good. Questions from the board? Nope. You're going to hear. So, thank you. I'd like to hear the rest of the presentation in public. Right. Yeah, I'd like to hear from the residents. Yeah, but I'm asking if there's any questions from this board to Jeff at this point. Oh, no, sorry. Nope. Well, I have one question to the manager. I mean, what, do we have a time frame for repairing the buttons and the signals? Because that seems to be a key. A different public works for that. Okay, so. What are you just saying? I mean, I don't know if Mike has an answer for that. Yeah, okay. Michael Rademacher, Director of Public Works. Sure, thank you. So, from my understanding, there are two pedestrian buttons that were damaged during the changeover. They were the fry though, some wires crossed. They're out for repair. We don't have a time to return those, but we are looking to buy some sooner than waiting for those to be repaired. Then we can replace those and then we'd have the others as spare in case something happens. So, we are working to purchase some new buttons and not wait for those to be replaced. And just to follow, how many of the audible signals are out? Well, so not to be confusing, there are buttons, when you press them, they indicate which crosswalk has the signal. Those without the audible signal that chirps to indicate that you took, from far side of the crossing, that you can cross, I believe those are operational. It's the buttons that have the voice, the electronic voice that say cross, mass app, cross Jason Street, those sort of buttons that are up. Thank you. A couple. I kind of hate to put you on the spot, but I just would ask what reservations, if any, would you have, Jeff, or Tak, in terms of restoring the original traffic pedestrian pattern in terms of pedestrians when they cross, there are no cars that they have to sort of battle with and or why did we install this here? Are we planning on doing it anywhere in the future, which I hope we're not. So, what I would like to know is that for some reason I made a motion that hearing from a lot of the community down there, especially being at the high school a lot, that in concert with all the other traffic signals and all that we do not have pedestrians crossing at the same time that traffic is turning. What would be? Right, I think there's a couple locations in town, but more minor locations like the Concord Turnpike. There might be another one, but not a mass app, of course. But in terms of this location, if they say I made a motion that we revert back to, originally my idea was that we did do the lane markings so that we have a straight and a left and we have a straight and a right. Not that we have a three to five second delay pedestrian crossing and then traffic turning. So, say I made a motion to restore it, that it goes back to in concert with all the other signals on mass app that pedestrians don't have to sort of encounter vehicles and vice versa. Would you be totally in or tack versa? No, I mean, we're in favor of whatever the safest operation is. So if people are avoiding that intersection and it's not working for them, then, you know, of course we would support that. The difference would be if we go back to the previous operation, so that the exclusive ped phase would be a little bit longer than it was before. I think it was 21 seconds, so we'd go up to 27. 27, so the delays in queuing would be a little bit worse for the intersection as a whole, but the pedestrian safety would be more protected. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Yes, Mr. Carroll. Thank you. I'm sorry. Just keep in mind. Oh, was there anybody ahead of you? No, you didn't. No, you didn't. No, you actually sparked another question. I think that what Ms. Mohan has put forward was what TAC originally put forward, built three, which had all of the modifications that have happened now, but maintained the separate phase, the exclusive pedestrian phase. And as I'm reading it, this was rejected because of the level of service, so it was estimated that the am peak hour be over 120 seconds, so over two minutes, and same in the PM peak hour. So there were also projections, and therefore what we have now that we've just implemented, 68 seconds during the am peak hour, 76 during the PM. Have we gone out and measured that to see if the projections are actually being realized in reality? I don't know that. I don't know if Mike, if that has been done yet. Yeah, okay. I just want to make clear. So, Diane, were you asking to go with the split phases and the exclusive pedestrian phase, or the way it was before? The way it was before. Okay, right, right. Traffic, Jason Mill, both go at the same time, but with the lane markings, so it handles the traffic flow and that pedestrian crossing go from 21 to 27 seconds exclusively with no traffic encounters. Right, I think what Mr. Cureau is referring to, I didn't go over that, we did an analysis two years ago. We evaluated a half a dozen scenarios, so scenario three I think was with the split phases and an exclusive pedestrian phase. In that case, we would have even longer delays in queuing. So that was rejected at the time. No, that's all right, that's what we're here for. Any other questions from the colleagues at this point? Okay, thank you. Adam, question? Oh, that's the list of those who have signed in.  Thank you, Jeff. So I'll call on these as I have them here in front of me and I assume these were signed in at the same time. You may say pass when I call on you or you can come on up to this microphone and speak. You're not first. I know I'm not first, I'm second. Yeah. Right. Okay, so it's Donna, one of these, it's Donna. Yes, come on up as a group please. So this is Donna, Christine and Kara. Yes. Am I correct? Okay. I know it's Christine, sorry. Welcome, please. Thank you. Hi, I'm Donna Moore and I live at 15 Jason Street. I'm Karen Madden, I live at 71 Butterfield Road and I'm Christine Connie, I live at 98 Richfield Road and chairman and members of the board and others who are here. The citizens of Arlington have expressed overwhelming concern about the new configuration at the Jason Street, Mill Street massive intersection. In just six days, over 700 motorists, cyclists and pedestrians who drive, bike and walk in Arlington Center have signed a petition asking the board of selectmen to return this intersection to an exclusive pedestrian crossing. Well over 300 people have also left comments describing their concern as well as their personal experiences of the dangers of this current crossing. In addition to the petition and comments we're also, we're gonna be giving to you, we also have a handout that highlights some key points regarding why the intersection needs to be returned to an exclusive pedestrian crossing that Kara will be discussing and we'd like to give these documents to you now. Can I pass them up to you or just give them to me? Yeah, just to pass them along, thank you, Christine. I'll start talking while I bring through these. I know this intersection very well. In fact, the only harassment I've ever had in my life was here, it was six years ago this December. I actually never saw the car hit that day. It was the classic turn the left off of Mill Street. The police officer had to tell me what happened and we both left in the ambulances. If I could have pedestrian that day rather than another car, I have no doubt I would have killed that person. I hope by taking action you can keep my personal fear from becoming our community's reality. Please restore exclusive pedestrian crossing at this intersection. It's an urgent situation, I'm not trying to be dramatic. I really feel very strongly about this. On behalf of our group that created the petition we'd like to share our following concerns. One is that the changes that you approved in May 2013 don't match the actual changes we've seen here. The 2013 vote didn't include allowing vehicles to make left turns for mass app into crossing pedestrians. Nor did it mention that pedestrians would be crossing mass app east and west sides at different times. This has added an extra level of chaos to this intersection that it isn't needed and we're concerned about how those changes are made after the fact. Our second concern is that the changes put in place don't meet the criteria for concurrent crossing that was recommended by Boston Metropolitan Regional Planning Organization in 2015. The type of crossing we're seeing in place now is only recommended for intersections with a low number of conflicting vehicle turns. Simple intersections with good sight distances, intersections with low number of pedestrians getting special protection and they go on to elaborate that means older pedestrians, students, very young children and those with disabilities as well as intersections that seem low to moderate pedestrian volume. The research we've done as a group indicates that this intersection does not qualify for concurrent crossing. None of this criteria is met. Most remarkably, by our own calculations, these crowds walks potentially serve nearly 4,000 people in our own community who need special protection. We looked at the number of seniors and people with disabilities who lived around here. We looked at the number of preschools and the number of students. There's a lot. NTAC themselves have said that the offset geometry of Mill and Jason Streets creates a confusing and hazardous situation. What's happened since signaling was changed here? The comments from our petition tell the stories of a negative and potentially life-threatening consequences. At least by anecdotal standards, the level of service has not improved for vehicles on Mass Ave or Mill Street. Personal anecdotes, both in the petition and in Arlington List discussions, held numerous near misses between vehicles and pedestrians. Business owners have begun expressing concerns about a potential loss of clientele and adjoining neighborhoods are reporting increased levels of cut-through traffic. Overall safety has not been improved as a result of TACs and commendations. We implore you to please return this intersection to exclusive pedestrian crossing until further research can be done. Like you, we love living here, but we don't want to see another pedestrian fatality in Arlington. Thank you. They didn't hear a word of that at home. Will you please repeat that? No. No, very well done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Christine, would you have one? No. Okay, yes, go ahead, Dan. So, I clearly heard there a call to come back to the pedestrian only. Were you similarly asking to come back to the opposing left-hand turn? I've heard, what we've heard is that cars prefer that and I can say my accident wouldn't have happened that it existed. Honestly, I'm here to support pedestrians because I feel like they're the most vulnerable group. I'm sorry, I don't have a clear answer for you on that. I don't mind the new lane. You gotta come to the mic, sorry, I'm sorry. I don't mind the new lane designation. I mean, I think that's working. It's a solo pedestrian. Pedestrian. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Jeffrey. Barbara McCauley. Barbara McCauley, I live at 1184, Massav. I'm here because I have a family member who is profoundly deaf and also has difficulty processing conflicting information like concurrent patterns. And he walks through this intersection twice a day, every day, and I'm really, really afraid for safety. Thank you. So, may I ask, so what's different now? What's different now is the traffic is? Right, and he used to walk up and he sees the green light for traffic and the white light for pedestrians.  Okay, thank you very much. Laura, we're Cacala? Workala. Workala, excuse me. Sorry. My name's Laura Workala. I live at 1292 Massav. I also have a business at that intersection at 785 Massav, Laura's Sewing School. It's right on that building, look at that corner building.  So if you want anyone who's observed what's going on, talk to me because I see it, I hear the honking. There is so much honking going on. It's like, even if I'm not looking, oh, the light must be red for them. I'm hearing it all the time. I hear from all my students that they are really having a hard time with crossing the street safely. They're often carrying or pulling sewing machines with them that fabric lots of things and they have drivers not only honking but giving them rude gestures.  I was two, three quarters of the way across and this guy tried to turn in front of me. And I was like, you know, what do you think you're doing? You know, and he did stop, but it was dangerous. And I would like to see that change because it's just gonna happen that someone's gonna get hurt terribly. Another thing is, is that I don't think anyone's really touched on this this evening, but I think it was a mistake to change the left turn signal for the Eastbound Massav traffic. Before what happened, the left turn signal was before the oncoming traffic could turn. So the left turn people got out of the way. That meant both lanes could go straight. I have found as I drive there and I'm a pedestrian that often it gets backed way, way up because people who want to turn left are stuck in that lane. And then they're also trying to cut in front of the oncoming traffic, which also means that they might be trying to cut and then not notice that there are pedestrians in the crosswalk. It's a much worse situation. A lot of people, I talked to other business owners in my block. I was talking with a pizza place owner and he said, I hate it. It's a big problem. I signed the petition. The guy who has the dress shop, the tailoring shop, he said he was in an accident two days ago, totally his car at that intersection. So even though you don't have any data yet on accidents, he said it was because of the turning and some other things. He implied it was because of the changes in the intersection. So I really urge you to consider going back to the way it was because it was working much better. The other thing is that in the lane designations, when you're coming down Jason Street, you can go straight or left in the left hand lane and it's a right turn lane. One of the problems coming up Mill Street is that straight and right turn are in the same lane and left turn is the other lane. If you're gonna have the Jason Street and the Mill Street traffic go at separate times, it makes more sense to put the left and straight in the left hand lane. If you have to do designations like that, like Jason Street is right now, because everyone gets stuck behind the right hand people. But of course that shouldn't be a problem because we hope that you're gonna change it back to pedestrian only. But I just wanted to give you that feedback, but I see it every day all day and it's been a wreck. Okay, thank you. Adam Elich. Hi, I'm Adam Erlich, 741A, Mass App, that's okay. I wanna thank the Board of Selectment for evaluating this issue and I also wanna thank Donna and the folks sitting over there for helping to mobilize the community. I live right near this intersection. Now I've got a family, a three and a five year old child and we cross that intersection several times a week. I had oral surgery just a few hours ago so I can't get too excited because the doctor warned me, blood might start gushing out of my mouth. But and he warned me actually against even coming here for this. He said I should be laying down.  No drugs whatsoever actually. Just pain. It's just pain, yeah. But he said I should be laying down and icing my mouth and I had to be here because I feel like my family's in danger and it's not just my family. I live in the condo complex at that corner and everybody in the complex is concerned. We have a large number of the people from the community here because they cross the intersection like we do and they're afraid. The most recent example of where we were almost killed was Halloween. We were trick-or-treating up Jason Street, great place to go trick-or-treating. The girls were dressed as a witch in a man-eating cupcake. And you? I was dressed as thing too. So we were wearing costumes. It should be visible. The people should be looking out for families. And the girls even had lights on. And my daughters were there. They were raring to cross the intersection. I was holding their hands. The light turned white with the hand so we could cross. And I was ready to take a step.  It wouldn't have been good. And even before that I was afraid, but after almost having my, not entire family, my wife was, she was a little further away. But it really brought it home that this is dangerous. And personally I think the most dangerous part of it is maybe not even where we were killed, almost killed, is cars whizzing down Jason Street and then taking the right at about like nine, 10 o'clock at night where there's lots of pedestrians who are still crossing that intersection. I kind of like wore a five one evening at about nine. And the cars build up a lot of speed going down the hill. And I've actually videotaped it for my car just to see what it looked like. And there are trees and buildings that have struck the view of that intersection. And a lot of times there's a car at the base of the hill. So you can't see anything in the intersection. So you could be going about 30, 35 miles an hour as you hit the intersection, your light's green and you turn the corner. And I've got a video that I sent to Adam Chapter Lane showing exactly that. And you don't see the crosswalk until you literally drive across it. And the problem with the light is that pedestrians assume that they're safe in that intersection.  And then you know Mass Ave is two lanes, so you can make a wide turn. And you could be surprised by a pedestrian standing there. That I think is the most dangerous thing. So I think the key, it sounds like everybody's sort of leaning towards making a change. But what I want to stress is that there's some urgency to this. That if we don't make this change soon, somebody will get seriously injured and potentially die. And if you look at the petition, and you should look at the petition, there are numerous instances like my family's where we were almost walking in a stroller in the middle of the intersection, hundreds of them. I mean, 700 people signed up, 300 gave examples of where bad things happen to them, like what I just gave you. And if we don't do something soon, something bad is gonna happen. And it sounds like, once again, that people are leaning this way and I appreciate the board listening to people talking about the dangers associated with the intersection and the mobilization of the community. But we need to do something soon. That's the key thing, because it would be horrible if something did happen that was bad. And we'd all regret the fact that we didn't do something sooner. So I appreciate you taking the action and helping us to rectify the situation. Thank you. Thank you. Barbara Dosha. Columbia Road, the other end, but I'm down here a lot. As you may recall, back in May of 2012, I came before the board requesting some changes at the intersection in terms of giving Mill Street its own signal and Jason Street its own, because during the community hours, four cars would make a left turn off of Mill Street, the other 10 remained. And it's done in many places, we know that. But I was assuming that we would perhaps do it a little differently with its own pedestrian signal and that the loops, underground loops, would control the cycle of time. In other words, if you go out there now and you miss the light going north and