morning my name is jim williams i'm a selectman this year i'm serving as chairman of the board of selectmen i'm joined by my colleague adam dice also a selectman and he's in his first year but soon and we have a few community announcements number one is talk of the town presented by the vision twenty one implementation committee scheduled for march twentieth from seven pm to nine pm at the general middle school at the auditorium and for information available through facebook at facebook dot com slash meet belmont sort of a series of ted talks by belmont residents second would be for all the local news you need less than thirty minute speech sure to tune in to belmont journal media centers new weekly news program it airs on fridays at ten pm and sundays at five thirty pm wednesdays at nine thirty pm and thursdays at nine pm i'm comcast channel nine and horizon channel twenty nine should also note that we have books in bloom coming up this coming weekend which is pardon me for a moment is the at the library this is all this weekend the floral interpretations of books on display friday march second seventy nine is the opening set reception saturday march third is our town our history our library history intertwined media exhibit from ten am to four pm and sunday march fourth is the family birthday so craig is going to go over the with me and that of the review of the two thousand and seventeen financial statements and we're doing this for the public primarily because the people at the table have seen them we understand them what we're going to do is we're going to do as we did last time we're going to use the of cruel financials  because that's the best way to manage the town in my opinion and i i'm not alone on that because it tells you what your accrued accounts receivable are and it tells you what your crew to payables are and it also the independent auditors make a report to the honorable board of selectmen which is mark adam and i and then there is a management discussion and analysis which is written in  view by the auditors floyd and i have lobbied to change this because it's really hard to read novice i think and i've spent two years with craig talking about it but like everything else in town government there's all these rules right has to be written a certain way and has to that dialogue has to say a certain thing so you can read  it but i think the best way to understand the town is simply to go to this thing called the basic financial statements page fourteen fifteen sixteen and and then we'll talk a little bit about footnotes to the financial statements because that's where the real information is aside from the financial reports on fifteen sixteen and seventeen now for the people in this room we have passed out those three pages so i invite you to follow the follow along and then susan what do we do for the public at home with regard to this is it on the screen ok on the web site on the town website so for those of you who are watching from home even though this is an odd hour you can go to the town website and click on women's meeting pac ok is that on the cover page or how do you get there all right so go to the selectmen page and then click on the select men's meeting packet ok so now we're raised a go i think we should say first that we're talking about as of june thirtieth two thousand and seventeen which was eight months ago these statements have been out before now but when were they fin craig or january thirty first january thirty first so it takes about seven months to to get all this done and approved and published and you meet with the permanent audit committee do you kno yes and so it goes through there adam you're our representative on the permanent audit committee floyd is there cheaters there and then we have a group of people who have been appointed i think kiefer's the chairman is he not i know i was there for two years myself ok so this is as of june thirtieth last year we are currently operating and what's called fiscal two thousand and eighteen and as of june thirtieth two thousand eighteen will be heading into fiscal two thousand one thousand so that's the way it works it's not calendar year it's fiscal year ok so this is a statement of the town's net position and it's it has essential e a balance sheet and it reports government activities and business type activities in the business type activities for belmont are the light company the sewage company and the  water company everything else is reported under governmental activities ok so what can we say about this craig what are our total assets well government again this this schedule is broken out between as you just mentioned your business type which you're and to prize funds in governmental so for governmental we have total assets of two hundred thirteen million dollars and for business type activities total assets of one hundred forty two was called point seven million right now for those who are not familiar with accounting there are two things one is called current assets which are assets that turn over within a year yes and the other non current assets which are assets that do not turn over with within a year so we have cash an equivalence of forty million and we're going to talk about that in a minute on the town side we have investments of twenty million we're going to talk about that in a minute and then the rest of the assets are kind of i hate to use the word trivial but that's how i would think of it if i were an analyst because  almost everything is under a million dollars except for intergovernmental which is two and a half million and we'll talk to that but the continent current assets get more significant because those are where our capital assets are there are two categories one is depreciate bone the other is non depreciate bow in non depreciable means that you can you can write those assets off your income statement during any given accounting period in means that you can't so we're going to go back up to the top on the current assets where is all this money the forty million dollars well it's essentially sitting in the various bank accounts that the town treasure maintains and again it's there's a lot of municipalities use what we call pulled cash so there's a few main bank accounts for those activities that aren't required to have their own bank account and then those that are as was the investment statements they're all essentially the treasurer maintains both cash investment statements their reconciled with accounting on a monthly basis and essentially all the cash in a residence is accounted for on a monthly basis within those statements right now when we met we talked about there are two is a footnote there's a page in here that this where that is yet the audience is not going to have it neither is the public but if you and so based on certain galleries and such it's just different information that's required to be presented to allow the reader to understand the forty million in the twenty million that we were seeing up front and it sort of gives a breakdown of the investments breakdown of the veriest insurances and such that the town mike carey we got in there deposits both f d i c as well as any other collateral  to page forty two so it just gives some different information as far as the liquidity inside of the various types of investments as a town is carrying all of which are  ly you know u s