Welcome. I'm calling the order this meeting of the Arlington Select Board on Monday, March 13, 2023. I am Select Board Chair London-Diggins and I will now 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 Mahon. Affirmative. John Hurd. Yes. Steve Corsi. Yes. Eric Helmuth. Yes. Staff, when I call your name please respond in the affirmative. Sandy Poehler. Yes. Doug Hyme. Yes. Ashley Meyer. Yes. Tonight's meeting of the Arlington Select Board is being conducted in a hybrid format consistent with Chapter 107 of the Acts of 2022, signing the law on July 17th, 2022, which further extends certain COVID-19 measures regarding remote participation until March 31st, 2023. Before we begin, please note the following. First, this meeting is being conducted via Zoom. It is being recorded and is also being simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Second, persons wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. Persons participated by Zoom are reminded that you 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. Third, 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 ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials also found on the town's website using the local agenda platform. And finally, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call. So, is that, I'm going to turn to Mr. Poehler, who is going to introduce us to our new Deputy Town Manager Finance. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is my pleasure to introduce Alex McGee, who is the town's new Deputy Town Manager and Finance Director. Alex, why don't you come up to the microphone and if you would just tell the folks a little bit about your background. Alex has been here for exactly a week and a day. Started a week ago today. So, you can ask him any question you want and we'll see what he can answer. Sure. So, thanks, Sandy. I just want to say thank you to the whole town staff, select board, everyone for being very welcoming to me in the first week. I've been, I dove right in and I'm really excited to get to work a little bit on my background that bring about 10 years of municipal management experience. The last two as the finance director of a small town on the North Shore. So, I'm really looking forward to the future here. Thank you. So, I'll turn my colleagues. Mr. DeCorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to welcome you, Mr. McGee. I met you at the Long Range Planning Committee meeting last Friday and it was good to have some time to talk to you and looking forward to working with you. Yeah, thanks. Welcome. Nice to have a face to the name. The town manager, Mr. Pooley, speaks very highly of you. And one of the questions, I actually had two questions in terms of background and if you want to comment on either one, that's fine, but I think a mammoth part of the job is the finance deputy town manager, finance part of it in terms of whether we're talking about our, you know, bond rating, which is coordinating with the treasurer's office, which is under you, as well as our future financial outlook and working with powers and Sullivan and opera funding. And then the second thing is, which I think is important, but not an integral part of your job, maybe sort of a backup is collective bargaining. So I was just wondering if just now that you have this moment in the sun, if you wanted to just say a sentence or two on the finance side and the collective bargaining side. And I do want to say welcome and I know you haven't seen me in your travels yet, so you've been lucky, but you will. No. Thank you. Well, looking forward to that. Yeah, very much agree. You know, the coordination of a finance team is very important and strong coordination can help retain a strong bond rating, which is, you know, great for the town, great for the whole organization. And so, you know, over the last couple of years and then for years before that, I also work in the city manager's office in the city of Lowell. I do bring a lot of municipal finance experience specifically. So looking forward to carrying, you know, the torch, you have a sterling record here and looking forward to retaining that. As far as collective bargaining goes, I've been on both sides of the table having closed the number of our units in my previous town just last fiscal year. So, you know, so fair amount of experience on both sides of the table there. So thank you. I did make those queries of the town manager also. So I kind of wanted you to highlight that. And as you're finding out, we have an exemplary town staff that, you know, no one person, a woman or man is responsible for the financial stability of the town, but it's a great team. And I know you're finding that out and it'll help you with the job. Moving forward. Thank you. Welcome. Thanks. It's hard. Welcome. It's nice to, again, put a face to the name. I don't have any gotcha questions or zingers at this point. I'm sure we'll at some point. But as my colleagues have said, and you know, finance is integral part of the government and they tossed you in right around the time we're looking at our town finances and talking about impending overhead. So you'll have your work cut out for you. You have some big shoes to fill. Our lost deputy town manager and finance director was a finance guru, but I'm sure you'll have him to guide you along at least for the next few months. So look forward to working with you. Thank you. It was great to meet you Friday. It's been a weekend today and you're still here. So I take that as a good sign. We're glad to have you. And I echo my colleagues' comments that I think the confidence of Mr. Poole and you speaks volumes and that confidence will be well needed and well placed given the excitement and challenges we have ahead. Thank you. Yes, welcome aboard. You know, maybe someday we'll talk S&P futures and put options as a strategy. His reaction was priceless. Anyways, you know, so, well, hey, welcome aboard. You know, and, you know, we're serious about governing here, but we also mean like to have some fun at it. So, uh, so it's a good place.  So thank you. Great. Thanks, folks. So next on the agenda is a resolution requesting national grid repairs, significant environmental impact gas leagues by June 30th. And so, uh, with that, I will ask Ms. Bowlin. Yes, I will be recusing myself from this agenda item as a legal word for national grid system. My prior practice. Yeah, thank you. Excuse me. So I see Ms. Bowlin's end. And, um, hi. How you doing? Hello. Hi. Nice to be here again to see everybody. Can you hear me? You're fine. Okay, great. Okay. So I just want to recap a little bit our resolution that I talked about in January. This is the resolution that's presented by the gas leaks task force, and it's regarding, uh, to sending the resolution to national grid to making a commitment and to that they fix our large volume gas leaks. And there are several different grades of gas leaks. One and two are hazardous gas leaks that have the potential will either could be very hazardous immediately or potential to be hazardous. Grade three leaks are non hazardous. And there's an eight year time span to fix those. And the gas leaks we are talking about having fixed are the grade three S E I meaning significant environmental impact leaks. And these have a square foot. They can be measured in a square footage larger than 2000 square feet so that the gas can be detected over 2000 square in a 2000 square foot area around the league. And they they are constantly 24 hours a day, seven days a week emitting methane. And it's a study has shown that 7% the 7% of the largest gas leaks in that 50% of the methane from gas gas leak. So for the environment, it's very important that these are fixed. And they're supposed to be fixed within one to two years. Now, Arlington has. Well, when we first were putting this resolution together, we were basing it on 2021 data that there were 14 s e eyes. There are now from the third quarter of 2022 data. There are 21 of these s e eyes and Arlington. But our resolution is still going with the 14 because we have got had all support from everybody who has looked at the resolution. So we're going to stick with the 14 leaks. And basically, we're asking the select board to send this resolution to National Grid to commit to have these gas leaks fixed by June or before by or before June 30th. And we'd like it in writing what they're going to do and when they're going to fix them. And as far as verifying that they get fixed if the town of the select board needs help with that with handling the verification or the or any back and forth from the National Grid, David Morgan, who was also on the gas leaks task force, the town's environmental planner and conservation agent would help to handle some of the follow up with the gas company. And we also are looking for some town support probably using the town's gas leak detector because we feel that is very important. And I have a quote here from a resident and an environmental activist in Waltham. We were inspired by Waltham because they sent a gas leaks resolution to National Grid in 2021. And as of August 2021, National Grid agreed to fix these leaks, they pulled permits to repair their significant environmental leaks and reportedly fix them. But it's really unclear if they actually did, which is why we think it's important that this gets followed up. And actually, one of one of their large gas leaks is still showing up on the gas leaks maps. So we do want to do the follow up. So that's that's basically what it now. Does anybody have questions about what it is we're asking? Thank you. Not so much a question. First, I'd like to move approval of the resolution. And I understand resolutions. There only is good. They're better than the paper they're written on. I know many years ago when I first became active, it was on something called Minima May to Allington. And even though I got the board to begrudgingly at the time, it wasn't on the board to endorse that. It's the resolution is the first step, but the second step, which is the most important, as you have stated several times is the follow up. And I know other groups have also endorsed this, discussed it at their meetings and also endorsed it. And I really think it helps that it's not just a piece of paper as we move forward and we do do the follow up whether it's through yourself, mothers out front, Mr. Morgan from the planning department, the town manager, us individually as board members. It's nice to have three or four sort of tools in the toolbox to pull out. So I want to thank you all for all your efforts. And this is something that we can't just vote on this. As you said, we need to follow up. So move approval. Second. Well, thank you on this point. And we did have a talk about this because of my general posture towards resolutions. And I mean, I'm happy about the follow up meeting. And we'll definitely follow up on that follow up me because I want to see me. And if we see anything resulting from this, you know, but also I realized to that this is also a big push me by the, I guess, is the municipal of the multi multi town gas leaks initiative. That's multiple towns in the area are really pushing national grid to be fixing gas leaks. Right, right, right. And I saw a number of items mean in that resolution being a certified letter, you know, man, and publicity mean like sending the letter that we send into other news outlets. You know, so I'll ask some staff to follow up on that. You know, I see this as more of an opportunity to educate people more than anything else means I hope that you'll follow up on that because I think the best solution to this is get us off gas, you know, as soon as possible or and try to get the ball rolling on that. And if you can get more people aware of these leaks, then perhaps mean the getting information out there will apply to pressure itself. But as I said in our conversation, we just need to find out me where the points mean of of opportunity are for getting them to change their behavior, whether that's in the legislature mean or some other entity in the state. So so with that on a motion to approve by Mr. behind the second by Mr. Herd, Mr. Heim. Mr. Herd. Yes, Mr. Helman. Yes, Mrs. Mahan. Yes, Mr. Diggins. Yes. It's a four zero vote with Mr. Decorsi recusing himself. Okay, well, thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, patients appreciate it. Good work. Okay, thank you. All right. So next time we have an update on the time manager search process. And with that, I'm going to turn to Mr. Heim. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do want to note that the division of open government reached out to me in response to our letter. We have yet to finalize whatever guidance they're willing to give. But the director of the vision of government has been very gracious with her time and has offered to try to schedule something within the next couple of days for myself and her to sit down and talk about these issues. So I'm hoping that we'll have some resolution in time for your meeting on Monday. Thank you. All right. So any questions? All right. Well, thank you. I'm happy to hear that they have gotten back to us. I mean, so that's a good sign. All right. So moving along, we are on the consent agenda request for extension Black History Month banners, Gillian Harvey, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Division, and reappointments to the Arlington Tree Committee terms to expire on December 31st, 2025, Mary Ellen Arnaud, Aliza Burton, Susan Stamps, Ed Trimbley, Mary Vots, and six acceptance of funds from various entities. Christine Bourne Journal, Director of Health and Human Services. Move approval of the consent agenda with one question, Mr. Chair. Sure. My novice agenda has been a little sporadic. I think a few others may have also, and I do have also the printed version of our agenda, but reference materials. I don't have anything for acceptance of funds from various entities. So I guess what I would ask the town manager through the chair is this just sort of a general thing for in the future that this process is in place. So we can accept funds from various entities or do we know who the various entities, entities, fundings are or Ms. Maher? I'll just note that it was sent after the agenda was posted this afternoon. I know you've been having a problem with your email, but it is attached onto Novus. I know people may also be having problems, but it's for the COA and HHS. Okay. So Council of Aging and Health and Human Services funding funds. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Maher. Mr. Helms. I'd like to second that and also just note my appreciation to the members of the tree committee, but particularly three members who looking back at the minutes when the tree committee was formed by the select board back in June of 2010, 2013 years ago, Mary Ellen Arano, Eliza Burden and Ed Tremblay were inaugural members of the committee and here they are back for more. So thank you to those members, but all of them who do such good work and assist the select board and our policy and understanding of protecting the town's trees. Any other comments? Mr. Chair, if I may just for the board's clarification, these essentially memos about accepting gifts or grants are here to make sure that the board in the town is comfortable with the money being given, who it's coming from and whether there are any conditions attached to it. There are any conditions of significance attached to these, but I'll just let you know that the donors are the Sims Foundation, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs, the Sanborn Foundation, the HHS Charitable Corporation grant, I believe Mr. or Mrs. Sussman, the Arlington and the Bureau of Substance Abuse Prevention. So they're in various amounts, but those are the entities that are graciously either granting or giving money to the town for primarily operating transportation emergency assistance and things of that nature. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I saw the one from the state was for like 144K. Do we have to apply for that? Or is it just partitioned out due to? So many, Mr. Chairman, many of these are applied for by our staff who do a terrific job of going out and trying to identify grant availability. I wasn't going to ask, but we had a conversation go on, so I figured I'd get that in there. So any other questions, comments? All righty, you know, an emotion to approve the consent agenda by Ms. Mohan and a second by Mr. Helmets, Mr. Heim. Mr. Herd. Yes, Mr. Corsi. Yes, Mr. Helmets. Yes, Mrs. Mohan. Yes, Mr. Dickens. Yes, she named his phone. Thank you. Moving along. Item number seven request for amendment to the traffic rules and orders schedule one parking. So officer Corey, which will submit this from the Arlington Police Department, traffic and parking decision, traffic details and licensing units. So as you saw, I mean, it's really to just change, but not allow parking or no stopping, actually, I mean, on near the Hardy School. I forget the name of the street just yet. So any questions, comments? I mean, Ms. Mohan. Move approval. And I wouldn't be shocked to hear from all of my colleagues on the board that we've pretty much been down Hardy School at this particular time and have witnessed, and I think officer Rato and the Hardy School staff for coming up with a resolution to this. Thank you. Second. What's his comments? Excuse me. Yeah, well, it's, it's interesting, the distinction between no stopping and no parking and no standing, especially no stopping and no standing. So, so, and it's also interesting to see that schedule one listing and saw with the whole PDF, which I think can fit into some discussions that we may have later on, you know, because, because I was wondering about me, you know, me, the time limits on parking in various parts of town. And there's the way. So now we know a question that we've been having ourselves means, so great. So with that, you know, a motion to approve by Ms. Mohan a second by Mrs. Corsi, Mr. Hi, Mr. Herd. Yes, Mr. Corsi, Mr. Hellman. Yes, Mr. Diggins. Yes, unanimous vote. Thank you. I don't need vote for a special town meeting on Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023. Move approval. Second. Okay, so I'm motion by Mr. Herd and a second by Mr. Helmuth. Any questions? All right. So, yes, Mr. Chair, I'm sorry. I'm having a little trouble pulling up this particular item on the what day would the board like the warrant to open? Is that set forth in here? My apologies. Sorry about that. Presumably, it's two separate votes. So we'll take that first one. So I'm motion by Mr. Herd and second by Mr. Helmuth to set special town meeting for Wednesday, May 3rd. Mr. Hi, Mr. Herd. Yes, Mr. Corsi. Yes, Mr. Helmuth. Yes, Mrs. Mohan. Yes, Mr. Diggins. Yes, unanimous vote. Thank you. So now for approval of opening a special of a special town meeting warrant. And so now we need to set the date that we're going to open it and we usually close it on the same day. And so when we discuss, you had a recommended date, Mr. Hi. Typically, the board opens it on a Thursday. It's we need to give at least five days notice for folks to be able to be aware that they can try to get gather 100 signatures. So typically, we open it, you know, what is usually a Thursday on Thursday, and then it's open, you know, from 8am to 7pm, the town hours. So if that is sorry, I'm trying to pull my calendar. We need at least five days notice. Is that enough time, Mr. Manager? Yeah, because we need five days notice just to give the public the, you know, basically, right exactly. And then it's up to two weeks before the special town meeting takes place. So we're not super constricted in terms of that timeline. So if we want a little bit more cushion, we could put it off until the 30th, March 30th, as opposed to 23rd, you know, so, so do you prefer later rather than sooner? Yeah, I'd like to make a motion to open the special town meeting warrant to be held on Wednesday, May 3rd 2023 to open that on March 30th 2023 from 8am to 7pm. Second. Questions, comments? Okay, seeing none, you know, we will have a motion to open the warrant on March 30th and at 7am and close it on the same day at 7pm. I'm Mr. Mohan and a second by Mr. Heard, Mr. Heim. Mr. Heard. Yes, Mr. DeCorsi. Yes, Mr. Helman. Yes, this is Mohan. Yes, Mr. Dickens. Yes, Mr. Heim. Thank you. So, so we are now into the article. So, so because of the agenda tonight, and what I'm going to do is on any given article, we're going to try and limit the discussion made, at least the hearing part of it, the comments part of it to 30 minutes. And so the proponents will have seven minutes to tell us about their article. And then anyone who wants to comment on it will have 30 minutes or three minutes made for a total of 30 minutes. So just want to set the ground rules early on, you know. So yes, Mr. Heard. And just to clarify, are you going to go with the people in chamber first?  So if we have a lot of people online that want to queue. So let's say there are four times as many people online that want to queue up, we'll take it in that ratio, you know. So, so, any, anything else? All right. So we now go for, we talk, we go to Article 9, the By-law Amendment Stenographic Record of Town Meeting. And so I'll turn to our manager. You're turning to me, sir. So, yes, I'm sorry to buy you in the clock. Yes, thank you. So this article would eliminate a requirement in the by-law that we hire a stenographer to make a transcript of Town Meeting. I think it's no longer necessary that we do this because we record all the Town Meeting meetings on ACMI and we have access to software called Otter, which you may have recognized from Zoom, that if you run a verbal transcript through it, it will then create a written transcript. It does need to be checked sometimes for spelling and grammar, but it basically, for those few occasions when you need an actual written record, we can do that. It would save us somewhere in the last few years we spent between $4,000 and $13,000 a year on a stenographer. And so we'll be able to produce the records that we need, save some money, and therefore I'm recommending it's approval. Thank you, Mr. Fuller. So, Mr. Helmuth. Thank you. Questions for the Town Manager from me, Mr. Chair? Yes. Do you happen to know from perhaps your discussions with the clerk how often we have received requests for this stenographic record from Town Meeting? Oh, how many, so we produce it every year, but when people actually ask for it. Actually, I do not know that. Do you know that? I don't, but I'll promote Julie. She's actually on the meeting. Oh, is the clerk here? Yeah. That would be wonderful, actually, if I could address that to her. She's just getting promoted now. Good evening, Madam Clerk. Good evening. I'm not aware of any requests. Thank you. I mean, it's very, it's very rare. So I appreciate a direct answer. My second question is we live in a digital world, but digital files are not indestructible, neither is paper, of course. Would it be reasonable to still, well, is the intention to still generate at least an automated transcript each time from the video if we do this? I will defer to the clerk on that, but I don't believe so. We would always have the recordings. And unless we needed a transcript, we wouldn't, there's really no need to generate them. I guess a deeper question then is under what circumstances would we require a transcript? I mean, I think the clerk has just said that nobody ever asked for one, but what would be the potential purpose? And I think if that sounds like the Attorney Hime may have some. I will defer to Attorney Hime. Please. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The major purpose would be if there was some need to essentially understand the legislative intent of town meeting about a particular vote that took place. Not that you couldn't look at the video and make an unofficial transcript, but if there were, for some reason, any litigation about an action that town meeting took, we might have to then go and generate a transcript from the recordings that would be signed off by a court reporter so that it could be submitted to the court rather than folks having to watch the entirety of town meeting to understand exactly what's happened on some specific vote that hasn't come up. I can think of one or two times that a town meeting transcript has been referenced during my almost 10 years here, but that's about it. And those were transcripts from the 70s if I run correctly. Yeah, thank you. That's very helpful. Another question for the town manager, would it make a difference in what we pay for the transcription service? Were we to just as a matter of course, run the recording through the transcriptions to just automatically get a transcription and not having a person necessarily correct it because that is those are person hours. But would that be what kind of cost, if any implications would there be if we were to move that we move positive action, if I were to move positive action, but to say that we still require not only a transcript just as a backup to the video? As somebody who has never run an automatic transcript, I would defer either to the clerk or to the board staffer because they are the ones who do create these transcripts from time to time. Does a board administrator or clerk have any insight into that? At this time, I believe that it wouldn't cost anything additional. We for online town meeting also ran the auditor program. So we would put the meeting into order and it would generate. So we have all of those records from from town meeting of last year as well. Mr. Chair. Yes, yes, Ms. There may be a subscription cost to being able to use order. I don't I would call that vaguely. That's correct. Yes. But we already have the subscription for the town. Yeah, thank you. And I think my question would be there. Would there be an additional incremental cost to to the additional use of it? So those are my questions for now. We'll wait till public comment before I might make a motion and might hear from my colleagues, of course. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll wait for public comment. Okay, all right. So so we'll now open it up to public comment. You know online if you could raise your hand electronically and in the room, just raise your hand. Come up to the microphone. I see Mr. Wagner's hand on up. I'll promote Mr. Wagner at this time. Sure. And we're going to bring back the clock. Oh, I didn't give you enough time. Do you want me to? Yeah, yeah. Give me one second. Hi, thank you. Can you hear me? Is there a certain amount of time? I'm sorry. Three minutes. Yeah. Thank you. I'm Carl Wagner. I live in precinct 15. I wanted to comment on this item that the laws are changed by the actions of town meeting, at least the municipal laws. I think it's really important that there be a way to have a written record. And I think the written record should be corrected. Otherwise we'll all say, oh, you can just refer to that video of those many, many hours when we said something. And I think really it is very important to have some record for the words that were said. I think it's a great idea to use automation here as much as possible. Thank you very much. Thank you. You know the comments? All right. Suspect to us. I would like to wholeheartedly move approval on this warrant article. I know I've missed in my tenure two town meetings where we didn't have the stenographer. Since I'm a court reporter, I volunteered did not charge for my time, which I can tell you the charge for written transcripts is pretty astronomical. And I'll also tell you that in terms of the questions around written transcript that the stenography services after they go back, what they do is they have their own either for the record FTR or a voice edit. And what they do is when there is a request for a written transcript the whole night, a particular warrant article or articles, what they do is they just download the audio file into FTR or voice edit. It's sort of like dragon naturally speaking, but it's particular software for legal meetings. So it's got that. And then basically the stenographer court reporter does take a second pass at it and look at it. Although the software program highlights where it feels a human should look at it, but any good stenographer court reporter goes through the whole thing. So to Mr. Wagner, excuse me, and other people's points about there should be a written record, I totally agree. But I don't think we need to rely anymore and having a stenographer there at every meeting because if he or she doesn't show up and you don't have someone who can who is a stenographer, which I'm just an anomaly, we couldn't have town meeting that night. So and just to be mindful and respectful of all town meeting members times time as well as citizens at home who might be coming in to speak on warrant articles or just listening to it. The thought of saying, you know, we can't have a town meeting tonight because of and this is way pre COVID. So I want to endorse this because I can tell you the two nights that I did it. Don't ask me what went on that night because as a court reporter, you don't listen. Everything just kind of goes through and you don't get to participate. So move approval. Mr. Duporsi, I'd like to support this as well. And I wanted to hear Mrs. Mohanlott because of your experience, but also I was here one of the two nights and it's always a moment of truth for a court reporter where someone asked you to read back and you can ask one of those nights and you nailed it. So that was always always a challenge. I'm just wondering maybe on the auto program, just as a matter of course, if we could just create that after every meeting in a separate digital file, it sounds like it's no effort to do that. That way it's separate from the from the video recording. But I certainly support this. And on the one night that I remember, we would have all had to go home if you weren't there. So I think going forward, given what we have with technology, it makes sense. No, happy to support. I'm happy to support that too. I consider suggesting that we try to finesse us with the requirement to generate an automated transcript. But I think if we put that in a bylaw, it's going to be difficult to differentiate between what is, you know, official transcript. That said, I think that because things go wrong with digital storage, although I'm aware that any automated transcript is probably going to be stored digitally and not in paper, but it would be stored somewhere else, that it would be a really good idea to if ACMI can do this to take its files, which it prepares for broadcast and, you know, in run them through our auto subscription, if that's cost effective to do that, so that if anything goes wrong with that original copy or the YouTube copies that we do have the transcript for, I wouldn't say all eternity, but for a while. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. As you all know, I mean, I pro-digital, I think this is a good idea. I do like the idea of having, you know, it generated me so that people can read it, means so that I think it makes it possible for people who maybe have different preferences for looking at what happened at a meeting, you know, to have easier access to it, you know, and yes, the backups are important, you know, you definitely have to make sure you have a good backup system and not only that, a good restore system, because lots of people have backups, but they can't restore, you know, and then the other is being protection against format changes, because, you know, 50 years from now, it's going to be a completely different format, and if we've just been saving them, you know, in one format, we go back to access them, and they're not there, I mean, and so, so I mean, generate the transcript, I mean, in as many formats as you can, even a paper format, and I think we'll be better off, but yes, I support this. So, with no other comments and questions, we have a motion for positive action by Ms. Mohan and seconded by Mr. Corsi. Mr. Heim. Mr. Heim. Yes, Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Heim. Yes, Mr. Mohan. Yes, thank you. Yes. Mr. Heim. Thank you. So we're now on to Article 12, a three-year moratorium on installation of artificial turf on townland, and with that, we turn to Ms. Malafchik, and we're going to have seven minutes, as we just, I think we- I shouldn't take that long. All right, all right, so I'm going to trust you, so we won't, we won't sell the car. Seven. Yeah, please. And just for the record, name and address. Okay. Our street, just street, it's fine. Beth Malafchik, 20 Russell Street. Thank you. Town meeting member. Thank you. The current pause on artificial turf, which expires July 2023, leaves our community, our children, and our environment vulnerable to additional plastic sports fields. Advocates of plastic sports fields have included in Arlington's land management plan endorsements of artificial turf. Do we want to use our children as test subjects for dangerous chemicals? I don't think we do. So I'm allowing, I'm asking you with this warrant article to allow discussion and vote at town meeting on article 12. Otherwise, the stage has been set with the land management plan to allow additional plastic sports fields. Artificial turf is at odds with the environmental protection decisions which Arlington has made over the last few years. We prohibited stores from using single use plastic shopping bags. We banned the sale of plastic one liter water bottles. We've strengthened protections for trees and we eliminated the use of polluting gas powered leaf blowers. This was done to reduce noise, but it had that nice benefit also reducing fossil fuel emissions. We know there are health and environmental hazards of artificial turf. Artificial turf contains the forever chemicals called PFAS. There are hyperlinks in my letter to the select board that led to research and data on these. WBUR and The Guardian have a series of articles on artificial turf, I mean on PFAS, what it is, why it's bad and also the hyperlinks that I provided have information on artificial turf. Plastic grass cannot be manufactured without using PFAS which allows the plastic to pass through the extruder to create the blades of artificial grass. Any company who promises PFAS free artificial turf is mistaken as Portsmouth, New Hampshire discovered in 2020. They were promised such a field but once it was installed and tested it was found to have PFAS in it. There are no safe levels of PFAS. The following is a quotation from public employees from Environmental Responsibility, one of the sites I've suggested to you to research. Virtually every PFAS tested for toxicity is associated with adverse health effects. PFAS and other chemicals and plastics are polluting our drinking water and air. These chemicals bioaccumulate. Arlington is in the Mr. River watershed, storm runoff from sports fields across town ends up in the waterways. Artificial turf cannot be recycled nor can it be made from recycled plastic. Anyone who says otherwise is misinformed. All over the world artificial turf is dumped and stored in remote areas and in environmental justice neighborhoods where it leaks toxic microplastics and chemicals into the waterways and soil. In the US it is accumulating in Luzern County, Pennsylvania. There are no plastic turf recycling facilities in the US. There's one or two in Europe ineffective. Artificial turf can become 50 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a natural grass field on a hot summer day. Plastic sports fields are heat islands while natural grass fields as we know absorb CO2 in their cooler. Everything associated with artificial turf goes against Arlington's climate action plan and the achievements I listed earlier. Artificial turf off gases, it's smelly, off gases methane and ethylene into our air and water and contributes large amounts of CO2 emissions to our environment which goes against us trying to reach net zero. At a time when Arlington is working hard to reduce the carbon footprint of our public and private buildings why would we seek to laminate sports fields with plastic? Natural grass does the opposite of plastic. It absorbs CO2. Springfield, Massachusetts shows that organically managed grass sports fields, that's a particular protocol are competitive with playing times for plastic sports fields. Toxic use reduction instituted the University of Massachusetts Lowell has the data habit. They have a study on it. As we pride ourselves on the reduction of solid waste in Arlington and our single use plastic shopping ban let's not consider additional plastic sports fields. The manufacture of one plastic sports field uses the equivalent of 4,800,000 plastic bags or 69 million, yes 69 million plastic straws. The current moratorium expires July 2023. Please allow town meeting the opportunity to review and discuss the merits of a pause on artificial turf. Sports fields, I think this is really important. Sports fields and our use or need for facilities should not determine environmental policy. We know too much. Plastic sports fields near wetlands seem to violate new EPA regulations that were just published March 9th. Plastic sports fields have too many known unintended consequences. Please afford the community the time to research and discuss options. Properly installed and organically managed grass fields and that's a particular protocol exist and can be maintained without using toxic chemicals. Grass fields help to cool communities. They protect athletes from toxins. Wayland and Sharon and Concord have placed moratoriums on artificial turf because of the environmental and human health risks associated with it. Springfield, Massachusetts successfully uses organic grass fields with plenty of playing time. The case study shows 1,000 hours a year for their soccer field. Why would we do any less? The claim that artificial turf is less expensive than real grass can be challenged by all of the data and claims that artificial turf can be recycled when it needs replacing as I've said is not true. Let's not laminate the environment. The cost is too high. Let's reduce not increase our children's exposure to unnecessary heat, injury and chemicals. Sports fields should not determine environmental policy. Please allow town meeting to consider this and the community also this opportunity for further study. Plastic sports fields are expensive. They last 10 years, they cannot be recycled. Organically managed natural grass is competitive on playing time and the hazards are simply too great. I have here a plastic container of crumb rubber and grass toxic PFAS laden grass blades from the Summer Street field. It's been leaking this stuff for two years now. It's still leaking. Arlington Catholic High School, they were asked to place a silk sock out by the Conservation Commission. They haven't done that. They haven't hoovered up the crumb rubber that's there now, which they did two years ago, which is the first time I complained about it. This leaks into the conservation resource area and it gets into the millbrook and I want you to think about that the next time you buy a lobster roll or get a fish fillet because it's getting in there and the creatures eat it. Millbrook at Cooks Hollow, as you know, gets migratory birds, seed birds, and migratory fish protected and we shouldn't be allowing this and we certainly shouldn't be magnifying our exposure to it. So I offered an exemption to the high school. Pardon? I have you passed seven. I have you passed seven here. Okay. Seven minutes now. All right, so I'm happy to answer any questions. All right, thank you. So Mr. Hurt. Well, I was gonna ask where you stole that from, but you admitted it in your speech. Summer Street. I'll speak after the public comment. All right. Any other? Yes. At some point, I'd very much like to know the town manager's perspective on this. I know these worked a lot on this question with his professional staff, the Board of Health, to consult with the Conservation Commission. I'd leave that to your discretion as to know the appropriate time for him to comment. I'd like to hear. Sure. And well, I mean, I'm fine with hearing it now, you know, so. Yeah, could I piggyback on that? If there's any, with the high school rebuild, if there's any update we need on that. Sure. If I could, Mr. Halmets in the chair. Sure, sure. Thank you to the members of the board and to the public listening. I respectfully request that you oppose this article. I have several reasons. One, it imposes a three-year moratorium. I believe that to be, as I said in the memo to the board, an artificial timeline. It's not in any way based on any science. It's just picking three years. The issues around artificial turf are important issues. They need to be studied. They need to be better understood. And in fact, we will be holding the session on April 11th, co-sponsored by the Conservation Commission and the Parks and Rec Commission with experts on both sides to talk about that issue. It is a session where we will have a independent facilitator coming in whose goal, I think, is to try to identify the things on which we can agree, the things on which there's disagreement and the things on which we need to find out more information. So it's not gonna be as this side right or as that side right. I think there are some serious questions that are out there about artificial turf, about how it's made, about the components, and about whether it is, when it's installed, whether it brings chemicals such as PFAS into the environment. If it were the case that it were doing that in any measurable extent that meets certain standards, I would be opposed to building artificial turf fields. But I think there are ways to measure these things and to understand them in ways that are important. I also think it is under the jurisdiction of the Conservation Commission to look at the impact of artificial turf fields on our wetlands and whether they're affecting waterways. It is under the jurisdiction of the health board to look at whether there are health effects of people playing on artificial turf fields. And it is under the, it will be under the jurisdiction of the next town manager after July to decide about making recommendations about funding or siding fields. It will then frankly be up to town meeting if there is a funding request to vote on that. And that I think is the proper role for town meeting in this. I know there is one particular field in town that has been talked about at Poets Corner where we would have the opportunity to have Belmont Hill School build a whole set of artificial turf fields there with Belmont Hills dollars. But even with that, town meeting would have to have a vote because there's a land transfer involved. So town meeting will be involved in this issue. But I don't think it is wise for us to encourage town meeting to usurp the powers of the commissions like the conservation commission and the health board. As far as the high school goes, the conservation commission approved turf fields for the high school. There have been turf fields at the high school for many years now. Lots of children playing on them. No known health effects that I'm aware of have been reported. One of the things that the conservation commission did was it required that the fields that installed there meet certain testing standards. Those standards are set out right now by the state of California. And they talk about how much of any certain element might be in any of these products and so forth. I think that gets me to the final point which is that in any of the locations where we're talking about artificial turf fields, I think we need to look at those locations on a case by case basis. For example at Poets Corner, I think we need to consider what the environmental impact is of an uncapped landfill that's just covered with grass now versus what the environmental impact would be if we were to put an artificial turf field there. I am not trying to make that determination today. I think we need to have sessions like the one on the 11th and further study by our departments and so forth. And then at some point, the next time manager will have to make a recommendation about sites like that. But I think it's very important that we not have an across the board moratorium that we look at these sites case by case. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. So I'm gonna save my questions, comments, I mean, until after the hearings. All right, have you heard from the public? So at this point, I will ask for people in Zuland to raise your hands electronically and in the room if you wanna speak, you know? We have one, two. Am I done? Well, for now, we may have some questions for you later. I did exempt the high school. I've written to Mr. Poole or Mr. Heim. Okay. And I asked for language and I wrote to Jeff Tealman. All right, thanks. So I see two here.  So far there's 11 hands raised in Zuland. That's five to one, you know? So we'll take 13. 13. 14. All right. So let's just say, yeah, I saw two in the room, you know? So thanks. So as I said, we're gonna spend about 30 minutes being on public comments. So that's gonna be roughly 10 people, you know? So we're gonna take the two in the room here and the first eight, you know, here. And that will be it and we'll run the clock, you know? Do you want me to run the clock three minutes or 30 in total? Three minutes, three minutes. So we had two hands here, you know? So who were the first two? Good evening. My name is Henry Brush. I live at 12 Jayper Ave. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight on the proposal to ban turf fields in Arlington. Tonight I'm speaking on behalf of the Arlington Soccer Club, where I've been on the board of directors for over 20 years. In four weeks, we will have 2,000 ASC kids ranging in age from pre-K to high school playing on the fields of Arlington. I'm also speaking on behalf of the Arlington Adult Men's Soccer Organization. We have four teams with about 80 players and compete in adult league, as well as hold weekly pickup games. We were on the other end of the age spectrum with players ranging in age from 40 to 68 years young. Some of our biggest challenges are lack of field space and quality of field space in town. We would all love to play on that field of dreams, a beautiful grass field like those played on during the World Cup. But the reality is we cannot maintain high quality grass fields in Arlington. Why is that? I think there are many reasons. We are a spirited sports town with active people which translates to a lot of youth and adults playing sports on our fields. To give you a picture of our field use, let me walk you through a typical day at Thorndike Field. To fit all of our teams, we will have four fields lined there and all of the grass space will be used. The Arlington High School teams will be playing there in the afternoons. The youth teams will come on after them and play until 7.30 p.m. We will typically have three teams practicing per field since we are so short on space and a total of nine to 10 teams playing each night at Thorndike. In the fall we have lights there and practices will go until 8 p.m. This repeats Monday through Friday. Saturdays and Sundays we will play games there. All of this translates to a lot of usage and wear on our fields. There is no rest for the fields. We have no extra fields based in town so each field is used every season. We are not able to rest any of our grass fields for a season which would be standard practice for good field use and promoting grass growth. As a result the playing surfaces are often sub-par and in some cases even unsafe despite the best efforts of DPW to maintain the grass fields in the space of our high usage. We need a few surf fields in town that can be played on in all types of New England weather and don't wear out as fast as grass fields do. We have the opportunity to add additional turf field space at Poets Corner through a fantastic collaboration between the town of Arlington, Arlington Catholic High School and the Archdiocese of Boston and Belmont Hill School. Banning turf fields could end this project. I understand that environmental issues have been raised regarding turf fields but I also understand that there are multiple options for mitigating these concerns through using environmentally friendly materials. I've also seen firsthand the innumerable health and social benefits of ensuring that our children have ample space to play team sports on fields that are consistent and quality safety around. It's time. I would like to just say I'd like to add a shout out and big thank you to the DPW Recreation Department and Parks and Recreation Commission. They do all do an excellent job managing our fields with the limited resources that we have. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you. So next. Hi, Robin Bergman, Park Avenue. I'm a town meeting member from Precinct 12. I sent everyone a letter this morning, early this morning, and I'm going to read part of it into the record. As one of the signatories to the warrant article, I ask you to support it to grant a three year moratorium on the installation of artificial turf. It's not a ban, it's a moratorium so that it gives us time to consider all the details about it. Beth has already spoken to health and safety concerns, environmental impacts, costs, liability, et cetera. I'm going to speak mostly about pending legislation and regulation. Many municipalities are passing moratoriums. Sharon, Wayland, Boston, Concord. Many more are discussing it. Martha's Vineyard, Amherst, Nantucket. Some have already switched to organic fields including Marblehead, Martha's Vineyard, Springfield, and Belmont Public Schools. Why three years? There is increasing evidence and concern about the risks associated with artificial turf use, and the science and the research is not yet settled. Regulations and legislation are also not yet established but are in process and accelerating at the state and federal level as the science evolves and the risks become more known. Given continual new findings, an adequate amount of time is needed to study all the issues associated with it and wait for the science and regulations to be established to protect public safety and health. There is currently new legislation filed in the Mass State Legislature by Representative Carmen Gentile, HD 958, an act prohibiting state and municipal contracts for the purchase and installation of artificial turf fields with a companion bill S2057 in the Senate. The legislative calendar is a two-year cycle and a three-year moratorium would allow legislation to be passed and implemented. Mass DEP is in the process of regulating PFAS as a class rather than individually one by one. Additionally, a Massachusetts regulatory petition is about to be filed asking the state to regulate artificial turf. The federal EPA has released part one of a two-part report and the latest press release from Administrator Regan, current head of the EPA, announced budget priorities for the coming year including tackling per and polyfluor alcohol substances which is PFAS pollution. Additionally, the acting town manager's temporary moratorium will expire in July when he retires which leaves open the possibility and potential danger of installing new artificial turf before we have had enough time to adequately investigate the risks. All right, thank you. And as you said, you said. Can I finish my last sentence? Sure. I just wanted to quote one of the main scientists who's been working on this, Kyla Bennett, quote, we should not have the ability to destroy our planet or health for convenience. Thank you very much. Thank you. So the order I'm seeing, you'll tell me who's next, online. I just wanted to know how many you want me to take the top eight. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so. Do you want me to continue with those or comments from the board? No, we'll continue with those. Okay. So we're just gonna go straight through this. The first person is Paul Schlittman. Okay. Mr. Schlittman, if you just want to unmute your mic. Paul Schlittman, can you hear me now? Yeah. Okay. Name and address. Paul Schlittman, can you hear me now? I'll be very brief. Please unite and member of the school committee. I want to thank Ms. Milofchuk for saying that she would exclude the school project from her moratorium. As you know, the school property has artificial turf on it as part of remediation against chromium that was there before. And the initial field was placed as part of the remediation project. So there are environmental reasons for wanting to have a turf field at the high school. As a town meeting member looking away from the high school, I think that there are good reasons to consider this warrant article in a further moratorium. And I would look forward to that discussion on the floor of town meetings. So I hope that there would be favorable action moving forward so that at least we can discuss this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Schlittman. Next person is Patricia Muldoon. All right, thanks. Thank you. Thank you. This is Patricia Muldoon, 67 Smith Street. I live near Poets Corner. And I just wanted to speak in support of the select board approving this article as I think it is essential to put in and to extend the moratorium for three years for environmental reasons, for cost reasons, and for safety reasons. I have just looked at, I have pulled up the UMass Lowell's Turry Report that shows their studies indicate that an artificial turf over the lifetime of the turf is two and a half times more expensive than a regular grass turf. Two and a half times more expensive. Can we afford that? And I will say that the proposed solution for Poets Corner is not one that is more environmentally friendly than what we have right now. And it does need to get kept somehow. But this solution is not an actual solution to the Poets Corner situation. We do need to have a moratorium to deal with the environmental concerns that we know of right now. And the town cannot possibly afford the challenges to our children's health, our adults' health, to the wildlife health. We cannot afford those expenses. We cannot afford the financial expenses. A moratorium is absolutely the most sensible route to take at this time to let the science continue to develop. But what we know already says that these are very dangerous fields. There are even the increased heat islands. Can we afford to add more heat into our town and make it hotter for our athletes who are gonna get more turf burns as well? This is not how to treat the need for fields in Arlington with putting in something as incredibly dangerous as these artificial turfs are now. And I'll just end my comments here so that as many people as possible can add in their words. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you. Why now Evans? We'll be next. Hi, can you hear me now? Yes. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay, thank you. We know Evans, Orchard Place, town meeting member. Just two points and I will also be brief. So much of the work that our town, both individually and as a town has accomplished over the past several years has been geared towards recognizing our role in the larger world as we fight the existential challenge of our lifetimes and perhaps of the human race, which is of course climate change. This is such a step backward to consider installing plastic turf fields. In addition to the chemicals that they are made up of, one of the things we have not talked about tonight is that they off gas methane, one of the most potent climate damaging gases that we know of. We don't exist in a void. Arlington is not its own little world. We are all part of the larger world and we all have to work together to fight climate change. And I wanna close with a very personal anecdote. My mom was a smoker. And wherever we went in the car, the windows were rolled up and she was puffing away. At that time, nobody knew about the dangers of secondhand smoke, which today the National Institutes of Health have confirmed are even more dangerous than firsthand smoke. And I believe that what we do not know about the chemicals in artificial turf fields are the greatest dangers. Our children who are going to be playing on these fields have developing brains. We are also learning so much about how the brain develops and how deeply vulnerable it is at an early age. So whether we have a moratorium, how long a moratorium lasts, all of this stuff to me is irrelevant. The real question is, what do we want to expose our children to? Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. And I ask for your support for this article. Thank you. Thank you. So we have two comments next. I'm gonna promote the next person. Hi everybody, can you hear me okay? Yes. I joke on the director of recreation. I just wanted to comment. I think there's a lot and a lot of statements made tonight that I don't necessarily agree with, but I think that we're not gonna solve the pros and cons of an artificial turf field and tonight's meeting. But I do wanna point out that we are on the path of following a process for a larger community engagement as the town manager indicated, April 11th having a town forum to discuss many of these issues very openly with panelists who have expertise in these areas. I do firmly agree that, the role of the conservation commission in the Board of Health is to make these determinations and what they feel is best for our wetlands and for the health of the residents. The one comment I do wanna make, I hear a lot as a comparable alternative to artificial turf is organic natural grass fields. And I just wanna say an organic natural grass field is a grass field. After a rainstorm, if you were to go out and play on an organic natural grass field, you would rip it up. You would not do this. This wouldn't be the same damage on a turf field. You could play repetitive games on artificial turf field and not have the same wear and tear you would have on an organic turf field. An organic turf field is not magic grass. It's pretty much a natural grass field that is treated with organic fertilizers. So I just wanted to point that out because I hear that a lot. Why don't we just have organic turf fields instead of artificial turf fields and it's just not the same thing. So thank you very much for your time and I hope that you did not support this article. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is being promoted. Hi everyone, can you hear me? Yes. And so. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. My name is Laura Becchione. I live at 49 Appleton Street. I'm here in support of the moratorium on artificial turf. I first found out about the Poets Corner in Belmont Hill wanting to put down artificial turf there because I live a mile and a half from Belmont Hill School and I was appalled with the parking lot plan going on there. So I called our town officials and found out, hey, we have an initiative against artificial turf and Belmont Hill School is putting that down here. So I'm speaking to Belmont Hill Schools being a bad neighbor and having a poor environmental record. And since I've been involved in that group at Belmont Wild just today, somebody in that group to make it, to bring it home, you're talking about tearing up the fields. Well, when the snow plows come, they plow mounds and mounds of snow with that toxic, those black beads, mounds of black beads that our first speaker talked about that are filled with PFAS and I agree with the other speaker. We already know enough. This is exactly like the tobacco situation. There's so much I could say but people have already said it in peak summer heat, artificial turf fields can reach 140 degrees. Kids are already collapsing from heat stroke. There are studies that say it's linked to glioblastoma. They're getting skin lesions. And so I just wanna say at the personal level, I'm a breast cancer survivor. I don't have it in my family at all. We know that when that first speaker talked about those PFAS going into the water and into the fish that we eat, my cancer was linked to that. So this is really personal. And also I, we know enough and I just wanna also say why would we in Arlington let them put down a material that contributes to heat islands that can't be recycled, that leaches toxins, kids are collapsing, all of these things. And I was inspired by Anne Boland talking about that she was inspired by Walfam and I'm hoping that we can be inspired and have a multi-city moratorium on the artificial turf. Mayor Wu has banned it. They have initiatives in Maldon and Charleston as well to ban it, Belmont public schools. And I think I'm running out of time and I think you get the point. Thank you. Thank you. Good job. Good job. So thank you very much. Good night. Good night. Sorry. No problem. Sorry, I'm new. The net call the house, Draper Avenue town meeting member in precinct 11. And I would like to ask you to vote for positive action on this warrant article and give town meeting the chance to discuss it and vote on it. I'm an avid gardener. I love the earth. I love everything that grows out of the earth and I shudder to think of the effect that this stuff has on the earth underneath it. And Robin laid out very clearly some of the legislation that was in the wings and the state house regarding artificial turf and should the state decide to ban it and then we have to pull it up in a few years, we will no longer have earth underneath it that will sustain an organic field. And that to me that we are removing permanently the possibility to grow things on this plot of land is just, I shudder to think of the effect that that will have. So I'm hoping that you will allow town meeting to have the chance to discuss this and give the town three years to gather more information about it. There's not enough science out on the dangers of it and the toxicity of it. And there's, we passed a ban on plastic bags and a ban on plastic water bottles. And now we're talking about introducing 40,000 pounds of plastic which is used in the average size field of turf into Arlington. This doesn't make any sense. If we have a net zero goal in Arlington, this doesn't make any sense. We're just contributing to the problem rather than solving the problem of an environment that is already in crisis. So please give town meeting the chance to debate on this. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Can you hear me? Sure, go ahead. Okay, thank you very much. I couldn't tell. My name is George Weinstein, a town meeting member in precinct 21. I live on Lex Lennon Road. As a town meeting member for at least two terms now our town over this time in town meeting has expressed a growing concern for our environment and for the health and safety of our residents. We, for example, passed the plastic bag ban, plastic bottle ban, no fossil fuel hookups for new construction, electric leaf blowers which in addition to eliminating noise pollution or reducing it also eliminates their CO2 emissions. We have passed warrant articles protecting our trees to a greater extent. So my sense is that there is a very solid support for something like article 12 at town meeting. And I say this because article 12 is reasonable in calling for a study committee. I wanna emphasize that. The emphasis here has been on a moratorium or a potential ban. But what we're really looking for in my opinion is to study this more fully and it deserves study. In fact, the one day workshop that's been emphasized here is fine, it's great, but it's not sufficient. We really need time to look into this and in that time period of studying it and then getting back with a comprehensive report to town meeting and to the rest of the town. The pause is reasonable. And I'm saying how reasonable it is because it calls for a study committee during the pause. Article 12 only pertains to the town's use of artificial turf. It doesn't impact the use of artificial turf in a commercial sense for business owners. I understand the need for more playing fields and the convenience of artificial turf we get it, I get it, it's pretty evident that turf, regular grass, although there are ways to make it last longer and be more durable. The example given about when it gets wet real grass, if it doesn't have the proper drainage and that's important is not usable. There are no safe alternatives to artificial turf except real grass. I support this, thank you. Thank you. And I'll take our last Zoom comment. Good evening. Hi. Hi. I'm Jen Rothenburg. I'm a member of the Park Commission and a Arlington resident. I'm wondering if I can pass my time to our Park Commissioner, our Chair, to have him say his prepared statement. I'm fine with that, yes. I'll promote him now. Sure. Thank you. Sure, no problem. Bill Lasker. No problem. Thank you. We've saved some time. I'm gonna take one more person from the room. Well, I guess if there's still time for me to speak, I would speak, but if I am the last speaker, I'd like to give him my time. Well, so we gave enough time for one more speaker, but since you're getting, I would prefer that either you speak or the Park Commissioner speak, and I'll take one more person from the room. Okay. Go ahead, Bill. Thanks. Great. Thank you. Phil Lasker, one Claremont Court, Chair of the Park and Recreation Commission, coach with the Arlington Soccer Club for the past eight years, for both my daughter, who's 13, and my son, who's 10. I'm a landscape architect and run a company that specializes in outdoor athletic facility construction. So tracks, fields, courts. I'm also a certified field builder with the American Sports Builders Association, a national trade organization. I am one of three certified field builders within the state of Massachusetts. I've designed and built hundreds of natural grass and artificial turf fields, totaling over $200 million in construction. The Park and Recreation Commission is emphatically opposed to this warrant article. It lacks merit and ignores the science that shows these fields are not an environmental or human health risk. It also ignores the fact that the user groups in this community want artificial turf fields that is very well documented. They are tired of our current field conditions and cancellations due to inclement weather. Additionally, they are tired of having to pay thousands of dollars to rent artificial turf field space at other facilities, like Arlington Catholic, Belmont Hill School, and the Edge and Bedford, to name a few. We are not the first community to explore the use of artificial turf fields. Many others have and have come to the same conclusion. They are safe. Waltham, Lexington, Winchester, Medford, and Somerville all have them and continue to build them. Less than three years ago, the Conservation Commission and the School Committee approved new turf fields at the high school. The science has not changed since then. The Park and Recreation Commission is responsible for millions of taxpayer dollars to create recreational opportunities and facility improvements. And we have a successful track record of doing just that. Recent projects include the res, herd field, and multiple playgrounds. We are committed to meeting the needs of the users and the environment. We are stewards of the land. We feel all capital improvement projects should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the permitting authorities versus a blanket prohibition. We respectfully request the select board not support this warrant article. Thank you. Thank you. So, one more for now. Who left, go ahead. Hi, I'm Dave Irby. I live at 50 Princeton Road. I came here tonight mostly to learn. I thought the warrant that was put forward didn't make sense to me. I've been in Arlington now 18 years. I've been coaching a coach for about 10 of those and I have two daughters through the system. I think you can all recognize that we have a very informed electorate here in Arlington. And we also, the coaches and the parents that put their kids out on these fields are very well informed. I myself have researched some of the topics discussed tonight on my own. I came to the same conclusion that was described by the head of Parks and Recreation here. I think risks mean different things to different people. I think it is naive to think that we can solve our problem with grass unless we magically move out to Springfield or somewhere else. It's simply the case, it's a wonderful problem to have.  If you look in our town, you see soccer everywhere, you see baseball everywhere. This is a wonderful problem. It's a difficult thing to solve but I don't wanna take this tool out of our hands. I think we have a mechanism on April 11th that will address these. These are not new questions and I think I, as a parent and the other parents in the town, we're not irresponsible by putting our kids out on these fields. Thank you. Thank you. Alrighty. I'll turn to my colleagues, you know. Mr. Hurd. Thank you and thank you to the presenters and speakers tonight. I think sometimes with these warren articles, the ones that kind of pass through and the ones that get you really fired up and this one has definitely got me fired up. I had to modulate myself before the meeting so I didn't get go to over the top here. But my first comment was gonna be, we've heard from many, many speakers in none of which jumped off the page for me to be an expert in the field. I think there's been a lot of Googling of negative effects of turf fields in Arlington in the past couple of weeks. But until we heard from Phil, I know Phil from the down school and he certainly wanna, if I was to say who in Arlington would be the foremost authority on turf fields, then I would certainly respect the opinion of Phil Lasker. I'm coming at this from a safety perspective. I think some of the, I certainly understand and appreciate the environmental concerns. I think over the past few years, it's tough to remember, but I'm sure people that have been in part of Arlington Town Meeting for a while knows that used to be Town Meeting dealt with just local issues and over the past few years, Town Meeting soon seems to have migrated to issues that are much better suited to be handled at a state or national level.  Paper bags, bottled water, you get water from the sink. This article to me, there's a clear and present negative benefit to our children. And when it's adults being inconvenienced, I can live with it. When our kids are being inconvenienced and their safety is being put at risk, I can't live with it. I think some of the safety risks that have been advocated are a little overblown. As the last speaker said, he has his kids on an artificial field and doesn't see himself as putting his children at risk. I should say for the record, my kids play hockey at baseball so they don't play on any artificial fields. But I was down at the Dowland School today and I should preface this that our DPW is amazing in the work that they do for our fields in the baseball fields. But the Dowland School is a very commonly used soccer field. And calling it a field is being very generous. It's just mud. It was wet today. We had the dog down there, he got away from me. I tried to get him and I fell because it is just mud, it's uneven. We play over at poets. Someone shouldn't stand in the infield at poets and look in the outfield because it's like you could go sledding down some of the ridges that are just in the outfield. And those are safety issues. Playing soccer on a field that's wet and muddy, I did it growing up. Those are safety issues.   Those are real safety issues that I see that artificial turfs have come in and remediated that because with artificial turf, you know what you're gonna get. It's a flat, even playing surface. This is even in addition, I'm just talking about safety concerns. The playability and handicapping our athletes where other towns that they compete against can start a month earlier than our athletes I think is a real consideration. And again, I'm not diminishing the environmental effects. We as a town and we as a board have always supported measures to reduce climate change, to bring us to net zero. But everything has a cost benefit analysis. Everything. We could outlaw motor vehicles in the town of Arlington but we're not gonna do it because it's a cost benefit analysis to that. In this, we're just about all across the country and presumably parts of the world, athletes are playing on artificial turf fields to now tell our kids, oh, you don't get the benefit of this. You can go over to Winchester, you go over to Lexington, you go over to neighboring towns and play on their fields but you have to play on grass fields that after a while, it's just no way for DPW in season to keep up with the amount of play that gets put on our playing fields. It's just not possible. By the end of the year, it will be dirt. And it rains, snows, all the weather conditions that we have to fight through in New England, it creates an unsafe playing field. And it also, we're not gonna have artificial fields on every field in Arlington but the more we can use artificial fields, decreases our reliance on some of the fields that we have trouble keeping up on. And so to me, this is really a safety issue that flies in the face of some of the safety issues that we've heard today. And as a town manager, I think the town manager really laid out an argument for the safety measures that we already have in place. It's not like somebody just comes out and says I want an artificial field and it gets put in right away. It's under review. We have an incredible project coming up which is a windfall for the town of Arlington into the tune of millions of dollars that will give us beautiful playing fields and this will kill it. Like not put it at risk, this will kill that project. And without sufficient justification as to why we're just arbitrarily putting this three-year moratorium on, in a time where one of the speakers talked about finances, we're tight right now. And the polls corner field has to be, it has to be renovated anyways. I think it was scheduled to be renovated even before this project was put in play. And again, I am not seeing the benefit to the tune of what we are losing. I think this is a safety issue for the children of Arlington. And I think it's unfair to ask them to bear the burden when, again, this is something, if there's legislation at the state level great, that's where a massive impact can be incurred if the state acts on this. And the state, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or the federal government is in a much better bargaining position to demand that the companies that come up with, if there are environmental benefits, and I'm not an expert, I'm not gonna, I am certainly not gonna sit here and tell you it's safe versus not safe, because I'm not the person to be having this discussion. And I'm not sure what the proponents are, I'm not sure any of the speakers are, I'm not sure what town meeting is. That's an expert discussion at a much higher pay grade than us. And I think they should continue to have that discussion to remediate or eliminate some of the adverse effects of these fields, but to just come in and say, these are not for Arlington, that our kids should be playing on mud. Just, I'm not, I can't support that. So I'm gonna submit a motion for no action. Second. All right. So I'm gonna motion Mr. Hurd, no action. Second by Ms. Nohan. Any other comments? You want? Excuse me, I'm on a new blood pressure medicine and it makes you clear you're thrown a lot. So I have to take the generic. But anyways, I don't wanna repeat what my colleague, Mr. Hurd, has said, but I just wanna highlight the points that bring me to the position that I'm in. In terms of the comments by our current town manager, who had placed a moratorium on artificial turf fields, it's coming to expire in the next few months. One of the points that really played strong in me, for me, in my opinion, is this really needs to be done on a case-by-case basis. Way back when when Mr. Sullivan was the town manager and Kay Donovan was the superintendent, one of the things I was allowed to do is to go into executive session with my expertise a little bit from the sports world, but also from the legal world in terms of being a court reporter. And a large part of, and it continues to be, of the mitigation for the Warren A. Pierce field, which is Allington High School field, was because of all the contaminants and the responsible parties that contributed those contaminants that were not safe for definitely our adults, but definitely our children to even walk over, let alone exercise and physical activity and kicking up. One of the ways we made them safe was the mitigation for artificial turf.  And the town of Allington was very impressed that along with everything else that we were doing to try to figure out how do we control these contaminants so they're not released through the field to even people just walking by, let alone adults or children playing on it, is we had, besides the conservation commission, the Pox and Rec, our colleagues on the school committee, we brought in the expertise that we needed back then, which isn't as prevalent as is today from environmental consultants, environmental engineers, environmental counsel, to make sure that part of the way of keeping Warren A. Pierce field safe and capping that contaminants was a specific kind of artificial turf. It wasn't, you know, I don't know of any boilerplate artificial turf. I know I've read articles about, I don't know if it's affiliates or the Braves. My sports guys are gonna get mad at me as it is affiliates, okay. That's not what Allington has used and that's not what we're talking about. And I really do have great faith and I don't say this facetiously or to be sarcastic or anything like that, but I believe on going on a case by case basis, I am very pleased, and the board has had conversations with the current town manager, that there will be a forum on April 11th. I'm very guided by our Pox and Rec director, Mr. Conley, as well as our Pox and Rec commissioners and the chair. There, again, another group that weighs in and brings their expertise. I am not a landscape architect. I don't claim to be anything like that, but I do have a little smidgen of expertise and my expertise tells me, doing case by case, bringing in the proper experts to say, there can't be a one boilerplate solution. You need to look at each side individually. You need to see what it is you're trying to do. You need to come up with options. Then you need the proper town boards, commissions, committees, et cetera to weigh in on that. Before we even get to town meeting, and if there's any financial question that needs to be debated. So, and I don't think the proponents mean to do this, but I can tell you as a, well, mother but now grandmother, and this is where you all say, oh, you don't look old enough to be a grandmother. Thank you. They can't, they can't. They can't because they don't allow that. That I certainly wouldn't subject my children and my grandchildren to unsafe condition. And I certainly do do my homework as the previous coach came up here in terms of what it is, not just on turf, but in terms of helmets and helmet safety and what kind of cleats. And I won't even get into the cheerleading side, which I'm a coach and it's a real sport. And we can kick your butts on that. But I can tell you any parent here in the town of Allington, or any resident who may not be a parent. One of the things I'm really proud about this community is we certainly are very involved. We get the information when we don't have it. So I am seconding Mr. Heard's motion and this may still be debated at town meeting because that usually happens anyways and that's fine. But I don't believe, I think a three year moratorium is insulting to the people that either volunteer on these committees or that are hired as professionals to help us guide through these questions. And I really respect the advice that they've given me and I want to follow that. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also support Mr. Heard's motion and this certainly is a serious issue and it bears continuing monitoring, testing and I'll note that when you look back at the process that the Allington Public Schools went through in receiving approval for the high school field, in July of 2020, there were three long meetings regarding the notice of intent and one of the conditions the Conservation Commission put on the high school is or the applicant in this case was the responsibility to inform the Conservation Commission of any updated state or federal standards for artificial turf. And every time the field is to be replaced, they have to go back to the Conservation Commission. So I think that goes to the case-by-case nature that I agree with Mrs. Mohan should be taking place here. Right now with Allington High evidently now off the table in terms of being affected by this proposed moratorium, Toad's Corner is the only site that is being discussed and as Mr. Poulos said, town meeting is gonna have a say in that just on the merits of that project going forward and as I understand it, there is a land swap for portions of that site between the archdiocese and the town that would require town meeting action and approval. So the merits of that project are going to be discussed. I don't think we need a moratorium where that is the only project that is on the horizon in the short term. And I really think there's a balance here between using turf, natural turf fields and artificial turf and for rainy conditions in the spring, the users can use artificial turf. And I will tell you from my experience and Mr. Brush spoke earlier, I coached my daughter for several years. When there were rainy conditions, they would often go to artificial turf fields because it was nothing available in town and it just puts a lot of pressure for the various programs. So I think it's really, you can't just have a blanket moratorium without looking at the merits of each project and as Toad's Corner, I was up there today. The first time I was up there was in 1976 when it first opened. I was one of the first users of that field and it is in sorry, sorry condition and presently that in the former herd field before they redid it, probably the two worst fields in town when there's a rain event and that field gets shut down for days because the drainage is so poor. We know it's over a former landfill. I think it's worthy of having the discussion of what the merits of that proposal are, whether the town supports it. There's been information sessions on that and there'll be an opportunity whether it's this fall or next spring to talk about it in full and it seems to me that's the appropriate place to talk about the merits of a particular project. We look at the town in terms of what's happening with other fields. Herd field is just about done. That is going to be a gorgeous deal. That's natural grass. It makes perfect sense. Millbrook surrounds the field. In fact, one of the backstops at that field was removed because it was too close to the brook. So that to me is a type of case-by-case analysis that should take place for different fields. I will also say there was some mention of other communities having moratoriums. Excuse me. One of the towns with Sharon, Sharon has well water. Their drinking source is affected by a proposed artificial turf field. Again, that's the case-by-case situation that was present there. It's also present in the discussion about this vineyard, not present here in Arlington. So I think we let the regulatory boards do their work, as Mr. Poole said, in his memorandum, and we have a discussion of the merits of each project. So that's why I am on this. Thank you, Mr. Corsi. Mr. Helms. Thank you. I think the one thing everybody and my colleagues can agree on is that I am the least athletic member of this board, and anybody who knows me would say that as well. That said, I do value very much the health and the public health benefits of recreation. I also deeply concerned about contamination and PFAS and the environmental risks of all the materials that we produce for our use in this world. This is a difficult vote for me. I am gonna vote to support the motion, but I wanna explain why. I am persuaded by the town manager and by my colleagues that there are many more opportunities and hurdles before any turf field gets placed in Arlington. That town meeting does have a couple of sign-offs at least for Poets Corner. I'm heartened that the town manager and his team have recognized that there are competing needs and points of view and are bringing together the leaders and members of the community in April. I'm really looking forward to that forum. I don't have enough information tonight to decide if a blanket moratorium is the right tool and I wanna be cautious about that. I reserve the right to make my own decision as a town meeting member or as a select ward member when an individual proposal comes before me. I'm very interested in the evolution of the science and the scientific consensus. Very interested in what the state and the federal government continue to say. I'm very interested in what our Conservation Commission, Board of Health, Recreation Commission and our professional staff have to say. I think that we should be very careful about using a by-law which is intended to be something that's hard to change because town meeting typically just meets once a year, maybe twice. It's supposed to be a slow process and I think from what I'm hearing tonight, this is a moving target and I think there's different, I think we've all, people have come to different conclusions about whether they're satisfied that we know the science about health exposure or environmental exposure. My take on this is that that is still, I'm not sure what the consensus is. I think that the April 11th forum may give us some illumination about what we can agree on that we know, what we agree on is not that we don't know and then what's left. Because of that, I think that a blanket moratorium doesn't feel right to me right now. In a few weeks to go before town meeting, we'll see how everybody feels then. One thing I do wanna say is I've heard from a number of people and I appreciate hearing from them asking us to let town meeting have this debate. That's not what we do here. We issue an opinion, we issue an advice to town meeting in the form of a main motion. If I'm counting the votes correctly, it's looking like that main motion will be suggested no action but many of the people who've spoken to their town meeting members and I think are very well acquainted with the process by which a town meeting member can offer a substitute motion and debate it anyway and decide what town meeting wants to do. So I wanna make that clear that this vote, if this does go for no action, is no way silence or quash the debate at town meeting. I think that we need to have a good debate and I will be listening. So that's where I'm at right now. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome. Mr. Herd, what's the sum about the two million dollars that could be lost if we... If Belmont Hill was gonna pay to renovate our fields that we have to renovate anyways. I mean, I'm just throwing up, I don't have an exact figure. But that's a field that if Belmont Hill doesn't pay for it, we're gonna have to renovate. And I think if Herd Field was three to four million dollars, I'm sure poet's corner would be much more. I just didn't know about it. No, thanks, good to know. So yes, as Mr. Herd said, this is going to town meeting. We know it. And so the question I have to perhaps, Mr. Hyman, is so let's say it goes to town meeting, our recommendation is overruled. What happens? I mean, so I guess it doesn't seem like the town meeting can make us have the moratorium, right? I mean, that has to be imposed by the town manager. I mean, what's the mechanism by which the moratorium is imposed? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is an interesting subject for those of us who are municipal lawyers, maybe not for everybody else. Every town is organized a little bit differently. So sometimes it's hard to make a direct comparison to say Martha's Vineyard or Concord. I'm not exactly sure how things play out in their government structure. Like most of us know, Brookline has a town administrator who has less authority than the manager does. Under our town manager act, section 15G, the manager is responsible for the maintenance and essentially the guidance proposal of public construction projects. However, within that very specific and narrow section, section 15G, the town is allowed to accept otherwise vote. It's a little bit hazy to be frank with you, exactly what that means. It's clear that town meeting can put some kind of regulation on capital projects. You might see this in the form of our lead certification bylaw, some things like that, that otherwise would seem to interfere with the manager's discretion to perform the manager's duty. So I don't think it would actually end up being a bylaw as much as it would be essentially saying preemptively, the manager can't submit a proposal to have a capital project for something like doing an artificial turf view. That's essentially what would be happening. Instead of the manager coming to town meeting and saying, hey, I wanna do this, I don't wanna do this in town meeting saying yes or no from a budgetary standpoint, town meeting would essentially say, we're not gonna receive a artificial turf field proposal that's within the manager's jurisdiction during that period of time. So this is a little bit point of my new show. It's important to explain because we've talked in a couple other war and articles this year about the different jurisdictions of different bodies and how town meeting can't, for example, usurp the authority of the Board of Health to issue health regulations. This is very specifically about capital projects in Arlington in which the manager is vested general authority and duties, but there is this qualifying language that allows town meeting to take some votes about capital projects and certain conditions there too. Okay, so then that would be the mechanism by which the Mori. It would essentially just be a vote, Mr. Chairman. It would just be vote. It's not gonna go to the attorney general's office for review. It's essentially just gonna be a vote of town meeting that says this is what town meeting has decided essentially as this sort of qualification for this three year period of time. It's not very tidy. The exact limits of what is the town manager's autonomy in this specific area versus what town meetings accept as otherwise voted by town meeting means is not super clear. There's not case law about this. But that's I think the most constructive way to read it. Right, right. Because it'd be interesting if the town manager was opposed to it. The select board was for it, but then the town manager would just say, well, you know, I've decided later on that this is not something I'm gonna abide by because then you'd have a tension between the town manager and the board. In this case, you'd have me, the town manager and the board together on it. So then if the town manager said, well, I'm not gonna abide by this. That's still a possibility, right? I mean, Mr. Dickens, I would not say, the risk of my clients, I would not say that select board could, under its authorities, tell the manager, you cannot engage in a certain type of public construction. You would have to have that restriction or detail voted on and approved by town meeting. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, and I was saying that we would, it's just more the matter that there is, there wouldn't be that tension between the town manager and the select board when we're on the same page with this. So just trying to understand what it is that that town meeting is getting if they vote for it. Because I think it's important for people to know, I mean, what are the likely consequences for lack of a word or a follow-through of their action. So that's why I'm asking. If I may just, I mean, in some ways, there's not a huge difference between town meetings appropriation authority under capital projects, essentially. And what we're sort of talking about here, except for the single year versus three years, right? So every capital project gets essentially approved by town meeting or not approved by town meeting. And oftentimes there's some details and stuff like that in it. The Conservation Commission Board of Health, those have much more limited roles in terms of permitting certain types of things. So I'm pretty sure all of our town fields, for example, are going to be within a wetlands resource area or Jason enough to it. The Conservation Commission is gonna have some kind of jurisdiction. This is not really about any one specific thing like natural resources or health. Those things are governed by those bodies. This is really about, are we gonna say that we don't want a certain type of capital project in Arlington to even be considered by town meeting? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, no, this is helpful, you know. So, is there, this is to, I guess, the town manager. Is there any way to get the kind of study group that it's not really defined here, but I think it'd be good, I mean, if they maybe worked with the proponents to kind of flesh out what that study group would look like, you know. But, so I know we're having a forum, you know. And I know that committees and commissions will probably study this more, but is there a way we think that we could maybe do that study, you know, perhaps in a more structured and open way than, or maybe, if I may, Mr. Chair. I think that for months now, we have been proactive in looking at this issue. We have had, I've had innumerable meetings on this. We've had the health department involved, we've had recreation department involved, we have the legal department involved. We've discussed it at department head meetings. After the 11th, I assume that we will continue to need to look into aspects of this. I don't think that all of our questions gonna be answered on the 11th. I would like to hear what's out there on the 11th and then make some decisions about how we need to go forward to study this, whether it's a formal group, whether it's looking at specific issues. And I just want to assure the board and the public, I'm very concerned about the environment. I'm absolutely committed to making sure if we build something here in Arlington that it's environmentally safe. I think there's still a lot of questions that need to be answered on that and I am absolutely committed to continue to push to look at this. So I don't have a proposal for you tonight for a specific board or anything, but I will promise you that we will continue to look at it and if I think a board or task group or whatever is the best way to do that, I will come back and make that recommendation. But I will in any case make a recommendation about getting the facts around this issue. Thank you. I'm content. So I think we'll end up with a unanimous vote on this. So Mr. Assemblyman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd just like to correct one of my earlier statements. I think I said the town meeting would have two times to evaluate the post corner. It sounds like it's really just one time. I'm so comfortable with that because that is a full up or down vote. And I think at that time in that conversation would be a really good opportunity to look at the specific case. I know that in some of my prior conversations with Mr. Feeney and Mr. Puehler that there are environmental contamination concerns that make that site really complex and unique. And the environmental trade-offs are not necessarily cut and dried with chur versus natural grass. And I'm really interested in what smarter people who are experts will know about that. I think town meeting would be interested in that. And when the time comes to make that decision about that project and town meeting will have the power to go yes or no on it, that that's a good place for that decision, for that site. Town meeting made a side no. I think that's how the system should work. So again, I share the concerns, the environmental concerns and the health concerns. I'm very concerned about it. I said to concern too many times. But I really do believe from a process and a governance issue that the suggested bylaw is not the right way to go about it. There is a lot of power vested in the conservation commission, a lot of power vested in the town manager and the health department and in town meeting. And I trust that power. Thank you. Thank you. And so, any other comments? All right. I mean, so on a motion of no action by Mr. Heard and a second by Mrs. Mahine, Mr. Heim. Mr. Heard. Yes. Mr. Ducorsi. Yes. Mr. Helman. Mrs. Mahine. Yes. Mr. DeGunz. Yes. Jan, Ms. Folk. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Moving on. So article 13 vote appointed town clerk. And so. Excuse me. I just, sorry. That's okay. I'm good for at least 20 more minutes. That's fine. I mean, so I don't have a opponent here. I'm gonna assume that it's you, although Ms. Zome may still be here. So I'll turn to you first, Ms. Folk. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I could just take one second and remind my memo. Oh, take your time. No, I've been there. I will promote Ms. Brazil at this time. Yeah, please. Okay. Thank you. If you are ready, I'm glad to speak. If you're ready, I'm glad to speak. Thank you. So article 13 would move the town clerk from being an elected position to being an appointed position. I have written to the board to express my support of that from the perspective of somebody who has to get things done and with our different departments here. I see the town clerk position as being one that is a very important administrative position. It is in charge of collecting vital records, registering voters, issuing permits and licenses, and very importantly, more and more so in the last few years conducting elections as we've moved that out of the select board's office into the town clerk's office. I think down the road, there's some interesting questions about whether we transfer other things like freedom of information requests to the town clerk. I think on the long run, that would make sense. And so I do not see this as a political position. I don't really see there any politics in that the town clerk should be engaging and the town clerk should be strictly professional, a place that the townspeople can go and know that that person is doing his or her job. And there are many department heads in town that have incredible responsibilities, connections with town residents, whether it's the, for example, the police chief or the fire chief or the DPW director or the school superintendent, none of which is elected. So I don't think having an elected department head in any way increases the accountability of those department heads. In fact, my experience has been that it decreases that accountability, that you can have somebody elected who is not qualified for the job and really falls down on the job. In my tenure, my municipal career, I have seen that of elected town clerks where you couldn't get budget information, you couldn't get performance information. It would take forever to get things like votes at a town meeting certified and there was nothing that the town manager could do about that. It's a really terrible situation and one that I think even though we have a very competent elected clerk now, there's no guarantee that we'll be so lucky in the future and the process of then getting rid of an incompetent clerk whose incompetence may not be visible to the public as much as it's visible to the manager. I think it would be in the town's best interest to have somebody report to the town manager, be accountable and be subject to dismissal if that person cannot do the job. For all those reasons, I would respectfully request that select board support this article. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Willard. Ms. Rizzo, do you wanna say anything? All right, fine, no problem. And so I'll turn to my colleagues. I'll wait for public comment. Sure, sure. Okay, all right, so we'll take public comments and so once again, we'll limit this to 30 minutes and so in three minute comments, so I see Patricia Muldoon. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak. I wasn't prepared to speak on this one, but as vice president of the League of Women Voters of Arlington and as a precinct warden for quite some time, I can say that the Arlington League has supported the idea of an appointed town clerk for as long as we've been here, which is over 50 years. And I can speak to the struggles as a warden, the struggles that I certainly am aware that the town has had and I've had when we had a town clerk who was not able to do the job and nothing could be done to fix that situation until an election. So from a practical perspective and from a policy perspective, I can say that I think that this policy makes all the sense in the world. I support Mr. Poole's comments on the effectiveness of that and I would just like to say that I think Julie Brazil has been a terrific town clerk and we've been very lucky to have her and my comments on this are certainly not in any way the disparagement of her because I'm an admirer, but I think this is a very good town policy to change. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Hurd. Thank you. I'd say first off, I think this is certainly a warden article that should and will go to the floor of town meeting for debate. I mean, we've been talking about this for a long time and I know there's arguments on both ways. I'm gonna move positive action. I mean, the town clerk position, I think like the treasurer's position is a professional position and with all due respect to Ms. Brazil, I think if you'd asked most residents of Wellington, they don't know who our town clerk is and I think we have an elected select board who oversees the town manager who will in turn oversee all department heads and I'm comfortable with that structure as a way for the residents to check whoever holds any position in town, whether it's town clerk or police chief or DPW director. There's a mechanism for residents to reach out directly to someone that they vote for. So I think it makes sense in this situation and I certainly can further put my input in at town meeting, but I think this is, if anything, something that we should push to town meeting for debate. Mr. Helmets. Thank you. I'd like to second that.  You know, and I think that when we look at the study that the town clerk commissioned was really helpful in pointing out that appointed clerks are more common in comparably sized communities. I think I can understand why elected town clerks in really small communities in earlier times where the job was less complex, where policy was less complex, made sense. But now the job is so professionalized, the policy is largely set by state law and enforced by the secretary of the commonwealth and by other entities. And it really, to me, this is just a simple matter of modernization. The report also did a good job of pointing out and looking hard for any evidence that there were problems with impartiality with elections. Because I think of all the potential arguments not to do that, that's the one that we should consider the most is having a clerk that's accountable to the voters better for impartial administration of elections. And I think it's very telling that they did not find any evidence of any reports of election problems stemming from impartiality of appointed clerks. It just hasn't happened. And furthermore, nobody has switched from an appointed to an elected clerk. So that tells me that it does work and that there are plenty of safeguards in place for the vital function of election through the kind of supervision that Mr. Heard just outlined. So I also wanna reiterate that we are just simply fortunate to have a supremely competent, qualified, extraordinarily hardworking and honest town clerk and the person of Ms. Brazil. And I am profoundly grateful for her labors that most people don't see, but I know a little bit about. But that is not a guarantee. With an elected town clerk, only a resident of Arlington can serve. That could be a real problem for a demanding technically sophisticated professional job. I'd like to be able to recruit more broadly than that. And so for that and other reasons that others have mentioned, I'm very happy to support this and I hope the town meeting does as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks, Ms. Holland. May I have a comment? Ian, do you have time or something? Sure. You don't have to. Yeah, I'll just say briefly. I also support this for the reasons my colleagues stated. And I think this is the last remaining elected position that is a full-time position. So it just shows you the changes that have taken place and the reach that you could look at in the future in terms of future town clerks. I'm still on the fence with this one, which is why I will vote for the motion because I know anyone who served with me as a town meeting member knows, I go for years without saying anything because I listen a lot. And I really do take, especially on issues like this, where I just don't know. I see pros and I see cons. And in terms of the politics, and we have had the report that the town clerk presented to us. I would just renew my request. I think it was in January when you came before us and said that the consultants, along with the town clerk, came and cited some statistics with 17 other communities, but those weren't in the report. I'd still like to see what those 17 communities were. It's just, if you can just shoot to me, the cities and towns that were contained, that were considered comparable, because I know when I went through them, to me they really weren't comparable. But if I was 51, 49, 51% of me says I think it should be elected, but 49% of me says I can see why not. And that's why I say I'm on the fence, because I just don't feel strongly either way. And then the only other thing I just sort of take quickly advantage of is moving forward. I guess I would say to this town clerk and any town clerk in the future. I've had major issues with my email from certain town department heads. The manager's aware of this. He can attest to it. As can Attorney Heim. And the town clerk put out an opportunity of seven days to get something in if you are a town meeting member candidate. But because it didn't go to my email, it got bounced out. IT is looking into it. I didn't have the opportunity. To me, that's kind of a political decision. It should be. I'm thinking of somebody, if you don't have email in your town meeting member or if you're in my position that you just didn't get the email. Moving forward for that. I know it says it's a product of Envision, Allington and the League of Women Voters. And I know I've never had that issue with anything from the League of Women Voters. They always do a follow up if they know something was due and they didn't see it from any candidate, not just from me. So I just wanted to take advantage of that. I accept that I'm not gonna be able to have that opportunity for the call by the town clerk. But I don't think that should be the rule moving forward to the future. And I guess I would say that the current town manager and the future town manager, that if this is an appointed position, that that's something that really needs to be looked into. So I will vote for the motion and listen to what town meeting has to say. Thank you. And I would like those. I renew my January request. Thank you. Well, when I was interviewed, I began to see the merits of having it be an appointed position. And certainly when I read the report, I thought all the reasons for having it be appointed were solid. And so I've been enthusiastic about changing it to an appointed position for a while. I mean, and so I'm happy to see it here. I mean, and yes, it will be debated at a town meeting. I mean, I think generally people feel that making a voted position for which you vote, an appointed position is diminishing democracy. I mean, and I understand that in principle, but the accountability will transfer to the town manager and the town manager is accountable to the select board and you vote for the select board. And so that is a way for the populists, I mean, the voting public to be able to weigh in on that, the selection process by which we end up with a clerk. And also what was compelling to me is just that the people that work for a clerk that is appointed, they have more protections that they don't have now. And so it's better for the employees, all the employees, and so I'm just gonna keep it short and say I support it. And so if there are no other comments, questions being on a motion to vote positive action on article 13 by Mr. Hurd and second by Mr. Helmets, Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hurd? Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmets. Yes. This is Mohan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Bye-bye. Take care. So article 16, special legislation appointment of time manager or temporary time manager. Mr. Hurd. I need to recuse myself from this article because of my employment by the Massachusetts Senate and this is a special legislation that may become before the Senate. Okay, thank you. So this one is going to go to... Mr. Chair, would you like me to? Yeah, please. This article comes from Board. So as the Board will recall, you faced an unanticipated resignation of former time manager early into the contract period. The time manager act has a high fidelity to this idea of three year terms and it made the process somewhat difficult. We can't force someone to work for three years but as you can see from the language of the manager act, you're sort of hemmed in with respect to the term of somebody getting appointed during a sort of transition period, especially if it's early into a contract. So I proposed a few different ways of trying to address, I'm sorry, I proposed one straightforward way of trying to address it that's a more incremental change rather than removing the idea of a three year term entirely because for reasons I discussed in the memo, there are some advantages to having a three year term both for the Board and for any manager candidate. It sort of takes out that element of negotiation which might pose a stumbling block for the Board if someone's trying to get a five year or a 10 year contract and also might pose a stumbling block for a manager who may not want to agree, generally speaking, to a fresh one year contract like a one year contract that's like a test or something like that. So what I proposed is to give you the flexibility of when a vacancy occurs for any reason other than the expiration of a term to add that the period can be not longer than the balance of the unexpected term or a new three year contract at the Board's discretion meaning that it could be for the full balance of the term but it could be for less than that if it's essentially for a vacancy other than for expiration and that you could also just say we wanna give a three year contract. We don't wanna give somebody a two and a half year contract or six months contract just cause that's what the former town manager's schedule was. And then similarly, later on in the same paragraph at the if not so practicable, the select Board shall so appoint a qualified town officer to the town as the acting town manager for a period of not more than one year from their appointment. So what would happen in that circumstance is let's say you couldn't have a search that was satisfactory within the timeframe allowed. You wanted to appoint the planning director as a temporary manager while you conducted a more thorough search but you didn't wanna sort of commit to that person actually being the next manager. You could do that but you could only do that for a limited period of time. So I've been trying to capture a little bit of a balance and again have a more incremental change without either impacting the Board's sort of ability to have this general three year contract structure or any potential future managers. Thank you. Ms. Wahe. Move the program. Second. All right. Yeah, I saw your hand Mr. Of course. Yeah, and I have a couple of comments. I appreciate Attorney Heim's memo and having gone through the process this past year, I saw two issues. One was just what Attorney Heim said that being locked into a three year term or an unexpired term. The other thing that could have happened in the future too is that when Mr. Chapter Lane left, Mr. Poole was qualified from his years of experience to be the town manager and fit within the first half of the Section 12B but there may not be that situation in the future where you get this language in terms of appointing an acting manager and in looking at other communities and maybe something for the Board to think about because I don't have specific language but I looked at a number of different towns. There is a model that basically says once the manager leaves, if it's by vacancy before the expiration of the term, you will appoint an acting and then you undergo your search for the permanent position. And that to me, if there was an abrupt departure by a town manager, you're kind of locked into the situation where you really wanna name someone right away. You may not have someone available but maybe it makes sense to name an acting with a period of time on that acting and then you undergo your search for the town manager for the duration of the term or a three year term. So I didn't have an opportunity to talk to Attorney Heim before tonight about that but I just wondering if he has any comments or even Mr. Poole or any comments on that type of scenario where you have that flexibility right away. Mr. Manager. Well, I suppose when Mr. Captain had left, there was a period where he was still here and so we didn't need to appoint somebody immediately. I think if you did need to appoint somebody immediately for whatever reason that manager left, I think you would want that flexibility and then I will turn that back to Mr. Heim if I could to interpret how what he's written would fit into that scenario. Sure, so Mr. Chair, can I? Sure, please. Mr. Corsi, I mean, I'm not certainly wedded to this. This is up to the board. If you wanted to have a little bit more of a reorganization of the order in which things happen, I think we could definitely do that under a motion of positive action with that instruction to come back. The way that I kind of see this reading as modified is essentially you would have more flexibility in the term of a vacancy-driven appointment. So the term of a vacancy-driven appointment, you could be for a full three years, you could be for the remainder of a term and then separately you would have a better defined appointment term for an acting manager within that 90-day window. But I think what you're talking about is maybe we shouldn't have this weird 90-day window because what the manager actually contemplates is a relatively swift process by which within 90 days you're gonna appoint the new manager. Whether it's for three years or less than that, you're gonna appoint the manager. And if you can't do it within that 90 days, then you appoint an acting manager. So I think what Mr. DeCorsi, if I read you correctly, what you're suggesting is let's do a little bit more here and switch around the order so that we have a process for appointing an acting town manager more or less immediately if it's necessary. Because there will be circumstances where it's not necessary because you've got notice and you're gonna interview and all that kind of stuff while that manager is still serving. And then let's give ourselves a little bit of flexibility with respect to the appointment of what I'll call the new manager. It's just kind of like goofy the way that it sort of goes into that process backwards. There may be many circumstances where you'd have an acting manager who becomes the manager as part of the sort of interviewing application process. So if the board would like me to do that, I can certainly re-engineer this a little bit. It actually wouldn't be that much change to what I proposed. It would just kind of be changing the order. Mr. Mohan? Question on that. Would you like me to change my motion to move to postpone to March 20th or March 27th? Well, I guess it depends. Mr. Cheyre? Yes, please. Thank you, Mr. Mohan. That's a good question. I guess it depends on what the board wants. The board doesn't wanna take a vote of positive action without seeing exactly how that language would take, what exactly that would look like. Then I don't need a lot of time. March 20th is fine. If you wanna just vote positive action, then I come back with a proposal consistent with that and final votes and comments.  But I just wanna note that either one of those options is fine. I don't need a lot of time to rework it. I could have it in by this Thursday for sure. I agree with Mr. D'Horsy about the acting 90 day.  Yeah, no, I'm okay with that subject. Okay, then I'll leave it to you. A language, I think we can work through it. Okay. Mr. Heard. Yeah, I think we just, instead of having another hearing, just pull the board and I agree. I think the language here is great, but didn't necessarily help us in the last go round. And I think there's a way to, instead of kind of keeping us in this strict 90 day, I mean, we're not gonna make a temporary town manager and just leave it there for years, because at that point, that's just the person we'd hire as the town manager. So I think within the board's discretion, we can have a little more leeway and we're going to expeditiously as, as expeditiously as possible, go through the process to get a permanent town manager. But again, I think I'm happy to support positive action and then have, I think, Attorney Heim is very, very skilled at taking the Gallaudy Cook that we give him from our meetings and making it into a intelligible article. So I trust that he can do that for final votes and comments. He makes a delicious gumbo. That's what he does. You know, but anyways, you know, so with the 90 day temporary, then you end up in a situation where you have to appoint an interim. We would still be able to utilize me what's in this HRP, right? So let's say we didn't do what we are thinking about doing. Like it's changing the, getting rid of the 90 day part. You know, let's say that stayed, you know, and we found ourselves in a position where we had to end up with a temporary because we didn't find a replacement. And then, and then we then, I guess to do, hold on, let me think, that's true. I mean, the interim kicks in only if you don't find the town manager that you want in 90 days. Correct. So for 90 days, you're going to have a temporary or not? Well, there's a separate provision of the manager act that in the event of like disability, or I mean, this is written a long time ago. So if somebody's on a trip to Alaska, the manager has some ability to like say, this is the manager while I'm gone or like, but what we're really talking about is someone who like resigns relatively early in a term or even more abruptly than that or gets terminated or dies or something. And what happens in the immediate aftermath of that, you know, in terms of someone you're selecting. So the way it works now, you've got 90 days to make that selection. And then if that doesn't work and it's not practical, you can appoint an acting. Now, you could probably do it before that 90 days. Not probably, you can. If you're saying, we can't do this this fast. It's the summer, we can't do it this fast. You could say, we're just appointing an acting, but that timeframe is still sort of sealed in there. And I think what Mr. Dacorsi is suggesting is to me get a little bit clearer that what the board's process will be in the event of a vacancy, correct Mr. Dacorsi? In the event of a vacancy for a reason other than expiration of term is we will appoint an acting, then we will engage in our process to find and retain the next manager, which is a little bit different, but it could be a lot clearer than it is right now in the interject. So if you guys want to vote positive action tonight, what I probably propose to do is to workshop a little bit with Mr. Dacorsi, come up with a plan that embodies what you're sort of envisioning here, bring it back to the board for final votes and comments. We've actually got a lot of time we're moving pretty quickly. So if that needs to be workshopped again as another final vote and comment, that's no problem. Yeah, no, no, no problem. I was just trying to understand me if we ended up me with an acting now because we couldn't find someone in 90 days. I mean, this pretty much applies to this situation. I was trying to understand the real distinction between Ed and Mr. Dacorsi, but it's fine. And I think that's fine. Because it's more of a, it's not relevant to my vote and then I support the motion and Mr. Dacorsi's not adjustment, well adjustment to it. All right, so with that on a motion, positive action by Mr. Mohan and seconded by Mr. Herd. Mr. Herd? Yes. Mr. Dacorsi? Yes. Mr. Mohan? The four zero vote with Mr. Helmuth recusing himself. So we now have article 20, acceptance of legislation, GLC. I'm sorry. I'll be very brief, Mr. Manager. This article comes to us at the request of the retirement board. The retirement board essentially serves as the trustees for our OPEB funds. We were a little bit ahead of the game, so we approved the creation of OPEB trust funds before the state under the Municipal Modernization Act essentially created a new acceptance of legislation model that serves the same purpose. Unfortunately, it's kind of just a technicality in order for them to invest our OPEB trust funds with what they believe to be the most cost effective, sorry, fund that administered essentially by a state body. We need to accept this legislation. When we accept the legislation, there's also essentially an opportunity to amend or affirm who the trustees are. The retirement board strongly wants to stay the trustees and the board has been happy with the retirement board serving as the OPEB trustees. This is a pretty straightforward, accept the legislation, affirm that the OPEB trustees are to be the retirement board exactly as they are now. Their terms for serving as OPEB trust fund commissioners essentially would be synced up with their terms as members of the retirement board. Is that a decent enough explanation? Yes. I'm trying to make gumbo, so. Mr. Hart. Move approval. Second. All right. So. I don't know if we can go back or it's necessary. I don't think we did public comment on the laws. Yeah, I just thought of that one. I mean, I don't think I would care. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's funny. You said that and I was like, oh, we didn't do that. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, well, well, so no, we have to ask, so, so let's just ask right now. You know, so, so are there any public comments on the special legislation appointment of town manager or temporary town manager? Okay, all right. Sure. Last chance to get Mr. Helm out of the room again. Well, I'm kidding. Oh, I know like that's like the kid in school that asked the teacher if you're going to have homework on the way out. All right. So, so, so that was. Yeah. Are there any comments on the OPEP trust fund? I was asked, you know, so any comments on this current one being on the OPEP trust? I think no hands raised. All right, any comments from anyone else? All right. And so we're going to save some time on this one. So an emotion to move positive action on article 20, OPEP trust by Mr. Hurd and second by Mr. Helmets. Mr. Heim. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Corsi. Yes. Mr. Helmets. Yes. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Ms. Vogue. Great. Next article, a resolution state extended producer responsibility and bottled bill legislation. So. Third chaired because this one mentions the state legislature and have to recuse myself for. Can I follow you out? So we'll give you sometime? It's on meeting. Yeah. So, um, so if it's zero waste, I'll do, you know, on this one. I have somebody that is the proponent that I can bring forward. All right. Wonderful. Can you hear me? Yes, you can. Great. Thank you. I wish I could be in the room, but I'm grateful to have the opportunity to join virtually tonight. My name is Scott Mullen. I live at 68 Anderson street here in precinct three and a member of the zero waste committee here in Arlington, formerly the recycling committee. For those who don't know, zero waste Arlington.org is our website. We've been creating a large bank of online resources, including webinars about some of the topics I'm going to talk about tonight through the course of the pandemic. When we weren't able to engage in person, it's become a really great resource. And so I highly recommend people go down there. So we are an appointed committee of the town, the town moderator points 10 of us on the committee and we have town staff who I believe is in the room. Charlotte Milan, our town recycling coordinator. And so we're grateful right now to talk about some work that we've been doing as a sort of legislative subcommittee, keeping tabs on things that are happening, not just here in Arlington, but at the state level, even at the federal level, that will affect us at some point.  A lot of the work that we do with our through education of the public is around the different ways, right? We can reduce the waste that we bring into the house. We can reuse things. We can divert things like organics and textiles. But we can't do it all on our own, right? And repair is one of the biggest ones. And so if a producer of a consumer product is making something that is, for example, held together by glue and not screws, is not made with the modular design, it cannot be repaired. We have to throw that out. That is not recyclable necessarily and typically ends up in a landfill or an incinerator. And this is a huge problem, not just in Arlington. And obviously, this is waste is a national issue. But let's bring it home for Arlington. What does this mean? We diverted nearly 20,000 tons of trash recycling out of Arlington just last year, and that's to the tune of more than three point seven million dollars is the cost for us to do that. Whatever we can do to reduce the waste that is produced in the first place that we then bring into our homes, that we then don't have anything else to do with is really important. And so producer responsibility is a concept that we're introducing to folks who haven't heard it. It's an approach in which brand owners and importers accept responsibility for the cost and, in some cases, the management of their post-consumer products and our incentive by design products that are more durable, easier to repair and recycle. Think coffee grinders. I got this really nice coffee grinder. It made it about three or four years of heavy use before it needed to be refurbished and luckily the manufacturer that