Good evening. I'm calling to order the meeting of the Arlington Select Board for Monday, March 7th, 2022. This is Select Board Chair Steve DeCorsi. Permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Diane Mohan? Affirmative. John Heard. Yes. Len Diggins. Here. Eric Helman. Yes. Staff, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Adam Chapter Lane. Yes. Doug Heim. Yes. And Board Administrator Ashley Maher is participating remotely. Tonight's meeting of the Arlington Select Board is being conducted remotely consistent with an act signed into law on February 15th, 2022, that extends certain COVID-19 related measures. The act includes an extension until July 15th, 2022 of the remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 executive order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. The governor's order, which is referenced with agenda materials on the town's website for this meeting, allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely, so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can fall along with the deliberations of the meeting. Before we begin, permit me to offer a few notes. First, this meeting is being conducted via Zoom, is being recorded, and is also being simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Persons wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. Participating by Zoom are reminded that they may be visible to others, and that if you wish to participate, you are asked to provide your full name in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. All participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment, and those persons are not required to identify themselves. Both Zoom participants and persons watching on ACMI can follow the post of the agenda materials also found on the town's website using the Novus agenda platform. Finally, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call. Our meeting this evening includes eight warrant article hearings. Let's see how much of the town's business we can get done tonight. Before we begin, I just want to let the public know that we attempted to have tonight's meeting in the select board chambers. Unfortunately, there were some technical issues at town hall that ACMI has been working on, and we are hopeful that we are going to have our March 21st meeting in the select board chambers, at least with the members and staff. We may have a hybrid type meeting and allow participation through Zoom and through columns, but stay tuned for that, but it looks like we will be back on March 21st. And with that, I will turn to the next item on the agenda, which is a statement from the town manager, Mr. Chaplain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of the board. As individual board members are aware, and as was reported last week in local media. Tonight, I'm officially announcing my decision to leave the role of town manager, effective June 17. 10 years serving as town manager, and two years before that, serving as the deputy town manager has been a tremendous honor. However, after a great deal of consideration. I know that I need an opportunity to reflect recharge and refocus as I consider what to do next in my career. As we all know, the past few years have been very challenging, but they have also provided perspective perspective that has shown me that nothing is promised, and that the time we have here is to be cherished perspective that has shown me that my children will only be young once and perspective that has shown me that while the work we do is vitally important. It doesn't need to be our identity. I'll be forever grateful for the opportunity here in Arlington, and I'll be forever proud of what we've accomplished as a team. I'm grateful to the board for the faith and trust that it has put in me, and I am thankful to the team of town employees that always rise to the moment. I'll always appreciate and cherish the support that I've been granted by town residents and volunteers. Arlington is a tremendous community. It has been a wonderful place to work, and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity that it has given me to build my professional skills while working on an array of important issues. I look forward to working to help facilitate a successful and safe town meeting this spring, working to see the FY 2023 budget adopted and helping the board to build a transition plan. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone for making Arlington such a wonderful town. It will always hold a special place in my heart. Thank you for the time to give this statement tonight, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chapterland, and we will certainly have more to say as a board as we approach June 17 in the end of your time here as town manager. And as you said, it's been 10 years, and the town manager had informed us last week. There is a period of time, a notice period within his contracts. It's a 90 day period. And so he has given us the 90 days, more than 90 days, announcing that he'll be leaving on June 17. So thank him for his work. And as I said, we will, we'll have much more to say as we go forward and appreciate the comments this evening. Okay, we will now go to item three on the agenda, a request for increase of funds to private way repair revolving fund Sandy pooler deputy town manager. Let me just promote Sandy. Here he comes. Good evening, Mr. cooler. Here members of the board, Adam and Doug. The town has a private way repair revolving fund in the process under which we allow citizens to repair private ways. The town has a group, a petition the town for process under which they get permission from the slide board for repair. If a majority of residents on a tent on a street vote to have their street repaired, they can then select a contractor from a list that our engineering department provides. And then collect fees from all those residents to pay the contractors that fee goes through this revolving fund. And what has happened is over the years the revolving fund has worked well. People paid the contractors through the assessments for those improvements, but most of those repairs have been on smaller roads. Last year, we did a major repair for mouth of boa street and that repair cost $221,000. Because it was so expensive, it's exceeding the limit the town meeting voted for this revolving fund of $200,000. And for those of you at home, just to explain revolving funds can spend as much money as they take in up to an amount set by town meeting. If during the middle of the year looks like we're going to exceed that limit, both the select board and the finance committee can vote to increase that limit. So, I'm here tonight. Adam, either Cody may be here too, I'm not sure. To ask the board to vote to raise the limit on the fund from 200 to $275,000 for FY 22. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. cooler, and I'll turn to the board. Mr. Diggins. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I mean, so I would like to move approval and allow for us to increase the monies a lot to $275,000. And I have a couple of questions, you know, so the source of the funds Mr. Mr. cooler. Most of the funds come from the residents themselves. I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt you. So where will we get the extra 75 K. From assessments from the residents, people are paying into the fund but they've hit the $200,000 limit. They'll pay in over that limit. But we can't spend over the 200,000 so we need you to raise the spending limit. So it meets what they're going to give us. Okay. I'm sorry. Well, I'm glad to ask that question because I thought my understanding was different in that I thought we needed to pay out more I see it's more of a just kind of a technical adjustment. Gotcha. Right. All right. Well, even, even easier. I mean, that doesn't have a problem with it, but thank you for clarification. I appreciate it. That's all Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Diggins and good evening, Miss Cody. Good evening. We'll now turn to Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. I second that just a quick question for Mr. Poulter. So, is there a downside to having a ceiling that's even higher I mean this is easy enough to do but is there anything that affects our ratings or other financial practices that we wouldn't want to just set the ceiling quite high so that we have as much in case two or three large projects come come at us in one year. That's an excellent question. It's one that Comptroller Cody and I are looking into now because we do know that there's another $150,000 project that's coming up on the schedule for the following year. It is our intention to make a recommendation for the FY 23 limit on this fund at town meeting. I believe that we will make a recommendation at that time to raise it. We're just trying to decide at this point with the right numbers. Thank you. No further questions. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Mrs. Mahon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to add to the conversation briefly that the reason we need to increase the funding now. I might correct that we need to pay the contractor. Then it's not it's the campaign, the contractor, but then the residents who ultimately are paying for this will be paying back in four or five years. So the contractor naturally can't wait four or five years out again. Four or five years worth of payment. We pay it upfront. They pay it back over four or five years that replenishes itself so it's paid for by the private way residents. Did I say that briefly incorrectly, Mr. You said it briefly. You said it 90% correctly. If I could just say one thing, some people make their payments right up front. They don't put it on their tax bills for five years. Other people do pay it over five years. So we have most of the money that we need to and the other important thing you said is we want to pay the contractor. The contractor did the work. He's waiting to be paid. So I just want to be clear in this revolving fund, a lot of people just give us the money upfront. Some people paid off over five years. That's the only technical addition I'd say to what you stated correctly. Thank you, Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Hurt. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Happy to support this and I would just say that after, you know, four or five years of people asking us to repair their private ways, it's just good to see that we've spread the word enough about the betterment process as this is the correct path to get private ways repaired and we have seen an increase in applications, which is a good thing. It means people are using the avenues available to them to repair their private ways. So I think this is a good process that we're going through and I'm happy to see that we're going to increase or we're going to talk about increasing the limit to promote additional streets that need repair to use this process. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hurt. And I'm also happy to support this. I actually heard from someone in that neighborhood about two weeks ago, commenting on how well the program went and as to the scope is over 70 families. It was a huge undertaking but they, at least what was reported back to me, they were very happy with the process and really pleased that the neighborhood was able to come together and get the work done. So I'm happy to support it. Just a question, has the finance committee already voted on this or is that coming up at a future meeting? I believe that they will take it up tonight also. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Pula. Thank you, Ms. Cody as well. So in a motion by Mr. Diggins seconded by Mr. Helmuth, Attorney Hime. Mr. Hurt? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Helmuth? Yes. Mrs. Mahan? Yes, thank you. Mr. Corsi? Yes. Thank you both for joining us tonight. Thank you. Next is the Consent Agenda. That is items four, five, and six. Item four, minutes of meeting February 7th, 2022. Item five is a request for a contractor drain layer license. P. Gillespie, Inc. Number six is for approval school bus monitors as special municipal employees. And on the Consent Agenda, Mr. Helmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chair, I move approval. Thank you. Ms. Mahan? Second. No questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Mahan. Mr. Hurt. No questions. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Diggins. Quick question through you, Mr. Chair, to our town council. Will they have to do ethics training? Especially with full employees? They already do, sir. Okay. Gotcha. Thank you. Yep. Just so folks know, they have slightly different rules applied to special municipal employees that essentially allows you to have more than one job. So that folks who are working for the public schools can also serve as a bus monitor, which is one of the main benefits of being a specialist. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. And I have no questions. So on a motion for approval by Mr. Helmuth, seconded by Mrs. Mahan, attorney. Mr. Hurt. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. This is Mahan. Yeah. Mr. DeCoursey. Yes. Thank you. Item seven under appointments, zoning board of appeals associate member, Elaine Hoffman for a term to expire October 31st, 2024. Believe Ms. Hoffman is with us this evening. Ms. Hoffman. Yes. And she should be joining us right now. Great. And this is for the, the final open seat on the zoning board of appeals. We had filled a full seat and one of the associate members. And Ms. Hoffman is, is being recommended as the second associate member. Good. Good evening, Ms. Hoffman. Hello, everyone. Hi. Thank you for joining us today and just for some members know, we're really excited to be here today. Thank you. I'm happy to be here today. And I just wanted to give you a little bit of an overview. And really looking forward to, to seeing her serve on the ZBA. Assuming we get the vote this evening. So, Miss Hoffman, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're interested in serving on the boat on the zoning board of appeals. Absolutely. I am Elaine Hoffman and a local architect with about a decade of expertise is in sustainable design, particularly related to the operational energy and embodied carbon of both new and existing buildings. And given this professional background, I believe I would be an asset to the ZBA in reviewing applications and understanding the environmental implications of even small projects as relates to our zoning bylaws. So I appreciate the consideration of my appointment as an associate member to the board. Thank you very much. And I'll turn to the board. Mr. Herd. Well, unmuting trouble there. Good to meet you face to face, Ms. Hoffman. We had a phone interview, so it's always good to see somebody in person somewhat. And as we talked about in your interview, you are very well qualified. I think you'd be a great fit for this position. So happy to recommend your appointment to the board. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Herd. Mr. Diggins. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I mean, yes, I mean, the qualifications are definitely there. And your realm of study or expertise is certainly what we need going forward in the environment where we really have to take care of the climate concerns, I mean, at least work to mitigate them. And there's something special about associate members. Yeah, I really appreciate the fact that you are stepping into this role and I hope it's just the first step in your involvement with the CBA. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Mr. Helman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Ms. Hoffman, for willing to do this. I was thrilled when I looked at your resume. Okay. As you probably know that the town is working really hard on looking at buildings for a sustainability plan, a very large percentage of our carbon emissions from our emissions come from buildings. And I think that your expertise will help the coordinated effort that we're making with things like the net zero action plan, looking at a better stretch code to really take a hard long look at the existing and new buildings that we are doing and how they fit into the climate change crisis. So thank you for your work and thank you for doing some of that for us. Thank you, Mr. Helman. Mrs. Mohan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Ms. Hoffman, for joining this important committee. Mr. Helman pretty much encapsulated all the remarks that I would around climate change and net zero recognize we're talking about the zoning board of appeals. So we have about four or five hats. I'm very appreciative for all those hats. I look forward to working with you in the future. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Mohan. Yeah. And I also am happy to support the nomination. And I want to thank Ms. Hoffman. We had a really good discussion last week. And one of the things that we've seen from some candidates for positions, and Ms. Hoffman has done this as well, she attended several of the ZBA meetings, saw what they were doing, wanted to become more involved. And then really, really appreciate that background work before you even put your name in. And so I'm happy to support your nomination. So on a motion by Mr. Herd, seconded by Mr. Diggins, Attorney Heim. Mr. Herd? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Helman? Yes. Mrs. Vaughan? Yes. Thank you. Mr. Request. Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. And thank you all for those lovely comments. I look forward to working with you. Thank you very much. Moving on, I'm going to call items eight and nine together. And eight is going to be a very brief discussion. Item eight is coordination by Verizon of double pull removals. And number nine is a public hearing for a Verizon petition on Massachusetts Avenue in Willow Court. Karen Levesque is the right-of-way manager from Verizon. And so while we wait for Ms. Levesque to come and join us, I put item eight on the agenda, really as a means to follow up on an earlier meeting where we had received words from Verizon that they had indicated to actually to ACMI that they were current on all their double pull work. They were just waiting for other utility companies to get in touch with them. And we wanted to set up a meeting, had a little bit of difficulty hearing back from them and receiving a commitment. But the town manager informs me today that he did confirm with Verizon that not only are they willing to attend the meeting, they had asked for available dates in the next week or two. And I don't know if there's anything further further to add on that, Mr. Chapter Lane. Really nothing beyond what you just stated, Mr. Chairman. My office will work to pull in ever source RCN, Comcast as well as town staff to join that meeting with Verizon so that we can try to better coordinate forward progress on the removal of these double pulls. Thank you. And this is to the coordination that just the companies communicating with each other. So that was, I didn't know how that was going to play out, but today we got good news on that. So unless board members have any questions on eight, I'll move right to number nine or comments. Okay. You don't see any. So item nine is the Verizon petition. And if Ms. Levesque is with us. I am not seeing Karen Levesque. Full of that. I'm sorry. That's how fall River people say it, but I don't know that that's right. If there's another representative from Verizon, perhaps they could raise their hand. But looks like someone named Bill Wallace is here who's raising their hands. So I'll promote them. Hello. Good evening, Mr. Wallace. Yes, I'm sorry about that. No problem. Yeah. Yeah, if you could tell us a little bit about the petition and I know you've submitted an application and then we will open up to the board and the public if there are any questions. Okay, this is a petition for to run a new four inch conduit approximately 245 feet, starting from an existing manhole 30 slash 25 be located on the northerly side of Massachusetts have for approximately 150 feet in the southeasterly direction, then turning northerly and heading in a northeasterly direction onto willow court for an additional 95 feet to an existing pole. 715 slash one said pole being located on the east of the side of West willow court. This petition is necessary to improve the the services in that area. Currently that area is fed through a conduit that goes underneath the building on mass have and it has become a very troublesome cable and Verizon through efforts to rod and rope in that current conduit is plugged and it goes like I said it goes underneath the building and so this would be a new route that would go into that area to feed not only the built but that small strip mall that's on mass have but also the houses on willow court and in the back area there to repair that cable. Thank you Mr. Wallace and for the public's benefit will court is it meets mass have across the street from the whole foods and about the first Baptist Church. So I will now turn to the board. Mrs. Mahan. Thank you Mr. Chairman move approval. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Hurd. Second. Thank you Mr. Hurd. Mr. Diggins. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I hope someday that I'll be able to when I'm walking past some construction map it to the select board meeting that we approved it and also want to say on point number eight. I really appreciate the attention that we pay that we give to trees made on that one the we're going to do a walkthrough with the tree ward and to make sure that the mature trees the roots are or not damaged in this work so it's just indication that we do take out trees seriously and thank you. Thank you Mr. Diggins and Mr. Helmick. Thank you no questions. Thank you Mr. Helmick. This is a public hearing. Mr. Chapter Lane are there any members of the public who wish to be heard on on this petition? There is one hand. Paul Chidigian. I'm probably saying that incorrectly but I will promote them. He should be joining the meeting. Good evening Mr. Chidigian. Here we go. I think I'm here. Yes, we can hear you. Question. Is this conduit that will be installed on Willow Court? Oh by the way Paul Chidigian Hitchell wrote, I am also the building manager at First Baptist. Is this conduit going to be providing fiber for fios or is this going to be used for 5G? I understand. I used to work in telecom 23 years is essential ops technician that Verizon is looking to put an antenna on Willow Court and what will this be used for is one question. One more question after that. Sure. Mr. Walls could you? At this time I don't have any information on anything with 5G or anything like that. At this time the job that's in the field is to replace the cable that goes underneath the building out of the manhole that's in front of the building that runs alongside Ramsdale Court between Ramsdale Court and Willow Court. That cable goes underneath the building or rises on the very back of the building which is troublesome. I myself do not have any information about any further services beyond this. I could look into it for you but I don't have it any information at this time. Yeah another yeah this my second question kind of piggybacks on the first one in that Verizon does not have any upgraded services along MassApp on the First Baptist side going from First Baptist to the Atwood House and the CBS Pharmacy. That has been a major problem for us at First Baptist trying to acquire high-speed internet service and will also be a problem with the development of the Atwood House. Right now the only service available is Verizon Legacy Copper which Verizon is actively trying to decommission and retire. That's why I was curious as to whether or not this would be eventually sold or open to the public and the abutters and extended maybe up MassApp where currently only Verizon Copper exists. Nothing with Comcast nothing with RCN. No service whatsoever. It sounds like that may be a different project. Is that your understanding Mr. Wallace? That's correct. I currently do not have any information on any further expansion of the files network or anything like that in our internet at this time. Yeah we try and Verizon keeps saying no and it's going to be a problem for as I said for the Atwood House eventual expansion because nothing's available there. So that was my that was my concern for the meeting. Okay and maybe we could pass that concern along too. I mean you would like to see files available to whoever wants it in time. Right too many exceptions and exemptions have been given by I've been taken by the utility companies over the years including RCN and Comcast to expand into these areas where they can't get a fast ROI and they just walk past and say we will not give you any service sorry. All right so we'll that as a separate issue Mr. Chidigan maybe we can follow up on that. And it was a good by the good that's a good that's a correct percentage of my name it's Chidigan that's correct. Okay I had a classmate named Chidigan that I like in high school. Charlie right my brother Charlie. Right exactly.  Thank you very much. Okay is there anybody else. No other hands sir. Okay all right so on a motion by Mrs. Mahan seconded by Mr. Herd attorney. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. Diggs. Yes. Mr. Helman. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Thank you. Next item is item 10 outdoor restaurant and retail permit applications clay dreams 183 Mass Ave. Sugo 162 Mass Ave and Trattoria Nina 1510 Mass Ave. Kids I don't know if each of the applicants are with us or if there's anybody from the planning department that may be maybe with us on this tonight. I recognize at least one name from Sugo I could promote Rudy and then ask the others to raise their hands if they're here to join us. Okay looks like we have three folks joining us so I think we're covered. Okay great so if Rudy is here I think you just promoted him maybe we can hear from him first. Yeah he should be here. Can you hear me now? Yes yes we can. Okay thank you. Yeah if we have your application but maybe if you could tell us a little bit about what you're the approval you're seeking for the outdoor permit. Well last year we got the two parking spaces in front of the restaurant and I'd like to do that again but this year I'd like to make it a little bit more presentable. I was going to have a contractor a local contractor actually build a collapsible deck for us with some planters make it look a little bit better than it did last year the orange barricades were fine but I wanted to make it a little bit more presentable this year and because I want to make it more even to the curb because the street slopes to the to the curb a little bit and as we did last year with fresh greenery lights and keep it nice and clean and just make it appealing and so people come and enjoy it and enjoy a great meal with us which some of you have already done. That's great thank you for that too. What I'm going to do is I'm going to ask each one of the applicants to tell us a little and then we will go to the board for questions and possible motion and who else is with us Mr. Chapter Lane? So we we have Lorraine Frigoletto is with us as a panelist and Angelo Carbini is raising their hand and I'll just share them I'm promoting them to panelists but they need to click to accept it on a message that should be coming up on their screen. Okay all right so yeah if Ms. Frigoletto she's here from Clay Dreams and if she could tell us what she is asking for through the application. Hi I'm here. Good evening. Good evening everybody. Announcing that that a park that you made for within front of my studio with the parking space that's right in front of there. Last year we used it we were able to have two tables set up for pottery painting outside which was very helpful with parents with children that didn't want to come inside the building due to COVID and they really appreciate an opportunity to be not in an enclosed space but outside in the air so that's what I was asking for. Okay thank you and the last is Mr. Carbini is that right? Okay yeah okay good evening Mr. Carbini. Yes hi. Hi yeah and if you could just tell us a little bit about your petition for for the outdoor permit. Well I'm happy as the previous year with with outdoor seating arrangement so I've known no issues continuing like the same same setup except I brought this issue for the sidewalk the sidewalk just outside the restaurant it needs repair and I brought it up many many times and I send I send a letter once through email and I never got a response so I see that in Allentone they do other work in the in the Allentone iron center that I've seen through in the past year a lot a lot of development improved me improving as I work but the part of Allentone I see a little neglect so I would like to know if it does I work I would want to bring attention to to have some some kind of fixing. Okay yeah maybe what we can do with Mr. Chapterling maybe if we can follow up through Mr. Rademacher on on that issue with Mr. Carbini so so on the three petitions I'll now turn to the board Mr. Diggins. Thank you Mr. Chair I'd like to move approval of these requests and and also I'd like to say that it's really good to see this expedited process working Ms. Cotter was one of the prime movers of doing this mean and I think she did a great job in guiding in the board to expedite the process mean and I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens with these parklets mean as the chair knows in there has been an interesting study or or presentation by the Boston MPO the Metropolitan Planning Organization on the future of the curve mean and there are some elements mean of that in what we're doing here so it'll be really interesting to see how this plays out over the summer so again thank you Mr. Diggins on Mr. Helmuth. Thank you I second that and offer a friendly minor amendment that would be suggest that we approve subject to the conditions that are laid out in the memos from the Department of Planning and Community Development the Spectral Superstitions and the Board of Health. Thank you Mr. Helmuth and take that as a friendly amendment and if that's okay with you Mr. Diggins. Yes it sure is and I guess that does bring up a little bit of a question that I had when I was reading through because it wasn't clear to me if we still needed some approvals you know and we're in the sequence we were mean and so so I appreciate Mr. Helmuth pointing that out thanks. Thank you Mr. Diggins. Yeah no I think there are additional steps that need to be taken before these go into place so that their conditions will will take care of that. Mrs. Mahan. No questions thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Heard. Thank you Mr. Chair I just like to say I'm happy to support this I think the Parklets have been a great success I'm glad to see them continuing this year in the years to come and want to thank like my colleagues the planning department for taking the lead on this and I would just mention to these three applicants which I don't think it will really apply for these applicants but the only complaints that we get in some with the parking now it's just in a parking committee is that sometimes the outdoor seating can cause trash buildup not inside not just inside the areas but outside of the areas so just be mindful if you have paper products that your patrons are using if they blow out of the designated area we would still expect that you'd pick those up and make sure you keep the sidewalk clean and I don't expect any issues with these applicants but just something that I would say to anybody that was applying for the outdoor seating permits. Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you Mr. Heard and I also support the petitions so on a motion that was made by Mr. Diggins seconded by Mr. Helmuth. Attorney Hine. Mr. Heard. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. Mrs. Maher. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Thank you. Good luck to all of you with the outdoor seating in the summer the spring and summer. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Chairman I see Attorney Robert and I see he has raised his hand. Was this a public hearing? This was not a public hearing. I believe he might be raising his hand for the warrant articles. But this was not a public hearing for the last time. Okay so we move on to item 11 for discussion to future select board meetings and right now I believe all we have is the March 21st meeting we will have a meeting on April 4th for our organizational meeting and I believe we will need to if we don't finish on the 21st I was thinking we add a meeting for March 23rd and hold March 28th out just in case but I think it may make sense to to have a follow-up because if we finish on the 23rd that gives Attorney Hine some more time for the final votes and comments to get back to us and then I'm open on April we have to have a meeting on April 4th for our for our organizational meeting and then this request time meeting starts on the 25th so we'll have a meeting that night. So to ask members if there's any dates that they want to propose in April after the fourth and whether we need one before the 25th or not. Well so I'm sorry my connection I think was had a little bit of a problem this chair so are you saying that we're going to have a meeting on 23rd of March? Yeah I'd like to post the meeting if we get done with all our warrant article hearings on the 21st we won't have it but we won't know until the end of that night and so I'd rather post the meeting and cancel it then have missed the time frame for for that meeting and my only concern is Attorney Hine needs some time to turn around comments and that gives him a little additional time prior to the April 4th meeting to do that. That's fine as opposed to the 28th so that's fine I was anticipating that we would do a meeting on the 28th but I can certainly clear the decks for that Wednesday and with respect to other meetings in April I think I mean the if we're going to Mondays mean the only Monday that would be available to us would be the 11th because the 18th is going to be a holiday thing I think that's Patriots Day you know so we want to the 11th I can do that but I'd leave that to my colleagues. I guess I'm going to say two things on that and I'm fine I am not available the week or on the 11th um but if the board members are happy to we can schedule a meeting that night the only thing is we're meeting on the 4th so I don't know how much new business we will have a week later either I mean but but you're right the 18th is a holiday so um you know we can see where we are on the 4th they would we're definitely meeting on the 25th that will be a shorter meeting because of town meetings starting that night but I don't know what board members have any other thoughts if you'd like to do the 11th fine or propose the 20th that would be the only other option. Mr. Diggins? So are you is it the 11th that you're not available? Yeah I'm not available the 11th or the 13th of that week so I but again if other members want to have the meeting I'm not don't don't hold it up because of me and it's not that I'm pushing for a meeting on the 11th I'm just thinking about possibilities so is the meeting on the 4th going to be like a full meeting or is it just in the words of the organizational short meeting? No no it will be a full meeting so that we will start with the organizational part of it and then the new chair will will have put the agenda together and and so it's whatever the chair really wants to do uh Mr. Diggins I'm asking you on that one but uh that then I'll work with you on putting that agenda together. Okay I'm getting ahead of myself so I I probably will work um and and at least putting together but that historically past few years has been a full meeting. Okay all right you know so okay. So Chair I want to remind you you still have to get reelected by the voters around. Well that's a good point Mr. Hernd so that's why I mean we have the writing can I may not even be there any before that's right I don't want to get ahead of myself. Mr. Helman. Yeah I maybe the 20th would make sense because uh you know that would as you say if we just meet on the 11th one one week after we have a full meeting may not be that much business but there could be some stuff stacked up for us if the 20th would work it's a Wednesday but then that would take some of the pressure off the short meeting on Monday before it's like work. Okay is that acceptable to members? Okay all right so why don't why don't we do that and then we're going to be meeting throughout town meetings so what we will do is once town meetings starts we'll meet at least every Monday um throughout town meetings so I think and and we usually hold those meetings open um from time to time so we will maybe post April 25th and then the following Monday um into into May um to do that so so let me just and that would be May 2nd so why don't we we'll add the 23rd April 4th April 20th April 25th and let's say May 2nd because we certainly will still be in um in town meeting at that point and then we can see where we are at the end of May at the end of May or beginning or end of April beginning of May. I'm Mr. Chairman. Yes Mrs. Mahan. I'm fine with that schedule I don't know that we'll need um Wednesday the 20th um because I'll just remind everyone that uh our as we all know our town meetings select board meetings um which we always start early at seven o'clock once we hit eight o'clock if there's still business the board continues only the chair goes down to town meeting it's happened on a very rare occasion that the board has been a select board meeting sometimes until after the break 9 30 10 of town meeting so um and again that'll be between the outgoing and incoming chairs to sort of look ahead with the crystal ball I'm doing that so I'm fine with any of those dates but I just want to remind usually every two weeks especially with town meeting we get the business done and we'll just see how the agenda's go thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you Mrs. Mahan. Okay well you know what we can do is I and maybe I can talk to the town manager um we could go from the 4th to the 25th I'll talk to the town manager and if we need to add a meeting on the 20th there are a few things he wants to get done um in late March and into April if we need to add the 20th let's hold that for now and um we can we can see where we are on April 4th so okay so we don't need a vote on this but just for Ms. Mahir's benefit so we'll add the 23rd we'll add the 4th we'll add April 25th and we'll add May 2nd for now okay so with that I will now move on to the warrant article hearings and as I said at the top of the meeting there are eight warrant articles we had put these on and selected the dates before the actual warrant articles were assigned numbers and we have a draft warrant that is on the town meeting page now it will become final when we actually mail out the warrant and that will be later um that will that will actually be in April so I will we'll go through this I will in addition to reading the warrant article let people know in case they have pulled the draft warrant what number it is in the draft warrant so the first one tonight is an article by law amendment conversion of gas station dispensing pumps to self-service operation this shows up as warrant article number 17 on the draft warrant and I believe that there may be a proponent who is with us tonight correct Mr. Chair I've invited to promote to panelists both the article proponent and attorney Anese okay hello yes yeah yeah if you could give your name for the for the record and Mr. Anese too sure her name is Rashid Alkali I'm the owner son of 125 Broadway Eli service station okay and Mr. Anese is with you as well so if you could tell us about the well tell us about the article and what you're looking for town meeting and for us to take action on sure so we are I wasn't sure if Mr. Anese wants to speak on my behalf as of right now but we are looking to raise the self-service ban I'm new to Arlington I've been working there for about almost three years now it's been hard trying to find workers especially with these couple of years COVID and all that it's been really hard trying to find workers because of obviously because of COVID people don't want to go on and get sick and we have guys out there they're out there for countless hours throughout the day we have two gas attendants that are out there and they're standing out there for eight hours a day worrying about their health and people don't want to these guys don't want to pump gas anymore so it's just been hard on us and that's one of the main reasons we're trying to get this lifted because it is hard on us right Mr. Anese would you like to add anything yes I'd love to say something as well the of course we know that the ability to pump your own gasoline has been prohibited in the town of Arlington since 1975 and Arlington is probably one of the last cities or towns they're just very few that do not allow people to pump their own gas and I think that a very good point was just made with respect to people pumping their own gas during the COVID times a lot of folks did not want to have people to people contact during COVID and they would have preferred to have the ability to pump their own gasoline but in Arlington they could not do that now all of these surrounding communities Belmont Winchester Lexington certainly around Arlington do have gas stations where there there is the ability to pump your own gasoline I know that a lot of issues are raised in prior discussions about going self-service such as well people might drive away and they the pump would still be in the the car apparatus of the car and all of that I haven't heard any of that there are also discussions in the past about fire issues I haven't heard any of that either we know we have a fire compression ordinance in the town that basically would require that a gas station that is going to have self-service have a canopy the canopy would have a fire suppression system in it and if in fact there ever was an issue which again I've never heard that this kind of thing has happened if there ever was an issue that fire suppression issue would kick in now what's the the protection for the town with respect to going self-service any gas station in town in the town of Arlington either exists because of a special permit or because it's non-conforming if that's the case and let's assume I've heard arguments in the past well if you allow self-service that's going to bring about a situation where gas station operators are going to want to expand what they do well they're not going to be able to expand what they do without going before the ARB because if you look at the zoning bylaw the zoning bylaw requires that any gas station that is going to operate in the town obtain a special permit so if an existing gas station operator wanted to modify his or her gas station operation they would have to go before the ARB and get permission from the ARB to do that so that's the protection for the town and again I think that goes to the issue of what may have been raised in the past about if you allow this then you're going to allow basically gas station operators to have free reign they're not going to have free reign all we're asking is that gas station operators have the ability to have a choice we're not asking that there be a mandate that every gas station in town has to have self-service we know there's a bylaw that says you can't have more than three pumps gasoline pumps in town we know that so we have limits but we're asking that you give the gas station operators and even the people the customers who frequent the gas stations the choice and the ability to make their own decisions as to how they would like to operate so we're respectfully requesting that the board back the article warrant that we're suggesting for town meeting to allow the town to go from just self-service gas stations to allow operators to have a self-service gas station thank you okay thank you mr. Nessie and before I turn to the board and this concerns title five article five to our town bylaws in specifically restrictions on sale and what the bylaw says right now is that no filling station shall allow the pumping of gasoline for retail sale by any person other than an authorized attendant employee of said filling station and then the second section prohibits customers from pumping their own gas it's two sections to the article so i'll turn to the board for questions comments see if the public has any comments and then we'll see if we have a recommendation i'll start with mr helmet thank you mr chair i'll be very interested to hear what the members of the public have to say i remember one of my first tell meetings that i was a member this had come up a number of years ago and there was a spirited debate um i also remember from that discussion also from our town council's excellent memo that was offered to us this week that one of the concerns that came up with potentially doing this is ensuring not only minimal compliance with state law that someone in theory could be available for a person with disability to pump their gas if a station decided to move to self-serve only but a way to really guarantee that and you know i would be interested in hearing both uh from the applicants but especially through through you mr chair be interested in comments from the town manager or perhaps the town council and if there are approaches that we could codify that kind of requirement in a potential motion that we're coming forward how many so um would you like to hear from the town manager or attorney how now on that point yeah i think so and then maybe maybe at the applicants want to comment afterwards that would be great thank you yep mr chapterling i know either you were turning on i mean on on appropriate and clever ways to codify tricky matters i would defer to so if he has any uh thoughts you know tonight or you know or or how to think about to come up with a solution i would defer to town council may i say something well why don't i turn to attorney heim and then and i'll come back to you mr iness sure thank you thank you mr chair yeah i think the the primary issue is whether or not the ada specifically provides enough clear direction to gas station operators in and of itself just so the public can be clear on what's going on the ada does require certain things that refueling assistance from an attendant can't come with a surcharge for folks who are disabled that folks have to be advised through signage or some other mechanism for how they can notify someone that they need assistance full service there's also a requirement that that there is somebody available although the they're not necessarily required to have such service available and every hour to my understanding um you know there are in theory lots of things that could be done uh to modify the existing requirement that there's no self-service uh gas uh operation i'm not sure how into the weeds we want to get with respect to whether or not you know we have the ability to require um an attendant or certain types of signage some of those things though might fall under the zoning bylaw for example mr nest he's correct that just i know before he speaks that the zoning uh by the special permits do set forth the number of permits it's not a hundred percent clear to me it may be possible that a special permit could also require certain accommodations be made available i'm not a hundred percent sure about that but that is that is also another way that it might be addressed