government backed as well as some equities and money in money markets so the other thing that's interesting about that footnote is that that includes the investments of the retirement fund is that yes it does however it is broken out separately so on page thirty eight and thirty nine you'd see at the bottom a thirty eight it'll show towns investments and at the top of thirty nine it'll show their retirement systems investments by the different categories that they are in oh i see ok so the the forty million all right and those are spread amongst the different fun all among the different funds in there provides the town with liquidity which is appropriate for a company of the size of two hundred so there's no there's no fluff in there it's deferred outflow of resources as we will skip deferred inflow resources because that has to do with an accounting convention that primarily related to the pension fund and it's it's a complicated discussion it's not material amounts of money because as you can see it's seven million of assets three million of liabilities are deferred inflow and the net is four million so it's not going to make or break the town and if somebody wants to pursue that with me or i'm not going to offer floyd or cheater but if you want to pursue that with me i'll be able to get you an answer to any question you have now we're going to go on to current liabilities and our current liabilities are craig the largest i numbers in current liabilities realistically skinny relate to  bonds and notes payable due within the next year as well as in a cruel for the what we call i b n r incurred but not reported health claims so it's just the timing of when you know i fall and break my am today it takes x amount of time for that paperwork to follow its way all the way through insurance and make it back to the town and so there's an accrual a year end based on the third party ministr there of what's in the pipeline and that would be the about a million seven and as you mentioned most of the other guys are de minimus if you will where you know there's of my abilities tax refunds which is your appellate tax board cases people you know that are file with the appellate tax board and most of the other stuff is you know pretty small the still some landfill closure out career interest that type of thing and you warrants payable are really just at again these are at fiscal year end so at fiscal year end we have various warrants that are being run at yearend to pick up and essentially count for the budget for fiscal seventeen and sometimes there's just a timing difference between when the cash leaves the door and the recognition of the expense of that's why your warrant payable as governmental entities call it are a little bit there and that's really all that's in them are no i think the important thing about total liabilities is that the two largest liabilities that the town has or other post employment benefits it is health care for all of our employees as health care for our retirees and that includes the teachers whereas the pension fund does not include that the net pension liability at sixty four million for the town is for town employees it does not teachers as the teachers pensions are covered by state pension fund i also want to say about total liabilities in total assets is that these numbers are recorded at cost which is an accounting convention so these these financial statements are not marked to market so for example if the investments have increased to thirty five million instead of people have said well the market value of the town's buildings are much greater than the cost but that's not how you think on an accounting sandwich damn thing ok so then we get down to the total net position of one point four million dollars which is arguably low for a company of this size if you have two hundred million in assets and two hundred fifteen in liabilities you would like to have a little more of a net position however we can say that if you well we're not going to say that now but in any case a million four's is low for a company of this size now we're going to go to business type activities and it's the same story except and i'm going to speed up a little bit here craig thank you for being here though because i don't know everything about this all one hundred forty two million in total assets what's important there is the fifty eight million in  property plant and equipment largely of the light company although that's broken out in this report later and then there's a note payable which is twenty seven million and that relates to the blair pond  substation that actually was paid off subsequently i believe wasn't cheeta you know and then so when you see fifty eight million in cash an equivalence at the top there in asset that is all cash that we had received from the issuance of of two bond the long term bonds for the for the like company in the short term the ever source payment to the town of forty five million i think that's what you were talking not in these numbers but we're talking prospectively my report to the public for the selectmen is that this pond substation and then subsequently once it was completed assets that we had finance for ever source were paid to the town by ever source and then so when we see this next year that that whole balance she my book backwards because what it does is it summarizes the town expenses and then charges for services operating grants and contributions capital grants and contributions and then it comes up with a net revenue number in the case of primary government which is the government activities from the previous page  is one of the things that we talked about in terms of understanding these statements are they welcome that's just the way it is i mean at some point yet we have to accept that right so sometimes you see government which would be the town referred to as government activities and other times you see it referred to as primary government but it's the same doing the same thing so we have a third one hundred thirty two million in expenses for primary government i know a lot of people think the town's budget is one hundred million but through it's also reported that way in the audit report that's the art to financial statements are our budget is what is really how we manage the town we've talked about the sometimes but you know that's that's why we have one hundred seventy eighty million dollars in debt on the balance sheet for employee benefits because we do it that way and we shouldn't do it that way so i'm going to continue the expenses that town spends are one hundred thirty two million whether people believe that or not lloyd were here he would tell you that he writes checks for that same story for business type activities so the total primary government expenses are one hundred sixty seven million and the reason it's reduced is because of we collect forty seven million in charges for services almost forty million of which is the fees that are paid for water sewerage and life and then we receive operating grants and contributions mostly for education and capital grants and contributions of one million to so in this schedule would get you down to primary government expenses of ninety six million because of those other revenue sources with regard to charges for services we can't charge more than it cost for services because we can't we're not supposed to be