west on Mass App, whatever it is, you'll wait three minutes and 20 seconds for the next one. And you'll sit there and say, what's happening here? Because there's no one on Mill Street, but you have to wait for that whole signal. Nobody's on Jason Street, goes next, you wait the whole signal. They stack up on Mass App. I've come out of here at nine o'clock at night and couldn't get to take a left out of the Academy Street. We get down around the other way. Now, what we have is not that in the play. The root of the problem is really linking the pedestrian light to the traffic light. And often what you see, and it's been pointed out here, coming down Jason Street, what you'll see is it's a tight one. You can't really get two lanes in there. But if there's somebody crossing, the person that wants to turn right has to stop. And as a result, no one goes through until the pedestrian is clear. And so if we are on, there was a separate pedestrian light, they would all clear. Everybody would clear. And like I say, you wouldn't have to sit there 30, 40, 50 seconds at times when there's no one on the other streets. The cycle would just, it would just, nobody there, go to the next cycle. Go to the next cycle. That's the basic problem. And as I said, the full cycle is three minutes and 15 seconds. The time you get to go on Mass App till you get the next go on Mass App. Allenton Center is one minute and 50 seconds. Did you actually time this, Bob? Yes, I did. Okay. I did too, and it wasn't three minutes, but go ahead. I got three minutes. I did it three times. Once was three, 18. Once was, Okay, go ahead. Three 10. But it's over three minutes. All right, go ahead. At any other time, I think they might do some different things during different parts of the day. But this is during the communion point. And down the center, like I say, this is almost not twice as much, but much for a busy intersection. And I think we need some better lighting down there so that people can see what's going on there. Five 30 at night. It is ugly, I believe me. I stand on the corner and I watch it. And, you know, people are trying to cross and the lights aren't clear. Get the pedestrian light on its own. Don't worry about the timing because if there's nobody there, you'll go on to the next cycle quickly.  And what it's caused also is people going off to the side streets now because they're stacked up on Mass Ave, waiting for nobody to go on the others. And they're coming up Academy Street. I followed six cars up the other day just to see where they were going. And they went up over to Irvine Reveen, I think it was, and then on to Jason and then out to Route 2. So they're not waiting there. They don't want to wait down at the center so they'll come up here to do it. And the same thing coming down the other way. The other morning it was back up to high school and people were turning off on the botlet app to go up to group around somehow, get around whatever they were getting around. So I'm also letting the underground detectors determine when the lights should come on and off and give the pedestrians their own separate signal with better lighting. Okay, thank you. Amanda Calabro, was that a pass? May God bless you. No, really, we are. We're all hearing the same arguments again and again. Thank you, and that's important.  Hosam Ali. Thank you very much for having me and for having this forum to have our input. I am, I live in 6A Bacon Street and I use Mills and Mass. I turn left on Mass Avenue and I'm very grateful for that sign for us. But also I'm here to support our pedestrians. I don't mind to wait a little bit for them to actually pass and cross. And also support lighting for a good lighting for this intersection. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Tom Brown. Tom, how you've changed? I'm ready. I'm changed. I'm Paula Herman, I'm Tom Brown's wife. He had to leave early because it was a long time. He is blind and was happy, was able to cross before and he is terribly confused. And yes, there are auditory signals, but with traffic, even the ones that work are you can't hear them. So he's having a terrible time doing it and I appreciate what agreed with what other people have said. But I just wanted to. Thank you very much, ma'am. Peter Fuller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Peter Fuller of Seven Kilsife Road up in the Heights. I'm here to draw your attention to possible effects of the Arlington Center parking improvement plan that is underway with the intersection. When the parking plan is implemented, we're gonna see parking meters east of the intersection on Mass Ave, Court Street, library, parking lot and so on. There will be no meters west of the intersection. I think we may see drivers when those meters are in place, particularly people coming down from the Heights, you know, following human nature and looking to park where it's free, west of the intersection and not where they have to pay east into the intersection. That may cause an increase in pedestrian traffic. People wanting to do business at Town Hall, library, post office may park up west and walk across the intersection. So there's more pedestrians. That could cut both ways. There's safety in numbers if more people are crossing and they're more easily seen. But it could also increase the number of pedestrian vehicle conflicts which, you know, often don't end well for the pedestrian. For the pedestrian. So I guess I just asked that, you know, when you decide what to do or what you don't wanna do with the intersection, take the parking plan into account. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. Jessica Dombrowski. Breaking left and right and coming off the mill is the garden we talked about and the exclusive pedestrian crossings. I have points at all. Thank you, Jessica. Patricia Warden. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight about this deteriorated intersection situation. And thank you to the Transportation Advisory Committee for their recommendation to change lane designations to improve the vehicular left turns into Massachusetts Avenue from Jason Street and Mill Street. I'm not talking about the left turns from Massachusetts Avenue into Jason and Mill Street's which your pedestrian signal changes have now made very dangerous for pedestrians. The change for pedestrians at this intersection involving removal of the dedicated vehicle-free exclusive pedestrian crossing interval is a disaster. And that dedicated crossing should be reinstated immediately. During summer, before I left for vacation at the end of August, we noticed that the left turns from Jason and Mill Street's into Massachusetts Avenue have been improved. When I got back from vacation in September after a long flight, I was as stiff as a board. And so the first thing I did was go for a walk. As I got near the Massachusetts Avenue crossing at Jason Street, I noticed Barbara and Alan Tosti there looking quite worried. The pedestrian light and audio signals were bizarre. The three of us tried to find a safe part of the light cycle for pedestrians to cross, but we couldn't. Alan then saw a policeman nearby and went off to report to him that the signal for the pedestrian crossing were not functioning properly. That was two months ago and the situation has not improved. And what will it be like when the snow comes? Until September ever since I can remember that exclusive pedestrian crossing has been used with no problems by children, disabled persons, seniors with walkers and blind people. Since the removal of the exclusive pedestrian interval, pedestrians are forced to accept high risk and many find it terrifying to cross the intersection and have had to go elsewhere on the avenue to cross. Pedestrians now are forced to the intersection with turning vehicular traffic on the crosswalk except for a few seconds. The arrangement is so clumsy and inefficient, however, that drivers are experiencing longer delays and so that no one is benefiting from the new arrangement and pedestrians are put in harm's way. Those of us who have children or grandchildren and teach children to cross streets safely cannot do so at this intersection. Until September it was relatively easy have the child press the button and wait for the walk light, check that the traffic has stopped and walk to the other side. Now, however, what does one do? Have the child press the button, wait for the walk light, check that the traffic has stopped and run, run, run as fast as they can. They have three seconds before vehicles can start driving across the crosswalk. Many of those drivers see only that they have the green light. They may not see the walk sign, they may not see the child, they may have their eyes fixed only on the green light for them. And can seniors with walkers make the dash in three seconds? Drivers with the green light often are not willing to wait for slow walkers to cross and so they drive through the crosswalk in front of or behind them, which can be very frightening and confusing to elderly persons. The removal of the exclusive pedestrian crossing is not only entering safety of pedestrians but can have lifelong tragic consequences of guilt and remorse for drivers who might injure a pedestrian in this situation where they can turn into a crosswalk during the walk cycle and may not see the pedestrian in it. My grandfather accidentally injured a pedestrian while driving, he never drove again for his entire life. Do we really need a survival of the fittest situation for pedestrians at this intersection? What we need is a recognition that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The original safe exclusive configuration should be returned immediately. So in conclusion, you, the board of select men, are the only ones who have the power to establish traffic rules here. No one else, not the traffic advisory committee. Their role is only advisory as their total states. It is only your vote that matters. Heavy is the burden on the head that wears the crown. That's you, of course. But in this case, it's not a very heavy burden because the solution to the problem is easy. Prior to September, the exclusive pedestrian traffic signals were working well and keeping pedestrians safe. The pedestrian signals are not working well now to keep pedestrians safe. So simply return the signals to safety of the exclusive pedestrian interval we had prior to September and that's the end of the problem. Thank you. Thank you. I believe I'm reading your handwriting. Maureen Bollier. That would mention here, my kids was actually going to live in Arlington but I do attend Laura's class and so it is an issue and especially at night and I dare but the lady also is a big issue there at 10 o'clock at night when we get out of class. Okay, thank you Maureen. Nancy Knoff. Yep, I will pass as well.  