ACMI productions are only made possible with your support. Visit patreon.com slash ACMI to learn how you can help. Welcome. I'm calling to order this meeting of the Arlington Select Board on Tuesday, March 26, 2024. I am Select Board Chair Eric Helmuth. Tonight's meeting is being conducted in a hybrid format consistent with provisions in state law for remote participation in public meetings. I will now confirm that all members and staff are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. I am Han. Affirmative. John Hurd. Yes. Steve DeCorsi. Yes. Len Diggins. Here. Staff, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Town Manager Jim Feeney. Yes. Town Council Mike Cunningham. Yes. Select Board Administrator Ashley Maher. Yes. I'll note that tonight our colleague Mr. Diggins is remote. Mr. Diggins, can you hear all the members and staff? I sure can, loudly and clearly. Excellent. Before we begin, please note the following. This meeting is being conducted in the Select Board Chambers and over Zoom. It is being recorded and simultaneously broadcasted on ACMI. People wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the Town's website. People participating either in person or by Zoom are reminded that you may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate we ask you to provide your full name and place of residence in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. Both Zoom participants and persons watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials found on the Town's website, specifically the Select Board Agendas and Minutes page. If technical difficulties sever the remote connection to one or more participants and efforts to reconnect within a reasonable period of time are unsuccessful, the in-person meeting will continue at the discretion of the chair provided that a quorum of the Board is physically present. Zoom participants are encouraged to retain the phone number provided in their confirmation email for a backup audio connection to the meeting. Tonight, there will be a number of opportunities for public comments. I will announce those as they come up. If you are attending by Zoom and want to participate, please raise your hand in Zoom when I announce that the public comment is open. If you're in the room, of course, you can raise your hand in real life. If you do not know how to raise your hand in Zoom, now would be an excellent time to Google for how to do so. And finally, because one or more Select Board members are participating remotely, each vote tonight will be taken by roll call and I will ask our trustee town council to remind me of that fact should I fail to remember. Let's see how much of the town's business we can get done tonight. Our first item of business is our much-anticipated annual presentation of the Community Presentation Act Committee's recommended projects. There are three of us here tonight. Christine, you can sit over here. Sue D'Octro. And Dave Swanson. Oh, and you introduced yourself as well. Oh, on my name. Because I did not introduce you. My name is Clarissa Rowe. I'm the chair. Sue D'Octro is here as the vice chair.  We wish him the best. Yes. And Alexander does a wonderful job making a great presentation even better. The other members of the committee are Leslie Mayer, Ken Lau, Joanne Robinson, Joanne Preston, and Brian McFide. Now, I'm sure you've already read all of this and you know CPA. So I'm going to go through it really quickly and then what I'll do is stop after each area and I don't have to go through this either and see if you have any questions on those particular ones. We'll start with the housing, please. This is a very interesting project that the housing authority is starting to do and it'll be an independent building and we're giving them $200,000. Then we have sunny side. We're giving them another $500,000 for the construction phase of the work and this is a very exciting project in East Arlington. Next we have their homeless prevention program which is new and wonderful to be starting and that's $50,000 and then we have the Greater Somerville Homeless Coalition for their thing of 1680, 800 and the reason they do that is they're putting the difference in rents so if there's a very expensive rental property, they pay the difference and they pay it directly to the landlords so it's a very good use of the money and it's not very much money. And then the last one is a new roof for the Shea House which is owned by the Cambridge Salvation Army but is on Wellington Street. It's a beautiful old building and that's it for housing. Any questions? Questions on the housing? Mrs. Mahon. Not a question but thank you comments that as you know, Mr. Hurt and I sit on the Community Development Block Grant, CDBG another and we see projects especially the Housing Corps of the Wellington Project and our money got cut basically close to in half and there were things we couldn't fund and I'm so grateful especially with that program and others that you're able to give them the funding because it really hurts to say no to anybody but it was a new program and we had to cut back on everybody else so I do appreciate. Thank you. No, housing is a very important issue everywhere but it's also very important here and the Housing Authority has done, I mean the Housing Corporation has built so much good housing in this town that it's important to support them. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just had a question about the new grantee this year. I'm thrilled to see the return of the Summer Real Homeless Coalition. I think that is such short money for a big return and the HCA's Homelessness Prevention Program is also a really good investment to just keep people in housing but I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the residents or the programming at Shea House. Yes, first of all, the neighbors think it's fine. This was brought to me by a man named John Maher. We've heard of him. Who thought it would be an excellent candidate and it's a program for people with substance abuse problems that are past and they're getting a lot of really wonderful help and anything else you think I should say, Shea? Well, it's called a sober house and it's housing 10 to 15 men and they graduated from drug and alcohol rehab programs or men's shelter program of the Salvation Army and they've transitioned from this. It prevents them from becoming homeless and get lapsing back in. It's really fascinating. I mean, I had no idea about Shea House. It's really very important. We have a lot of residential houses in Arlington which serve a real need. I had one in my old neighborhood so I know about how important it is. I'm very glad to know about that, thank you. Any other questions about the housing before the memorandum? Okay, go on to your next category. Actually, Mr. Chair, quickly. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Mr. Diggins. No problem, I get my hand up in time. So I'm really happy to see all of these programs on this row. With respect to the Somerville Homeless Coalition, the 16-8K, how many people does this help? They have, let's see, they operate 25 apartments in Arlington and that houses 40 people and what they're asking from us will subsidize 14 of the apartments. And they've had some of these for as long as 15 years. Yeah, as I said, I think the important thing for them is that they have a real good relationship with the landlords. So the landlords keep, if the people move, they keep allowing new people to come in. Great, all right, thank you. And what we're giving them is leveraging, they said $590,000 from HUD. Well, that's a good detail, I'm glad I asked, just for that answer, you know, so great, excellent. They're trying to make up the difference between what HUD will give and what the actual market value is in Arlington. Gotcha, yeah, no, no, that's a really great detail, so increase the value by a lot. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. I'll try to catch you next time. Okay. Don't worry. I'll look up and make sure you don't have your hand up. Historic preservation, this first one is, as you all may know, there are a lot of books in the cellar here and they need to be preserved. You can see what kind of shape they're in and how when people ask for documents, it's important that they don't fall apart. So the idea is to start digitizing those marriage records and it's a start, it's not gonna do everything but we have them from a very long time ago. And the next one is the wonderful garden and to finish it off, we're gonna finally spend $115,000 and that will do the planting from the original Homestead Brothers plan that goes around that wonderful reflecting pond that now is the center of the garden and a great asset. And then we have Foot of the Rocks which as you know is gonna be a very important historic site in Arlington in the future. One of the things that came up during the discussion about this is it's quite an expensive project and I think it's over a million dollars to build it and was a discussion of bonding. And when we started CPA, the finance committee didn't want us to bond so we never have and we had a very good discussion because the committee has to decide yes or no and the committee decided this project wasn't ready for that but they did think that doing work on Town Hall, I don't know why. And I believe the conference room is falling down and soon that Goopal is gonna be coming down. I think it's time we focused on that and maybe Mugar one day and Sue wants to buy a farm. I know, I mean I always think back to Lex Farm and you know it's an opportunity that that town had that you know if that had passed by it would have been a bunch of houses. So that to me is the type of situation where bonding is really powerful and I mean I would definitely favor it for those kinds of projects. Not that there's a farm waiting for us but anyway, yes. Any questions? Any questions on the historic preservation projects? Okay. Okay and on to open space. Excuse me. This is the MacLennan Detention Pond Survey and it's looking at why the detention pond isn't working as well. Be a bathymetric survey which means a survey of how deep the pond is and why it's all silting up. It's in conjunction with some other work that they're doing near the detention pond but it's a wonderful project to make this important place better. The open space, the public land management addendum is building on the work that was already done by CPA and they didn't feel that they had done enough work on some of the other lands and so they asked for some more $25,000. And then the other one is the Minuteman Redesign at Rider Street and Burns Arena. It came in more money but one of the problems of this area is the bike path is owned by the MBTA and we tried at one point in the heights to do a connection and it didn't work because of the MBTA. They have very strict insurance criteria and there's difficulty working with them so we gave him 50,000 to start the process to look at it. It's also an intersection of a street and the bike path. I think it's a great idea but I think that there's a lot of pre-work that needs to be done. And the Crosby Park Court and Park renovation, this was the most controversial one we had our public meeting and part of it was because the town had shown a bunch of pickleball courts and basketball courts and the neighbors just went, pickleball is not really that popular with neighbors. Everywhere I go and I still do a lot of public work people are always saying oh those pickleball courts they're awful so this is really the beginning of the park and recreation process where they're hire a landscape architect they'll have public meetings they'll find out what the people living in the neighborhood want and I bet it's not gonna be pickleball. And also they were concerned about loss of green space. There were people speaking to that so it's a conflict between paving and courts and green space and so we were hoping first of all we couldn't give them 1.5 million and if they can have a design process for 10% of that they can get a lot of public input. Yeah, which is what they need. Yeah. And the last one is Monotomy Rocks Park play in picnic area for 400,000. I don't know why they took down that playground that I built. It was only 30 years old. It was really dangerous and so I'm really glad that this is happening because I think it'll be a wonderful addition there always was a great place and the picnic area hasn't been well used and now it will be. So that's it. And then we have the last slide unless you have any questions. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dorsig. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Yeah, just a question on the Minuteman Bikeway redesigned and a comment after the question but I see the drawing there like the initial design is that too maybe split each side of the bike path where it meets Rider Street and I'm just wondering where the arrow is if there was discussion or if that's so preliminary. It's sort of preliminary. Okay. I think the idea was to have a stopping place for the bikes so they could bicycle to the games, bicycle to the rink, have a shady place to sit and take a stop. Okay, thank you. And just a comment, Mr. Chairman. I mean, this is another example of the difficulties working within the right of way with the MBTA and it just is so frustrating because I know it's been frustrating for the committee, frustrating for the town because there are a number of projects up and down the bike path where we hear it over and over again this difficulty with the MBTA. There's a very worthwhile potential project down near Mill Street, the stairwell that leads from the pathway to the bike path that's in disrepair. It's been in disrepair for years but what I'm told is because of the right of way issues that has not been selected yet and I'm gonna reiterate that the need for us maybe to do this regionally or try to do something on this because it just seems like, I understand if you were introducing commerce to the insurance issues but some of these things it just doesn't make any sense to me. My current job is designing a lot of bike paths for the gateway cities in Massachusetts and we run across this all the time. We've actually developed, we but my team has developed a very good working relationship with the real estate people from the MBTA. So I might give you some names of people to talk to. Thank you. It would be great.  It's not great and there are so many good uses that could happen. And the Downing Square Project is a really good example because I live in that neighborhood and communal access to the bike path that everybody could use was offered and the residents there, they can see the bike path from their window and they can't get there and it's so frustrating because it's a perfect kind of place to have that access. True. Thank you. He's got his hand up there. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, as Dr. Omid, I want to get back to you. I mean, there's certainly some interesting developments along those lines, but also the Tom manager and I had a conversation with the executive director of the MBTA advisory board and he's given us some other possibilities as to what can be done to help us and other municipalities get access to bike paths in their areas. I mean, and so we'll pursue this with how many have made a commitment to continuing to work on this. And it'd be interesting to see how this wrote if the names he gives us with respect to the MBTA realty company is the same ones that you can give us. So I'll be back in touch with you about that too. Thank you. That's great. Thank you. Thank you. And then the last slide is the money. And we have our money person right here and Christine Bonjourno has, who has been doing two jobs for CPA so far. And luckily Lauren is coming and leaving somebody. But we are so grateful. Christine, do you have anything you want to say? We're giving away less than we have. So that's as opposed to more. We were conservative as we needed to be. Ms. Mohan. I have on the last slide. And I don't know if it's an answer that we can necessarily get tonight, but I know when the Community Preservation Act was first discussed in town, it was quite the discussion. And one of the discussions revolved around that it looks good right now, but then as more communities get in, state's not going to match it anymore. So on and so forth, along with other things. We won't talk about the bonding. But I see pretty consistently state seems to be matching us at 10%. So I would like to know is that, obviously when my math is right, it is 10%. Is that something we can pretty much count on because I think all the communities that wanted to get in have gotten in or do you see that number? That map's going up and down. I've been married on that for very long time and it's just this year with the state revenues going down. And I think that Jim and Christine were good about being conservative because we didn't want to promise people money that we didn't have. And that's always been our motto and I think it's important that we do that. So that's a conservative 10% because normally, I'm saying how did it go from 18 to 20% to 10? But we're conservatively estimating again. Okay, thank you. Excellent, I just wanted for the public's information, the Community Preservation Act Committee does take these recommendations for funding directly to town meeting. And but the, I think the bylaw asked you to consult the select board, which is what you're doing here. And thank you for that. Thank you for your excellent work. I love this lineup of projects. And I know firsthand and you know how I know how much work it is to get there and how hard it is to have many more times the amount of need and requests than you have to spend. So I think you've chosen wisely. Thank you so much. And if we could ask you for a vote of support. Absolutely. Have one from the finance committee. Endorse, you mean maybe? Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, I would entertain this motion. Second. Any discussion on the motion? Mr.  I just want to say, I think the presentation is really, really good. You know, Alexander did a great job on it. It was just a, it's just visually very nice. So please pass along my appreciation to Mr. Frinzoza. Thank you. I will certainly. There was a template that was left behind by the last CPM. I don't know who that might be. I will say it's better and better every year in Mr. Frinzoza. If you're listening to color coding on this project areas, it was a very nice touch. Yes. Okay, we have a motion to, was it to endorse by Mrs. Mahon, a second by Mr. Hurd, Mr. Cunningham. Mrs. Mahon. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. 5-0 vote. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Thank you. This now brings us to the consent agenda. We have the minutes of meetings from February 21st and March 4th of this year. We have a request for a one-day beer and wine license on April 20th at Robbins Town Hall for a private event by Renny Zimmerman. We have the annual Heights Spring Fling Festivals Saturday, May 18th, 2024 by Janet O'Rearden of the Heights Community Association. This is a recurring event that we've approved in the past. We have a request for a contactor and drain layer license by ACA and Sons Incorporated from Woburn. Another request for a contract or drain layer license from North Heritage Construction Corporation, Adriano Mendez from North Helmsford. We also have reappointments to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board. But I do have two corrections to this list to suggest to the Board for the motion. So I would suggest for the motion, the consent agenda that two of the appointees actually aren't voted on by this Board. One of them is myself, Eric Helmuth. I am the Board's designee, which we can vote on in a different meeting when we notice that. So I would suggest striking that name. And also Beth Elliott is the Town Manager's Designee and is an ex-officio non-voting member. So I would suggest striking that from the motion as well. Attorney Cunningham, is it acceptable to make those amendments without pulling this out of the consent agenda? Yes, Mr. Chair. So if anybody would like to make that motion and the motions with those provisions, I would interchange that at this time. Any other discussion? Mr. DeCoursey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll move favorable action on the consent agenda with the two amendments on the reappointments removing the Chair, Mr. Helmuth, and Ms. Elliott. Second. That's strange. Well, that's some town meeting language. That's right, yeah. Second. Any discussion on the President's agenda vote? Okay, I think we're ready for a vote. Attorney Cunningham. Ms. Mahan? Yes. Mr. Herd? Yes. Mr. DeCoursey? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Helmuth? Yes. Five-zero vote on the consent agenda. Thank you very much. Okay, that brings us to item nine, which is discussions and approval, fiscal year 2025, water and sewer rates. Mr. Feeney. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to also welcome Mike Rademacher, our Director of Public Works, to the seating as well. Mike was kind enough to prepare the memo that he does each year that was provided for in the Board's packet for tonight's meeting. The memo is quite clear, but to summarize what we're proposing, as it is the time of year for the fiscal year, 25 water and sewer rates, is a modest increase of 3.05% for water rates and a rate increase of 3.13% for sewer. So as noted in the memo, there are a few assumptions upon which those rates are based and the main driver of that is the amount of water that we will expect to be consumed in the community for the given year. Of course, that is an estimate, but it is an estimate that's based upon historical consumption. So Director Rademacher and his team look back five years and take both the highest and lowest years out of the equation as anomalies and then sort of average the three middle years is what we would expect to be our consumption for the leading year moving forward. So with that rate increase, the average cost to an Arlington home household per three month bill for what would have been in fiscal year 23 would have been $283 in fiscal year 24, $293. Actually Mike, is that second column supposed to be 24 and 25? Yes. I apologize. So for fiscal year 25, the average home bill would be $293. So based on these rates, the expected increase for a three month bill would be approximately $10 for the average Arlington household. Thank you for the comments from the Director of Public Works. Mr. Feeney explained it very well. Mr. Herb. Move approval and just note, I like this nice, I don't know if every year is this concise, but it helps us kind of condense the info and I can carry this around with me because every day somebody tells me that their water bill doubled. I know it did not double so we can show them the modest increase in their water rate this year. Thank you. Mr. Corsi. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I'll second the motion and thank you Mr. Rodemacher for the presentation and this is the percent is going down from last year and if we go back a couple of years we were seeing double digit increases in the water and sewer rates because of the shift in the debt. So that's good news. And I like to always have this conversion just because we get asked an awful lot about water and a CCF is 748 gallons. So the average user at 60 CCF you're using about 45,000 gallons of water that's about two and a half cents per gallon by my math. So it's not doubling and it's for the amount of services and that we're getting, we really appreciate it and we're part of MWRA. So there's a lot of costs that we incur with that but I appreciate all the work that you do and your team does because there are always challenges out there with water main breaks and fixing them and getting things repaired and minimizing the loss of water. Thank you. Mr. Diggins. Thank you Mr. Chair. And I'm only bringing this up because Mr. Hurd said that he's gonna carry this around. So I do think we're gonna probably need to fix some year designations on this, right? Because as I think Mr. Feeney just pointed out that second column being when we compare and rate should be, well actually we should fix the first both columns, right? Should be fiscal year 24 and fiscal year 25. That is correct Mr. Diggins. Okay and then above that, where we have the sewer, we have fiscal year 24 existing and then I think we'll want fiscal year 25 proposed, right? Correct. I apologize, I can resend at that with the correction. No problem. I've just been a little traumatized too with fiscal years down to designations so that's why I'm a little inattentions a little more. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Diggins. Just so we're clear, I'm not actually gonna carry this. I was wondering what our laminated card budget would be for a person. That's gonna be my question of the day.  Thank you Mr. Chair. And thank you Mr. Rademacher. I do appreciate this and as the most recent winters go by I worry a little bit about snow and if we're gonna have enough people out there to plow the snow but I worry more so especially with the extreme temperatures. Every time it's really, really cold out there or an ice storm. Invariably there's at least one, if not more, huge water bursts, pipes bursts that the RDPW crews have to be out there and they have been out there and Mr. Feeney at one of the meetings noted a particularly rough stretch of weather that we had and there were at least two, if not three, really large pipe bursts that the crews had to respond to which what they're paid is a whole discussion for another night but the question that, so please pass along our thanks to the crew. Sometimes people might think oh well there's no snow so they don't have to come out in it. Well it's even worse now when those really cold freezing temperatures are all there and I've been allegedly down a hole every now and then and it's not fun and I'm only there 10, 15 minutes so but in the past when you've spoken about the replacement project for the town and said we were doing about a mile a year and you were hoping to increase on that I'm just wondering are we still at that one mile a year or have you increased or hope to increase that? So we are still at about a mile a year and I hadn't accelerated that program during the time we were changing the rate structure with the shift it would have been a lot to add to the rates but I think now as the dust is settling a little bit from that the shift of the funds from the tax base to all rates and the rates are now a little bit more stable I think we'll have the opportunity to look for some additional funding to increase the water main replacement program. I have a technical question that probably doesn't have an answer but as you go forward and I'm thinking of just this past winter thinking of at least three of the pipes that burst that were really big jobs when you're going through the exercise of what that one mile and maybe some years two mile restoration project will be is there a technology like do you choose it just on a graph metrics system or I'm thinking of those particular ones that were really big is that something we can foresee you know in the warmer weather to know that's what's gonna go in the one mile project or is it you just can't tell when one of those are gonna go? Right it's tough to know exactly when a pipe might fail. We do keep records of failures and as a certain area shows more and more incidences we focus on those areas. We also focus on older pipe that is could become more brittle or areas where maybe the construction wasn't as great when it was put in so it's more susceptible to the fluctuations in temperature and the soil that was used during construction. So we do take a lot into consideration but it is hard to predict when something like that will happen we really we strive for the known the guys who work great as you mentioned and they know the system well and they're constantly talking to me Mike you gotta replace the pipe over here so we have a pretty good handle on the condition of the mains and we strive to replace them based on our experience and also the age and at the same time we're also working with the utilities that are doing replacements and roads that we want to pave so it's kind of a juggling act to get the best bang for a buck when we're looking at these projects. Well thank you much appreciated thank you Mr. Chair. Any further discussion from the board? Okay I think we're ready for a vote we have a motion to approve by Mr. Herd a seconded by Mr. DeCorsi turning coming in. Mrs. Mahan. Yes. Mr. Herd. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmut. Yes. Approved 5-0. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Okay this brings us to item 10 and this is the warrant article hearings. So tonight we'll be hearing articles 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 in that order. So the way we'll do the hearings is as follows we'll first invite a proponent of the article to come up and give a presentation. At that time I will invite the time manager board to make any ask any questions make any preliminary comments then we'll open it up for a public hearing for public comment both in Zoom and in the room. This is the part where you learned you've learned to raise your hand in Zoom. And after that point after public comment is finished and there'll be a three minute time limit for public comment not for the president not for the first presentation but for public comments. After that point then the board will resume its discussion and come to a consensus about motions. What we're doing here tonight for the sake of the public is these are warrant articles before town meeting and these are bylaw amendments and for the most part. The purpose of this is for the select board to hear it to give the public a chance to weigh in and to make a recommendation town meeting but the final decision is town meetings because they are the elected legislative body of the town. So our role per the Towns Town Manager Act and our bylaws is to hear these and give an informed opinion to town meetings. So that's what we're doing tonight and with all our warrant articles. So with that we'll start with article 15 bylaw amendment prohibition of fair trade restrictions on fur products. Ms. Dre, welcome. Please introduce yourself and where you live and tell us about this article. Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Dre. I'm a town meeting member in Precinct 10 and I'm on Jason Street in Arlington. I do have a slideshow. Excellent. Perfect, great. All right, thank you.  