making money so for example if the clerk's office issues licenses certificates there's a charge for each one a lot of us are putting our dog licenses together and we can't charge twenty five dollars for a dog license if it costs fifteen to make so those services those charges offset the cost of government as we can do it then when you get over to the next page which is  other revenues we find out that our real estate taxes and personal property taxes are eighty five million in this year and when you add the rest of the motor vehicle and other excise taxes in the community preservation surcharge and grants and contributions not restricted to specific programs you end up with total general revenues and transactions of ninety five million which in this fiscal year resulted in a six million dollars shortfall meaning we spent six million more than we took in and the our net position at the beginning of the year was seven and a half million and now it's down to a million for that's on the to the business type activities we actually made five million dollars on those activities and paid nine hundred  forty nine million most of that is the transfer a pilot payment that's made to the town of six hundred fifty million dollars so the change in that position three thousand six hundred fifty thousand i say million  forty four million and of years forty eight so about forty eight million of the fifty million net position of the town is in the enterprise funds i think we can also say that some of you know that the opec committee had great success in revaluing our liability there and so this hundred  valuation yes ninety two eight now again then the two eight is as of june thirty seventeen so it'll be something in that ballpark right based on the role for from the actuary to june of eighteen so as you and i have discussed the thinking now is that that number's going to go down in two ninety two eight as you say yes so that would be about a thirteen million dollar improvement on that line car and what happens to that is some of it improves for the business enterprises and the rest goes to the town car so we can expect that th town net position actually to increase next all else being equal and this is the main change i would agree with that statement yes right so we're back up to maybe maybe not ten million but close i mean we have certainly again by through the math of enterprise yes we have a sixty eight million swing that's going to occur on the governmental side right so all is being equal if i think that that seems like a pretty fair statement you know so that's that's still in my opinion not an adequate position for a town of this size but it's certainly going in the right direction  now what can we say about the pension plan because i think it's important and then we may have to stop unless you have other comments what can we say about the pension plan in an with regard to how it works in other words those were both unfunded mandates from the past yes yes and it's it's always a hard for companies and governments to understand unfunded mandates and how we should respond to them or could respond to them but the idea is that basically they give you thirty years to fund the obligation fully and if you begin year one you get what i call a second source of income which is the investment in this is the way it's working for the pension fund because where is that footnote in this because i want to just funding the percentage funded which that's not a required at that schedule doesn't get reported to any longer but with the combined to look through the what we call the ira size schedules and the footnote information we can gather all of the information that we're looking at in regards to the pension the funding holding for investments and that type of thing now with regard to this page seventy one this this kind of explains what i think the public needs to understand the service cost is is that's how much the town has to put in to keep  current is that the idea yes ok so that's three point seven million interest is the amount of money that we receive from the portfolio is that correct and that's a significant amount of money it's twelve million dollars matt clarify the interest in this top portion is injures based on past service cost that hasn't been fully funded yet ok so that this is it's the reverse it's to reverse because then the second net position that's where the investment income on the assets comes into play ok so the service cost is the current cost the interest is the cost of the unfunded  hundred sixty five million to one hundred seventy one now we get now we get to employer contributions which is some eight million and that's that unfunded liabilities schedule payment that we make we have member contributions because employees do contribute to the fund and then we have net investment in loss this year was a good year it was seven million and then again they have the ten million  so unfortunately we're still only fifty five percent funded we do have a plan that will fully fund this obligation by twenty twenty nine we do not have the cash flow in the system to pay for the increases that are scheduled in that that plan but we are working on it and  currently it takes that eight million for the town does that include the enterprise fund as well in this what we know yes this is the system as a whole everybody current so that eight million is going to go to twelve million through twenty twenty nine and we the eight million now represents around ten percent of our real estate tax because the real estate tax is around eighty three  we're not we're not funding a lot of overhead the current funding strategy for the town is determined based on free cash flow and during towards which that that twenty twenty nine had the state allows you to go all the way up to twenty forty now so that's great that the town's been able to manage your investments and such to hit that goal of twenty twenty nine at which time the funds are going into the pension plan can be diverted into the open plan which i understand is the town's goal at this point there is currently no mandate in massachusetts  are and they were reviewing their financials they're now not just looking to say does the time of belmont have any money put aside for this whole pebble liability again there's not a requirement they're now starting to compare  peers the various communities in the area that would be the town of belmont spears and are saying ok x this disc community as has been putting away some money they have a plan they're working towards it has belmont done anything so if i don't what we've seen anyways is that they're not looking simply to say belmont has thirty million dollars put aside for the liability ok great well will going to keep them at a good they're looking for more for management's perspective on the liability how are dressing it what's our long term play and is there a plan in place and comparing that you piers which has been you know going favorably for the town well i think what happened is as a result of the reduction of the liability from two hundred million to ninety two that the so called strategy that the town had which don't have to increase the twelve million further but there are other things that we can do to control that cash flow to control that like that i think we are going to pay attention to this year certainly and going forward