evening we are here coming to you live from the lovely belmont town hall auditorium and the first order of business i guess would be community announcements do we have any i know any comments from town residents for items that are not on the agenda for items that are on the agenda will be plenty of discussion but for items that are not on the agenda going once twice all right next executive session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non ship in there somewhere and there is good to see sell to get the vendors to sign up because and they go to other towns on the day we have the market and i'm just trying to get through this relatively quickly so i go down a fire so for the record i will ship in the share of the farmer's market committee which this like literally a couple minutes so obviously were farmers market we have lots of local food and local farm food and paired food but i try to point out that it's more than that  we did a survey of shoppers and your two quotes i want to read to you one is the kids really enjoy coming because they love the events reading music scavenger hunt cetera another one said i like the sociable atmosphere i just wish you could improve the weather so we all wish you remember it was pretty nasty this summer and the social atmosphere the community aspect is really important we also do food assistance we have the best match of any farmer's market around we match snap benefits which is what food stamps are called now and we're and f and people who pines for seniors and we support the food pantry and a couple of food rescue organizations we have been growing our collaboration's with businesses in the center we invited but a number of businesses to come to the events tent and share information give samples talk to people make new customers that work out really well we asked our shoppers in this survey what they do when they come to the market and they gave us stores that they go to before or after the farmer's market we've got a list of thirty stores that are shoppers go to so there was some debate at one point about whether we're alpha's hours at the farmer's market has been tremendous i get more people showing up to my office hours the farmer's market when i do them anywhere else and need to get to sit there and observe what's going on it's a constant flow of people and that's that's the sort of thing we do a lot of opportunities for kids we had performers from generally in paris music school we had the cherry afterschool program come and do programs for other kids which was really a lot of fun and as you said we had your office there was lots of other departments from the town i was there that season we're starting in two weeks and next season we appreciate them you know early and again our request is to get permission to use a fork and the last time argue your question was about whether locked up properties had been notified about it coming up then i don't know patrice  average at five is fifty five i think i think we always felt that there was a case and i deliberately parked when i went to the office hours just to see what was going out about it we always thought that was the case and so i mean clearly you know unfortunately there's one of the major the farmer's market in they go to the other businesses well maybe it's the other way around but i think it's sort of feeding the whole commercial you know environment there by having that this wonderful event you know and thursday to bring in new restaurants so they can offer say seven pm to seem clean the place indeed it is and now you guys leave the place nicer than you found it i five seen you walking around picking up trash that isn't even from the farmer's market so i appreciate that i think the motion is just chair that we move through that we uproot the utilization of the care you know you well all right so the main attraction i assume for most of the folks out there review committee community path draft application possible discussion of vote on path route i want to provide a little context for this before we dig into it so we're going to we need to discuss the root for the community path of phase one b yeah i know for phase one b if you recall a town meeting last week approved the design funds for phase one a which is the tunnel alexander avenue tunnel under the tracks phase one b is the portion of the path that goes from brighton street cambridge line to about the clark street bridge that's going to be going before spring town meeting for design funds of a million dollars that's currently going to th a committee process phase two is a longer range plan which goes the clark street bridge through a police square to waltham and that is not something we have on the table right now because that is of more of the most difficult of the three sections of this  path so there's been a lot of discussion about this the facts that have come to light now just historically what's happened is we had a c p a active community path implementation committee and series of meetings i went to a lot of them w pair group they came up with a path they recommended the path to the selectmen last year last year we adopted that route which caused the phase one a part of the north side then it went under the alexander avenue bridge and then went on the south side of the track i believe i have it right across the and the reason for that partly from the study was that the understanding of the time was that in order to get the alexander avenue underpass as part of the path project the path actually had to go through it otherwise they wouldn't fund it one of the things that's come to light since then is that in fact that's not no longer the case from the state levels that the path does not have to thread through the under past for the underpass to be included because the state is now saying the underpass lou when britney and her hood to the existing bike lane on concord avenue and if there were a path that went off footpath that went along across the high school property by the harris field