Kate Crohan. Am I saying that right Kate? Hi everyone. Thank you for your attention. I don't want to be redundant either but I also decided I can't be magnanimous enough to just pass but I will probably change a lot of what I was going to say because it is repetitious and so many people have so many more facts about changes so that I don't have but my overall, my overarching opinion is that we can no longer rely on the safety of a walk light and I guess to emphasize that I'll describe the first time I came upon the light at Jason and Mill and Mass Ave I had taken an Uber ride from work which I don't often do but I do once in a while and he went the wrong way and there was so much traffic on Mass Ave I said, forget it, I'm just gonna get out and I'll walk and I'm totally okay so I got out and pressed the button, stepped into the street and I thought, oh my God, am I crossing at a diagonal without realizing it, am I at the wrong street and I don't realize where I really am and so I jumped back on the curb then somebody else came along so we crossed together. Well later on in the evening after going to the bank, the gym, awake I came back, I went to Whole Foods I don't know how I got across but I did but when I was coming from Whole Foods it was around 9.30 and I have to say that I have flashlights I keep one in front, one in back I have a reflective vest which I wasn't wearing but I was wearing a white jacket so I am and I obviously carry a cane so I'm sure I was pretty visible and I stepped into the street and dashed back on the curb because the lane to my left had no moving traffic when I stepped in but as soon as I was a little bit into the street traffic seemed to be everywhere I did that three times so finally I thought either I'm gonna stand on this curb all night or I'm gonna call somebody to pick me up or I'm gonna take a risk and try to get home so obviously I made that decision, started to cross and I honestly in my adult life I don't think I have ever been as terrified crossing a street because when I was in the middle of the street I felt like there were cars going in front of me cars going behind me I didn't have a clue as to what was going on finally my kid said to me later on when I was describing how did you ever get across I said someone on Mill Street and tonight I realized who that is said I could cross and so I continued and honestly I thought I was gonna have PTSD about crossing streets after that and I walk everywhere, everywhere but it was just terrifying so anyway I don't think though it's a blindness issue except that obviously I couldn't see what was going on and I know now that the audible signal is not in sync with the light and I actually questioned that I called the police as soon as I finally got across both streets I threw my groceries down on the curb and used my cell phone and called the police and then the next day talked to the engineer from the town and it still wasn't totally clear to me until over the weekend when I finally crossed again that it was also an audible signal issue but anyway I've been avoiding the street like the plague I actually stopped someone last week who was ahead of me and said could I cross with you one time when I was at Whole Foods I met somebody I knew he said do you wanna ride I would never do that it was a gorgeous day I love walking and I said yes because I don't wanna cross that street I know it's obviously based on the petition and I'm so grateful that you put that online I know that it's a huge issue for everybody because people have stopped me on the street and said what do you do I'm afraid to cross that street and I can see I talked to somebody at Whole Foods who said that when she walks with her several children that she's afraid given that they have the walk light initially that one of her kids will dart out and then get hit and obviously that's a heavily trafficked area the restaurants and the church and high school and preschool and people from Mill Street who shop and walk up to Mass Ave people who come from the bike path it's just I think it's a hugely highly trafficked area and it just needs to become a safer pedestrian crossing again I think given the way drivers are now there's no safe crossing ever so we don't need to do something to ensure that it's not safe and I just think traffic flow can't be alleviated at the expense of the safety of pedestrians and the common sense needs to prevail we need a walkable city we need more walkable cities the change shouldn't be delayed and a plan for change no matter how long it was in the making does not have to rule of the day so change it back to the safer intersection that it used to be and thank you, thanks. Thanks Gary. Eddie Donahue, Jerry Cassidy. Thanks for taking the time with us. All the negativity that I'm hearing about this crosswalk and no one's really going to say anything positive about it and I'm here to do that. Basically my first encounter with it was about a month and a half ago and I usually go for quick run at nine, nine 30 so it's kind of dark and so as I crossed I came down about 15 Jason so coming down Jason Street I crossed Mass Ave and as I get the light to cross which is fine I'm walking across not expecting to see a car crossing in front of me which it did and so I'm like what the heck is going on? The woman hardly saw me, she did, held my hands out right by the hood of the car and so she rolled down the window and she's using some language that I never heard in 12 years of Catholic school. I never heard those words before and so she's pointing to the light, the green light and I'm pointing to the walk sign and if I had a photographer there to see that photo like we're both going like yeah, yeah, what's going on and that's when I knew that there was a change that had taken place so the positive that I get out of this, I'm meeting new people you know and that's a good thing, right, right. Now the other thing is that in crossing now doctors recommend that you get your heart be increased and as soon as you step on the curb your heart's going a mile a minute and that someone had mentioned when you step on the curb and I learned this today when I went out for a quick and today is that crossing from Jason over towards Mill across Mass Ave, the light goes on for you to cross and but there is that little delay so it gives me a chance to get going and so more exercise and some positive type of thing all together. The other thing is that the lights for walking and crossing seem to be going off when there are no people there so nine o'clock at night this cross no one's anywhere and the poor cars are gonna stay and sit the rest there too and you mentioned something about the end of Jason Street where there's a split there. I observe it and it does appear to be enough room for two cars but I think if they just threw some paint on there and designated a little bit I think that may increase the flow so that's what I have. Okay, thanks for your time. Thank you for those positive comments, sir. Allison Goulder, Goulden. Yeah, I'm gonna pass, I'm gonna go for the past 10 years. I just want to support the reinstatement of the catastrophe on me. Thank you. I'm a special educator so I'm all for inclusive signs, audible but they should be audible in a specific format that's clearly understood by the pedestrians. Are you sure you don't want to speak? Yeah. No, the only problem, thank you Allison, the only problem is for the millions watching at home did not hear a word you just said but for the millions at home she was brilliant. Jane Everly? Ever... Everle, excuse me? Everly. Sorry, Jane, Everly. The only thing that I think, well I'm at 87 Bartlett, the only thing that I think really bears repeating again is that I encourage all of you to act on this quickly to resolve the problem because as you've heard tonight people's lives may depend on it, so thank you. Yes sir. So that is the last name I have on the signup sheet. Is there anybody here? Unbelievable. Yes sir, in the back. Oh no, of course. Hi, I'm Christian Klein, I live on Newport Street. Three quick things. One, unfortunately when this change happened there wasn't really any notice and I think that that led to a huge amount of confusion and everything else that brought us here. The second is because the concurrent countdown clocks are visible up Jason Street, if you stand on the corner you can watch people up Jason and when they see there's a counter and there was only five seconds, they floor it because they know that they've got five seconds to get to the intersection. And so if there's any way we can get, if we change the walk signal back we get rid of that problem, you don't have people racing right at Jason. And third, the one positive comment I have, I'm a frequent