don't smirk funding that liability then then you're paying a dollar for dollar when when the liability ok anything else well i'd simply like to say the town again received an unmodified opinion on your financial statements which is the best that the town can expect to get it was you know it's always been a pleasure to work with the town because well the board of selectmen us of a very involved a committee and you finance team everybody is very involved in the audit and takes pride in their responsibilities to draw the town so we're able to all work together to hopefully assist the town  between cities schools school districts other types of governmental entities over one hundred hundred twenty year that we we work with ok so we're in good hands about thirteen of those years it was organized primarily by two volunteers jennifer page and sarah oakland or so it was under the vic but it really wasn't something that the vic members were doing other than kind of you know help with flying around town and day of support so a couple of years ago jennifer and sarah decided after thirteen years to retire from being the organizers of it and they actually looked for volunteers kind of to informally take it over and had a little bit of trouble and so thought about just canceling the event and as a committee that's where we decided it was just too ingrained i mean it's i think it's an event that belmont really acts to have every year it's a part of the culture it's something people really look forward to so we decided it absolutely should not be cancelled so we have been doing it within our committee the last couple of years and so you know we've spent a lot of time discussing it i think our thought is that one it's so much a part of belmont that it makes sense to have it be part of a permanent structure as opposed to something we can just decide to put on or not put on an annual basis but also that you know our charge as the vision committee is much broader than just these type these types of events so i think having a it could be a much smaller committee i think my recommendation would be to aim for five charged with organizing it and this committee i don't want to speak for a future members of it but i could also see them taking the meat belmont fim and expanding it into other types of events you know just last night there was a lot of discussion on a parent's list about a belmont newcomers club so i think if you do establish this meet belmont committee with the you know charge of organizing the  and maybe you know worded as and other you know events as desired for newcomers it could it could really expand and do great things to do is there enough time for we point to a new committee soon enough time for them to get an august me so you know i had i had said i think you know my proposal would be for one or two members of our current committee to you know several one year term and maybe everyone else you know new members to your terms so there is some you know knowledge transfer over the years i think i would start a social media blitz to try to find members tomorrow you know as soon as i don't want to pre do anything before this meeting but i mean i think that the answer is we don't we won't not have it so  we will be as involved as we needed to get it happen and if it's possible to appoint members you know in the next month so that there are people who learn and and get the knowledge needed to then be able to you know carry it for if you think about i think it's a good idea we've already expanded some of the things under me belmont we decided to brand meet belmont the talk of the town meet belmont activity so that would probably also fall under the umbrella can volunteers thank you for that for the service that they provided i sit here and wrestle with one more committee and the fact that we're already drawn dozens and dozens of people in town to volunteer to help from the government perspect perspective i'm not against the idea nearly at all i'm just thinking that it's one more committee taking applications and how would that work who would have an interest i like to see that you made about broadening yeah rather than just one of the comment about you know another committee to kind of draw members i actually think that that and i should first note there actually are many audience members here who are former organizers that they have but i actually think that this committee would potentially draw a different  class of potential volunteers i think you know i described in the email i wrote introducing this cop topic that i think it's a great committee for people to get their feet wet you know i think that the time is really just march to august so it's not like you're signing up successful i mean i look forward to when i'm here to attend it's a great i mean you see a lot of new faces there not the same people you know that these kinds of events so i think i surely would not want to see it go away for that it's a great opportunity you have two people who would be on this committee if we decide to do it i think who are yeah well we'd have to you know i would certainly volunteer myself to be on it but i don't know what  they vote in their annual town election this year we have many races in each of the precincts there are twelve members of town meeting being elected in each of our precincts most of them have too many which is great a couple are still down who want to encourage people to run by writing campaigns in precincts three and four and we do have contested race for county wide only as school committee for three years everybody else is an uncontested but it's important the polls are open i'm sorry desperate to correct three  people running for the three year seat there are only two spots available and then there is one person running for one so we do want people to come out and vote it's really important polls are open from seven in the morning till eight pm usual polling polling places and if you are while usually we hang around twenty something percent ok now it goes up to eighty when there's a presidential eighty five right however many people in town think the local elections are much more important to the individuals in the town than than the presidential elections get the government you deserve that's what happens so if you want to good government you need to go to the polls and vote for the best candidates in europe and yes yes it's very important for that it also is important because what decisions we make it a local level govern everything you do every day it tells you whether your neighbors allowed to have a dog that barks through the night or whether they can add on to their home or whether we have even budgets to run our schools and you know put up traffic lights it's pretty invasive into your life it's very very important that you express your opinion locally even if you don't do it federally or state wide you need to impress do it all trickily right and don't do it because i want to do it because it's the right thing to do right ok anything  full time to discuss things when they need to be discussed adam's got a hard stop at noon and we have an important topic that we have to talk about like like board meeting so  ing here is a lot of work that has been going on for the last two years getting to this point in january eighth we received four competitive bids two of them rejected for not qualified or didn't