through the special permit itself thank you okay thank you turn and mr nessy just before i get to you i just want attorney hind brought up the zoning uh potential zoning issues this our recommendation will be before town meeting favorable or unfavorable the i did have a meeting with the chair of the redevelopment board and they would like to comment on this article and that's that we had set up a structure where there may be certain articles where we may want to have comments this is one where they will but our motion and our action will be what is before town meeting so mr helmet had asked the applicant for comments too so mr nessy if you want to add something on this question go right ahead i certainly would envision that there be an attendant at every gas station despite the fact that it's self-service and i certainly would not have any problem with having some sort of an accommodation for anyone with a disability so that the individual with the disability could have the ability to let the attendant in the station know that in fact they need assistance and if that's something that perhaps wants to be suggested by the members of the board or any other town officials i'm certainly open to recommending that to my client okay add on if you don't mind sure when it comes to the disabilities we have a gas station that's in revere there's a little bit there's a lot of elderly people there that have disabilities as well in order for them to alert the attendant that's inside there is a button that is on our gas tanks that alerts the attendant that they needs help and service at that at that moment while the car is there so just wanted to add that on as well okay thank you i continue mr helmet if you have any other yeah thank you no i think i don't have any other questions at this time thank you very much mr mahan um no questions thank you mr chair and if i go off screen it's just one of my devices is getting low and i have to go run and get a charger okay mr hurt thank you mr chair um i don't have any questions i my concerns were similar to mr helmet but i actually prefer self-serve gas stations i like to just get out and do it and not wait for people and do it on my own time so i personally as a consumer would be happy to have self-service but is i mean i can support this as long as and of course we're just talking to the proponent who's one gas station in town and we i think as you go to town meeting town meeting members are going to want to get some assurance or some set policy in place from all the gas stations in town or something a consensus as to what we can require just to make sure that our elderly population of people with disabilities aren't just sitting there unable to you know unable to not get gas as required in certainly i think on top of that is to make sure that there's no litmus test as to whether or not they qualify you know if somebody asks for an attendant to come help them with gas then they should receive it without having to justify why they need it but if that can be you know satisfied to me both as a sec board member and a town meeting member hopefully um i think i can support this like i said i think you know to some people self-service is actually more agreeable to just kind of bang it and bang out at your own pace so those are my only comments just chair no questions hey thank you mr heard mr diggins thank you just chair and so you said that we're one of the last municipalities to not allow self-service this would be um to either uh the to the proponent or the or his attorney mr chair okay yeah mr nancy i i could mr nancy i don't know if you want to comment i i believe um other than the state of new jersey that there's not that many um locations that just require new jersey is one of them that's the whole state the whole state but i thought i thought most municipalities in massachusetts are allowing self-service i i think that's right i don't have any figures mr nancy do you have any figures or years ago i'm not sure what the case is now weymouth uh did not allow self-service uh i quite frankly googled this uh just this morning and uh my information is that most of the cities and towns and the commonwealth allow self-service uh the weymouth still may be a hold of as far as i know i wasn't able to affirm that one way or another all right thank you i do have another question but i saw attorney heim raise his hand so i if it's okay with you mr chair he's always okay because my question was was that was a preface to try to understand how do these other municipalities handle the access issue uh that would be to let's let's go now i see mr heim's hand going up thank you mr chair i i do think that most of them address uh it with newer technology on pumps and bays as uh the proponent is suggesting i think the sort of real question mark is in terms of our special permits since most of our uses are quite old whether or not let's say i have a station and i don't want to ask for any more pumps i have my three pumps and i'm content with what i have do we have to go in and affirmatively amend some special permit to put in a requirement that there's a button or some mechanism to alert folks who are in the need of a gas station attendant so i think that's probably the biggest sort of question mark of is this is it going to be the same vehicle for every station because every station may not have modernized public but that's my that's my belief as to how most of them comply with the ADA there may be individualized additional requirements or for local ordinances with restricted gas stations in different municipalities got you so so so this this article though isn't going to mandate that yeah all stations in town be self-service mean they have the option so if they don't want to update equipment they can remain full service so okay that's that's the intent absolutely yep yeah all right well i think not i know where i'm headed on this me but as always i wait to hear from presidents me have to say when we hear from them thank you okay thank you mr diggins and i i don't have any questions at this time um well maybe one question mr cool you mentioned that you will have somebody who would be available if someone needed assistance and you can see that as a concern of members of the board and what does this do in terms of staffing does this allow you if there is self-service do you have two attendants now and it would be one attendant at the site yes sir um so another reason why we wanted to do this is because um younger generation don't want to do any more like labor work and stuff like that and we've been putting up signs saying that we do need help and i've gotten anybody that's a retired veteran or retired person that just wants to make male female that i could just put behind the counter everybody's been coming to us and asking for a job but i don't want to put a female outside at the pumps i don't want to put an elderly person outside at the pumps to pump somebody's gas so i'm trying to we're also trying to create job opportunities for other people all right um thank you so this is a public hearing um are there any members of the public who wish to be heard on this article and if so please signify by raising your hand and then mr chapter lane will uh recognize you and one hand raised right now ellen cohen you should be joining the meeting good evening miss cohen all right um i'm just wondering if as in other towns there would be a discount with the self-serve and that's a current issue with the cost of gas question yeah mr cohen it sounds like you have stations in other communities is there a difference between what you're charging in eilington because it's full serve versus the self-service stations elsewhere that i'm not too educated about my father would know more about that okay at the moment so that's all i have to say about that okay all right um anything else miss cohen no okay thank you is is there anybody else mr chapter lane okay all right there there's none okay so i'll return to the board in the same order um returning to mr helen thank you i i do not have strong feelings about this either way i really other than i think this deserves a much broader consideration at town meeting is one of the cases where a representative town meeting 12 members from every precinct can really take the temperature of the neighborhoods and really talk to the residents and i think that you know this is a decision that needs to be driven by what residents want although i appreciate the concerns of the small business that um for these for these stations and i think that's a voice that needs to be heard um and i also want to defer even though i'm usually inclined to make a motion i think i want to hear what my other colleagues have to say and if i wanted them to make an appropriate motion as i consider consider keep keep thinking about this okay uh thank you mr helmeth i know going in the same order mrs mahan um thank you mr chairman i'd like to move approval um and i also would like to ask um to you and through you to town council if we could um either make it a requirement or have a comment um if this is a successful vote from the board to move approval to address the issue of the call button for the attendant um whether you're handicapped able bodied or otherwise um and i think that's really just sort of an automatic feature um looking at other cities in town um sometimes you're going to hit that button because your credit card isn't working so um the the question to you and through you is a move approval b if we can either make it a requirement that there's an attendant feature a tendon call feature or if we can put that in the remarks that that's something the board strongly recommends and is interested to hear um from town meeting thank you mr chair thank you thank you mrs mahan and and uh i think it's as the depending on how our vote comes out we'll look to attorney heim on that as well in terms of what can be incorporated but that that clearly is a concern that we would like to see have addressed um mr herd thank you mr chair i'll second the motion i think um i'm satisfied that we can come to a consensus as to how to address the concern of of uh providing service for patrons that need an attendant um and again like mr helmeth said this things that these articles that this board has some sway on and then there's articles that really should just go to town meeting we don't want to go through the process of requiring a substitute motion so i'm happy with approval to put this in front of town meeting so that can be discussed further there thank you mr chair thank you mr herd uh mr diggins yes thank you mr chair i'm i'm happy to recommend positive action on this to me i think some voice activated technology can help with calling folks and i guess the only concern though is who is on the other end of the call because to the extent that a uh mr heim said that you don't necessarily have to have someone staff that can do the pumping then if they're calling and they don't get the help that they want then the call is going to do them much good and if employment is an issue well i guess i guess if an employment is an issue there's need me there won't be anyone at the station period because we just can't have anyone working so and so it's easy for me to get to a yes positive action on this is harder for me to get to uh ironclad solution for access me but me this but we'll we'll do the best we can you know man i think uh everyone is coming at this with a good faith um effort with respect to providing access meaning and i think as long as that's in place and we can get to um where we want to be so that's it thank you thank thank you mr diggins it yeah i'm also inclined to support this i don't have the statistics across the state but i do know every one of the surrounding communities around us allow self-serve on the matter where you go but i will also say this i think there are some gas stations in town that will continue to provide full service and that will probably help their business because they're we see it a little bit in belmont that that there's a pleasant street gas station that has full services others that have self-service and i think um you know that there are people who prefer self-services people who still prefer full service depending on the station and and the makeup and this is giving the gas station owners potentially a a choice in terms of what the the business model is and uh i agree this ultimately is a decision for town meeting but uh with safeguards that we can put in place i'm i'm happy to support it at at least for a vote of the board uh any further comments from the board members no seeing none okay so on a motion by mrs mohan seconded by mr herd turning high mr herd yes mr higgins yes mr helman yes this is long yes thank you mr decorsi yes unanimous vote okay thank you thank you for joining us tonight thank you all right next is this is article nine is next it's an article bylaw amendment achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions from town facilities consistent with the town of ronaldon's net zero action plan um and turn it to mr chapter lane and there may be a speaker from the cling energy futures committee with us as well correct so i will promote coralie cooper who will um she's joining us and then i think for the next article pat handlin will also join us but i will take the lead on this first this first article okay um so this article was filed at the request of the cling energy future committee focused on updating the existing town bylaw which requires that new building construction or significant renovation of town or school facilities be built to lead silver standards that's what the current bylaw says and it's the way the town's been operating for nearly 20 years and has built a number of buildings that have either met lead silver in some cases exceeded lead silver and achieved lead gold status with the adoption of the net zero goal by the select board and then ultimately the net zero action plan it's been recommended that we update and strengthen that section of the bylaw to contemplate requiring a higher standard or net zero standard for significant building renovations or new constructions for again town and school buildings ultimately after filing this article a group of us from the cling energy future committee as well as representation from the permanent town building committee met to discuss this a few times and the conclusion we came to was really twofold one we're about to embark on a building electrification study for all school buildings which is going to greatly inform what we can and should be doing on our school buildings and I think that could greatly inform what an eventual bylaw update would look like and secondly there's no projects that are going to begin or even begin design in the next year so waiting to allow these studies to better inform a proposal a proposal will allow we won't lose any ground or make investments that won't be in compliance with an eventual proposal if we wait a year to better put together that proposal so ultimately after talking with the leadership of the clean energy future committee what I want to ask the board to do tonight is vote favorable action on simply a statement asking town meeting to both endorse and request a recommendation to be brought back to the 2023 town meeting so that we can get the board to go on record supporting this initiative and then get town meeting to go on record supporting it as well so that we can come back ready next year. Thank you Mr. Chapter only. Did Ms. Cooper want to add anything? Well just to add that the clean energy future committee supports this approach. Thank you Ms. Cooper and Attorney Cunningham has also joined us this evening and I want to thank Attorney Cunningham and Attorney Heim for the memo to us and for the thorough discussion on home rule we appreciate that as well as the warrant article so on the recommendation of the town manager I'll now turn