cyclist through this intersection, traveling westbound on Mass Ave, because of the change in sequence I am no longer at risk of being run over by somebody who is very late trying to turn left onto Mill Street through the green arrow. And so that is apparently the only real of positive of this. Left onto Mill did you say? Yeah, so if I'm traveling westbound on Mass Ave and somebody is coming eastbound on Mass Ave with the delayed green there's always sort of the green arrow stops but then everybody sort of drifts into the oncoming traffic to make the turn. So that doesn't happen right now. Thank you. Thank you. And you're always worth listening to. Okay, so let me, if I may, just one moment. You know, thank you. An issue we started to try and improve safety, we hear you, didn't work apparently. So but the work of TAC has always been exemplary in terms of the kind of research and stuff that they have done in the past. Citizen involvement in Arlington is the blood of this town and we just couldn't do it without you. So the first thing I'd like to do, Diane, if I may, I wanna ask Adam, what's possible at this point? I mean, we're all hearing the immediacy of this issue. Can I ask you or should I ask Mike or what could be changed quickly? I believe we can put the timing back. Although we can't put it back exactly the way it was. We were short on pedestrian crossing time so we would probably make some adjustments. The question then would be how do we notify folks on Jason and Mill, they no longer can cross, you know, no longer take a left without someone coming at them, right? So there's the same get the message out there question. How do we message that if we were to just tomorrow change the timing? There would be implications with that. So that's something to think about. We can put it back. I haven't thought through what other issues would arise if we were to just overnight put it right back. But I believe it's possible. I don't see why we couldn't. I mean, I would ask the traffic engineer, Jason, if he has any other opinions on that. Should we attack him now? I would, yeah. Not attack, but sorry. What's possible right now? Good evening. Well, certainly it's a brand new controller and all the equipment is there and it is possible to just to go back to the exclusive pedestrian phase. I will note that the signal contractor, I believe it was the Ocean State signal, it is that the whole cabinet was not replaced just the new controller in the cabinet. It's an older cabinet and they were out there for a few hours rewiring it to go to the current phasing. So it's not just a switch that they can switch in the cabinet, the contractor would have to come back and rewire the controller again in the cabinet. Thank you. The timings could be changed, but not the phasing. The exclusive pedestrian phasing, the contractor would have to come back to rewire the cabinet. Which can be done in a matter of hours for the contractor, but it's not just a flip of the switch. Okay, thank you, sir. All right, Ms. Mahan. First, I'd like to, since Sarah would think TAC and Mr. Rademacher, our engineer, for the time and effort that they put into this, Mr. Chairman has stated, certainly heard a lot from everybody here tonight as well as emails and change.org petition and others and sometimes you try things and they work, sometimes you don't. I guess I would have a definite motion and then through the chair, sort of a request to gestion, perhaps amplifying on what I think Jason just said. First, I'd like to vote that the board of select men restore the exclusive pedestrian crossing to Mass Ave, Mill Street, Jason Street as soon as possible. Second. And everybody has already said all the comments. The only other spice of life that I would add is just being down on the high school field in the middle of tournaments, whether it's soccer, football, cheerleading, et cetera. I'm not even joking when I say I probably had over a hundred parents, staff, special ed bus drivers, et cetera, all come up to me and just really give me three pieces of their mind in terms of that, similar to what we've heard here tonight. Nothing that anyone was trying to do anything really detrimental that this is something we tried and it definitely isn't something that's working right now. So that would be my first motion. And then what I would do through the chairman is, and I think we'd heard in the town manager, in terms of the traffic patterns, I have come down Mass Ave going eastbound past Whole Foods towards Cambridge. And now with that lane drop where it used to be, there would be two solid left-hand lanes, what I would ask the town manager and DPW and the engineers is, A, if I had my druthers that Jason of Mass Ave, Millen Mass Ave, would go at the same time instead of staggered as well as before. And I understand somebody spoke about this before, but especially if you go into the high school, God bless you, sporting events. I know a lot of people are avoiding that left-hand lane because the delayed left isn't there anymore. So I don't wanna be an engineer in terms of that facet of it, but I would like to attack the town manager and DPW unless they've already discussed this. My number one thing, my main motion is to restore the exclusive pedestrian crossing right there. If I may. Advice on the second. I would just like to add a little note about the eastbound Mass Ave, left turn hour. Previously it was a lead and what happened at the beginning, it's now been set to a lag. That change is not, we understood from the beginning that that was not preferable for traffic, but was required because of the lead pedestrian interval that we were providing. We did not want to have the walk sign for pedestrians and at the same time giving people a left turn arrow because the arrow is even more forceful. Yes, you have the ability to turn left here with no conflicts. So we certainly did not want that left turn arrow at the same time as the pedestrians and because of the concurrent heads, that's why we made the change to the lagging left. When we go back to an exclusive pedestrian phase, we would certainly change that back to a leading left turn arrow. Thank you. If I may, Mr. Hahn, I would suggest, if you're comfortable with it, that the motion actually be reverting to the prior signal phasing, but all understanding that the pedestrian phasing would need to have an additional eight seconds added to meet standard. 21 to 27. So that would be 29, 29 motions. It's billed, no. All right, so, all right, Mr. Dunn, the part of the, I am very, I'm comfortable with bringing back the pedestrian only phase. I have a lot of discomfort bringing back the Mill Street and Jason Street opposing left turns again. Because one of the things that we do know is that we had a lot of accidents and we had too many accidents of the people charging at each other doing that left. And I guess one of the, so let me propose a couple of different things, or possibilities that I would be more comfortable with. One is revert to the old system, but then give it another try to see if we can find a combination of the two, like as in a combination of the current proposal and a future proposal. Another one is to simply make it, let's say it is the position of the board that we do not want concurrent, or excuse me, that we do want protected pedestrian phase. And then say, okay, let's ask tech and engineering to figure out the best configuration that protects the pedestrian phase. Because I heard a lot of people say, I want a protected pedestrian phase, and I understand that argument. I didn't hear anybody say, I want to play chicken doing that left turn again. I see Mr. Chavitt, thank you. So, and I think this is where we get into the cake and eat it too portion of the, or the reality portion of the argument. So a couple of weeks back when I first sat down with Jeff and Howard and Mike, that was also my first question. And I'll let Jeff speak for himself, but the answer was that there isn't enough time to do that all and not further reduce the efficiency and backup in congestion in the intersection. And I want to be very clear, I'm not dismissing any of the very valid concerns that were raised tonight, but when we revert, I don't think anybody here should be surprised if another group of people come back to the board and complain that they're now way backed up on Mill Street in the past month they've had free passage. So there's never a perfect solution. I think we're moving in an appropriate direction, but I think my job is to put the reality out on the table. I don't know if Jeff you want to add to that. Yeah, no, Adam said it correctly. There's basically not enough green time to have an exclusive pet phase and split phases, but the conditions will be worse than they are now with queuing and delay.  