Arlington has been a leader in passing local and state laws that support animal, environmental and human health and I'm here to ask the select board to continue this proud tradition by voting to prohibit the sale of new fur products in Arlington. Why this bylaw and why now? I think it's important to understand the central role that Arlington plays in the current grassroots movement to protect animals and the environment. With your support, 2022 town meeting passed two groundbreaking bylaws to prohibit the use of some rodenticides to protect predators such as owls, eagles and falcons. Recognizing the importance of those bylaws, other towns reached out to Arlington to see how they could do something similar in their towns. Many had already passed an anti-fur bylaw and asked Arlington to do the same. So in reciprocation, in solidarity and because it's the right thing, Arlington agreed to try and here I am. This bylaw is a result of a coalition of Massachusetts town governments and local grassroots groups like Save Arlington's Wildlife coming together to make real sustainable change at the local level because we simply cannot afford to wait for the state to act. All right, ready for slide two, great. So to begin, I just wanted to clarify what is actually gonna be prohibited and not prohibited by this bylaw. So finished fur products from animals raised in fur farms are trapped and killed only for their pelts and sold in person in retail stores in Arlington is what we're asking to be prohibited. It does not prohibit the sale of leather, cowhide or sheepskin, used for a sold privately or secondhand, for use for Native American tribal purposes, for religious purposes, and it will not affect hunting or taxidermy. Next slide please. So after speaking to folks in all the retail stores in Arlington that we thought might possibly sell fur, I'm pleased to say that we found zero. Nobody is selling new fur products in Arlington. And in fact, most of them were incredulous that anyone actually is selling new fur products. And they were supportive of this warrant article. Kaylee Yurenka is the owner of a local business, yes, down in East Arlington, and she, her full quote is here, but she supports this warrant article and says that she's proud to be part of a town that prioritizes humane treatment of animals and reducing the negative environmental impact we have in our community. There is one resale store in Arlington and they will not be affected by this bylaw. So there's times when doing the right thing can adversely affect existing businesses, but fortunately this is not one of them. Passing this bylaw will have no negative effect on any business that's open in Arlington today. So you may wonder what is the point of restricting the sale of fur in a town that doesn't sell fur? And so I would say that this is the best time to do it. It we're not affecting any current businesses, we're being proactive and we're being preventative. Because you cannot stop this cruel industry if there's still a demand for the products. Next slide please. So as I mentioned, Arlington has been a consistent supporter both locally and statewide. We have a voting record that demonstrates our commitment to animal welfare. So as you'll see on the slide, the majority of Arlingtonians voted to support these animal welfare laws.  Next slide please. So the fur industry is extremely cruel to animals and it's completely unnecessary. The vast majority of fur sold in America comes from fur farms, where animals spend their entire lives in small crowded cages often unable to move. And when it's time for them to be slaughtered, fur farmers will often use the least expensive way to kill them and still maintain the pelt. And that includes electrocution, gas, poison, suffocation, and even live skinning. And in 2024, I just feel that there's just simply no justification to allow animals to be killed like this simply for their fur. Next slide. And it's not only wildlife that's affected by these traps. It's also affecting our family dogs and cats. Pets across the country, including right here in Massachusetts, are injured or killed by these traps. This is a photo of a cat, family cat, named August to the right, who came back one afternoon with the trap around their midsection. And the owner said that the more they struggled to pull it off, the tighter and tighter that the trap got on them. Like hold traps, crush bone, muscle fiber, tendons and connective tissue. And they often result in amputation and death. And I'm sure we all remember last year when locally two little foxes got trapped in illegal leg holds in the area. This is one of them, probably the lucky one who just ended up surviving, but his legs was amputated. And the second fox, we don't know what happened to.  And so personally, when I think of all this, I just wonder why anybody would even wanna sell or buy new fur products when it comes from such inhumane and incredible suffering. The fur industry also takes a huge toll on our environment. And this also runs counter to Arlington's local voting record that supports sustainable environmental and climate issues. This slide shows just several of the recent votes that we've taken here in Arlington. Fur farms consistently violate environmental regulations. Fur tanning and dressing uses carcinogenic toxins such as chromium and formaldehyde to prevent the skin from decaying. And these toxins as well as manure and carcasses get thrown into wetlands and seep into watersheds. Next slide please. Studies by the Independent Environmental Sustainability Group, CE Delft in Europe have shown that fur is the highest offending textile, natural or synthetic, with the worst impact per pound in 17 of 18 environmental categories, including climate change, waste runoff and toxicity. The climate change impact of mink fur is at least six times higher than faux fur. And knowing what we do, we cannot justify the harm the industry does to the environment. It's simply unnecessary. There's numerous eco-friendly faux furs that have been developed in the last years that look like real fur, but without the environmental damage. Fur farming affects health of humans as well. Since April, 2020, you may have read that COVID-19 outbreaks occurred in more than 450 mink farms in Europe and North America, including 16 farms here in the United States. Over 20 million animals were slaughtered as a result. And scientists are concerned that animal-to-human contagion may mutate the virus, leading to new variants that are contagious to humans and thus decrease vaccine efficacy. As I close tonight, I want to share that this warrant article is supported by the MSPCA, Save Arlington's Wildlife, the Humane Society of the United States, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund. The language of this by-law has been approved by the Attorney General after it was passed in Wellesley in 2020. And since then, Brookline, Weston, Cambridge, Lexington, and Plymouth have passed similar by-laws. Passing this warrant article is the right thing to do for animals, for the environment, and for humans. And it will have no economic impact on businesses that currently exist in Arlington. We don't always have the opportunity to do the right thing without repercussions, but we do this time. By passing this by-law, we once again write our community values into law, showing that Arlington is a town that is free of cruel practices and supports animal, environmental, and human-right health. Again, we cannot stop this industry until we stop the demand for products. Thank you. Appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Mr. Herd. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Happy to support this. Just one question. So what was the rationale for excluding second-hand shops? So not affecting them. Correct. I think that we wanted to get it passed. So there, I think that also those products have been sold, like they're not a demand for new products that feeds the industry. So I think. I mean, I think it's fine as it is. I also, you know, if you're going to exclude the sale of fur, then, you know, you can say it a second-hand shop. I don't know if we just have one, but, you know, whatever's in your inventory, you can sell. You've already bought that from somebody, but going forward, don't buy any fur products to sell in your business. But arguing for another day, I guess. Any questions or comments from the board? Okay, at this time, let's open this up for public comment. So this is a public hearing. As a reminder, there's a three-minute, come on up, Karen, a three-minute time limit for public comment. And we'll alternate between people in the room and on Zoom. If you are on Zoom and wish to comment on this article, please raise your hand at this time.  Good evening, sir. Please introduce yourself. Chair, members of the select board, Carrie Teal at 11A Lakeview Street, lived in Arlington for 17 years now. Feels like I moved in yesterday. Co-founder of an international animal protection group that's based, or headquarters, literally a stone's throw from where we are right now. And I'll use less than three minutes, but I just want to say I am very proud to live in this town. I'm very proud that our nonprofit is based here because Arlington has proven to be extremely animal-friendly and, in fact, a leader on these issues. I was very grateful to work with Mr. Funi and many members of the select board over the past couple of years on the redenticide issue. Very proud of the work we did together on that. And it was incredible after it passed. I not only heard from citizens across the state who said, you know, give us your advice on how to do this in our community, but I heard from national organizations.  And I think that's something we should all view as a victory, not only for the animals, but for the town. So I'm really excited to be here tonight because I think these are three really fantastic warrant articles. I'm going to ask for your support as we go through the night on all three. On this one in particular, I would just point out that, you know, as Ms. Dre, who's fantastic champion of this issue, as she said, you know, Arlington, when this has been on the ballot, you know, in 2008, the ballot question I worked on regarding Greyhound Racing, that pass was 63% of the vote. When, in 1996, when leg hole trapping was prohibited statewide, their Arlington vote was 74%. And so I think you look at that 74% number, that is where the community is on this. And I'm certain that at the vote where today, those numbers would be even higher. So I think this is a fantastic warrant article and I ask for your support. Thank you, sir. Let's now turn to Zoom and Ms. Martin can bring in one of the people with their hands raised. Looks like that's Sadie Ford. Sadie Ford, a chance to. Good evening. You can turn off your, yeah, you're good to go. All right, please introduce yourself. Thank you. Hi, I'm Sadie Ford. I'm 17 years old. I live at 124 Brattle Street and I'm currently attending Arlington High School. I ask for your support for this article because I think it's amazing. It is making sure that we allow for the protection of animals in the future and it also is making sure that Arlington isn't going to be actively adding to the profit of the fur, actively giving profit to fur farms. And I just think that if we have this, in addition to Lettington, Cambridge, Wellesley, Weston, Brooklyn, and Plymouth, then we can join a legacy that's promoting an animal cruelty-free zone in Massachusetts. So, thank you. Thank you very much and thank you for participating in your town's public discussion and democracy. Mr. Feeney, just for the sake of the Zoom, could you in the slide share please? Is anybody in the room who wishes to comment on this article before we move back to Zoom? Okay, seeing none, let's bring in our other Zoom attendee who had their hand raised if they're still there. I believe that's Laura Kiesel. Good evening, Ms. Kiesel. Hi, it's Laura Kiesel, Precinct 7. I live on Everett Street and I'm going to be presenting in a few minutes on another animal article, but I just wanted to offer my perspective really quickly as the founder and director of Save Arlington Wildlife when the two fox kids were caught in the illegal lake hold traps last year. I was the one who was getting kind of inundated with emails. It was very clear that the consensus in Arlington was a lot of outrage about these traps. And as we know by ballot question in the 1990s, we have rejected these lake hold traps, but a lot of people were surprised when I educated them that these lake hold traps are still used across the region and many of our neighboring states and we still import as a state a lot of fur products that do trap animals by that method in which case our state is sort of still proactively supporting that practice even if we've banned it inside the state by importing fur products that were from animals that have been trapped by lake hold traps. So I did get a lot of people even then writing me and saying, well, we don't want those fur products in Arlington. So I just wanted to offer that perspective as well as Elizabeth Dre mentioned, the vast majority are from fur farms which are cruel and environmentally hazardous, but these lake hold traps are another practice by which fur is sourced. And I also wanted to address John Hurd's question about consignment shops for used fur. One of the reasons that I know that Elizabeth didn't do that is right now, I don't think there's really much of a precedent. All the other communities have emphasized new fur products. And since these used fur products are already in the system, it kind of supports the recycling of them with saying like we have that, we can use those, but please let's stop sourcing these and harming the animals that are around. So thank you very much for taking my comments. Thank you very much for your comment. Any other comments in Zoom or in the room on this article? Ms. Mara for Zoom. Seeing no hands raised. Okay, this concludes the public hearing. Attorney Cunningham. Thank you Mr. Chair, I just want to know what I've been in communication with Ms. Dray. And there was, I know there's a draft motion in the material that was provided to the select board. Ms. Dray has requested that that draft motion be amended to include some additional language, specifically in section one, I mentioned of the threat the fur farms present to public health, the environmental impact, the negative environmental impact that fur production has and that the elimination of sale for products will decrease the demand for those. Also Ms. Dray asked for an amendment or revision to section five, the penalty. Currently in the select board materials, it's a penalty of $100 in section five. Ms. Dray has asked that that be increased to $300. I would just note that to the extent that the board is inclined to support those changes, they would have, in my opinion, would have no negative impact on the legality of this proposed bylaw amendment. Thank you very much, sir. At this time I'll turn to the board for any further discussion in motions. Ms. Mohan. I'd like to move approval with the two amendments to section one and section five. Second. Okay. Any discussion, Mr. DeCorsi? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Dray, for the presentation and for providing us links to the, to both the house and the Senate bill. And I think this is, for me, where it's important to do what you're asking here and particularly where we, there are bills pending in the legislature. I just a question, do you know, is this the first time these bills are pending or have they been filed in previous sessions and just haven't gotten out of committee? Is that right? Yes, thank you. It's my understanding this is their second time being heard. Okay, thank you. So for me, this is the type of thing where the Attorney General has already passed on municipalities being authorized to pass a bylaw and I think it's important to send a message to the legislature too, that there are six communities, it'd be great if we're the seventh here. And until this is a state law, it seems appropriate to be within our town by-law. So I'm happy to support it and thank you for the extensive information for us. Thank you very much, sir. Any further discussion by the board? I'm also delighted to support this. Thank you for your work on this. I think that it says a lot about a community and about a town and how we treat the vulnerable and how we treat those without a voice and I include our animal friends in that and I appreciate the heart and the hard work that went into this and I hope the town meeting also does as well. I think we're ready for a vote on a motion for favorable action by Mrs. Mahan and seconded by Mr. Herd, Attorney Cunningham. Mrs. Mahan? Yes. Mr. Herd? Yes. Mr. Diggins? Yes. Mr. Helmuth? Yes. 5-0 vote. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate your support. I'll turn to Article 16 for a by-law amendment, the pet sale restrictions and regarding retail pet sales. And Ms. Marty, are you aware of who the proponent speaking tonight is? I've promoted both Asia, Kepka, and Laura Kiesel as they both submitted more in article reference. I'm sorry, they both. They're both proponents, co-proponents, okay. All right, so please proceed with your good evening. Please introduce yourselves and proceed with your presentation, please. Good evening. This is Asha Kepka, town meeting member from Precinct One. Can you hear me okay? Yes, very much so. Okay, many years ago I went to buy dog food and I came home with 10 most beautiful goldfish and a tiny fish tank. I was told by the salesperson that, you know, they're tiny, they don't need much. Very quickly I learned that we're gonna need a bigger tank. Hundreds of dollars later, and many years later, the four surviving goldfish were thriving. I named them Pale Bob, Bob the Covenist, Gay Bob, and Bernie Frank. I was dedicated a pet owner, so I was able to educate myself and keep my fish happy, but many people who purchase animals in pet stores are not always able to be responsible pet owners for whatever reasons. One in four pets purchased in pet store surrendered to animal shelters and over a million cats and dogs are being euthanized every year. I understand that pet stores are businesses and they have to make money to sell the product, which is animals and animal products. I would like to introduce Laura Kishel to speak in depth about the article 16 about the burden that many animal shelters are facing with excess of pets purchased from the pet stores. Okay, Ms. Kiesel. Thanks, so I don't know if I, do I have to say next slide if I wanna go to the next one? Yes. Okay, so next slide. So the overview is similar to the fur ban that we just reviewed. This would be a ban on pet stores for new sales of animals and that would apply to dogs, cats, all mammals, as well as birds, reptiles and amphibians. It does not apply to animal shelters or private breeders. This is mostly about pet mills and poaching of animals from the wild that we're trying to crack down on. This would allow pet shops to have partnerships with rescues and animal shelters to help adopt out animals, which is different than selling them for profit. And similar to the fur ban, it would be a preventative measure because right now Arlington does not sell any animals as pets. Next slide, please. So currently 2.6 million puppies every year come from puppy mills and it's a competitive number around that for kittens as well. Next slide, please. But a lot of times in these conversations, we only talk about puppies and kittens, but this happens to a lot of animals. Other mammals like rabbits, ferrets, guinea pigs, birds like parrots and parakeets, reptile species such as turtles, snakes and lizards and amphibians like frogs and salamanders. Next slide, please. So why we're interested in this, US pet dealers are taking in and importing 225 million live animals on average and that is with stricter federal laws than 20 or 30 years ago. And this is essentially endangering wild species around the globe in their native habitats. Some examples of that are the African gray parrot, which are right now are a very popular pet and the Madagascar tortoise. And these animals suffer and die during capture and transport as well as once they're in these pet mills, they're living in very cramped and inhumane conditions. Next slide, please. For instance, birds 75 to 90% of wild caught birds die before the point of sale and taking birds from the wild has negative impacts on global biodiversity. And birds are not actually protected under the Animal Welfare Act like a lot of mammal species are. And there's no federal oversight of pet stores or bird mills. So these industrialized parrot mills will often house hundreds of birds in rows of barren cages and they don't get any enrichment or interaction even though they're very intelligent animals. And the other problem is a lot of times when people can't keep these birds or they can't handle their care, they just release them into the environment. Currently in the United States, we have 56 parrot species that are not native to our country that are present and 43 of those states and 25 of those species are actively breeding. And they're crowding out our native songbirds. And one very popular example of that is the Monk Parakeet pictured here. They have populations in Massachusetts as well. Next slide, please. And reptiles and amphibians, they suffer similar fates as birds. 75% of pet snakes, lizards and tortoises die within the first year in the home. Similar to birds, the Animal Welfare Act does not cover them at all. Also 75% of new diseases that usually spread between people and animals are usually transmitted by wild pets and reptiles in particular are a large source of that. Just this past August, the CDC had an advisory because there was an 11th state outbreak of salmonella linked to pet turtles. Next slide, please. This was another really sad case of a pet. This was right here in Massachusetts in the Boston metro area of pet chameleon. Someone got from a local pet store in the area. And when the person couldn't handle its care, they have very high maintenance needs. They neglected it and then dumped it with a wildlife rehabber. So not only are these animals being released into the environment or abandoned a lot of times, even wildlife rehabbers that are supposed to be caring for our native wildlife are being saddled with this care. And this poor animal had to be euthanized because it was in such rough shape. Next slide, please. I wanna talk just for a quick minute or so about the case of red-eared sliders. This is a kind of turtle. 15 or 20 years ago, you could go into any pet store in Massachusetts just about and you could find these guys, you could buy half a dozen of them. But a decade ago in 2014, Massachusetts had to ban their sale. And the reason Mass Wildlife did this is because quote, so many unwanted pet turtles were being released that they were now establishing a breeding non-native turtle populations in parts of the state. The picture you see on the right, that's a red-eared slider right on the Mystic River here that borders Medford and Arlington. And I was seeing this turtle in December because they're not acclimated to our weather. I think it was a dumped pet. It would come on the shore and stuff. So it's cruel to these animals that are being released into the environment, but it's also cruel for the native species that are getting crowded out. So as the MSPCA noted, red-eared sliders now compete with our native turtles, including our threatened and endangered species for space and resources. And even though now they're banned, there are other up-and-coming turtle species that are also potentially a risk to become dumped in our native waters. Next slide, please. So sometimes people say, well, aren't there enough federal and state regulations? And the truth is they fall short. USDA standards for care of animals and pet stores are minimal. They are very hard to enforce, and the truth of the matter is most of the pet shops that sell animals, they are buying from breeders and pet mills outside of Massachusetts. So our state laws don't really apply for their care there. So we need more local actions to fill the gaps. Next slide, please. And similar to the fur ban, right now we have no shops in Arlington that sell animals, even fish. And we do have a local pet co in Arlington Heights, and it only sells goods and services. And we'd like to keep it that way because a lot of other municipalities are enacting sales on pet stores selling alive animals. And what we're worried about is that as that market shrinks and shifts, they're going to try to migrate into our town. And we'd like to prevent that. Next slide, please. Many other municipalities have enacted similar legislation. Currently, 14 towns and cities in Massachusetts have enacted some kind of pet sale ban. This includes Cambridge, Lexington Plymouth, Springfield, Brookline, Boston, and Stoneham, among others. Cambridge, our next-door neighbor, has enacted the most comprehensive pet sale ban and is the one we're trying to emulate now that also extends not just to mammals like dogs, cats, and rabbits, but also birds, reptiles, and amphibians. And the PetSmart in Cambridge, in Fresh Pond, they actually did have a transition period, but I believe the select board is in possession of a letter from the then mayor, Mark McGovern, who's still a current city counselor there in Cambridge, who noted that there was minimal impact and it turned out to be a net positive for the community. And that was with actually having to transition out of selling pets. Next slide, please. So again, there should be no economic impact whatsoever in Arlington. This is a good time to act because we do not have to have any kind of transition period. Next slide. We have widespread support. Many Arlington residents signed our warrant petition, I think, somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 or 70 signatures and 48 hours. And in addition to large animal welfare groups like the MSPCA, the Animal Defense League, Boston Animal Rescue League, we also had a lot of smaller rescues of groups of animals like rabbits and parrots that also signed on to support our bill. I think you got many letters of supports by the parrot rescues that work in and around Massachusetts, the rabbit rescues, as well as smaller local dog and rescue such as broken tail rescue, which actually works in and around Arlington and adopts their cats out of the Fresh Pond in Cambridge. So that is an example, working example we have nearby of a partnership between a pet store helping to adopt out animals. And we also have an endorsement by the Turtle Rescue League, which in addition to being a rehabber for native turtles and deals a lot with the crowding out of those native turtles, also tries to get pet turtles out of the system so that they will not be dumped in our native ponds and rivers. Next slide. So this is really a four component warrant. We are looking to prevent these pet sales from coming into Arlington. We're also hoping to help boost the chances of state legislation. I do think there's been some proposed legislation. I think it mostly is for mammals right now, but we still hope that maybe this will help offer them some leverage. We also want to be consistent with our values as a humane community and build on that. And again, we have very strong constituent and organizational support from across the board. So I just want to thank you for taking the time to listen to me and I'm glad to answer any questions. Thank you very much for your presentation. I will add just as a point of further information for my colleagues. I did take a Cambridge's counselor, Mark McGovern, up in his offer to us to have a conversation I did this week and he's currently the vice mayor of Cambridge and he shared, as Ms. Kiesel said, that the transition went really well and also that they found that even in retail shops that were selling animals, it was only about 5% of the revenue that they make most of the money on supplies and food and things. And so it really wasn't an issue and really had a minimum of resonant complaints about the restrictions and that there, he noted to us in his letter that I believe is on file in our webpage that the proposal before us by the proponents is matches Cambridge's and its restrictions, which are pretty broad and so it was helpful, I think, to get a sense for their successful experience with this. Any other initial questions or comments from the board? Mr. Hurd. Thank you and thank you for the presentation. I just had sort of an anecdotal story that came up as I was listening to the presentation where, you know, and I guess it kind of just shows that like these pet shops have people that are trained and people that aren't, one of my boys were younger. We, they wanted a pet, we settled on a fish. We went to Petco and Cambridge and they each picked out a fish. They went through the whole, everything we needed, you know, from the tank to everything in the tank, show me how to create the tank, you know, I had to go one day and come back and pick them up and it seemed very comprehensive and I felt like I was in good hands and we brought them home and the only thing that they didn't tell us is that you can't put two beta fish in one tank. So one of my sons fish killed my other son's fish and that was a little bit of a stressful night for one of my sons that night.  Thank you, Mr. Hurd. Any other comments from the board before we turn to the public for comment? Okay, let's start the, oh, there he is, Mr. Diggins. Thank you very much. Thank you. We terminate the slide here as well, please. Mr. Diggins. And they'll come in, come in to support this. I mean, I'll take a lot to reverse my position, but of course I'll listen to what people have to say, but building on what Mr. Hurd said, I am curious, I mean, that it doesn't include fish, I mean, that doesn't matter, I mean, I'm just kind of curious, especially also taking into account the projects beginning to our presentation and related to fish. I actually kind of wish maybe we did, but I think one of the reasons we were hesitant is currently that I don't think there are any other municipalities that have expanded to fish yet.  And I do think there's a lot of ecological reasons to consider fish as well. I'm open to that because I have a beta fish right now and I do have a lot of problems with the industry and a lot of the same arguments apply, both the ecological argument because there are a lot of non-native fish that get dumped in our waterways, but also the humane and welfare issues too. But just since no other community had tried it yet, I was hesitant to add them to the list. I got you. So, Mr. Chair, can I ask Mr. Cunningham a question regarding this? In fact, I think he's expecting one, so go right ahead. Okay, Mr. Cunningham, then you probably know the question. Go ahead and answer it. I think the proponents correctly state that there is no other community that has included fish in a bylaw that has been approved by the municipal law unit. However, I think that there's a decent chance that if this were presented to the Attorney General's office, it would probably be acceptable. I can't guarantee that result, but I don't think this would have an adverse impact if fish were included in the bylaw. All right, thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I'll leave it to the proponents, me and if you want to go for fish, you know. I would like to include fish if that, if the town council is confident, is relatively confident that they think that if they had a problem with that, they wouldn't strike down the whole thing, right? They would just remove that aspect of it, wouldn't compromise the entire warrant that could become a bylaw. Mr. Attorney, going in. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Kieselike, I get to you directly. Most likely that would be the result. Again, I can't guarantee what the Attorney General's office would do based on some hypothetical consideration of this, but most likely in those situations, most likely in that situation, the Attorney General's office would probably contact the town and see if that could be removed. And if the rest of it, and we could also add a severability clause in there if the board is inclined. Okay, is that okay with Asia? Yeah, if I may, actually, I know a lot of people who do release the goldfish into small ponds near their homes, you know, home built. So I would suspect that some people also release fish to a public waterways, which can create problems because some fish, you can purchase that already sick and can carry diseases. So I think I would welcome inclusion of the fish as well. Well, thank you guys. I'm done, I wasn't sure, Mr. Chair. I'm all done, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. May I suggest as an alternative, perhaps adding a separate section with fish so that there is already a severability clause contained in the draft motion. So therefore that would give the Attorney General the option to just strike that one portion. All right, yeah, so if the board would, wants to make that suggestion then that'd be, we'll follow that advice. Okay, any for the comment from questions for the board? All right, let's do public comment on this one. We haven't done public comment yet, have we? No. All right, so this is now a public hearing on Article 16. If you are on Zoom and wish to comment on this article, please raise your hand in Zoom. And likewise, if you are in the room, we'll start with Mr. Veal. Welcome back. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The views on the fish would be happy to hear that. Carrie Teal, Levenay, Lakeview Street, Arlington. This is going to be the shortest testimony I think of the night. I just wanted to thank Ms. Keisel for her incredibly hard work on this. When we got together, her and myself and Paul Schlickman and Christine Dorchak a couple of months ago and started talking about the prospect of doing several animal welfare warrant articles, I knew that that was a group that get a lot done. So I'm very, very proud of that. And this is a good warrant article, ask for your support. 28 seconds, you might have the record. Mr. Cook. Grant Cook, Precinct 16. Yeah, actually I'm in support of the article. Our pet was a rescue, but there is one place in Arlington where you can buy shellfish and they're used for consumption. So if you go down that path, I assume food usage would be waved off, so that's all I'd say. I'm lost here. I assume the town council has duly noted that suggestion. Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. Anybody in Zoom or in the room wish to comment? Well, we'll just have to draft that artfully that someone can't just say, hey, you know, this is for consumption, so. Yeah, my, actually, that is an interesting grayer. If you're buying a live lobster, speaks to purpose. I wonder if that has why communities have not gone this route. Mr. Dording, I am going to give them. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't want to speculate too much, but I think that's probable. But that's why it would make some sense to add it as a separate section with a conclusion for consumption and the Attorney General may object to it. The one thing I'd add, I mean the fish store isn't going to qualify as a pet shop, as defined here, so I think we'll be okay. A reasonable point, all right. Thank you. Any other public comment? Anything in Zoom? Okay, so that concludes the public hearing portion of this. I'll now turn to the board for further discussion and motions. Mrs. Nahan. I'd like to move approval with the amendment to be under section two to add, to read prohibition of the sale of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. And just one question through you, Mr. Chair. In my correct town council that the citation for severability, that's in section three. Is that to which you're referring? Attorney Gungham. Yes, Ms. Nahan. Okay, thank you. I just wanted to make sure it's in there, okay. And with your motion to approval, is that with or without fish? With. Okay, I'm looking for a second for the discussion. Any further discussion from the board? Okay, I think we're good to go. So Attorney Gungham, do you have the guidance that you need for the drafting? Yes, Mr. Chair, thank you. Okay, so we have a motion to approve with the amendment suggested by the proponents to include fish by Mrs. Nahan and seconded by Mr. Hurd, Attorney Gungham. Mrs. Nahan. Yes. Mr. Hurd. Yes. Mr. Dacorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Five-zero vote. Thank you very much. Thank you much for your work on this article. Thank you. It brings us to Article 17, my law amendment right to pet companionship. Richard Slickman, introduce your co-presenter. So we'll introduce yourself first. Good evening. Good evening, I'm Paul Slickman, precinct nine 10 meeting member, Christine Dorschach is also one of the original 10 proponents. Precinct eight, Lakeview Street. Welcome. Unlike the two articles that you've heard previous to this one, this would be the first enactment of an article of this nature in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The other articles made it through review by the state attorney general. They are the authority for determining whether or not a bylaw is valid. That's because we're a town and they treat us as a large sophisticated town with competent counsel. The same as they would treat a very small town with an open town meeting that would just pass almost anything out of a whim because it's a small open town meeting. So in that context, I'm asking you to support this as a bylaw amendment that would be destined for review and would set a precedent for either being a valid bylaw or something that we would need to go through another route, say a homeral petition or a statewide legislation. The bylaw that I presented to you is modeled on two sources. One is current law in California. And the other is federal housing policy. These protections that we offer for tonight, for pet owners, are enshrined in federal policy for projects that are federally funded. So what we are doing is extending rights that people who live in Arlington and federally funding housing have and bringing that forward to every resident of the town of Arlington. And we are including the fish. We are including the fish. And so the animal companions we're talking about are any kind of animal who is commonly kept inside as a pet, sleeps inside, such as a dog, cat, rabbit, bird, fish, hamster, gerbil or other animal typically resides and sleeps indoors. In drafting this, we looked for reasons why somebody would object to this bylaw and California already scoped out some conditions and exceptions and we've expanded upon them. Notably that ADUs are exempt, roommate situations are exempt and two family homes where one resident is the owner are exempt from this bylaw. So we're only basing this on larger or more commercial operations and exempting very small human relationships which really aren't the source of the problem. But that's sort of the genesis of this. And there are a lot of protections within the exemptions in terms of maintaining standards of neutering or spaying a pet if the exception of the fish we're not gonna spay the fish. That dogs should be appropriate licensed, that all applicable state and local public health animal control and animal anti-cruelty laws are in place. And I would like to go and read to you a letter that you have received from the Massachusetts Association of the Mass Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Animal Rescue League of Boston. And I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but I'm gonna read you a couple of paragraphs which really state the need. And the need is founded in the fact that we have a very, very, very tight housing market. And the letter states as follows, the Massachusetts Society for the Preservation and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Animal Rescue League of Boston are writing to ask for your support for Article 17 on the warrant for the upcoming town meeting. The article would require rental agreements and condominium associations to permit residents to own a common household pet or to have a common household pet present in the dwelling. The housing shortage crisis, affecting every community in Massachusetts, is exacerbated for families with animals. Often, owners are forced to surrender a family pet because they cannot find inclusive housing. Nearly three in four renters have pets, but others are forced to relinquish their pets to shelters, ripping those families apart. Some people choose homelessness rather than separation from their four legged family members. Being forced to choose between a beloved pet and a safe home has detrimental impacts on people's physical health and emotional wellbeing, not to mention that it contributes directly to the higher intake rate at animal shelters of healthy, adoptable dogs and cats each year. Shelter animals count tracks data on animals and shelters across the country. The organization found the number of cats and dogs euthanized and that died in shelters, increased nationwide in 2013 by 15% compared to 2022 and 29% compared to 2021. In Massachusetts, this increase was 5% compared to 2022 and 18% compared to 2021. Policies that permit pets and housing help reduce the number of homeless animals. According to the National Council and Pet Population Study and Policy, moving is the most cited reason people give for surrendering the animals to shelters with landlord issues close behind. Our Massachusetts shelters similarly find these reasons just as prevalent. Pet owners make very good renters. The study shows the average length in Tennessee of renters with pets is more than twice that of renters without pets. Another study found that statistically, pet owners do not do more damage to rental units than people who don't own pets. A poll conducted by the Humane Society of the United States showed that 35% of people without pets would own one if their rentals permitted it. We appreciate Arlington's recognition of the special role pets play in our families and the consideration of protecting people's right to pet companionship by expanding pet-inclusive housing in town. I'll now pass the discussion on to Christine. My name's Christine Dorchak and I'm the animal protection attorney. I live and work in Arlington and I'm one of the 10 signers to this proposed article 17. I apologize, I'm gonna be referring to my notes because I only learned of town council's analysis while driving to a hearing in New Hampshire this morning. So I'm gonna refer to my notes if you don't mind. So I'm here tonight to express concerns with the analysis of town council and raising questions about the lawfulness of this local bylaw to encourage and allow the keeping of companion animals. This is a very good public policy for all the reasons Paul has stated. I hope you'll support it tonight. Respectfully, town council is relying on the 1993 noble case, but this simply does not decide the issue. All this, although this matter was heard in Orford County and appealed by the couple, it became moot in a very key sense. One of the members of the couple, Margaret Wilson and the two companion dogs that were at issue were killed together in an accident during the pendency of the matter. So no further appeal was taken for obvious reasons. The noble case can also be distinguished because it involved a condominium. A condominium as we all know is an association and an association may have reasonable rules. These rules can even amount to a restrictive scheme as long as it is one that is appropriately formalized and related to the health, happiness, and peace of mind of unit owners. So condominiums have in effect their own private bylaws consisting of rules that each unit owner has agreed to as part of a private community. Some associations may allow companion animals, some may not. The rules can in fact be restrictive or permissive. So personally, I live in a condominium where thankfully companion animals are permitted. I moved here several years ago after being forced to leave my apartment in Boston where I had lived quite happily for 20 years. But I was forced to move because my landlord imposed a new rule that was brought to his attention by the New Condo Association. And this rule laid down that no new dogs would be allowed.  So in the sense, I've lived and breathed the problem that this Article 17 would seek to solve. I was fortunate that I could afford to move here and live in a beautiful place in Arlington. But this is not possible for many people. They would be forced due to economics to make life and death decisions about their dog or cat or be evicted. That's just the kind of unfortunate situation that again, this proposed bylaw looks to prevent. So setting the noble, the 1993 case aside, I would like to call the board's attention to a more applicable law. In my opinion, the 1975 Supreme Judicial Court matter in which the court declined to rule on the enforceability of general pet restrictions is really what we should be guided by right now. The court would express no opinion, quote, whether a pet restriction bylaw would be lawful in all circumstances. So for all intents and purposes, the issue of whether the condominium associations or rental unit owners in general are free to restrict companion animals from their premises is an open one. It is far from settled and current law does not act as a bar to town action on this article. Further, another important aspect to consider is whether rules intended to protect the peace of mind of fellow tenants under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 183A11 cited by town council can even be lawfully applied to individual units versus just to common areas. In other words, conduct or activity within an individual's place of a boat is protected as a general rule. A 2010 case in Suffolk County as well as a Middlesex case in 2010 held that residential association rules and regulations may only apply to common areas. In conclusion, and thank you for your patience tonight as my reading, given the unsettled law and the fact that there is no controlling law against quote unquote pets and housing, I would urge the town to approve Article 17. Our proposed bylaw advocates for the town to adopt a permissive scheme just as my landlord has already done, one that will allow local residents to enjoy the companionship of cats and dogs without fear of harassment or eviction. If the board feels that excluding private condominium associations from the bylaw is warranted, that would still create a good policy for our town. I would also add that the petitioner is not claiming a constitutional right to keep pets, so no constitutional analysis is required. The federal law on the keeping of service dogs by persons with disabilities also referred to in town council's analysis is in fact an example of permission and not of restriction. I would urge the board to review this point carefully. Companion animals, particularly dogs and cats, are members of our family. The petitioner is simply asking the town to recognize this. Those who share their hearts in their homes with forfeited friends and fish should be allowed to do so peacefully and not under the threat of eviction. I think Arlene can set a new standard on this issue. Thank you very much. Forgive me if you've done this, but could we get a kind of a concise summary of exactly what actions this bylaw would require? Okay, let me pull it back up. Essentially, and I just lost it, the bylaw is before you and what it's basically saying that if a landlord who is or a condo association under the terms of this bylaw would not be able to just blanketly ban animal companions. The landlord could or condo association could make reasonable restrictions based on the conduct of the animal so that an animal that is a nuisance could be prohibited, a loud animal could be prohibited, an animal that disturbs the neighborhood or the neighbors or does damage could be prohibited. Nothing in this is going to go after the reasonable right of people who neighbor a unit with an animal is going to be bothered by this. What it's saying is for the most part, most animal owners, you wouldn't know they have an animal. We have a lot of cats and a few dogs in my building. I don't know where they are, except for the fact that I can see the chewy shipments coming in the front lobby. There's very little evidence and in the 21 years I've lived in the building, we've had absolutely no problems with animals in the building. Nobody knows where I've got a cat, except the fact that my cat has a Facebook page. The cat has been somewhat effective in terms of dealing with the occasional mouse that appears. So there are benefits to having an animal and as long as the animal does not create a nuisance, a landlord or condo association will have the right to make reasonable restrictions on that. It's the blanket prohibition that we're looking to get