to board members. Mrs. Mahan. Sorry I muted and then I muted. I'm certainly in favor of this I'd like to put it out there to uh move favorable action to endorse and request a recommendation for a report to the 2023 town meeting on this issue. On Florida. Thank you Mrs. Mahan. Mr. Burke. Thank you Mr. Chair. Happy to second that motion. Thank you. On Mr. Diggins. Yeah I mean that seems reasonable. I'm a little I'm a little curious as to how we got to this point but that can be a discussion at another time you know it is a hearing you know so I'm interested in hearing what other residents may say but I think I know where I'm headed on this. Thanks. Thank you Mr. Diggins. Mr. Helen. Thank you no questions at this time. Okay and I support this as well but as Mr. Diggins said this is a public hearing on the warrant article. Are there any members of the public who wish to be heard? There are no hands raised right now Mr. Sherwood. Okay all right so on a motion unless members have any other comments or I don't think so. Mr. Chapterland. I mean if the chair would indulge me I can try to respond to Mr. Diggins question about how we got here. I mean I think ultimately I would say sometimes you hit full throttle thinking you're going to get somewhere and wanting to put you know you put it on the warrant because you want to be ready and it's full throttle and then you take the time with the appropriate stakeholders to dig into it and you realize that maybe it's not fully cooked yet. I think that's that's what happens here. So so then so so what I heard you say though earlier was that we probably you probably won't come back to us with something that is less I don't know what's the word for it. That it's less aspirational than what we have here? No I mean I what we really need to work out Mr. Diggins is what exactly we want the by-law to apply to. Okay right what type of renovation are we going to have it applied to when we're changing our rooftop units on schools or do we have to do an envelope renovation as well to trigger compliance with the by-law like this and I think we also need to work out who's going to be the arbiter of the by-law. Is it going to be the Permanent Town Building Committee? Is it going to be a new body that's not currently established? So those are the type of details we want to we want to work through. I think Mr. Schluck may have some ideas but that's for a later time so all right thank you all set. Okay thank you Mr. Diggins. So in a motion by Mrs. Mahan that was seconded by Mr. Hurd for favorable action. Attorney Hine. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Hellman. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes thank you. Mr. Corsi. Yes. General Skooper. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Cooper and the next item is an article resolution. This is article 73. A resolution for a true net zero opt-in code for cities and towns. I believe Mr. Hamlin is going to be making the presentation on this. We have both Corley and Pat here so Corley are you taking the lead? I'm just going to say a few words and I'm going to hand it to Pat. So thank you Mr. Chair and members of the board. We're here to ask the board to support the warrant asking the town to vote to endorse a resolution calling upon the Department of Energy Resources to promulgate a net zero stretch code. The Clean Energy Future Committee voted on January 14th to see if the town will vote to endorse this resolution calling upon DOER to promulgate a true net zero stretch code. And I'll provide just a little bit of background on why the CFC voted on the way they did on this. So one of the underpinnings of Arlington's net zero action plan is making homes and buildings super energy efficient and also without operate without fossil fuels. And to meet the goals of the NZAP plan about 400 buildings per year over the next 30 years are going to need to become net zero in order to meet the net zero action plan. And a really key part of meeting the NZAP goals is the establishment of a net zero stretch code that allows communities to ensure that new construction and major renovation will be built to net zero standards and helps ensure that buildings are not locked into high emissions for years into the future or even worse have to be retrofit sometime in the future to be net zero. So it's extremely important that DOER promulgate a minutes will often stretch code for new buildings. So that's my brief background on why the CFC supports this and I'm going to turn it over to Pat for more detail. Good evening Mr. Hanlon. Thank you Mr. Chairman. It's been about two years since I last appeared before you to discuss the general issue that was involved here in our clean heat resolution or a clean heat by a lot that was approved eventually at the end of 2020. And right about the same time that that was being approved by Tom meeting by an overwhelming majority. The general court was struggling with a veto of the stretch code by the governor over the next several months. Looks like he's frozen. Yeah Mr. Hanlon you just froze. If you could go back Mr. Hanlon you just froze after the general court was struggling. Okay the general court enacted a yeah the 2021 Climate Act. It had in it two provisions. One had to do with updating an existing stretch code that applied to various. Maybe if you have the same issue.  Yeah if you can hear us Mr. Hanlon. And there's no real loss. Yeah I'm hearing you fine. Okay. Okay let me keep trying. Sure. I have a message that my internet connection is the dreaded unstable connection message. Ms. Cooper I don't know if you want to answer. Maybe Mr. Hanlon can try to reestablish the connection. Can allow him to continue. Mr. Chaplain. And I mean I can I can't say it as well as Pat. But Mr. Hanlon I've been working really closely together on this issue and trying to build a coalition of municipalities to support the strongest possible net zero stretch energy code. So again I won't be able to provide it in the level of depth that Mr. Hanlon would but so the legislature passed and the governor signed the roadmap legislation which called for the promulgation of an opt-in net zero stretch energy code. Long time went by waiting for their draft proposal to come out and it was issued. I think we're looking at two two and a half weeks ago now they issued what they're called their straw man draft net zero proposal that frankly really disappointed most climate activists or really anybody paying attention to the matter. You might recall I think I had shared with the board I had gathered signatures from 29 other communities with a total of 30 including Arlington to send a letter to the secretary of energy and environmental affairs asking to draft and release the strongest draft possible now working with Mr. Hanlon and others were trying to draft a letter asking for them to improve the straw man that they that they did recently release but ultimately in asking the board in town meeting to adopt this resolution we'd be asking the whole town you know not just myself but the whole town via the town meeting to go on record in support of the promulgation of the strongest code possible. The decision about whether or not to opt into that code will be a future decision this town can make but I think there is all the logic in the world to having access to the strongest code that can be promulgated in order for us to attempt to meet our climate goals. Okay thank you Mr. Chapter Lane. Mr. Hanlon I don't know if you can still hear us if you wanted to add anything and fortunately that may not be possible. Okay so I'll turn it to the board members and I'll start with Mr. Herd. Thank you Mr. Chair and I want to thank the Clean Energy Futures Committee for their work on this and the town manager for leadership and guidance sorry my phone keeps ringing. Yeah I mean we don't have to explain to anybody on this board the clear and present dangers that we have with climate change and I would just say that it's reassuring the constant leadership that our town government and our town residents exude in the fight against climate change both locally at the state level and I mean I would say at the national level that our locality for its size is really leading the charge on forward thinking measures to combat climate change now and in the future so I would be very happy to move positive action on this article. Thank you Mr. Chair. Mr. Diggins. Thank you Mr. Chair and so I see resolutions really probably the most beneficial thing they do is they provide a forum for educating residents and so I just want to try to understand a little better why it is that the governor did the veto and secondly why we got such a weak set of standards. Do you have a sense? Why is the case? This will be to the town manager Mr. Chair. Okay. So this thank you Mr. Chairman through you to respond to Mr. Diggins. This is projection or reaction you know not that I can point to it and hard fact but my sense has been that there is tension between in general the construction industry and the promulgation of this code and then more specifically concern that the promulgation of this code and the eventual adoption by municipalities will make the cost of housing increase at a rate higher than it's already increasing. Now there's debate around whether or not that's true. There are studies that have demonstrated that implementation of net zero construction is not actually in a life cycle analysis more costly than standard construction as you see it today and I think to some degree we saw that locally here in Arlington with the Downing Square Broadway initiative by the Housing Corporation of Arlington right those are fully electric housing units affordable housing that were built built all electric with heating heating and cooling utilizing air source heat pumps so that's not I mean that's an anecdote right it's not the whole story but I think ultimately when when you see the governor's administration favoring a less aggressive posture and even sometimes advocates favoring a less aggressive posture it's because of concern about increasing the cost of housing to your point about education in the purpose of a resolution being education. I think taking the opportunity to get town meeting to both support but also be informed about the possibility of us bringing back a net zero code to them to adopt in a future at a future town meeting session would be really the key for what we're looking at to educate via this resolution this year. That was very helpful. It's good to know what the motivation is behind the proposition and if it's the cost of housing because you just got to understand where they're coming from in order to get a better sense of how it is to get them to align with your interests because that's generally in a way to success me so that was that was educational for me so thank you thank you Mr. Manager and I'm all set Mr. Chair. Thank you Mr. Diggins. Mr. Diggins did you second Mr. Hertz motion. I think I did but if I didn't let me do it again I second Mr. Chair on Mr. Hertz motion. I was a little behind on my notes. Thank you Mr. Helmut. Thank you Mr. Chair. I'm grateful to Mr. Diggins for his questions because I think a few things in Mr. Tapflin's response were also very helpful and I think one one where this really stuck out to me is lifetime cost. When it comes to thinking about the investments that we need to make with towards net zero and into climate mitigation in general I often you know hear people say we can pay a little bit now or we can pay a lot more later and I think even even with housing and building there's there's good data and good evidence that that you do it right and actually that even the short-term costs can be neutral but it is far from neutral if we keep trying to save money in the near term particularly if there's concerns from one sector you know I I guess I have more confidence in the free market than sometimes our free market governor does frankly that the market and in the industry will adapt if these codes are in place because consumers want this and I think that you know we have to continue taking leadership that Arlington is doing to say we understand the cost may be a little bit different up front but the cost of doing nothing or not doing enough in time is going to be infinitely greater in the future and be borne by our children and in other generations so I'm very grateful for this work and delighted to have signed on to this myself as a as an individual member of the board and I'd love to get this frontel meeting in hope for a ringing endorsement there thank you thank you mr. helmeth mrs. mahan mrs mahan oh sorry I can never tell on my phone um no question mr. chair I'm happy to support okay thank you mrs. mahan yeah and I'm happy to support this as well mr. chaplain had referenced the letter that he had sent along with 20 30 municipal leaders you know all back and at the end of November November 29th that was sent to the secretary of the executive office of energy and environmental affairs and it really showed a commitment among communities to work together and to want to participate in this process and um it that that's that letter and in some background down it's still available on our website but I'm happy to support support this as well this is again a public hearing I don't know if there are any members of the public that wish to be heard on on this uh proposed resolution no okay okay so any motion for favorable action by made by mr. Hurd seconded by mr. Diggins turning on mr. Hurd yes mr. Diggins yes mr. helmeth yes mrs. mahan yes mr. course yes thank you thank you mr. handlin thank you mr. Cooper thank you okay next is a article for a home rule legislation for early voting for town elections is mr. Dennis with us on on this this evening yes he is i'll put him to panelists right now okay he should be joining the meeting good evening mr. Dennis good evening um thank you mr. chair and members of the board again i'm Greg Dennis chair of the election modernization committee the election modernization committee has been interested for some time in offering early voting for town elections when we first took a look at this um back in 2019 we saw the city at Cambridge had the prior year tried through home the home work process to offer early voting um through a home rule petition but it was not acted upon by the state legislature so we didn't think it would have a good shot so we sort of put it on the back burner while we pursued other improvements that we thought were more immediately actionable in the time since then well since we first looked at early voting the terrain seems to have shifted somewhat in our favor in the covid era a lot of the measures to introduce added flexibility and voting has been well received and there's a lot of interest uh in the state house um along with the long-standing interest among reform groups to make some of these kinds of reforms more permanent so we do think um early voting through home rule now does have a chance of passage but even if it isn't approved it will it would still stand as an important statement made by the town that we'd like to see early voting options be made available for municipal elections the a home rule legislation that we drafted for your consideration sets a minimum number of days and hours at which early voting would be offered the deadlines in there for establishing the site and hours are set to be the same as the existing early voting deadlines for state elections and in our draft the select board has given the authority to in consultation with the clerk make early voting available beyond those minimums uh under the minimums set forth um early voting would largely be available during the regular business hours of the clerk's office and the clerk anticipates that the volume of early voters would be manageable uh within existing staff so as to not have at most a negligible impact on the clerk's budget um that's it thank you happy to answer any