Maybe if you start going to lead phases on Jason or Mill, then we have to start looking at new signal equipment for that. So that's possible. And you can, the left turns on Mill Street are high in the morning. Left turns on Jason Street are high in the afternoon. So it's, you know. What did you say, lead or is that equipment? Reference? New signal equipment, because you'd have to give protected for a lead phase and then go, you know, protect it to yellow and green ball. So you'd need more equipment than that's out there today, and possibly more detection loops in the roadway or cameras than we have out there now. Joe. Thank you very much. I think that we have actually a number of options. Thanks to the work that TAC did, we actually had a number of build options that were presented to us. And it sounds to me like where, if I'm not mistaken, we're converging on what was presented to us as build number one. Build one said modified lane use pedestrian crossing time of 29 seconds and optimized timings. I believe that maintain the concurrent build one did. It doesn't say it specifically, but it just references that as the difference. And if I'm not mistaken, I think that's actually rather than trying to pick and choose ourselves. I think there was actually an option that was put forward to us. And yes, we'll have a level of service deterioration. The estimate was that we'd lose four seconds in the AM peak. I don't know on the PM peak what it is. It just says greater than 120. But it doesn't show a change between a no build and a build. It gets a little worse because of pedestrian. Once we touch the intersection, we have to bring it up to standard. So we need that 29 second pedestrian phase. So it essentially gets a little worse. The lane designations help a little bit because people know which lane vehicles are supposed to be in, not like it was before when you had a mixture of people in different lanes. So it helps a little bit. It doesn't totally get rid of that conflict, crossing an intersection, which again would require more green time to do that. And I think maybe it gets worse for motorists, but maybe a little better for pedestrians because they'll have greater crossing time. So my inclination is that we'd be very specific and support the build one option that was presented to us originally, which is essentially going back to where we were some optimized lane markings, adding more time to the pedestrian crossing signal. It makes sense to me. I mean, I think we all get it. We all recognize it. And it's kind of ironic because in a few minutes we're going to go back in the other room. We're going to talk about, in addition to our handbook and our regulation of public and private ways and parking public utilities, as the select one continue to be responsive to resident input, but also employ the expertise of the parking committee and transportation advisory committee to carefully study and make recommendations on appropriate issues. So it seems that balancing what we've heard here tonight with some of the hard work the TAC has done. And I know even since this has erupted, TAC has been hard at work. I've clustered Port Jeff at Cross Country Meets. And I know he's been down there making checklists of improvements and some obstructions of signage and such have been changed down there, I think, even since this emerged. I think DPW has been observing the conditions and making changes to signage that's been in all that. So a lot has been going on. And we appreciate the board's support. And you can't always hit a home run. Mr. Byron. So I think we all see where this is going. And the one thing I will point out is that I think from the second we took this vote, it has really been a pretty big failure from a public outreach standpoint. I think this was really thrown at everyone in a fairly unfair manner, if that makes sense. And I don't think that any changes that are this big. And this is a pretty big policy change for us being the first one in town. And I think this is my mea culpa in that we really should have done a better job repairing the residents for it. And again, I guess I wasn't anticipating this amount of blowback. If you do go to many other cities and towns, they do do this, and it does seem to work. But I think we hear very clearly that it's not going to work here right yet. I do particularly think this intersection, the lighting really isn't appropriate for it. I know that was brought up, and that's something I was even thinking on the drive down here tonight. So I am happy to support both motions. I do like the idea of really looking at the build one option that Joe is looking at. And again, I think this is something that we'll have to rectify. And again, look at moving forward. I mean, maybe there are different other intersections in towns that might be more prime to more efficient usage of using unique crossing and turning points. But this obviously isn't one of them. So thank you. OK, so Mrs. Mahan, please clarify your motion. As in, what's this build one? Tell me what else is included now. Whatever. OK, my motion would be to adopt, to A, restore the exclusive pedestrian crossing on Mass Ave. Mill Street, Jason Street, by adopting build one as outlined and recommended by the Transportation Advisory Committee. But that means lane markings as well. Am I correct? And is there anything else to build one? No. There'd be no new markings. That's what I'm trying to clarify. What are we voting on then? The manager said build one would be. I think that's what we're saying, Red. That's basically what would have been. I'm just trying to see what. It would have been the optimization, which would be the markings that are there extending the pedestrian signal so that it's independent. But you'd still have Jason and Mill conflicting in their turns. OK. Are you all clear on what you're voting on? Because we need to be very careful that we're in many ways going back to the problem of the accidents at this intersection because of that. But when we balance what's more important pedestrian lives over car accidents, obviously. But I do think we need to keep studying this area to see what we can do. I'm with Mr. Dunn. I wish we could do it with the current Mass Jason and Mill, but I understand about the backups that that would cause. So on the motion by Mrs. Mahan. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. So we direct the manager to as soon as possible with the help from our engineer to get those lights changed immediately to pedestrian only. And just before we move, we're going to move back to the select man's chamber for the rest of the meeting. You don't want to miss it, by the way. Don't feel you have to go home. There's a lot more to do yet. But we thank you all very much. I want to thank ACMI that's been able to do this as well. Good night. Thank you. All right, so we reconvene the select man's meeting of November 9, 2015. I want to start again by thanking ACMI for their ability to allow us to conduct this meeting in two different locations seamlessly. Thank you very much for that. This is article number 14 now, item number 14, excuse me, agenda item. So this is for approval. The board designees to the school enrollment task force. Adam? Very simply, as presented in the memo, I provided to the board for this agenda item. The superintendent and I would like to put together this school enrollment task force to discuss the school enrollment pressures that were discussed in depth at the September 24th meeting in town hall. We wanted to have three school committee members, two members of the board of select men, member of finance committee, capital planning committee, permanent town building committee as well as myself and the superintendent. So once we get all those folks designated, which we should buy tomorrow, especially when we get to board members, we'll start calling meetings of that group. So we'll be looking at both the actual enrollment issues and then the various options and more options than what was presented on the 24th. So if I may, one of the issues that has been raised to me is the idea of should we have a couple citizens also on this committee? I know there's always an issue of size of committees, but has that been discussed at all or? So I've talked about it a lot. I've thought about it a lot with Cathy Bodie. And if every stakeholder group or citizen group that's asked me for a spot was granted one, we'd probably have a 15, 17 person committee, which is unmanageable. I guess the best I can say is these will be public meetings. They will all involve public input. It's not at all intended to be an exclusionary process, exactly the opposite in inclusionary process. And I don't mean to be glib, but elected members of the board of select men are from the community. Elected members of the school committee are from the community. As are the finance committee members, the capital planning committee members and the permanent town building committee members, that they're all volunteers from the community. So I don't see it as being exclusive of the community. I understand the requests being made, but I think this can still be a very inclusionary process while still having a decision-making, a structure that lends itself to decision-making. I just wanted to say so. Totally fair question. So since this is a subcommittee of the Budget and Revenue Task Force, and I chair that and chair also here of the board until the spring, I've asked if the two appointments would be Diane Mahon and Joe Currow, the two appointments on the board of select men. Do I need a motion for that or I just, I have... Couldn't hurt to have so moved. Is there a second? All those in favor, please sit in five, I say aye. Aye. Opposed, thank you both for your willingness to serve. Thank you. So, Mr. Dunn, do we need the internet for this? Nope. So this is discussion and approval protocol for adopting amended agreement, bonding with drawing from Minuteman Regional School District. Okay, yeah.  