to the existing path along concord avenue that that would allow the underpass to be permitted without having to sneak the road through so that's a change there's a second change that came up recently at the c p i meeting about a possible pedestrian bridge in cambridge we'll be hearing about that later we've been running that idea down as well that would auger more towards having it on the south side of the tracks we got a letter from the department transportation of the state on friday which is also new information which i believe copies are out there and i'll read it to you when we get to that point which also said that they had believed quote dire concerns about the path on the south side and they would refer to the north side for safety reasons and we'll get into that as well so there are new facts on the ground since the pair group study and since the path that we have adopted the route some push it more on the south side some push it more on the north side however we haven't we haven't voted to change anything we're highly unlikely to vote tonight i would say probably zero percent chance of voting tonight the however i do want to make clear at least clips of misconceptions that we've seen online over the past few days comparing this process flowing from this to the belmont center process knowledge i think this is the exact opposite of the belmont center process i i was very upset by the balance in a process when the reason i ran for this position i did not want to repeat that again and i don't think town meeting with a plan they showed it on the screen and when asked for funding for that plan there was discussion and that plan was voted the selectmen then changed to the plan and then town meeting got upset called itself into session which is highly unusual voted to recommend non binding this like when to go back to the original plan dislike him and did not go back to their original plan and then built that plan so that i would say is probably not the best process that is not this i  simplifying it for the sake of your so i know there's way more to it but this is what this process is pretty much the opposite what happened is the the route was recommended the route was adopted the facts on the ground of change and i think to ignore some of those things that i just described would be foolish because those are some pretty big changes that happened and then what we're doing now is starting a community process on this new information and it very well may be we put it on the north side maybe we put it in the south side and maybe we don't change it at all but we have to have a process because we've i think i said this a town meeting last week and i said it again at the public hearing at the c p c community preservation committee presentation on one b last week that we don't know which side is going to be on but we will make that decision think we have to for the springtown meeting in may when we come to present that for that million dollars for the c p a money to design that one b i think we owe it to town meeting to tell them whether it's on the north of the south or some combination of the two we don't have to do that now we have to do it by may so we want to do is go through and show all of you the information that we have because i know we will get all this information but you don't all see it in real time so one make sure everybody's working from the same set of information  i think what i've been seeing online is clearly tells me that not everyone has all the information we have and then we can go through this process and we can go and we can try to keep everybody updated we can have another meeting on all of this and then  move forward on deciding what it is we want to do this isn't just for us as everybody we want to do is get the path done i think i've heard that loud and clear from everybody it gets cars off the street it's hell a health issue it's a safety issue by and by taking away the interaction of cars and pedestrians and bikes and i think it's a major benefit to get it to our centers to get people to the businesses and people can go straight shot from waltham straight through into cambridge and not drive through it so it looks is a the one thing that we do know is that the as far as the c p a application goes there whether it's north side or south side the design cost of the same so as far as the c p a process going forward now we have told me to choose the route because it doesn't really affect the amount of money for one point you made there so so not to revisit the bellman center of green if you will but i think that that you know upon reflection i think it was a misstep and i think what what came out of it though and hopefully most would agree is that we did form sort of a working group to look at that we got proponents on both sides in reached i think a solution for it so created brought the town together around a very contentious issue with tommy where there's really not not a good time for us and i think we can do the same here i think from my point of view we've spent way too much time in working on this for nine years hundreds of hours by both the c p a c c p i a c and monies to stop now with the path and i know that i'm committed i've you know both of you are as well to move forward with a design the on the south or the north by the in your tummy i think we need to make some dishes around the base on the information but the last thing i think we want to create which that bomb what center know issue created is division in this community i know there are different points of view so i think we can work together to reach the best solution for the community and i know that we are going to make a decision and i'm committed to making that decision and when you saw town meeting we had the slide showing this has been going on with the town since one nine hundred eighty three it makes me sad and i would like to move this forward and not lose momentum we currently have with the state and the funding that for years we were not going to get out of