questions thank you mr denis uh turn to the board mr diggins thank you mr chair and as a member of the as a liaison made from the select board to the election water committee i am happy to recommend positive action on this i mean i think um it's a good very good home repetition what i like about it in particular is that it makes it possible for people who um is let's say an election is on a weekday and one of the days that we make available is a weekend day and likewise if an election is on a weekend day um a weekday is made available for people who may not be free on a weekend day uh and i'd also um i'd like to express my appreciation to mr denison all the other folks on the emc for the great work they've been doing uh and i joined them partway through around placing mr currow uh and it's um it's a really good committee you know i'm really good people doing lots of good work you see it's probably the last time um mr denis will be in front of us as part of the committee because the committee's life is um coming to an end me but i have expressed the that the civic engagement group of envisioner arlington would be happy to have me um those capable residents working with us mean on similar issues mean for as long as the desire is there so that's it thank you mr chair thank thank you mr diggins uh mr helmuth thank you mr chair i'm delighted to second this as well and also second all the sentiments that mr diggins so eloquently expressed thank you for your work you know greg and all your colleagues thank you mr helmuth this is mahan um no questions once again happy to support this great to see mr dad i apologize i had to run out and get another charger because i'm having every uh technological problem you can have tonight i'm definitely having so um and as far as whether uh this committee continues on or there's another iterations or vision or anything else um i'll be happy to watch you and give you future accolades thank you thank you mr chairman thank you mr mahan uh mr herd thank you mr chair and thank you mr denis and to all the election modernization committee for all the work over the past few years um we're at a time which is almost unthinkable that there's people around some parts of the country that are trying to restrict voting access and it's again good to see that arlington is leading the charge to increase voter access and in the elections that we have been allowed to have early voting i've actually i've used that option and walked down to town hall and i like to be able to do that at my leisure as opposed to having to do it on the specific election day so i think this is a great a step in the right direction and i'm happy to support it thank you mr herd um yeah i'm i'm also happy to support this and i do want to take the opportunity as well to thank mr denis for all the work that he has done on the election modernization committee on top of appearing before us you know he has talked to a number of us whenever i've had questions um he's answered them we haven't always agreed on everything but we've had good healthy discussions and he's always well prepared and and really brought a lot to this committee so thank you for that mr denis um i also wanted to point my understanding is the on on the legislation that that is in the legislature that the senate would allow early voting for municipalities as of right the house would allow a local option they're they're having issues on on other matters namely same day voter registration but if this does proceed this does not seem to be something that's um going to be held up in the legislature is that right on on the state legislation not on the home rule right so that the legislation pending is the votes act and it is under consideration and we thought about what implications it would have for this and um right now like the the votes act isn't a done deal in the provision for municipal allowing early voting municipal elections is not a done deal so we thought this was important in that even if the votes act passes with an option it would still be nice to have this codified that we are offering this and under the votes act the select board would have to reauthorize at least in the senate version i think we'd have to reauthorize early voting every year in order to have it whereas this makes it a more permanent fixture you know the votes act passes and we set this before the election loss committee there is a chance the election loss committee says uh we already gave you the votes act so we're not giving you this but if we get both we think they can work together sure you know and i'm happy to support this as well i think it makes good sense uh mr herd did you want to add something no i was just going to add that i think mr denis is probably very relieved after the all the ranked choice voting presentations last year to have a presentation to us that's easy to explain because it doesn't require multiple uh visual aids so okay thank you mr herd no candy to make us hungry either in the in the exam anyway so on a motion by mr diggins seconded by mr helmeth for favorable action turning mr herd um mr chad did we ask for public comment oh you're right this is a public hearing thank you mr herd i got ahead of myself uh is there anybody who wishes to be heard on this mr chaplain here are no hands raised mr sherman okay all right um so on on the motion by mr diggins seconded by mr helmeth the turning time thank you mr herd mr herd yes mr diggins yes mr helmeth yes this is mahar mr course yes okay thank you mr denison again thank you for all the work that you've done with the election modernization committee all right uh next we have um believe we we have mr schlickman on the next four or warrant articles um the next one is a article by law amendment uh noise abatement and that is article 15 mr schlickman should be joining shortly good evening mr schlickman good evening my friends can you hear me yes okay article 15 uh by law amendment noise abatement is looking to both clarify and strengthen the current noise abatement by law i don't know if you have had the experience of waking up to a sewer jetting truck outside your bedroom at four o'clock in the morning i have there are three instances that are documented in the support documentation that i presented to you since 2011 in which the public works department has decided on a non-emergency basis to either get jack hammers or sewer jetting trucks outside my bedroom window at a very early hour uh it was easier for them so they said to do um over time to come in early to do this work while there isn't a lot of traffic unpleasant or mystic street um the last time this happened i wrote to the town and the deputy town manager said well you know this bylaw really doesn't apply to us because it's in title five regulations upon the use of private property and we're the town and this is a town street so there's no private property it doesn't really apply to us uh but if you read the bylaw it certainly intended to apply to both private property owners and the municipality i'm seeking to do two things one is to take the whole bylaw and move it out of the regulations upon the use of private property and plop it into title eight public health and safety so that there's no longer an excuse of saying well you know it's private property doesn't apply to us secondly i'd like to find a way with council and and the select board to propose tightening this bylaw so that the routine things that you need to do in the middle of the night such as line painting and street sweeping which really isn't usually a bother can go on but major things that are non-emergency such as jack hammers and sewer jetting doesn't occur in the prohibited hours so that's the purpose of bringing before you article 15 to do two things one to put it where it belongs in the bylaws and two to make sure that it's clear in the bylaws that jack hammers and sewer jetting trucks and other very very very loud things aren't operating at 4 a.m thank you thank thank you mr schlickman i'll now turn to the board uh mr helmet thank you um i have a couple questions in mr chair i think you might need your help in deciding where to direct these whether the beach town council or to the town manager or to the proponent um under the proposed change would the town manager still have discretion to authorize all the noxious activities that the proponent is mentioning um and if so would there be any limits to that discretion um you know outside of the general prohibition so would the town manager have the the authority uh under this proposal to um to make exceptions okay and was that a question i'm sorry mr helmet i don't know if you want attorney hind's view on that you want mr schlickman's view on that or um you know i think attorney hind would be probably a good place to start yeah thank you i don't i'm not sure what mr schlickman is contemplating so i think i think we should ask him whether or not he's seeking something that would uh sort of confine the town manager's discretion or not i don't necessarily think that's what he what he indicated but it it is it is something that has come up from time to time with respect to these activities just to be clear on one piece though um why i have a moment is that i i think what we would if the board is inclined to support mr schlickman's proposal i think what mr schlickman is saying is only to move i i'm sorry i think just be clear mr schlickman is proposing to move this whole thing to regulate public health regulations essentially um i think the entirety of the bylaw is going to go with it is that correct mr schlickman yes it would okay thank you and so i guess i'll ask mr schlickman since we don't have specific um i mean we have your your memo in front of us is your intention that there will still be a provision for the town manager to authorize uh the jack hammering the sewer pumping if the town manager you know believes that there's an emergency situation or other public safety situation you know that that would necessitate that during the prohibited hours uh no well the thing is is that there's already an exemption to the bylaw pertaining to emergencies so that if there's a flood and you need to jet the sewer to to stop the water from flooding you do that if there is a uh anything that's causing an immediate concern that's an emergency uh the bylaw doesn't address that what we're looking at are things that are scheduled oh well we do want to go and check this um the sewer drain so why don't we schedule it at 4 a.m so we'll bring in the crew at 4 a.m we'll schedule some overtime schedule is the key word and if you notice from the pictures of the two incidences of the sewer jetting these were very dry occasions where they just decided to bring in the crew at 4 a.m to do this uh now i do not want to force upon the town manager or the town a solution to uh building a fence around this situation be it uh by notifying the select board and a butters or to uh to declare some public purpose beyond just somebody uh making a declaration i don't think adam chaplain just sat there and decided hey let's send the sewer jetting truck outside of schlickman's bedroom window at 4 a.m and wake him up i don't think this happened uh there there's something that's not working here and that after three instances of jack hammers and sewer jetting um we've got we we've got to put a tighter control on this so this is only half something this drastic and this loud and this disturbing is only happening in a time of emergency it's not something that's routinely scheduled and to have this happen three times over the course of 10 years means that this is just sort of the way we do business and that's got to stop thank you thank you i appreciate the clarification uh mr chair through you i wonder if the town manager could could comment on any specific situations and particularly i think the concern that this is a uh a a standard practice i'd be interested to know if overtime was a consideration in any of these things or if there are other considerations just so we can have a fuller picture of of the town administration's perspective on this as we contemplate you know whether we wanted whether we want to ask town meeting to further restrict uh the executive brain you know the executive's ability to do this mr chaplain thank you mr chairman so i spoke with the public works director before tonight's meeting just to refresh my recollection and to talk with him so we could both refresh our recollection of how these particular work instances of work occurred and we you know without frankly diving into email correspondence we we both agreed that there was an instance where there was scheduled work and they asked for my authorization to do that work at this particular site because of concerns about uh traffic traffic safety impacts of doing it during uh during the day we know that's a very tricky intersection with both motorists and pedestrians crossing so basically to maximize safety ask for that allowance and my recollection is that i granted it based on that request the next time um i believe the next time the crew the water crew was in doing work at another site and before letting that crew go home the water sewer supervisor knew that the work needed to be done at this particular sewer because there was a my i believe there was a big rain forecast and wanted to make sure it could be addressed so permission was not asked um they should have asked there's no um that they they you know they shouldn't have done it without asking but since crews were already working decided to address something that they knew was an issue also knowing that permission had been granted in the past um so that i mean that i can't directly address any allegations about forced overtime i don't think there's any way to substantiate such claims um it's at work was identified to be performed to try to keep that sewer from not backing up um and functioning properly and it seems from the series of events that you know this was work that was identified that needed to be done and so then it was scheduled to be done thank you um and you know and i appreciate the proponents concerns you know i think it's really good to be aware of the impact that all this work does uh because it's not a small deal to be woken up at night you know i think that that needs to be considered very very carefully um and i think you know balancing that we need to understand what circumstances may require that anyway i mean clear emergencies i think everyone here agrees clear emergencies like the waters you know there's a water main breaker the water's gonna sewers are backing up or whatever um i mean uh if the to the chair of the town manager could describe your understanding of your policy and the in the dbw's policy about you know i think the proponents concerns about is this you know is this kind of a regular thing as a sort of our policy to just kind of you know um regularly go outside the the hours that you know the understood that with this bylaw split this bifurcation that you know may or may not really apply but but in general in terms of the spirit of it you know what is the what is the more standard practice here to to think about when you do work that's going to be noisy um you know with respect to daylight hours versus nighttime hours so i would i would say the general standard is we try to avoid it um if at all possible and for the most part i mean i could be wrong with a certain exception here or there but for the most part we only look at doing night work when it is on a very main roadway usually massav maybe broadway maybe this area of mystic that we're talking about here tonight and i think about times in the past where we have allowed night work to pave massav i believe that was part of east darlington massav redesign where we did paving work overnight um when we repave certain sections in the height so we did it overnight we've done line painting on massav overnight more recently we've allowed