So I wanna talk to a bunch of updates, talk about what I think the current set of issues are. And I would like, and at the end, I'm gonna make a motion for the board to do some sort of support for the motion, for the protocol, for adopting an amending, bonding with drawing, which was the version that you have doesn't say, oops, which I, so it's in the packet, there's something that's called title. And so if no one, if you have preloaded a PDF, then you have it. And if you haven't, then I can pass you my iPad, which has it open, we can talk about it. So Minuteman pushes coming to shove. There, we've had a lot of meetings going on with, that have been multi-town meetings, including one two weeks ago, Wednesday, which was a slackman from 15 towns. I think only one was missing, there was up in Weston, that I thought was more productive than usual. As you recall, actually, let me talk about the building a little bit. The building process is moving into its next module. And I can never remember the module numbers, but in November 17th, the school committee is going to approve the Minuteman School Committee, is gonna approve the schematic designs, and the schematic designs will presumably be approved by the Mass School Building Authority in January. Did I get that right, Adam? Okay. And so given that they are at the point of schematic design, then there's gonna, provided that all that stuff gets approved, then at some point we really get pushcomings to shove talking about what the funding is. And in how, and so the two ways, of course, that everything could get approved, the funding can be approved is unanimous consent of actually, I guess there's kind of three ways. One is the board of the school committee can vote of bonding arrangement, and everybody can then just tell everybody about it. And unless somebody calls a special time meeting and says no, then that bonding happens. They can just send it to the towns and say, we need 16 yeses as opposed to waiting for one to say no. The third way is the ballot question, where they put a ballot that's very prescriptive about the way it happens. They get to set the date. The polls are only open for eight hours. There's some interesting elements about it, but it's at the polling locations that we choose, and so we have to administer it and stuff like that. And it could, there are definitely people on the Minuteman School Committee who are fed up with the whole process who think, who say there's no way we're getting to 16 yeses. So we're just gonna do the ballot. We're just gonna do it now and we're just gonna get it done with. And I don't think they have the votes to get that right now, but it's close, like they could. And so as early as this November 17th meeting, hypothetically, the Minuteman School Committee could set a date for an election. I don't think they have the votes, hopefully they end up that rash. We'll see. So coming back from the building project, now talking about the regional agreement. So as you're called, 10 towns, including Arlington voted yes on the revised regional agreement. Five towns didn't vote, and one of the towns voted no, it was Wayland. Wayland voted to, they instead voted that they wished to withdraw, which requires unanimous consent. The first town to have a town meeting since then was Lexington, which was last week, and Lexington said no. So Wayland is not out. Like before anybody else even gets there. Who's on first? The thing. What a mess this is. It is unbelievable. The select from Boxborough, who's one of the five towns who didn't vote yes. One of the reasons they expressed deep concern was because they didn't feel like they were guaranteed an out if they wanted one. I believe that that is mostly because they didn't study the issue closely enough and the new regional agreement was actually their best chance out. However, they want an even better chance out. And so what they're doing, what they did is they proposed this protocol right here. What the protocol says is, sometime over the next few months, any of the 16 towns who thinks that they want to leave takes a vote at the board level that says yes, we want to leave or we think we want to leave. And then they become what they call a declarant. And once you're a declarant, then we ask the Minuteman School Committee to propose a new regional agreement which is the same as the one that we voted on two years ago with an addendum on the top that says any declarant that chooses to leave may be permitted, will be permitted to leave upon approval of the regional agreement. So basically it's an explicit way of writing in the exit for the towns that want to go. Wayland clearly would take it. Boxborough might take it. I have to think Sudbury wants out. Dover is really conflicted about it. They only said two students. But they're actually really conflicted about whether or not they want to go. Lincoln does not want to leave. And Carlisle I don't think wants to leave either. Am I missing anything here? Okay. So one of the productive things that happened at this meeting was talking about this protocol for getting a new regional agreement which I heartily endorsed. I said, you know, because I think that we can go, like it goes along with everything that we've already said because as you recall as a board we adopted was called the Needham Amendment where we were going to let anybody go. This is just a different way of letting everybody go. If Belmont or Lexington or us chose to become a declarant, things would become very interesting. I don't think we, I don't see any sign that any of those three towns are thinking that that would be a good idea. And so what I'm working with is I'm trying to create this, get all those six towns who didn't say yes to get in a room and say, can you agree to this? And I'm actually saying that Arlington is, I'm putting Arlington in that room too because we're the big one in this thing. So Saturday, and then I said I'm gonna be out of town so Joe can do it. Yes. Oh, I like that. Good job. So on Saturday, Joe will be in Sudbury. At the Grange. At the Grange. It's actually a beautiful building. The six, so it's a six plus one trying to get people to say, and I'm also doing a couple of meetings before and after that trying to also get that six plus one. So I'm working really, really hard to try to get this regional agreement over the finish line. At the same time, there are other meetings that are happening with Lexington and Needham where they're coming to Arlington and they're saying, hey guys, we really want this building and why don't you just say yes. And. Oh, okay. Exactly, that's kind of the way it's going. And the line of argument. The 40% of it, okay. The line of the argument is periodically, don't worry, we really agree with you. After we get the new building, then we'll do a new regional agreement. And I'm getting a lot of body language and saying, and I just want to say if, I know we've been saying the same thing for five years, but if we ever wanted to change our minds, this would be the time. No. Okay. Yeah, Kevin is saying no. Well, I'm just, that's just me. Yeah. Okay, but now would be the time if we want to do it. Okay. So, like I wrote a couple of notes to myself here and I said, so the regional agreement is the rock that I'm sticking to. If there's a hint that we wanted to, that would be it. I think that, so other things that are coming up. A week from today, there's a meeting at Minuteman where Minuteman wants to talk to us about the various funding mechanisms. I think that this is their sell job on why the ballot isn't as bad as we think it is, which I think that they're going to hear is just as bad as we think it is. My current, I am hopeful that the Minuteman School Committee sees the light and doesn't try to force a funding mechanism on us too soon. And I hope that we can get through a new regional agreement this spring. Because even if the building doesn't work, the regional agreement is still a win for us. And so that's where I'm trying to drag us along. I keep, I talk to Adam regularly about what's going on. I talk to Al Tosti and Charlie Foskett and Steve DeCorsi and Sue Scheffler periodically, less than I talked to Adam. I talk to them probably with a similar frequency that I'm talking to you all here. I hope that people feel up to date. And so that's where I am. So I guess I'm looking for feedback and I would formally make the motion that let's see how I wanna phrase it. Arlington supports a revised Minuteman regional agreement that consists of the 2013 language plus the Boxborough Protocol. Second? Second. Oh, second. I have a question. Now I know that it doesn't seem likely that kind of the big fish wanna leave. What would happen if either ourselves, Lexington, et cetera, said that maybe we want out? I don't think that then the proposed regional agreement is really, or that proposed region is really viable. And I think that we would probably, I think we'd in some way have to say no to the regional agreement change and just be back at square one. So I think we'd be back locked into the 16 towns without anyone leaving. And I do understand that it's not the case, but I guess I'm trying to see if there is, perhaps throughout this whole process, if it's becoming that the region isn't viable. I think that the, so the region is not enough to fill the school to the capacity of the Mass School Building Authority set. So this year, I guess the 16 sending towns at this point are 371 students, I think is the number that I've got in my head. And the Mass School Building Authority said, to build a Vogue school, you must have at least 600 seats in it. And so to the way I think, one of the things that I think that I've heard that I've been repeating because I think it makes a lot of sense is, okay, that's fine. Then we will be prepared to pay for the capital for those 371 students. But if the state says that you need to build a school for at least 600, then that 230 difference, that is the state's problem. And the state needs to pick up the bill or figure out a mechanism to pick up for the bill. And they've done some improvements on that because the desi, the Department of Education has said that they're making rules changes such that out of district sending towns will be forced to spend a capital apportionment to, so for instance, Waltham, Watertown, Medford, the big three who are sending like 25 students each, some of them, they will also have to pay say five grand a student capital each year. And that will defray part of it. So the question is, is the region viable? Not exactly, but the other aspect of it is that it does