rid of. Thank you. I think I'll continue with a couple of questions. A big little kick off the point of the board making initial comments and questions. Mr. Slickman, thank you for your presentation. So, and I also want to, I will give Trinity Cunningham a chance when he's ready to make any remarks regarding the legal analysis too. So we'll get that in this round as well. When you talk about reasonable restrictions for nuisance animals and behavior, I'm trying to think how that would apply in practice. And I think what comes to mind is that there would have to be a provision for the animal to be removed. Because you know, unless you, I mean you can't, you sort of can't write into the association knowing in advance what you don't know if an animal is going to be a problem for noise or for behavior. So does the bylaw contemplate or do you have a suggestion for what the bylaw should do to provide for what actually happens if an animal proves to be problematic in under that circumstance? The exceptions state nothing in this section precludes an owner or condominium association from enforcing reasonable rules relating to the number of size of pets. And in terms of the actions, the nuisance factor within it. I mean just as you, just as the town of Arlington does not prohibit residents of the town of Arlington from having a dog, you have the right to remove a dog from the town if it is unlicensed or you are you determined that the dog is presenting a hazard to other residents. The town I would assume that a condo association would be able to set up a bylaw that would provide some sort of a similar mechanism for dealing with the occasional instance where a pet may be a nuisance to others in the building. And what about rental agreements for renters? A similar to that, yeah. Okay, all right, yeah, thank you. Okay, any other, we will turn to Turdy Cunningham but any questions at this point for the board? Well, I'll turn it to Corsi, but not in this role. Mr. DeCorsi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Schluckman, just a question. You cited the California experience. Is it, there's a bill pending in California. Is that what you're referring to? There's also existing law. Ms. Dorichek, I believe has researched what the current situation is in California. Could you tell? They have an additional law being filed that would strengthen their existing bylaw. The bill, I believe it was AB 2216 that that was just filed that seems to attempt to address or even looking more forward what you're trying to do here. But if you could maybe enlighten us a little bit on what's happening with that. Because I'm not aware of any other statutes anywhere that deal specifically with the issue that you're bringing before us. Well, in code now, California allows pets in state housing. Okay. If you do measure with that, I'll expand that to any housing. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Attorney Cunningham, do you have any comments at this stage? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have concerns. They're set forth in the memo. Deputy Town Council Attorney Munson was involved in the drafting of that. I think that the significant concern I have is that we're, it would be creating a prohibition that is claiming discrimination. Discrimination particularly in the housing field is typically something that deals, discrimination on age, disability, ethnicity, gender. There's no known right that I'm aware of to pet ownership, despite the fact that I would love if there were as a proud pet owner. So I'm just concerned about the legality of this entire concept. I think that the fact that there's no other municipality or state that has pending legislation has done this to date is telling. I think this is a field of law that's occupied by the federal government. To some lesser extent, the state government and it's inappropriate for municipalities to try and occupy this field. I'm also concerned about some, discrimination language is particularly concerning because discrimination requires protected class and certainly pet owners aren't qualified under, they're not a protected class. I'm also concerned about one of the conditions and exceptions provisions that talks about accepting civil liability for owners of housing. I just think that's a concern where it's an attempt to dictate legal liability via bylaw, which is another concern. I also think that the enforcement provisions that were cited by the chair are a particular concern, how this would be, how people would deal with an animal that was in a residence that became problematic to someone's opinion. Who's gonna enforce that? I just think that in general, this is not something that a municipality through town meeting is appropriately going to address. Mr. Diggins. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So a quick yes or no to Mr. Schlickman. Snakes. I don't believe snakes were listed is a common household pet. So, okay. If the learned select person would like snakes included, I would certainly not mind because most people on snakes really are very vigilant about keeping them within their units. Well, I'm just trying to understand the range. Thank you. So you exclude two families, and what's the basis for the exclusion? Owner occupied. Right. I've communicated with, when this came about, what happened was I received a couple of correspondences from people who are owners of two family homes with their preference for not having an animal within their domain. And in terms of coming up with a compromise that would move beyond the owners of a two family unit who are renting out essentially part of their building. I thought it best to classify them in the same place where we're putting ADUs and roommate situations. Okay, thank you. So, given that apparently so many people, so many renters, mean on pets, 75% and why do you think the market hasn't solved this problem on its own? Because it seems like mean, if you have a lot of people renting pets, mean a person with the building that's renting, he would do well. He would need to allow the pet owners, it seems like they're depriving themselves of potential renters. That is very true, except there's one other confounding factor, which is the housing crisis we have here. In places where you're building a lot of new units where they're looking to attract people in it is not uncommon for the same developer to install a dog park in those units and have a prohibition on pets in other areas where the housing market leans more towards the seller or the landlord. So, did that get it? In other words, what's going on here is that the housing market is so competitive is that landlords can just add on restrictions without any real financial penalty because there's such a wait list of people looking for housing. But it seems to me that you would be able to make, okay, nevermind, you know, so. Mr. Biggins, may I respond to that? Sure, go ahead. Thank you. You know, times change and ideas change and when I was a baby, it was possible to restrict couples from having babies in their apartments. My parents actually had to move because of me from their apartment in Plainfield, New Jersey. And that changed because people understood that was wrong and it wasn't in the public interest. I think times have changed now where people are starting to realize that people who are renting are really not in a position of power and they need assistance. And I myself have suffered that to have to move after 20 years and an apartment that I loved because of the no dog policy that came to be, that was very difficult for me. And I didn't have any power to change that. The condominium association through my landlord gave me a notice that I had to go. That was it. I wasn't, I didn't have any power. Thank you. I think I have all the answers to the questions I have. I appreciate that. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly I'm sympathetic to those who feel they were without power to make change. And I think that some of these changes that the proponents are seeking, perhaps they have some ability to enact those changes, but it's just not through town meeting. It's through state or federal legislators working to enact laws that change what people can and can't do and to prevent discrimination. It's not just simply not something that should be, in my opinion, before town meeting. Thank you very much. Mr. Course. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple more questions too. Just get it, the state of the law in Massachusetts right now in terms of reasonable accommodations. Right now, service animal or emotional support animal, a tenant or a landlord would be, would have to make a reasonable accommodation for that situation, correct? I can again speak from life experience on that I'm afraid.  And my lawyer was able to go to court and argue that I was disabled, which I was, and that my dog was an emotional support dog. So I was able to rely on the fact that I had a disability. So yes, that can be very effective. You need a lawyer and you need to go through the process, but yes. Okay, I'm on the Mass Office on Disability webpage right now and it discusses both emotional support animals and service animals meet the definition of an assistance animal under the Fair Housing Act and that's, that we're talking about reasonable accommodation. So that, I just want to try to just get at some agreement. There's agreement that those reasonable accommodations would apply if the pet meets either one of those definitions as a service animal or emotional support animal. Asking a question if you're in agreement with that.  Okay, and I think we're all sympathetic. I mean, we appreciate the analysis done by Attorney Cunningham and Attorney Munson. I will say on the case, and you didn't have much opportunity to look at it given that you just started this morning, but that noble V. Murphy case shirt, you're absolutely right, the dogs and one of the owners were killed in an accident and actually the remaining tenant was evicted before the oral argument, but they still went through in the case, went to decision. But that dealt with, you mentioned the condominium only being able to regulate common areas and that dealt with Chapter 183A Section 11 which allows a condominium association to enact bylaws respecting the use and maintenance of units. And that's what was at issue there is the use of the particular unit, not the condominium. And I'm not aware of any amendments to that statute. So I think the concern that Attorney Cunningham raises about state law, perhaps preempting it certainly with respect to the condominium situation. I think given the fact that this was just fresh in terms of you coming back to us and it's hard for Attorney Cunningham to respond on the fly to your comments, you maybe it needs a little bit more analysis, but I looking at that case, because I read the case after it was cited to us, that still seems to apply. And I wonder, Mr. Schlichman, if your condominium association has a bylaw, I know you have a cat, but I guess it doesn't. But I mean, some do and it seems like it's perfectly permissible because if a majority of the condominium owners, whether it's two thirds or 50% want to amend their bylaws, it's certainly free to do it under Chapter 183A. But I have a concern about us doing something here at the local level, given that statute with condominiums giving the Fair Housing Act and giving what's already out there. And again, I may not be ready to take a final vote on this tonight, but I'm while sympathetic, I have concerns about doing this before town meeting. You know, I hear your argument and we've got two attorneys in the room with two different viewpoints. If I got brought in five more attorneys, we'd have seven viewpoints in this room. And none of them matter except for the attorney general. It is the attorney general's review and ruling that counts. The town of Brookline enacted a local law that prohibited the sale of tobacco to anyone born after January 1, 2000. Very controversial and it was very questionable whether or not the town of Brookline had the authority to do that, but they passed it and it went through the normal review process. It went through the attorney general and it ended up in the courts, but it is now set a precedent that towns are allowed to pass that sort of bylaw. We are in a position now where we are the first. We are the first town to go and propose this. I have no idea what the attorney general was going to say. There's a severability clause in this proposed bylaw. I would welcome an opportunity to work with council to craft this in such a way that things that he thinks are more difficult would be easily severed if the attorney general wanted to take parts of it out. If the attorney general decided that this was not appropriate for a town to do, we can then take that decision back to our legislators. But to kill this potential bylaw at this point before it goes to town meeting, before it goes to the attorney general, before the public has a right to examine this and to think about it really deprives us and the other 350 municipalities in the Commonwealth of the opportunity to be guided by the attorney general's review and analysis of this bylaw. Thank you for your comments. Okay, Mr. Heard. Yeah, I mean, I have comments and they're actually unrelated to the legality of it. I think we should get to that at some point, but we'll do that post public comment like we usually do. I would disagree that, I mean, we put a lot of weight in attorney general and attorney Cunningham's analysis. So to say his analysis doesn't matter is incorrect. And there's many bylaws that we've dealt with where we've gotten from either attorney Cunningham or attorney Heim, we've got analysis of whether or not the bylaw would be passed by the attorney general's office and we rely on that and it helps us craft how we vote on a bylaw and it helps town meeting decide whether or not they're gonna pass a bylaw or when they're gonna spend the time on it. So we certainly do put a lot of stock in the analysis that we get from our town council. May I just clarify that point? Comment, it's not a question. Okay, no. Proceed, Mr. Heard. Yep, so with that, I would say let's, I mean, some of my meeting to have here, but I would like to move to public comment and then we can kind of have our wrap up comments from there. Ms. Mohan, do you have anything before we go to public comment? Well, first I just want to be a stickler and say we have attorney Cunningham as our town council and we have attorney Munson as our deputy town council. And I think that's really important. And just as I wouldn't say to Mr. Schlickman when your colleague over on the school committee, the attorney that gives you advice whether it's labor negotiations. Excuse me, I'm sorry, I didn't interrupt you. Go ahead, I'm sorry. You seem to have a propensity to do that. So besides overlooking our new female deputy town council, please don't interrupt. And now my temper is getting the best of me, but I will note that in the beginning when you were giving your presentation, Mr. Schlickman, with all due respect, you did say that this is something that you were trying out. You weren't sure if it was town meeting. You weren't sure whether to go to the state or the federal route.  And that's sort of the discussion we're having here tonight without besmerging our two town councils. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Diggins, you have any, I think you're okay. So let's move to the public hearing portion of this. And I'll ask the proponents to go ahead and take their seats in case members of the public want to come up and make for the comment. May I have a point of personal privilege? This isn't town meeting. I know. Make it brief, Mr. Schlickman. I'm not looking to besmirch anything. I mean, as one school committee member, I am worthless unless I get three others to agree with me. All I'm saying is the definitive opinion. The one that counts at the supreme level is the Attorney General's office. Anything that, our opinions matter. We use the school department gains a lot of very good advice from town council. We treasure that. All I'm saying is that the one who can rule on this definitively, whether or not is a valid by law or not, is not us, not anybody in this room, not any other attorney, town attorneys, town council, anywhere in the Commonwealth. The only attorneys who have the determinative factor in saying definitely this is legal, this is not, is the Attorney General's office. That's all I'm saying. Thank you very much. Mr. Chair, I'd like to add, I have a different opinion. Does this add to the, I think at this point, I think we've had a really robust discussion. I want to turn to public comment. If we have questions, we'll call you later. Thank you very much. So let's go to public comment at this point. If you are in Zoom and wish to comment on this article, there was a question in the Q&A on that. Please make sure that your hand is raised in Zoom. And of course we have hands raised in the room. Let's start in the room with Mr. Benson. Please introduce yourself and three minutes please for all comments. Thank you. Eugene Benson, town meeting member precinct 10. One thing I would ask the board and the proponents to consider if they're going to go ahead is that this exempts two family homes in which the owner lives in one of the two. But we also have a number of three family homes in Arlington that might have owners in one. And the MBTA communities act that we passed last year will probably result in more three family homes getting built. So I would suggest and ask the proponents to consider expanding the exemption. So it goes up to three family homes that are also owner occupied. Second point I want to make, I just read the proposal is that it does include snakes. It does not exclude snakes because what it actually says, animal companion means an animal of the kind usually kept as a pet who resides and sleeps indoors. And it says such as, but not limited to, it doesn't use a word limited to, it says such as dog, cat, rabbit, bird, fish, hamster, gerbil or under animal that typically resides and sleeps indoors. So that would include a snake. And I don't know whether you have experience with snakes, but they go very strange places and they don't stay necessarily in the apartment where they are. So I think the proponents should think about refining the definition so that it's more specific about what it's going to do. The third quick point I'll make. And for this, I'm thinking back to the years when I taught planning and land use law is condominium documents are basically contracts. And I just am concerned, I ask town council to think about this, whether this board can require condo associations to change what is in a legal contract. You know, the places where government does that is when they rely on fair housing, disability law, things like that, where it's very specific that it gives them the authority to do that. I'm not sure absent that that you could do that. You could probably prevent, I would guess, subject to what Mr. DeCorsi mentioned, new condo documents, but I'm not sure you can require current condo documents to be amended because you would be interfering with the sanctity of contract. That's it, thank you. Thank you very much. All right, let's now turn to Zoom and let's bring in Judith Garber. I want to say that. We're turning to a Zoom participant now. No, I just wanted to say something. Yeah, so we'll get to you. I'll note that you hand is raised and we'll call on you when it's time for someone in the room. Thank you. Good evening, Ms. Garber. You can enable your camera if you wish. I'm good to just be voice. Thank you so much. Judith Garber precinct for Massachusetts Ave. I don't have anything to say on the legal side of this, but I did want to present a story from a friend in Arlington.  And because he had just moved to Arlington into a place that didn't allow pets, he could no longer share custody of his dog and now only gets to see him maybe a couple of days a month or one day a month, which has been really devastating. And I know many other stories of that nature. So I think this would have a really positive impact on a lot of the folks I know who rent in Arlington. Thank you. Let's now turn back to the room. I think Ms. Robinson had her hand raised earlier. And come to the table. Please introduce yourself and your place of residence and three minutes' comment. OK, I'm not going to be very, very long at all. My name's Joanne Robinson. And I think that having pets is a really important thing to people. And those things, I think, are critical. But I don't feel like people who have a lot of dogs, I don't know what number of dogs would be in houses. And those kinds of things, I think, have to be worried out because when we moved into our house, there were about seven or eight cats in the house itself. And it was just, you know, bad. And I feel like you have to have some barriers or some thought about those kinds of things. That's it. Thank you very much for your comment. Let's go back to Zoom. We'll alternate back and forth. We have Laura Kiesel. For comment on Article 17. Good evening again, Ms. Kiesel. You should be able to unmute yourself at this time. Sorry. So Laura Kiesel, Precinct 6. I just had a couple of points that I wanted to speak on. Again, I'm not a lawyer. I can't speak to the legal aspect. But I can say that, well, one, when I was working on Article 16 with the pet sales, a lot of those rescue organizations that endorsed our warrant were also interested in supporting this as well, because they're getting inundated with animals. And the number one reason is because there's such a lack of pet-friendly housing. As rentals are taking over and more people are struggling to find rental housing and particular affordable housing. With the lack of that, they're the ones getting a lot of these animals. And unfortunately, when they can't, they're getting euthanized. So that was A, and you may have already gotten letters to that effect from some of those rescue organizations. Be as a renter, I just wanted to share a couple quick stories to this is when I tried to get into affordable housing here in Arlington in 2011, and my name came up on the wait list after a year for the Housing Corporation of Arlington at the time they had a no-pet policy.   I was leaving a 10-year relationship. I was not going to get rid of my cats, which were my family. And so I had to give up that space. And I really had to struggle for a year to find any housing. And it took several more years for me to come back up on the waiting list. And luckily by then, the Housing Corporation of Arlington had changed because there was such a problem with so many low-income people not being able to access that housing because of pets or having to be ripped apart from their pets. And the affordable housing, both with HCA and AHA, now had pet policies that I think could offer pretty good precedence that the town could have with reasonable limits. The third thing I want to say is when I went back on the rental market after leaving affordable housing in 2021, by that time my pets were no longer pets but emotional support animals. So I had that supposed protection under fair housing, state and federal fair housing laws. But in my experience, it took me months because most of the landlords and brokers, like seven or eight out of every 10 I was seeing, were leveraging the no pet policies to deny me housing. And people could say, well, you have a legal right, but at the time you don't really have any recourse. You know, you could take them to court, which you can't take everyone when you're looking for housing and it would take months if not years for an outcome and at the time I needed housing. So there's a lot of limitations on that rights even for disabled people with service animals. I know it's not just me, I witnessed it regularly on the Facebook page for Arlington rentals of brokers and landlords denying people their service animals under the auspices of no pet policies. So those do get exploited heavily and there's very little recourse. And that's not just anecdotal, the Suffolk County, I mean Suffolk University study for discrimination experienced by Section 8 voucher holders in the Boston Metro area. They found that the denial of service animals and assistance animals for Section 8 voucher holders trying to get a rental was one of the leading forms of discrimination that we face. And that there's very little recourse for us. So I just wanted to offer that because I know we're talking a lot about the fair housing laws. So unfortunately, without more pet friendly policies, a lot of disabled people will also suffer lack of housing for their service and assistance animals. Thank you. Thank you very much. We had, let's go to the room and I believe Ms. Stamps had her hand up earlier. Good evening, please introduce yourself. In three minutes, please. Thank you. Susan Stamps, town media member, precinct three. I just want to make two quick points that I thought of while during the discussion I have a great deal of respect for town council and I don't know about the legalities but here are two things that I do know. One is that I remember the days when as one of the proponents recalled where landlords could refuse to rent to people with children. Are pets the new children? I'm thinking maybe they are. The other thing I'm thinking about is this is also about housing equity. I own my own condo. If I want to rent to somebody, that's my decision. If I want to have three cats, which I happen to. I can do that and nobody can tell me what to do. But people, as Ms. Kiesel was just saying, when people are renters, they don't have that power. And animals really are family. And so I understand there may be legal complexities which town meeting really can't surmount. But I do tend to lean towards Mr. Schlickman's attitude which is let's pass it and see what happens when it goes to the Attorney General's office. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Tosti, come to the table please. Did you wanna come in on this article? I'll come on up to the table, yes, thank you. Introduce yourself please. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Al Tosti. I live up at Water Mill Place, Condominiums. For 43 years, I lived in East Arlington, had my own house, raised my kids, et cetera. And then we finally got tired of shoveling snow and such. So we started looking for a condo and I had two requirements. One is that they had no pets and the other was no smoking. I'm an asthmatic. I am deathly allergic to cats, dogs, any of those and also cigarette smoke. And we worked for about three years and then finally we decided on Water Mill Place because they have no pets and no smoking. Can't even smoke in your own unit. I think I'm here to speak against this. I am a board member of the Board of Directors of Water Mill Place but I'm just speaking for myself, not for the board. I think that cities and towns hate for the state to come in and tell them what to do. Well, each condominium association is its own community and they set their rules. All these regulations have to be passed by like two thirds or three quarters depending on the condo docs of their own unit and my condominium chose no smoking, no pets. Now, of course, there are exceptions. If you have a service animal, that's always an exception. If you have a comfort animal, even though I think it's grossly abused, they also have exceptions to that. We have some people who are people who own pets prior to the implementation of this rule. They were grandfathered hands. We've got five or six cats in the area but having pets has several very identifiable problems. One is people who are allergic to cats and dogs and they're in all the common areas you can come and contact with that. It's a health problem and it's a cleanliness problem. We have our condo, all our common areas vacuum twice twice a week, they're shampooed twice a year and yet when we go into some condominiums that allow for pets, the hallway stink for obvious reasons. So I think that please vote against this. I'm not even sure of the legalities. Condominium regulations are set by state law so I don't know how that would impact this but I think my basic thing is let each condominium trust set up their own rules and regulations. We comply with all state laws and federal laws but a community should have a right to choose its own values and its own sense of what's important for that community and I don't think the town could step in and try to overrule that. So that's my thought and thank you very much for your time. Thank you for your comment. Do we have other members of the public in Zoom or in the room who wish to comment on this article? Ms. Mar. You have no hands raised. Mr. Teal, I hope I finally learned to pronounce your last name correctly. How'd I do? Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And just introduce yourself once again for people tuning in late. Actually, I have a handout as well. Thank you for this to Ms. Mar, yeah. Thank you. And three minutes please. Like Carrie Teal, 11A Lakeview Street. You know, I just want to start by thanking Mr. Cunningham and Ms. Munson for the work on all of these warrant articles. They did a fantastic job. I'm very grateful for their works. I just want to make that very clear at the outset. I think there may be a genuine difference of opinion on this particular one and that's why I'm hoping that there will be further work done and further discussion in the coming weeks to try and refine this. If condos need to be exempted, both legally or as a policy or political matter, that should happen. If, as far as the discriminatory language goes, discrimination language, my understanding is that is simply intent language that could be removed and had zero impact on the warrant article itself. I don't think that's a critical piece of this. I know that we want clear precedence when we pass things. That's not only legally, but also from a policy perspective, no one wants to be first. This is a forward-looking warrant article. I would say it is much more impactful than the other two you passed tonight, just to be clear. I support all three. But this is a warrant article that will directly help animals, a large number of animals. It'll directly help people, it'll directly help tenants. This is a very impactful warrant article. And for that reason, we should continue to work on it and solve these issues and find a way forward. However, there are precedents. In fact, last year, the United Kingdom nationally passed essentially a version of what is before you today. In California, even though the law that's on the books already only applies to state housing, again, it is very similar, nearly identical to what you're looking at today. The bill that was just filed, which would be all housing in California is virtually identical to what you're looking at today. I spoke with an aide who's handling this issue for the California Bill Sponsor, Assemblymember Matt Haney's office today. They were surprised when hearing the concerns raised around the legality of this because they're currently negotiating this issue with stakeholders. And obviously state law, California does not apply to Massachusetts in terms of the federal piece. I was told by their office that no argument has been made in California, either in terms of the current law that's already on the books or this new bill that somehow violation of federal law that just has not been made in California even by the bill opponents. So I would urge you to take that into consideration. I said earlier tonight that Arlington has led on this issue and we could easily have not gone forward with the redenticide issue and said there are concerns that this may not pass review by the attorney general. We did not do that. We went forward with that article. In fact, parts of that article were in fact invalidated and yet we had a profound impact. We led the state on this issue. And so I would say give us a chance to figure this out, to get the legal piece right, to get the policy piece right. I humbly offer myself, I know Mr. Schlickman and Ms. Dorcek would as well to work with Town Council and any other stakeholders that want to try and get this right. Give us a chance to do that and come back to you because at the end of the day, I hope to earn your support on this in some form. Thank you, Mr. Till. Okay, any other members of the public wish to comment on this article? Anything, anybody in Zoom? No. Okay, so let's conclude the public hearing and now we'll turn to the Board for discussion and motions and turn to Konningham. Did you have anything before we do that? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was wondering, thank you to Mrs. Mahan for noting the presence of Deputy Town Council. I knew Deputy Town Council, Deputy Town Council did a significant amount of work on this war not going its analysis. I was wondering with the discretion of the Chair if we'd allow Attorney Munson to present some response to the public comment or. Yeah, I'd be very happy to. I think that would be informative for the Board for our impending debate. Welcome, Attorney Munson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah. So just to respond to a couple of the comments, I think even in circumstances where there is unsettled law that doesn't create an affirmative right and like Town Council said, federal law really does govern here. Federal Housing Act actually applies pretty broadly to public and private housing. The definition of assistance animals within that policy and that law actually excludes pets, which is telling and it's instructive that it was not meant for pets and assistance animals to kind of be grouped together. Obviously violations of the Federal Housing Act at any level can't really be cured at a state level. People would need to initiate some sort of private right to action of that. And I also think that the interference in private contracts would be a concern. That's a constitutional principle as well, freedom of contract. So being able to dictate at a local level what private contracts could do, that could also increase liability on the town's end. So just a couple of things to consider and I can answer any questions if you have any. Any questions for Attorney Munson from the board while she's at the table? Okay, we know where to find you, so. Mr. Diggins, please. Yes, sure. Please, Attorney Munson, can you explain the liability on the town's end? All right, please, I just. This would be assuming that, well, I mean, obviously this has to go to the Attorney General, but if for some reason, and this is just like pretending that the Attorney General's opinion would not necessarily be necessary here, interfering in private contracts, generally at a government level, municipalities have been sued for that before, including in Massachusetts, including certain municipalities around Arlington. So it's just something to consider when a local government is looking to kind of engage in private contracts. And like we've stated, the federal law really does govern here, it's very instructive. And so if people have concerns and there are violations of the Federal Housing Act, that's something that they may need to initiate at a private level. And so I think the overarching legal concerns here is that there is no constitutional right to pet ownership. What this bylaw amendment is basically asking is to create a new protected class, which would be pet ownership. And that's not something that we can unfortunately do at a local level. So the breadth of the amendment is what's concerning. Thanks. That was very helpful. Mr. Chair, can I ask Attorney Manson another question? Please do. Yeah. So I take it then, if we pass this bylaw, it would not be legal for any entity to say no pets, right? So let's say we have a case like Mr. Tosti, you have people who are like me, I just mean for health reasons, I can't live in a place that has pets being up, let's say a three family or, I could go on, but I think you get my point. Would it be illegal to create such a complex? So I think what we do with our research is we look for things and we collect all of the evidence that we can find and we create the best prediction of what the outcome will be. And so our best prediction in this case is that it likely would not pass muster for the Attorney General's office, probably for all of the, and including some of the reasons that you might have stated. All right, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. And thank you for standing by as always. Thank you Attorney Colleen. Mr. Herd. Thanks. This is a long one. Yeah, I'm not gonna get into the legalities of it. That's, I think we could sit here for hours and talk about that. I just, from where I sit, and hopefully a couple votes earlier tonight in the fact that I'm the owner of a wonderful dog that we love and couldn't live without, will establish that I'm the lover of animals. But I think this, I'm just not at a point just from a policy perspective where I'm ready to tell someone that owns a two-family, Annie Starlington, even if they don't live there. I mean, I think there's reasons why someone might wanna say no pets, i.e. feuding tenants where landlords could have, because of other protections at state law have issues with, you know, if there's a conflict that comes up between two tenants, you can't just evict one or the other and they could put you in a rough position in that. And I think there are, I think Mr. Diggins had mentioned that, you know, there is a market for units that allow pets. And I think that will help to, you know, regulate and promote pet ownership among landlords, but I'm just not in a place right now where I'm gonna require a landlord at any level to rent, to allow pets in the units. And I think Mr. Tosti's comments were insightful in that it gave a couple of examples, but I'm sure there's other examples if we ask other individuals why they'd like to live or rent their properties without allowing pets to be in them. So for those reasons, and same thing with condos, I think, you know, there could be rationales that we haven't even talked about tonight as to why a condominium might have a no pet policy, whether it's a large condominium or two units on Marathon Street. So I think, again, just for me, I'm not in a place where I think it's good policy even to test the waters, because at first you gotta make sure you wanna pass the bylaw before you send it to the attorney generals to see if it will pass muster, because if it does, then you have the bylaw. So that's just where I am. I'm not inclined to support this. Are there members of the board? Was there a motion there, or just at this point? You don't have to. I'll move. I'll make a motion for no action. I was gonna listen for. Second. Yeah, yeah, yeah, fine. I didn't mean to coerce you into that, mister. Mrs. Mohan. Oh, I was.  Okay, we have a second by Mrs. Mohan. Okay, did you have discussion on this at this point? Just briefly, and I won't go into it, but there are other, I think there needs to be a lot more work done on this. There are other cases of different classes, protected people that this needs to be taken into consideration and also put in there. And I just think this select board, because it's now in our backyard to vote on, is not the most efficient or legal way to redress this. Thank you. Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a tough one. It definitely needs not a lot more work. It isn't so much to equate pets with children, but I do see it can be hard for people who need something. To do without it, and then to have the, in a situation where you also need housing, and you can't get it because of the other need that you have, me then, and you're torn between them. I totally understand where people are coming from on this. And I understand that there are laws, but as Ms. Kiesel pointed out, it's like, well, the litigation takes time, and we need housing. You don't have the time. You don't have the luxury of taking someone to court, and if you don't have a whole lot of money, you don't even have any really good access to do that. I mean, interestingly, I would have an easier time with this. If it also made two families abide by the intent of the bylaw, because it's like, if you shouldn't have been abiding and trying not to use the D word, because I understand the implications of that, then it should apply to everyone. What's gonna happen here is that we're gonna get a substitute motion. This is going to town meeting. And I think what the board needs to do is explain why it is that we are taking the position we have in and then give town meeting some really good advice. I certainly understand the legal argument that town council is making. I think it carries the day. In the end, even though I understand the proponents mean, and then I think I'm gonna probably go no action on this, but I also feel that we really need to write a good commentary on this one to help town meeting on it. Because as I said, it's just gonna be a substitute motion. It's gonna be for them. We just wanna give this advice. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just say in regard to Mr. Diggins comment, I think part of the value of this process with the select board is to allow a public hearing to hear comments from different sides to help us think of dimensions of the issue that we haven't thought of so that we can give, this is ultimately advice to town meeting. We can give town meeting informed advice and help town meeting think through the different facets of the problem. So I really echo Mr. Diggins remarks in that regard. Mr. Diggins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I'm gonna support Mr. Herd's motion and I think you're absolutely right. I mean, this hearing has allowed different viewpoints to come out in and yeah, it's gonna be up to us to have a solid comment and I'm confident that we will. And I really thank Attorney Munson for bringing out the freedom of contract issues because that clearly with respect to condominium associations, that's clearly at the forefront and there is a definite potential conflict with condominium law as to the use of a particular unit. There's other things in here that might run afoul of the security deposit law in terms of the pet fee. That's minor, that's way down the list. But I think there'll be some more work done. We now have, I'd mentioned AB 2216 and a handout appeared with it on it and there are differences there in terms of talking about reasonable justifications in that proposal legislation that there are no justifications in the bylaw here. There are exceptions for two units or less but it's an outright prohibition against the landlords not allowing pets whereas the California proposed bill which again, we don't have to rely on California law but it will be helpful with the comments and I think there was a comment earlier about violating federal law. Well, there's an issue with state law too and so it's both state and federal law and Mr. Diel brought up the rodenticide issue few years ago and we parse that out. Remember we had that discussion here at the select board. There were pieces of what was being proposed that clearly conflicted with state law. There were preemption issues and Mr. Helmuth actually brought a motion to parse that out and the board went along with it and we got through a town meeting. That's the type of discussion that comes here. So I rely on council to help us out and if everything, if it was just everything going to the attorney general then there's no sense in having us voted on. Every idea we'll just hand over. I think we have to do our job to take a look at with the assistance of council where we think this may go and what's in the best interest of town and again this has nothing to do with the difficulties tenants may have in finding apartments and Noble v. Murphy, the case that cited the court specifically pointed that out there. You don't have to sympathize with the condominium association to acknowledge that they do have the right by contract through their bylaws to say that this is the type of uses we want our unit. So I'm confident there'll be a solid comment if that's the way the vote goes and I think there's more work to be done on that but I think we'll have a sense of the board after this evening. Thank you very much. Just briefly from my comments, I will also support the motion. I'm glad for the discussion. I appreciate the problem this is trying to solve. I'm sympathetic to it and I think that particularly the comments regarding the way that this intersects with the need for people to find housing are really moving to me and also the effect that this has on animals and animals being abandoned. So there's clear problems there and I think that this is the case of balancing that without respect to the legal issues which I think do need, clearly need to me, need a lot more work and a lot more analysis but we're balancing the needs and the rights of neighbors, property owners, condominium associations, it's complicated. I don't have enough tonight for me to support moving forward. I have a lot of confidence that this will nevertheless be a robust discussion at town meeting should the proponents or others decide to bring it there. So any other, before we vote, any other last comments from my colleagues? Okay. So I have a motion for recommended no action by Mr. Herden seconded by Mrs. Mohan, Attorney Cunningham. This is Mohan. Yes. Mr. Herden. Yes. Mr. DeCorsi. Yes. Mr. Diggins. Yes. Mr. Helmuth. Yes. 5-0 vote. Thank you very much. You have participated. This brings us now to article 18, a bylaw amendment for historic building demolition delay. This is an amendment that I believe would seek to change the current demolition delay from one year to two years. And we have Ms. Robinson here to present. You are bylaw. Welcome. Please introduce yourself again. Yes. My name is Joanne Robinson. I'm the chair of the historical commission. And thank you very much. Can you just clarify, was this bylaw brought by the historical commission or by 10 registered voters? Did the historical commission sponsor this bylaw? They voted on taking that and I think the districts also agree with that. Okay, good. Thank you very much. I'm sorry to interrupt. Please continue, yeah. Yeah, so I'm just going to read this and I don't have any pretty pictures. I'm sorry. The town's demolition delay bylaw was first passed in 1970 and the wording was for the purposes of preserving and protecting through advanced notice of their proposed demolition significant buildings within the town which constitute or reflect distinctive features of the architectural, cultural, political, economic or social history of the town to encourage owners to preferably preserve significant buildings to seek out persons who might be willing to purchase and preserve, rehabilitate or restore such buildings rather than doing the demolition. And I just wanted to set that up. For the most part of the last century since the law was passed, it has worked very well to help preserve and protect the town's important historic buildings by allowing the historical commission to impose a one year delay on demolition giving the commission time to work closely with homeowner or developer to find ways to preserve the building rather than to demolish it. Many significant local buildings have been saved from the wrecking ball thanks to the demolition delay but Arlington has changed enormously in the past 54 years especially noticeable in the steep increase in home property values and the increased numbers of historic buildings that come before us. One result is that developers in particular have targeted residential buildings that have been deemed historically significant as highly profitable projects to be demolish