earlier morning weed whacking on the center islands on massav um and the commonality between all of those allowances are um trying to both mitigate traffic impacts and also worker safety um when there's a large throughput during the day doing that work can be can be quite dangerous um but you know just to add a sense of the care we show um when contemplating doing the weed whacking on the center islands in massav the dpw director went and purchased all electric weed whacking equipment to try to reduce the noise so we're not perfect and i'm not at all disputing that sometimes this work can be disruptive to those living in proximity who're trying to sleep in proximity to the work but we do try to limit the work and we try to exercise discretion to balance um traffic and safety impacts with the potential disruption of the work yeah and one final question i know i'm taking a lot of time but i hope these are germane to the rest of the discussion i think this one's for the town council mr chair um mr schlickman pointed out that there is already an exception in place for emergency work if we were to if we if town meeting were to make this change and consolidate and do this move in the bylaws would that emergency exception still apply to the best of your understanding or is there any concern about that no i thank you uh mr chair man thank you thank you mr elman um so you know we'd have to draw up a vote here i think what mr schlickman has indicated is that he'd want to work with my office to figure out exactly how all this would fit together right now there's not only a provision for an emergency but there are some specific definitions of what an emergency means um i think there's a lot of different possibilities under this warrant article ranging from just adjusting what the hours of non-emergency work can be to doing that limiting or further defining the town managers discretion to provide for exceptions um there's kind of a broad range of things that could come out of this um so i don't think that the emergence i don't understand mr schlickman's proposal to be to affect or limit the emergency piece of it in any way i think what he's suggesting would i believe have some impact on you know when the town under what circumstances the town can operate outside the hours set forth in the bylaw thank you yeah thank you yeah it sounds it's um you know i'm interested to see what the public comments and my colleagues say but i think you know for me the the complexity here is that it's difficult to kind of know what we're supporting you know and that's fine i mean you don't have to come to to the select board with the fully written out bylaw i think that's finding out this conversation but you know there could be a lot of ways this is done you know and i think that the the the very building those range ways is really interesting to me and probably pivotal to whether i would ultimately support it in a final vote and comment um but um and i'm happy to move on um to other members uh thank you mr chair thank thank you mr howlith and this is mahan um thank you mr chair i don't have any questions i can certainly sympathize with mr schlickman um given my family circumstances being woken up outside the norm uh is a hardship and i live near the auditson and a major transformer so i won't go into how many times i've been woken up so right now i'm just not inclined to support this thank you mr chair thank you mr mahan um mr herd thank you mr chair um yeah i think like mr helmuth it comes down to the language and i think it could be something that i would support but the main i think whether ruby hits the road on this one is traffic concerns and whether it seems from mr schlickman's presentation that he doesn't he doesn't want that to be an exception that the time manager can undertake and we're looking at this in the lens of a specific intersection which could be create a traffic and safety is not just inconveniencing motorists but safety workers and motorists and pedestrians and there's a lot of elderly in that area um but we could also drop this work right in the middle of mass av in front of town hall and think of the difficulty in doing this work during the during business hours in that situation so i don't think i would be inclined to support a change that would take the discretion on the time manager to authorize the work in outside of the normal business hours due to for legitimate safety concerns relative to traffic and whether or not the work can be done safely i would submit that that isn't an exigent or emergency circumstance we might need to kind of work with the language whether it's emergency or exigent or however the work the language wants to be implemented that says that if in the town manager's discretion in addition to emergency matters that there's legitimate safety concerns that require the work to be done outside of the prescribed hours then i think i could get on board with that but again that that's my main concern is that we implement a bylaw change and then the town manager finds out that he doesn't have the authority to you to implement the work and has to go forward with work with safety issue with safety concerns about when the work can be done so those are my comments mr chair thank you mr herd mr diggins thank you mr chair and so just to get a sense of the scale the problem did i hear right mr chiclin that this happened three times over the course of 10 years yes it did and in the case of the manhole cover replacement where they dug out the manhole and replaced it the work started before 5 a.m but the work continued beyond 10 a.m so that there was no benefit to traffic in terms of getting it done before rush hour the work continued through rush hour and if you're familiar with the neighborhood uh traffic reduces very dramatically after 9 o'clock so that things that could be done 5 a.m can be done at 10 a.m in this location um and if you're starting too early and it gets into the rush hour it provides much more of a problem so in terms of getting some kind of a mechanism to where this is necessary for the safety of the town for where it's necessary to happen to to build another fence around it because obviously what happened in one case is the dpw didn't even bother to notify the town manager so it happened without authorization perhaps you know i left this vague because i wanted to listen to the select board because they value your input and it's much easier to get something before town meeting when i have the support of the select board then to go in uh with a substitute motion i want that i want i want your input but what i'm really looking for is maybe notify the butters this is going to happen or notify the select board or notify through the town website that this is going to happen so that when you're scheduling non essential routine work outside the normal hours or something is really loud like a sewer jetting truck or or a or jackhammers that there's another step that has to happen so that it just isn't this sort of routine thing i understand you know i guess i guess i hear you but but then when i hear like you know three times in 10 years i'm just not equating that with routine that said me i know what it's like to be awakened you know in the middle of the night and to me it isn't so much that i'm awakened but what's waking me up me so so a thunderstorm waking me up it's like yes i'm awake i don't want to be awake but it's a thunderstorm you know but a loud barking dog drives me crazy you know and and so i hear you coming from in and and so uh it's but the scale the problem isn't large by any stretch it means like 99.9% of the time nothing's happening at least at that location do you have a sense of whether this is happening in other locations i don't know but we are a 47 unit building so we've got 70 or so bedrooms so it's not a minor impact at least for the people in our building but yeah and and and the thing is is i gotta tell you that this sewer jet was so jarring the first thing i thought i mean i woke up i was almost falling out of bed and i thought that somehow my rumba decided it was gonna go and have a nervous breakdown under the bed it was it was right there it was really very disturbing uh and and i heard it a lot that was funny and kind of scary it was scary till i figured out what was going on uh and then of course i couldn't get back to sleep but it we should be able to do routine stuff in a way that isn't going and rattling people's beds yeah i understand you know and so we um so we can increase the hours we're not running to the town manager actually right now there's some confinement as to when we can do non-emergency work so it's established that the bylaw can restrict the work now we just or when it happens now it's just a matter of of um how much more we restricted you know essentially it's a two-step process one moving it moving the bylaw into uh out of the uh private property section which i think uh y'all should agree to because it brings clarity the bylaw it it's where it belongs the second is to find some way that the manager can live with the dpw can live with that 47 unit owners in 47 mystic street can live with and other people who live next to busy streets can live with as well so that it's not a routine thing and when the town does it they give notice and it's something that's really really important it's just so how would you recommend that we give a tease this is through the chair i mean i mean there there are a lot of different ways you can do this um one is to require further notification so that the process for doing this requires say notification to the select boarding publication of an impending action uh by making it more difficult it puts it in a category of things that require a little more foresight and action and do we really want to do this is the question and so that if we were to get a notification first of all it wouldn't be surprised to be woken up at 4 30 in the morning if this is happening if we've received notification and secondly you could call up your favorite select person and i love all of you and and and the town manager whoever's uh doing this and and say wait a minute hold on do you really want to need to do this and and have a say in how our town government is responding to this that would be one way to put a decibel limit on non-emergency actions is another way to go about it but i didn't want to go and presume that i have the one answer or the answer that you would feel comfortable with the manager would feel comfortable with and would feel comfortable with setting forth for any future managers through you mr chair to the town manager um so from the the couple of episodes or the three to two or three that that you recounted me i mean one they didn't give you any notice me the other one me did you have sufficient notice that you could have sent notice to the residents that something's going to happen mr chairman may i yes go ahead mr so i mean i let me answer that maybe slightly different than you asked and mr diggins i would say if the board in an attempt to be responsive to mr schlickman's um requests thinks we should build a notice provision into the exemptions or in you know into the way this bylaw works i think that's reasonable and we could make the time work because if it's non-emergency work that's being scheduled for an overnight hour to avoid either traffic or safety implications um that it can be scheduled and notice can be provided um so that um that would be a fine a fine thing to require of us i do think you didn't ask me specifically this bylaw have the opportunity i you know i do think that building in some type of vote of the select board to approve this type of work um would have significant operational impacts and and probably frankly be agenda items that you're not interested in having okay so i i i was clear right up until that last part and derivatives chair me so so for the notification part we wouldn't have you wouldn't have to come to select board for that notification no i know but mr schlickman had talked about sort of a menu of notification but also possibly having select board notification or approval oh i got you got you yeah yeah i understand okay got you um okay and um i think and and and through your stretch of the the manager so this is something this notification could be done without just to be clear without this article we can build that in now the notification system that you just you just mentioned i mean i think there's a way for us to build in operational policy where we would provide you know or internal policy where we would provide notification or it could be codified in the bylaw and that would be you know depending on what the board's comfort level was okay all right i'm gonna stop asking questions and give the chair a chance to ask some questions to usually ask me questions you know get a better sense of where i'm gonna go on this this is one case where i'm not sure where i'm going thank you um thank you thank you mr diggins um so i have a couple um just want to check that it's all done everybody um so i i look at this as an issue you sometimes you look at something and you say is this the problem with the standard or the application of the standard and i look specifically within the bylaw as it exists now to the authorized exemptions for public and private way projects which you had talked about mr schlickman which was added in in 2018 and what this appears to come down to to me is that there was a few decisions made over the years and unfortunately one of them was that particularly that the results was that the work was very loud it was very early in the morning one instance the town manager approved it one instance he didn't i to me they there is a provision there for permission of the town manager i think um you know perhaps in in one instance that dpw should have gone to the manager to get his permission they didn't so to the application of the standard allowing permission arguably wasn't wasn't um wasn't followed um i think we we see that um since then though the fact that we've only seen a few instances over the years it hasn't necessarily been an issue i understand your concern i understand your frustration when you see a project that you don't believe is it's necessary early in the morning but i i think the language as it exists now with the town manager having the authority to approve non-emergency work that that should be a mechanism that that that allows the town on a case-by-case basis to address particular needs now in a couple of instances it wasn't but i i'm a a little bit um concerned about putting more into a bylaw and taking away that discretion from the manager but i also understand if on certain types of non-emergency work would it be nice to to notify neighbors and butters yeah absolutely and i i would hope if over the next few months long as the chapter line is still here if that if that issue came up he would say yeah we should notify the neighbors and and apply this so i i feel um i can live with the way the bylaw is with with this exemption and just ask that the management team um apply it and be mindful of what what what the work is but i do have a question for you and i didn't go back i did some research on this but in the special town meeting back in 2018 when this subpart was adopted for the authorized exemptions were you the proponent of it yes okay all right so and at that point you know maybe you feel like this hasn't uh in the few years since because something happened after 2018 the the work well in May of 2019 and July of 2021 you feel like it didn't the the issue you were trying to address wasn't addressed uh after after the fact if i may uh if the board is not interested in tightening the restrictions on what is emergency work i would strongly urge the board to discuss and and approve a notification provision and let me tell you why very simple these occurrences happened on beautiful summer nights where you open the windows and