it we really want to get and they really really want to do this and we really really ultimately construction there are as been pointed out numerous issues with whatever segment you're talking about with respect to the power that's why this is so been such a long time it's a very complicated route  unfortunately other communities that are part of the mass central rail line which this at one point was has those abandoned right away is intact so they're not having these intense conversations about where do we go and how do we do this to you know benefit all so much of the steam has been taken out of this presentation with the introductory remarks sorry able to easy to see so it's been stated stated we're here to talk about the community are putting forward an application for design of the path we did get a alexander over underpass which is a huge step in itself  and now for the path itself as briefly stated previously this is to try to connect the end of the fitchburg cut off which is at right in funding purposes the state has looked is looking at the funding of the path is in two segments one from brighton street to the park street bridge and the next from the clark street bridge to waverly square to bring this forward to a design phase to bring this forward to get construction the town engaged the park corporation over two year period to develop a feasibility study this portion of the study speaks to the eastern end which is from belmont center to right street fitchburg cut off this slide you can see i don't know actually something you can see i don't know if you're going to but this slide indicates that there were a numerous routes that were looked at both at the western end and the eastern end but at the eastern end there were numerous routes looked at to determine what was to try to decide and figure out what was the best route ultimately through a very involved matrix evaluation that was developed over the course of that two year period the park corporation came out with the what we call the north south route that it would go along the north side of the tracks from  center to the alexander avenue underpass go underneath alexander and your pass and then along the south of the tracks to brighton street and then cross over the tracks and then back up the brains for that was the number one recommended r that as i had a seventy six score on the me tricks that evaluation that's how come it ranked so high the second option and then there were a series of other options but the second highest ranking option was to stay on the north side that had a valuation score of seventy four the report itself goes to detail why what the matrix evaluation criteria were they they were very well thought out very well developed and it also shows how you got to the different scores for the different routes with the feasibility study in hand at the town could then approach the state about t in the scheduling for chip funded projects requires that a feasibility study be done first to show that it's feasible and that becomes the basis for your application and reviewing that application the metropolitan area planning sorry the metropolitan planning organization yes indicated that indeed the project was critical for to funding that's a huge step forward to ultimately getting this constructed one of the cab yards is that we have to have a design consultant within two years so that means that we need to now that we've got this eligible to letter we need to keep that we need to keep moving forward on soliciting the design consultant and moving forward  right vested stakeholder one of the most invested stakeholders in this in the whole route there's many areas where the path goes within the right of way it goes adjacent to railroad tracks across over path from right and center to the bright street and the m b t a basically indicated that they could not support the path as currently proposed because it crosses from the south side to the north  side this indicates this actually is a photograph that was included in their letter showing that they had dire concerns with respect to the path of the crossing and you can see their red line that's they're calling that red line indicat be the route of passage from the south side to the north side in the concern and be that people get disoriented or are they looking at their cell phones or whatever and they'll just end up not end up in a very unfortunate  the one who sets the projects and then sets the five year calendar for building out the tip and they take their input in terms of putting that document together from the mass start and from the  a and further into other stages they're also taken put from the local community and but but in terms of the weighted influence if you will is really from start because they're the ones that get the to continue with the path of recommendation the path on the south side of the tracks and to investigate development of the south side of the tracks a path that would lead boundary this is this top line here is it's actually green that's the existing fitchburg path cut off the spring bike path in cambridge right with the portion the north side of the tracks to the alexander underpass right here along the south side of sharks to brighton street at this point based on this proposal the path would continue on the south side of the that that all that in the trucks go that is for the trucks go this way like to get it going and going to go under the bridge by the summer track and all ok well that's that's the that's the that's the train that's the end bta oh ok exceeding like this was a concept that the bridge was a concept that might be adopted if the redevelopment in that region were to take place this is not something they were committed to doing this is right they're looking to do ok this is the concept that they're proposing that they're looking at designing the looking at building a city cambridge produced what is called envision cambridge it's fair comprehensive plan that is being contemplated be built this right