meet the minimum experience and the other one for price so we spent the last six weeks to go to the lowest bidders and what we have come up with is the best possible operation for transitioning from on a they are from manual excuse me to automated i recommend that waste management is awarded the next service contract for automated trash for all i can break it down by by the five years but i'll just do it for the first one thousand one million fifteen thousand and sixty dollars i recommend waste management for fully automated recycling ninety six gallon container for seven hundred sixteen thousand eight hundred fifty yard waste collection waste management again three hundred seventeen thousand three hundred five we identified that christmas trees was going to be a special item because right now it's considered a bowl and put it at the curb and we also looked at this is an opportunity to compost them so we had them separated for a two week period they'll be collected and recycled with our current yard waste or cycle or compost or should say for fourteen thousand five hundred fifty and the new thing that is new to everybody here in belmont is that we're going to be charge of processing fee we're estimating that we're going to have with the limited trash capacity and limited bulky that we're going to increase in recycling of two thousand six  hundred twenty three tons to be processed at right now the going rate is forty four dollars and change twelve cents i think so that's a summated hundred ten thousand four hundred eighty one dollars and then bulky another one that we have no idea what we're looking at fifteen dollars per item at fifty thousand for the first year so the total for the entire waste management recommended collection contract for automate trash automat  cycling yard waste trees processing fee and bulky pickup is two million two hundred twenty four thousand two hundred ninety six dollars do you have any questions i  one one is a comment that i've been getting from a lot of people and i know the answer already but maybe you should tell people about whether or not because of the recycling market being down as it is now what kind of protections are in there for the town in the contract should that market rebound  public works we had negotiated with waste management because recycling right now is such a sensitive topic for everybody we negotiated that within our contract at any time during the contract if there is an ad a more advantageous process or way to in a cost efficient way to to process our recycling that waste management and the town in good faith will renegotiate and come to terms for a better price and  i won't i won't name who it was you guys have it just for i guess the sake of public public the other better that we were negotiating with for the same exact package it was like four and a half million that's what i thought so these these contracts are well within within that number and obviously is it is a special it was a special purpose override but what happens with overrides is after the first year the money goes into the general the what he called general fund that would you go to general ok so the money goes into the general fund so that that so say it's two million five twenty three one twenty seven the second highest better or is that the total bid two million five thousand you know the total bill for year one with waste management b two million two hundred twenty four thousand two hundred ninety so much following that on  you see in six years to show the cost after the price of when the carts are paid for it from a service perspective do we have provisions within the contract not to say that waste management will not service properly but if in fact they don't we have any provisions in the contract to a going to place and every of law to make up in all of that right i've already had discussions with the local media outlets and we're going to start working on things next week this begins july first correct menu that i just want to waste management on town day is going to have a automated truck and they're going to be showing you were in session they're going to be doing and like actually like to show everybody there in the residence what a so i want to thank you for the opportunity to give you a quick summary of our process and our report for people who are looking on this at home they can get the report on the town website if you click on words and committees committee to study the number of selectmen which is under see on that list of committees we've a revised report you get extra credit if you can find the revisions in the report and the revised february fourteenth is just a small sort of error of facts on page twenty six about which town staff are eligible for benefits we don't pay benefits for every single person who gets money but the crucial thing is every single person who gets elected and is paid money by the town is eligible for benefits so i just wanted to clarify that and we also permitted by accident the list of committee members in the main report  report for a while we've had in our books i think it's fair to say we've all read the report and so in effect you're not only talking to us but you're talking to them so if you could keep that in mind as well it already has bad credit is already a citizens petition certified for this you know we don't have to do anything on you know that though there is often there is up there is a note about that i'll get to that in a minute let me just go through the ok what our process was so time meeting voted in moderator we started meeting at the end of june we basically met through the summer we took it easy in july and august we only got once in july and august but once we got to september we were meeting twice a month and then january i think we were before our deadline of january thirty first to get our report so we started with a detailed research phase where we compiled a list of thirteen comparable towns and learned as much as we could about those thirteen towns and how they function how their selectman relate to the rest of the town it turns out they're all completely different but it was fascinating we asked a series of questions to current and former selectman thank you for your responses it was very helpful we boiled basically boiled down all of that information to eleven arguments on each side eleven arguments for retaining the current number of selectmen and eleven arguments in favor of an increase in the number selectman we divided up those arguments and flesh them out with sort of a paragraph or two of sort of justification for each of those arguments we tried really hard to make each of those as persuasive as we could we actually divided up among committee members so most committee members wrote one on each side of the argument we eventually serve organize those arguments into two cases which are sort of the need of the report so one case for maintaining the current number of selectmen and one case for increasing the number of said i want to stress it was a highly collaborative process we argued and we debated but we wrote this all together currency in addition to those recommendations there's some additional pieces that i think people should look at it's worth worth looking at one as a rationale for studying the number of selectmen it was a question that came up in our public meeting of why are we bothering to do