enjoy the fresh air and you're sleeping in a nice environment with notification you you'd at least have warnings so you'd close the windows and turn on the air conditioning uh to to mute the mute the problem when it existed no notification whatsoever results in a very very jarring experience so that if you're planning this in advance and planning this and bringing in people on overtime which is a planned event very least the town should put out some sort of a notification that this is going to happen okay all right and and i agree there should be notification the only question in my mind is whether that gets put in the bylaw or whether it's done on a case by case basis to the manager's policies and and what will happen going forward i i mean i i would be open to considering an amendment to that sub party i don't not really in favor of moving this i'm not really in favor of of doing a lot with this and and i i will say i mean this the noise abatement bylaw has been amended between its initial enactment and afterwards but about five or six times and and um i suppose we're getting there but i i i guess i would be open to considering some sort of notice provision there but i also am concerned about um where we don't know what type of non-emergency will come up and maybe if you can't give notice it becomes an emergency and you have to do the work anyway i don't i i don't know but i i think i'd be willing to consider proposed language on that sub part 3a but i i don't think we should be moving this and i wouldn't really want to do too much else to this bylaw so if if members are interested or you know between now and the next meeting if there's any language that you'd want to propose you know i suppose we could consider that but that's that's my feeling on it just as one member i do want to open it up to the public at this point if there are any public comments there are no hands raised mr chairman okay all right so i will um we turn to the to the board we don't have a motion that's on the table right now but i will go in the same order that i went previously starting with mr helman thank you mr chair and thank you mr schlickman um you know i think um it concerns one one apartment building especially a large one are important um i think that we would have more information to work with if we had a sense for how much of a problem or other problems have been throughout town because it'll give us a sense of the scale and the scope of it you know that said i think it's a it's really it's a reasonable leap to make that that you know similar circumstances and similar dense populated areas you know could have similar impacts but but that is one thing that gives me a little pause of being too too far reaching i i would be happy to make a limited motion um for favorable action but along the lines of a notification requirement in the bylaw you know i think that um it's reasonable the wording would need to would also need to be reasonable to allow the town manager to authorize work that for for public safety reasons really needed to be done but i think that we could codify an intention there that would be helpful to residents and maybe also may also encourage the town administration to be thoughtful about when when these these exceptions are made um but i think that i we have to be our job is to be make make sure that the town can do work that needs to be done um you know we shouldn't inconvenience residents lightly i think we need to listen carefully when when inconveniences happen but sometimes we need to do work that um has impacts that that if the timing of it is uh has public safety or worker safety uh implications i think that's that's important too so i would not i wouldn't want to rest restrict that because difficult to know what the circumstances are every situation is a little bit different so i i would be my motion i think would be for notification and you know be interested to see what my colleagues would want to do with that okay thank you stanley just and just for clarification and a favorable action what's that mr schlickman is asking for here is that to move this entire bylaw from one title to another and we talked about the notification procedures which is within one section since section three a three or three a three a if you will of the um of the current bylaw so i i do you want to move favorable action to move this and to work on notification or just to work on potential notification language and keep the bylaw where it is um i think i've learned to trust people who know a lot more about this than i do and mr chair i would include you in that group so i would follow your lead i think of not moving it um open to further discussion maybe this will get assessed until a meeting so i would like to limit my favorable action motion um to adding a notification provision in the bylaw on the appropriate place or places okay okay thank you thank you mr helmeth um mrs maher hey um i'm not sure how mr helmeth will take this i think um what's before us is what mr schlickman is proposing um so my my motion would be to move no action but that in our comments we say that um we have uh instructed the town manager and town council to come up with language for a notification um policy or procedure but what's before us is whether in my interpretation we um support um mr schlickman's recommendation to uh take out the whole citation that he's um brought to our attention and and put it somewhere else so i'm not in favor of that i am in favor of the notification but on what's before us i i would move no action okay thank you mr maher so mr heard it's going to come to you with two motions neither of which have been seconded yet so um well i have a few questions sure so i i guess in i have to forgive my ignorance of tell me procedures but i guess for attorney heim so can we vote on this our so i guess i'll take mr helmeth's motion can we vote on positive action while leaving the bylaw is current section and just recommending that we we come up with a proposed bylaw change that implements a notice requirement mr heard i think the best way to articulate your question is is would it be in scope to do one but not the other um and and while that's ultimately a decision for the moderator i do think that you have more than one way to skin a cat um you could do as mrs maher is suggesting which is vote no action and put in your comment that you'd like to have a certain policy developed um i think that you could quote further regulate non-emergency work by dpw um because it has that or take any action related to i believe it's also maybe up to the moderator to determine whether it's in scope but um but um that's i think i think that it could probably be done probably my second question that from the discussions we've had on this is is it my understanding that if we do not move this bylaw into the new section as mr schlickman's recommending does the bylaw not apply to the town this question for me mr yes yeah so this has been a long-standing area of uh sort of ambiguity and as mr decorsi referenced in 2018 we tried to resolve this question about it because it's the bylaw does clearly contemplate and always did before even before the 2018 revision it does clearly contemplate some kind of public works activity but it's a very oddly placed in quote regulations upon the use of private property um because as you know uh it is 100 true that public ways are not private property so it's a very strange to find a section that's devoted to a very clear subject with a subpart that is totally out of sync so that one of the things that happened in 2018 is we tried to clarify it a little bit by providing this specific process for work in the public public ways but there's not a great answer to this other than it's pretty odd that it's a private property regulation title and a specific provision regulating the town government in that specific instance so I we have been applying this section after that initial discussion took place but we tried to clarify it without moving the whole thing in 2018 thank you Trayheim and I guess my last question would likely be to the town manager but I'm not sure anybody can answer this so is it feasible or practical to have a notice requirement that says and I don't know what the number is that if there's a reasonable expectation that the work being done will create more than x decibels of sound whereas and I know understanding that probably nobody in the DPW or even town government is able to specifically pinpoint that but to create some sort of standard that I mean if they're painting the streets that can be done overnight at the discretion of the town manager if they're doing some sort of majorly disruptive work that that requires notice to the butters yeah I wasn't sure if you were if you were so yeah I mean I think thank you Mr. Chairman I think your instinct is right that it would be hard to set a decibel limit because the Board of Health does have decibel meters but you know hard to really do that quick science on how far the sound travels and at what decibel level is that I mean I guess I would rather say if the Board is you know interested in codifying in some form a notice that we just say we're going to do it when we're doing overnight work of any fashion right even line painting work there's a compressor involved it's not a jackhammer but there's a compressor that could wake somebody even street sweeping provides you know it's very momentary but it sounds like a hurricane blows by your house when the street sweeper goes by so I think it's probably easier to manage it if if it's just across the Board requirement that we provide notification yeah and Mr. Chaplin do you think in your opinion is it overly burning some administrative problem to create to send notices in these instances I don't think so yeah I have to be honest in in many instances where we have done overnight work like the paving work on Mass Ave that I mentioned earlier we have provided notices I think it could be that we didn't provide notice for this because we expected it to be a short duration and perhaps weren't as aware of the disruption that it would cause but I think between flyering and utilizing the Arlington Alert system that you can provide very targeted phone calls to residents it should not be overly administratively burdensome to provide notice all right so I guess I'll do this I will second Mr. Helmeth's motion I will second Mrs. Mahan's motion and say that I mean however we move forward I think it's reasonable to take the current provision and say that in the instances that we're going to be doing work outside of business hours since we do it sometimes and we don't do it in others it just makes playing good old sense to notify abutters in any situation that the town manager exercises discretion to allow work outside of the regularly scheduled business hours and again I'll look to my colleagues to figure out the best vehicle to achieve that. Thank you Mr. Heard Mr. Diggins. Thank you Mr. Chair it's funny I thought the easy part was going to be moving it from from section 5 to section 8. So I'm surprised that we're not headed in that direction. I did agree with Mrs. Mahan that we did have to decide on what was in front of us being and I thought that we trying to do a notification policy and our private institute notification was kind of outside of the bounce kind of the proposed article and so I was feeling that yeah we will no action on the article but then we say that we would recommend the policy action that we are I think converging on and that is that there be notification of overnight work I'm totally on board with that but like I said I am surprised that we're not going to move it from 5 to 8 because the I thought the town council made a good case for that so so I'm not going to model this by making another motion I'm just a little perplexed as to where to go here you know but you got a second on everything and I'm not sure where I'm going to land you know so but I'll vote one way or another a little bit I'm sure because I'm done now thanks okay thank you Mr. Diggins and I think we've narrowed in on what the issue we want notice to be provided the question is it through a policy of the town manager or can we put something in this section a3a that adds notice that that we're comfortable it's I mean it's really going to come down to when attorney hand comes back to us with the proposed final vote how we like this language regarding notice so before I say anything further I see Mr. Hurd's hand up I mean Mr. Chair since there's some confusion as to the proper I think attorney Heim and everyone seems to have similar ideas as to how we tackle this problem do we have time in our scheduled meetings to essentially continue this to a next meeting have attorney Heim come back and say this is the best way to handle this or you propose the board one or two ways that we can handle this and we take a vote at that time and then have final votes and comments at the following meeting I'm comfortable with that if you want to make a motion to do that I mean I think that makes sense because it's really a matter I could support either motion at this point depending on what the what the language is and if attorney Heim came back to us said this is what it would look like if we added language to the to the bylaw and working with the town manager this is what a policy would look like and then we decide yeah because maybe it's just me I'm just not like I think we're all again on board as to what we're trying to achieve here I'm just not clear yet as to which motion I'd be support actually yes I will make a third competing motion to continue a vote on this to our next scheduled meeting with the idea that attorney Heim will come back and give us some clarification as with based on the board comments and doing second for that motion I'll second it okay and then I just I do want to ask you Mr. Chair though because you said that you weren't in favor of moving the the bylaw from section five to eight but I'm not clear on why you don't because like I said I thought that was just going to be the easy part me you know because I thought attorney Heim made a good case for doing that okay I think and again we can talk about this at the next meeting but I mean most of this noise abatement bylaw deals with private property and there was the issue that Mr. Schlickman came back to town meeting at in 2018 and we had this issue of work being done in the public way so the public way work almost became an exception to what where everywhere else almost exclusively applies to private property and even this exception only applies to public ways it doesn't apply to work that would have to be done in a park for example doesn't other public property non-emergency work can't be done outside of ours so most of this noise abatement statute applies to private property it's just one section here that deals with public property and and I so for that reason I'm more comfortable with where it is it's not perfect because you're trying to regulate two things that noise on part almost exclusively on private property but carve out this exception and I'm okay with having an exception and having a procedure for the town manager to follow with DPW even if it's in this part of the bylaw it's people going to look for it within a noise abatement bylaw and I'm okay with it being here but it's been a problem for years Mr. Diggins in terms of when when this comes up people are troubled okay where does it go because we're trying to do a little bit more I'd rather keep it where it is and work to improve the notice whether it's by the town manager's policy or whether we put some language in here and I think that that to me is the best way to address the issue Mr. Schluckman Reist thank you I appreciate it now now I understand better okay so so this is what I'm going to do Mr. Hurd's motion if we're inclined to support Mr. Hurd's most recent motion or his original motion if th