here right there is the fitchburg cut off the train tracks do run through here i'm sorry that's such a bad  picture and you can see that there's no path along the south side of the tracks what this plan looks at doing is building this bridge but improving that road network in what is kno and the jobs with across the tracks up to the t s diction it is based on the funding for it is based on impact fees that are attached to residential development residential development continues chugging along in this area and does really well then they'll get the funding sooner but if it drags or lags or if there's a dip in the economy obviously it's going to take longer to build up that chest of impact fees to develop to construct a bridge or timeline on a day if the rough estimate at this point is that in five six to seven years that it would start construction that also presumes not a full build out actually of that rectangle but of a forty roughly right here so there have to be some thoughts given to how you deal with the wetlands through that area active participation me right right these three have been pretty much the most and it's been seen at the moment there is some concern about environmental hazardous materials along the railroad tracks it's not unusual because  probably standard right right but there has been no environmental testing done for the area there was three studies that were done in the area that you can we can look to to give a sense of what was potentially contaminated even that needed further study to really see the extent of the contamination and the third one is for the rest of the mass central rail line from wall for him through the rest of the communities there was very minimal neither one of them suggested any preference that they had any preference that they will do to flee do what the town tells them to do and then certainly screening any sort of fencing or access all those different things would happen that is a design  they're in there basically there is no indication at this point that that the south side path as such as proposed in the city of cambridge and then that's really it at this point i new replacement community path project committee along with some for all of your c p a veterans so you introduce yourself and tell us what you think of what or what the position or what how we got to this point sure thanks  this discussion consider the new information that had come to light as a result of discussions with folks from  in the in the letter the information that the town received during the course of the summer was was somewhat different than our understanding leaving the feasibility study process especially the potential for funding of the underpass if the path did not directly traverse the out a picture one of the meetings very similar to the to the picture that is attached to the letter to illustrate his his his concerns and you know again to me personally those it the committee engaged in a in a very sort of contentious discussion frankly about this feedback there were a number of folks on the committee  convey that that was not my impression of the engagement that we had from our start and bta during the summer i really felt like they were excited about this project and gauging with us in and really a good faith manner and just relaying you know legitimate concerns that they had but there if we just stayed on the south side all the way as as jeffrey has has just presented there was a lot of discussion about that certainly my personal opinion was that that seemed unrealistic given where we are in the process but ultimately a motion was brought that we should maintain the original recommendation from the fuse abilities study which that's that's that's the recommendation of the c p a i will say that i strongly disagree with that particular recommendation but that is only my personal opinion that is the  information or impediments came to light that we reserve the right to change it i just want to make that for the record that was in the minutes and that was the vote that we took at the time because we knew the time would pass and things could come up and you never know if the pair group had had the information that the path didn't have to go under the bridge if they had this letter from the d o t and if they knew about this bridge issue in cambridge what they're what they have stated still made the same recommendation will never know at this point i did want to put into the record the letter from friday from november sixteenth two thousand eighteen from john d ray assistant general manager for commuter rail and ferry operations of the mass department transportation if you indulge me for four paragraphs because while we have copies for people everyone watching at home probably doesn't have this but this just came in friday so this is i'm talking pedestrian tunnel beneath the b t s tracks to connect the high school with the neighborhoods north of the tracks at the time we were talking to him about the alexander avenue underpass that since been voted them bt strongly supports the creation of this underpass which is good  sides of the rail line of brighton street the addition of this underpass makes the logical and very safe connection between the bike path and the high school sports fields if the community path never comes to fruition the underpass remains an important safety feature the provides great convenience to school children in the entire neighborhood by safely connecting homes with does donations i've attached a sketch in the following page to help describe our concern of brighton st the m b t will want to participate in the planning for a review of plans and specifications for the underpass o maintenance forces will need to continue to access our tracks the important infrastructure located behind the high school we currently have taken our access via alexander avenue off of channing road we expect that that will also be where the underpass portal will generally be we need to protect benefits that most assuredly joins the ranks