this and it's worth investigating any facet of time governance so we felt it was important to do this work to look at it no matter what ultimately comes of it there's a great  and a half intro to open meeting law sort of a topic that kept coming up during our work of how the board of selectmen functions and how it relates to the open meetings law in addition at the end there are some observations from our work and looking at other towns the role of selectmen as a policy making board the role of town administrator the impact on salary and benefits it's a question that kept coming up in our public meeting  as well as some options for what it would look like to increase the number and what an implementation would look i just want to end by saying this was a team effort and this is a good team  i think it the results show with this with the support i want to mention the citizens petition because i'm aware of a group that has been has put in a city sister to sion it sounds like it's been petition and the deadline is a week from today ok so on that point ellen would you mind talking to us about how that's going to work you can come up to  in from the violent review committee clark we did meet last week we do have an issue with the way that the language was submitted because it doesn't actually provide the language to amend the by law specifically it actually is only an article at this point it's also not yet a motion so working with town council will reach back to the committee members i have told them the people who have the petitioners that we have some issue with that particularly they didn't provide language to amend the by law specifically and so we would need that and there's just a question about whether they can do it within the existing scope of the warrant article is submitted or it would have to be augmented some other way so ok now i'll let you know you said that you would get back to the committee you did you mean the committee or did you members understand our report so i suspect if there is a war in article we would do some sort of a forum in the in the mode of a of a warrant briefing for a town meeting and i think no matter what happens i'm no town meeting does not take action on articles town meeting takes action on motions and so their judgment between the town council and the moderator will be whether the article and whatever motion is submitted will be sufficiently within the scope me i'm open minded on the issue and i thank you guys for your report was extremely thorough i was fascinated by the supplement with pretty much almost every living current former selectman that's everybody's opinion on there and it was it was i thought that was fascinating at least i know i'm not crazy some when i read some of the stuff down i guess as with all these things we talked about the elected planning board ollie's ask you know what's the problem you're trying to solve and does the solution solve it i don't have the answers to those questions by just put them out there i don't think things are working too badly but you know the way things are the if we go to five i'm not so sure it'll change much but you know i mean i heard it may not help still haven't made up my mind on it but we don't have to decide we're not going decided tonight by just i just put that out there is sort of the sort of fundamental questions i have with making a change of this magnitude whether it's with the selectmen or anything else i think what this committee paul thank you for your leadership on it i thought was an extremely well written report laurita did read all so i mean at the initial goal last year was i think you know since everybody in town meeting is over thirty five they should have had an idea to think about this and we did last last year but mike didn't think so he think he thought that there needed to be a committee and needed to be studied and so i said well sure and i'm grateful for the fact that we did this i think the order is great i do have a couple of questions about it all did it is because you were appointed and it was voted on by the town if nothing else you know and i personally am afraid of town meeting or not doing things that town meeting tells us to and we i think of  played by the rules always and probably the most important one is with regard to the on like board because the general manager proposed that that he and town meeting didn't appoint us to appoint somebody else to sign the purchase and sale agreement they pointed us in and sammy saved our bacon right by he found you know a term in there given his background and school and the great thing about that is that you have the resolution and then you have to study both sides you know and then you go to the debate and then they pull and we go oh you're a pro and you're a cock and you know and so you know in order to win the debate you have to you have to make your case and so i think it's very interesting the way you you've presented this i'd like to ask where there actually eleven reasons on both sides or did you just did you did you come out with whether thirty five reasons for one and two for another or how we i think i think at one point we probably had eighteen maybe on one side and maybe twenty on the other and then in the course of writing them up and start of boiling them down it's like ok now those two really are making the same argument in two different ways and we can combine them into one ok it was that we did not artificially go ok great well now of eleven here and eleven there it was serendipity that w h the other thing the other question i have is that i've looked through the report obviously obviously and i think you conducted an open meeting no but who voted nine and who voted for it's not in provide you with the information as if you were there and this is one key you know i think if i voted for i'm willing to stand up if i voted against it i'm willing to stand up so so if it helps we have we have not m since then so we could make a point of when we when we approve the minutes of that meeting to include the names of who voted and voted yes when would your next meeting were scheduling that it will be in march in  scheduled it we we can also if we're going to be doing a report at town meeting we can also include that information as well well i think you should but i'd also like to know before but for now i think march is a good time to  two hours in each precinct so will break break it up into groups of three so perhaps precinct one two and eight will be one group and then precinct four or five three four and five or another and seven and  up as a porch host or they can have both and then we will marry those together to try to make it so the music it's spread evenly throughout the community and it's and  and yet there are no sales there's no people are going to be consuming anything to create generate any kind of trash but we do want to have people go on ambassadors in different neighborhoods right around and just remind people if they're standing on the sidewalk and you know this is a neighborhood keep you have to keep the the sidewalks clear and and the parking and yes there's parking hopefully daughter yeah exactly i'm sure she would love that for you she's one of the drum major so yeah i had mentioned to mary i don't know whether you want to think about this to create and not the complicated more than it needs to be some kind of kind