have this terrible governance structure that we lived with for 45 years. And one hopes that with a revised, more intelligent governance structure that it would become better run and more viable. That's what we're, thank you very much. No, I am, and I do appreciate your work on this. I know it's not easy and I feel very up to date. So thank you. I have a question that I'm not even sure is applicable to A, what you're proposing. B, you're asking Joe to represent the proposing. And if it's your main to this. I'm just wondering if amongst this discussion, if we're going to have and or is it appropriate or perhaps another venue, some sort of proposal or remediation regarding what I'll call the sizable number of out of district students at Minuteman and getting them somehow as a player to contributing to financing the new Minuteman rebuild. Yeah, that's the capital thing that I was just talking about. That's the 5,000 or 5,000 is an estimate number. It's not a flat number. So the way that he's making this proposing or set of rules, which are not fully fleshed out and not fully implemented, but they say that if you are a non-member 10 and you want to send your students to a regional vocational school, that regional vocational school can bargain with you to create an intergovernmental agreement. And one of the terms of that intergovernmental agreement is a capital payment, but only interestingly for Mass School Building Authority approved buildings. So it only works if you went through the whole state process from beginning to end, which Minuteman is currently trying to do. So what that would mean is the Minuteman School Committee would have to play sufficiently hardball with Waltham Watertown, Medford, and say we are not accepting your students unless you sign an intergovernmental agreement and then sign it and they have to keep, and then they have to pay. And they will be trying to convince the Department of Education to change the rule back. And we're gonna be trying to convince them to keep the rule. So the part of this that makes me deeply uncomfortable is that the bond is 30 years, but Desi is not. Not that you can answer for the Minuteman School Committee, but do you see them adhering to that position that they wills? Like in my sense, they wanna get as many students as they can. In a new regional agreement, where for instance, Arlington's vote counts for a quarter of the vote, I think we would have a pretty good chance of that. In a regional agreement where Arlington has won 16th of the vote, I am skeptical. All right, thank you. Piggy back on your question. Doing an awesome job. I don't know yet. Updating awesome job.  I would have also really liked to hear about the town manager's perspective. Sure. I mean, I don't have very much to add further than what you said. Other than that, even if we get this regional agreement, this is still, even if we're successful in pursuing the regional agreement, one more time with the Boxborough Protocol, it's still a big financial issue for the town to deal with. So myself, Mr. Dunn, folks from Lexington, folks from Needham are still trying to push the legislature for further financial infusion into the project. I know Dan had mentioned to me that at the meeting he attended, some of the other smaller communities didn't seem to have an interest as much in pursuing that, perhaps because of less of a financial stake, or perhaps because I think it's a fruitless pursuit. That being said, I sort of just want to take the opportunity to remind everybody that, even with a new regional agreement, excuse me, there still remains the challenge of figuring out the proper way to fund it. That said, the regional agreement sort of an approximate brings down our annual debt payment on this project by about $200,000 to $300,000, depending on the actual final size of the project. So it's not insignificant. It would go from somewhere between a $1.5 to $1.7 million debt payment down to a $1.3 to $1.5 million annual debt payment. So achieving this regional agreement certainly does improve Arlington's ability and then correspondingly its desire to approve a building project. I think it probably is important to mention one confounding factor here too that those who've been kind of putting the building ahead of the agreement have been banging on just to make it a little bit more frustrating that MSBA is committing a 40% reimbursement on the project if we go with MSBA. If we don't and the project is not put forward right now, there's still potential that the work is going to get done but without the MSBA contribution and over time not a big bang project. So I think it's important that everybody recognize that that's been kind of threatened. Threatened. Thank you. I was looking for the verb. I was looking for a diplomatic turn of phrase but yeah, thank you. Okay, so all those in favor of Dan's motion and wishing Mr. Kuro Godspeed on Saturday, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Thanks for fighting so hard Dan, we're only playing Joe and Adam. So still we have no internet, am I correct? I'm not on. So here's what I'd like to recommend all right on the three items that are coming up. So approval, display of notices policy and then discussion on the handbook and which you have here in front of us and then 18 is also for the manual. So we have the handbook which is really what we're in. The manual is the full complete policies, licenses, permits, applications, everything. So what I'd like to recommend is that we discuss an item number 17, which is the regulation of public and private waste parking and public utilities. This would be for the handbook. The full policy would be in the actual manual. So our goal is by the December meeting, the Christmas meeting, what's that date Marianne? 21st. 21st. So it's to hand you the handbook for you to take over the holidays and for us not completed, I mean for you to read over the holidays and for us to approve some time in January and then have it bound and finished by, what, March, was that our goal? Yes. March, Steve, yes. So we're pretty close at this point. Now the manual, we've been approving all along. The manual is our policy. We've gone through pretty much all of them at this point in time. You see these couple like the public display that we need to finally approve. But so can we take up at this point item 17? All right, yes, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, Mr. Anderson, are we going to take up the notices policy this evening? Is that true? We can, if you feel you've read it enough. My problem is we don't have it in front of us because, but if you, I mean if you had a chance to read it beforehand and are prepared to, I'm ready, Stephen and I are ready. I have two hard copies if someone has to read it. I only raise it because I know that the proponent of the original warrant article that led to this has been patiently waiting for a couple hours. Which one do you want to do? Well, do you all feel ready to talk about the public notices? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, okay. Christian, do you want to, have you seen it? Do you know what time it was? No, I haven't. Yes, am I correct? Yes. I need to, Mr. Chairman, if I may, I need to add one point. Fortunately, there was some sort of technical problem where the revised, I made one minor revision to that policy in the form of an addition. Which was to essentially include a clause that said, nothing in this policy shall be construed to regulate signage protected by First Amendment rights, such as political signage, temporary political signage for campaign purposes or other political activity. So that there's not any question that's always been the board's practice, but I'd like to make it explicit in that policy that this essentially does not apply to election signs and means of that nature. Okay. Okay, Mr. Dunn. I'm sorry, I don't know why that didn't get transferred over, but. I don't know whether it was, I don't know why this hasn't occurred to me before, or whether it's I knew, read something new or what it was. But I came to the realization when I read the packet this weekend that we're asking anyone who wants to post a sign to come to Town Hall to fill out an application first. Is that, that's correct, right? That's what the current draft, the draft that was in our packet this time said. Good, yeah. Yeah, I don't think we should do that. And so I, the parts of the guidelines, the things where we actually say what should and shouldn't be permitted, I really, like that's the part I really like. The part where we say you have to come to Town Hall and you have to get a permit before you put up these signs, I think is something that we will, the people who put up the signs that we don't like aren't the people who come and ask for permits anyway.  And then there's gonna be a sign out there that would say does this sign have a permit or not have a permit? And there's no particular filing method of it. And I'm reminded of how the town used to have a policy for yard sales, where you had to register your yard sale, which some people complied with and some people didn't comply with. And in the end, all of the registrations for the yard sales were simply paper that no one ever looked at or did anything. And then we realized that it was the wrong kind of bureaucracy. So I was thinking about how to make this a functioning policy and all of the stuff that we talk about in the rules on this are related to a date. And it seems to me that one of the way that we can get around having people come in here and getting approval or not is by saying all signs of this nature must have a date associated with them. And what is a legal or not legal sign is how it behaves related to the date. Is it two days before? Is it seven days after? And so if