as a priority project they will have the m b t is close collect attention till it's complete thank you for this comment on the underpass and the associated community path please contact me with questions then geoffrey can put up that there  that's that that's the attached picture that they drew when they drew that red line and then they do a green line the green line shows the existing path on the north side of the tracks crossing straight over the over brighton street going on the north side of the tracks not crossing the railroad at all the red line shows from coming out of cambridge on the north side crossing over and then picking up the path if it were on the south side behind the high school and that was their area of concern and they had notes under the picture which says the orange line is orange as opposed to it looks like green but i believe is that orange line indicates the relative location of the main gates in the warning systems the red line is the path the travel suggested and then dismissed as unsafe with the underpass providing the connection to the high school the community path can remain to the north of the rail line avoiding an at great connection with the tracks as suggested by the green line in the photo it quickly becomes apparent that a child or other person are that distracted or unaware of the tracks could venture out into the path of a train without encountering a crossing gate while the bell would be ringing in the flashers flashing a cell phone headphones created to scrap distraction or interfere sufficiently to contribute to an otherwise needless accident this accident scenario would be avoiding by keeping the path on the north side of the track and had this overpass which seemed kind of bizarre and we said that's really not a good idea why would you compare consulting or if they did speak with at mass dot and either did not get this feedback i'd get get it and it let us know that so that they recommend it and i know full well that would because we've talked about this quite a bit you when i and in the chair indicated this as well that one of the reasons that you know perhaps the scores higher is that we always felt that getting the underpass that the and i know this is in the report that the path needed to be as you said you know part of that underpass in frankly based on some the work that center brownsburg are and represent rogers has done it's not been somewhat the leak which is great because we need th past either way why would the peer speak to mass thought and at that time did they express any concern about this that great me who did they speak with in these are different levels within mast and i think it's important as we've gotten that kind of feedback and i think you know we're trying to have make the right decision for the community here i think it's important to sort of air all of this yeah i think that's a really good question so one thing i think that's really important to keep in mind about pairs work for the town just as context your question is that it was an engineering feasibility study and they were really tasked with determining whether the  were feasible ultimately and that's that's that's the purpose of the study so in their discussions with with folks at mass dot my understanding is they had to i'm remembering correctly  that was their primary objective and concern was determining whether something was feasible from an engineering perspective that is could it be built the really super lengthy appendices to the feasibility study and are available to folks if they want to review them my understanding is those discussions were both were were primarily with the master highway division which is obviously an important role in the to trail side of this as well as was folks from the from the regional offices i do not g m for commuter rail operations so i think i think part of the answer to the question is the feedback they got was yeah it's it's feasible you could build it  and and part of it is that they didn't have the opportunity to speak with the higher level folks on the railroad side of the m b t yeah i would say that part of one thing to keep in mind though is that the state is not going to say no to anything we can apply for whatever route we want to apply for however they're not going to necessarily fund it if they don't think it's safe or they're not going to get behind it and recommended to the m p o if the d o t goes to the m p o and says we don't think this is a good idea we seriously jeopardize our ability to fund this path so we can apply for whatever we want they're never going to say you can apply for it but whether you get funded or not you're taking a big risk is the point i want to point out also that representative dave rogers center will brownsburg or school committee  feedback correct yes here it was and i know the chair participated i did not it was at the d o t and they and they basically took a piece of paper and drew that very picture of that and we did that meeting and my trying to interrogate us i just i think we're just sort of august something supply august something that i think that's when we started to hear this concern that's the first i've heard that there is that they had a fake by hared something like that but they we had nothing in writing and they were going to look at it we were talking to them and it wasn't  for reminding me that moment center at green space which you know is not what we're here to do this board is here to unite a community behind a solution for community path it's important to just lay out all the facts and everything that took place and all the communications and then will make a decision i think i think i think you now know pretty much what we know here and i said there are others in the room are going to flush things out even more if you'd like to flesh things out even more we brought the whole team here tom to do anything before we open it up to the  taking any updates on kind of what the status is of those two opportunities so that i can speak