of sort of fund raising aspect to it as well give back to the community well bouncing off of that it was it is isn't directly raising funds for but perhaps something like the marching band could play in town center you know after porch fest takes place and then people are brought and you want to see just participate i do have to say you know we've combined we have spoken with pretty much every department in the about this and we already been doing this for the a number of years and and local organizations in somerville and so forth so what i think more than anything we're trying to do our homework we absolutely understand concerns of neighbors but we're not looking at this is much different preservation committee there was some discussion about there being some planned changes to the monument to the memorial at the clay pit pond and as the parks commissioners i felt that we should discuss this with the proponents because we last time we saw this i think was in the late summer early fall something to that effect so we want to see what is going on with the update already and give us an update on how the plans have been evolving well i congratulate you on connecting the dots because i think that's something that because one of the things that to talk about in its midst beyond maybe the scope for today to think about is the process for how we permit things like this that are in the public parks that are privately funded as the parks commissioners do we need to permit it or approve it when the building permit time telling me what i know what needs to be done before i get too far along because what happens is you go through you get your permit you've gone from the zoning board and then you go to poor building probably what you can't do that you can't do that you can't do that and then you're all messed up so it's better to vet it all now so before it's too far creating rules for the c p a which i'm going to start working on for next year because this kind of thing we just need to make it clear that everyone wants the project to happen but that all the proper procedures are in place of people don't get tripped up on the you know accidentally going forward don't have my v f w number but when i find out i do have my my other papers and when i find it i'm going to get right over to you guys are good i couldn't come for security because i was tied up with family just to let you know i am moving stick thanks your support for a ban on single use thin plastic bags at retail stores and this would be something that i'm going to actually asked to resign really to introduce the topic but basically we would just like you to get your support to put it been naive in filing it but the committee was nervous about whether we would you would have the time to hear us this morning the deadline was coming up and so we decided to put it in however we would really like your support in some manner to put this on the warrant for the next town meeting but it again we the committee was nervous and wanted to put it citizens petition in just as a back up in the interest of time happy to sort of fill this ng as i put it on the agenda the these folks did is they came to me and said hey we're thinking of doing this and they were having a meeting so i went and at the meeting i suggested you do two things one look at all the towns around us that have this band and don't do anything odd sort of look what they've done and see if we can match it and then secondly was to talk to the business community and get their feedback so we're not so that we do that so they did that and i provided to patrice who provided to you the results of their discussions with the business community and the draft of the they've come up with which is basically kind of what the towns around us have basically that you can't the stores would not have a plastic bag you get a paper bag or bring your own bag it would have a phase in period which would be quicker for a larger business based on square footage and take longer for small business because businesses have backlog have inventory of plastic bags that we want them to use up because they've already bought them so that's basically what it is they i would think it would be better if we put it on the on the warrant and they withdrew their citizens petition because if an amendment needed to be done during the course of anything as the proponents we would be able to make that amendment rather than having to ask permission like for instance the other towns have you know this gives the board of her the enforcement authority the other towns have the board of health as the enforcement authority if we decide to change it we can amend it to change it it's not one of those things more like the shuffling by law for the snow it's not like someone's out there i wonder a police in here that has a take somebody is going to well it's going to be very difficult to hide a store giving out bags that looks like a star market they say paper plastic so those know plastic bags have many harmful consequences for the environment that's why sixty one towns across the commonwealth have been banning them and more working on that including belmont we hope and i think the issue when you tell people that they can't give out a plastic bag is that some people get a paper bag are where mandating forty percent recycled content so that's a good thing some people will be able to just carry their product away without a bag and we're the goal of our committee is to help people use more reusable bags so a bag for life the nutshell version about the controversy about paper bags is that they're not necessarily a super green alternative even if a port for even if a bag has forty percent recycled content there's some greenhouse gas emissions involved in production and transport of those bags the very best thing to do is to have a reusable bag or to just take your your too big to paste and hold it in your hand while you walk to the car so there's a large educational component for citizens that our group is going to be taking on we have a variety of public forums planned we have an effort to get reusable bags into the hands of people that might need them  and so there's a lot of public outreach that needs to go along with the plastic bag ban but that's the essential issue that has some environmentalists in belmont concerned about tons and eliminated but if you notice the survey that they went out and did that a lot of the merchants actually are in favor of it it's a mixed bag as you would imagine but the some five hundred watts watching article in the senate i think it doesn't say we're favorable unfavorable i'd like to put it on the way we can control it  hundred twenty is as we add more responsibilities to our departments for enforcement they don't have resources what does that mean we can another by law has to be enforced and we don't enforce it because we don't have the resources so can i just say something on health we contacted the board of health in january and tonight actually were on their agenda to discuss this so it's very time i get that but this is what we do as a community we ask we have more bylaws which i support you know sidewalk by law i don't support this i do that this has one more dish and responsibility to the part you know wes's the department of soup responsibility and everything else that they're doing with the same resources well and also everything