real quickly to one piece and then when we'll speak to the actual want to come up  glamour so there is a on the north is this working the north yes i'm going to speak closer that that's not work on the north side of the tracks this is the odds in your pass as perceive proceed on the north side and you get close towards brighton street there is a building right here and that becomes a pinch point for the north side no speaking to respect to the easement on that he did he's done some research on that on the south side once we've crossed over alexander avenue or under i should say the bridge and we go along the south side  right in this area is a loading dock for the cambridge plating building and that loading dock would have to be moved in order to put the path  these are taking by the time i would have to be some sort of taking and that would be something we'd have to pay for not the right in the park report did not actually call out the for the this this the purchase of this property because at the time it appeared that the town might try to take the public property for high school in order to increase the high school campus there was a lot of interest at the time to increase the size of the high school campus this is another new piece of information the that i think it's important to point out too that the four looks at both of these countries points obviously and and they're they're pretty close and distance from the track but there's a small difference that's being an important difference on the north side of the tracks there is sufficient room according to the par report or the minimum offset required by the by the trial guidelines to  without actually impacting the building that's there on the north side on the south side it's it's like literally i think inches different but those inches make a difference in that they put chuckling clancy director of community development so yes i did do some research on the question of an easement on the north side of the railroad and what i've determined is that there was a memorandum agreement that was executed between the building owners at forty forty two brighton street and the department of conservation of recreation d c i i need to step back for a moment and explain that that the purpose of the memorandum of agreement which recognizes a conservation easement the reason for the memorandum of agreement which ultimately would lead to the conservation easement is because anytime a building project is contemplated along an active rail line or on property or along property that was limited role in providing information and processing applications and making sure all legal advertisements are run ultimately mass the o t will hold a hearing and we'll with an eye towards approving the project in the case of forty forty two brighton street mass d o t did approve the construction project but there was a condition that required the property owners to enter into the to take the memorandum of agreement and turn it into a conservation easement with g c r being the holder of that easement so everything is in place the only piece i couldn't confirm is whether or not the easement itself was ever executed so the memorandum of agreement is in place that the draft form of a conservation easement is attached to that memorandum what i don't know is whether the easement was ever actually executed we can check it and it would be between the property owner and v c r we could check the title it's a public record  ok so i think that's a lot of information policy wise but it's very complicated and from what i've been seeing online i think there was a lot of disinformation the people misinterpretation of the information so that all the good the bad of everything and we would love to hear from you because that's what this process is all about so i assume some of you are here to talk about this so there's the microphone if you c please one of the tires yes well i mean from my point of view i mean i'd like to get it all out there i mean so there was a vote three two to stay in the south side perhaps we hear from one of the folks there voted in favor of that in terms of their point of view why not now i'm not saying we're not in fact asking a question sure go ahead ok take it up all right thank you all right first of all on the not side of the tracks and this is very beneficial we understand this this triangle that's on the top side here that's referred to as the triangle and that area on the bottom is refrigerants quadrangle so that triangle is not within the triangle other quadrangle that's separate and the top is separate they've already started building over four thousand units in the top one on the lower one the and the people from belmont you understand this clearly they're building ninety nine thousand jobs in commercial buildings in the building twenty five hundred apartments every stock construction on a quarter of them the permits are already going through  and the plan that they have is to eventually put it station there that's in there right up they have that endeavor company that's been right they've been doing reports for them they've already done the engineers on site have already done the commission for the town for the city melissa peters and both of them were surprised number one that we didn't or we realized that we had a right away we don't know right away from brighton street all the way to the other end because we bought it from the town of cambridge from the city of cambridge we bought it for electrical power lines so when we bought those power lines we bought there right away also they said to me because of our impact we're bringing in thirteen thousand five hundred new people to our community we would be more than happy to sit with you and expand our system for bike path also we've acquired can't reach people and this is why i'm very surprised if some committee members haven't mentioned this on the area it's going to add a major asset to the community and it makes us outside more like a pack so we have clay pond and we have