else that's being added to them like the marijuana that stuff so i think that we as a community to understand here's another by a large we're going to put on the books and we're asking our department of health to enforce it and they're already stretched completely thin and probably not getting everything they need a second the motion the taps is the previous a new organizational chart of the facilities department council has suggested an article to be placed on the you know tom meeting warrant that allows a town to collect three percent of marijuana marijuana tax whether or not the boat stopped out or extend the morator um i have a list of articles in the back of my report the idea of extending the moratorium has come up in discussion to allow time meaning to have a safety net if so many recreational marijuana article is not approved the extension could be put in place until december two thousand have articles in by march fifth yeah we can put into place what i thought we were taught we've talked earlier about doing a special time meaning within town meeting to deal with the marijuana issues because of the ongoing discussion right we're talking about is that we don't have to meet march fifth the still put these on the three percent i would definitely put lot of sort of moving parts as a relates to the cannabis control commission right away for final regulations on the fifteenth of march i think we need to give ourselves some time to get community input on you know where this is going to be zone where it's going to concerns with other things that are out there i think we're likely going to have a fault i mean george said it makes abundant sense as the playing board works through all of this and i'm i think we need to be very deliberate you from my point of view and up you know what i'm not in favor of that on retail establishment i certainly think that the board can say look we need more time the police board needs more time to get community input in terms of where this is owned and the regulations that whatever they put into place lissac stand for six months the moratorium to the end of the county the traffic advisory committee met and discuss their effort to study belmont's traffic volume throughout the town the community development office hired the engineering firm p s e to conduct the study there was an internal informational gathering session on february twenty seventh in a public hearing scheduled for professional and technical service line in the budget finally i have attended the school committee meeting and a presentation was made on the education program this committee was put in place to study how to improve the community education programming in belmont members of the comm came from the recreation department library school and residence recommendation of the committee was to pursue outside funding to hire director to spur on the program i have spoken to superintendent members of the committee and the public works to continue these discussions so the just do that than stay in session as we are and so make a motion and go into a movie go into executive session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with union personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with union personnel this bargaining unit represents forty three total members and it is predominantly clerical staff as well as some supervisory positions as well this three year agreement would run from july first two thousand and seventeen through june thirtieth two thousand and twenty and it report represents an overall six point three two percent increase the key financial components are the cost of living increases which allows for two percent each fiscal year of the contract a new start for those individuals with fifteen years of service with the town which will be a half a percent higher than the current top stuff rate and there are fifteen members who will receive that new staff in the first year of the contract and then we also made some nominal increases to the role long payments we're probably at about seven hundred you know employees this is forty three in the you know i want the public to understand that we've met on this how many times three times with the board i guess technically this would be our third time yes the this particular union was actually the first senior that i sat down with i want to say it was a year ago october that we started meeting so it would have been two years this october there was some kinks that we needed to work out with this carter our community services library ok mary ok so what are you doing so i just i just have two little things that i want to address first and then i'd like to show you guys this video i'd be remiss if i didn't bring up the attack of violence at the winchester public library over the weekend that has kind of rocked the air i don't know if you guys were aware of that but an individual went into the winchester library with plans to have to be violent and in the loss of life so library directors  another opportunity to do some training and a lot of new employees and we have certain policies and practices and we're going to set up some some kind of opportunity later in the month to do some lockdown procedures and drills and things like that and we're going to reach out to winchester directly and just let them know their way with them well we understand in the public will have to understand that those procedures can't be public for obvious reasons so we appreciate your attention to that and we also paid attention to that as a community this morning with the town leadership so deepest sympathy for the the family and the individuals and winchester always comes first thank you so in brighter news book our books in bloem event takes place this weekend so it's going to kick o friday night ticketed event do you guys have your tickets i have it on my calendar i do have my i have the tickets here so they're available for sale all over town at the library at the bookstore but you should at the door as well the twenty dollars in advance opened its first library and this is the way that we've chosen to celebrate so it's going to be a co sponsor event with the belmont garden club the belmont historical society the library foundation in the friends of the belmont public library so friday night we'll have our first look reception  ill be catered they'll be a cash bar some live music and the floral arrangements on display with book time and so we look forward to people come in and tickets are available right now and then we'll have some more free events throughout the weekend culminating with a birthday party for ellen will take care of that would be great so lastly i just wanted to introduce this video so we were looking for an opportunity to to share with the public all the great things that we do i guess to let people know all the things that we do and all the things that we do beyond what maybe they think you know the library of old is what's in people's memories but we do so much more than just offer a quiet space to read you know hundreds of programs and meetings and opportunities for community events every year so what we wanted to do was we launched a loop new logo last year and we took an opportunity then to begin this video process this p s a that would like to reveal t today so without further ado what i'm going to do is i'm just going to turn off the lights so