the next full pond and we have this one here it all comes together almost like an emerald necklace for our neighborhood so it's very valuable they have planning is light years ahead of us and they've added the constructions are restarted the funding for the bridge every day on the test brings for that bridge and they do have it located and it's not located i'm on a quarter down it's only my located less than an eighth of a mile up here in a sweeps in our direction it doesn't sweep in the direction of cambridge it comes over the bridge and back to us and the area that we have we only want a small portion of it the rest is cambridge and they would entertain taking care that part of the pavement on that side now as for not side versus outside the big conversation we had and i was surprised that chairman's letter didn't include this we talked about environmental contamination on the north side and the reason why we brought that up was we promised the neighbors we give them walls we promised them we give them a berm we try and promise them we would depress it in the ground so the right side of the trucks the gravel didn't spray on the kids on their bikes so the wall into the pression with the berm with the walls for the neighbors and we promised them new drain lines all their properties get flooded we were going to fix them once we fix all of those things we open about huge can of worms and we we have a huge expense unnecessarily whipping up this expense just so we can have a freeway people to raise their bicycles through this is supposed to be a community path not a race way so when you look to your right you see a train going by you are gravel a fence a chain link fence and look at the left you have a berm built up that area is contaminated soon as you open that sort of  ish so if we put it on the outside with throw on the dice at hugh's brownfield site not necessary if we stay on the south side we go from brighton street back  were traveling that direction passing the tennis courts the high school the ball fields the football fields the library we have a small fence on one side as a pressure treated fence of twelve by twelve  us nothing we divided ten feet of pavement from the street back that way we're not changing the grade why are we paying millions and millions of dollars to do that segment when we can do it for one nine hundred ninety five let's build it on the cheap why waste all this money we could get that segment done in seven months at considerably less than a study that's grade level and it already has drain lines we walk the paths ten twenty times there's already storm drains all along that segment behind the high school that area has been used as a service road for fight apartment so they had them put in they had hydrants put in we have everything already there in what's safe of rock children to leave all the trees in place of the t leave the fence there and build it back this way towards the school it works safe paths the school works for not crossing over the streets to get to school i've had hundreds of neighbors hundreds of people approach me sand what do you possibly thinking of to put it up on the tracks is it but warnings so it's seeing this is supposed to be a pocket wasn't supposed to be something for someone to go to work to boston now just just the  numbers if you're on the south side of belmont most of the people live here on the south side most people going to boston with the new route with the showers river it goes they cambridge bought the route over to the child's river so all the communities go in the south side so now we're going to cross the tracks and not sides of the south side to get everybody into boston now if we can you put the screen up where they have the jagged line that he drew on the cross over like that there is no s that's nonsense i don't mean why they drew that because when they put a pedestrian bridge down that the kids can't cross across and that they slam through through a barricade and the same when the office is it doesn't happen and then the controls for those pedestrian bridges of back further back at one hundred feet off the off the roadway in both directions there's no chance of being hit on that there's no crossing of the tracks it's a red herring and we've asked the team in the past if you sold in certain with ox citizens or not town why don't you give us fences there's not a damn fence along the whole thing you're not concerned about our kids running across the tracks but they're concerned about two sidewalks that are there that people might traverse the middle of letter for them they said they will cooperate with us if we need an extra foot they will cooperate with us he said that in french mahoney have generously said if you need us to prep the grade i'll drive the machine out prep it for you we don't need to spend a fortune on this we can do the sell side get married up to the other side we can make a emerald necklace of don't want we can tie it all in together and make a beautiful path  i want to know what the facts are about this so brian indicated that there were some kind of path going bridge going up over this or the bridge is at the end of wheeler street which is right here this is the belmont cambridge border this is where the bridge is proposed to be built it is more than a quarter mile but regardless additionally what i'd like to provide the electricity to the town that a cement does not allow passage on it it was only meant for the electrical utility that easement is also only sixteen feet wide  that was my memory is that we was only it was only to put the cable underground it wasn't to use the surface not just on that point entire west and bike path which is almost complete right now is entirely on the magic like company property and they rather than sort of coming across as they've indicated it would appear say about  in the if usability say at least on a conceptual level about what that could look like with bump outs and barriers and stuff and i anticipate that we will absolutely want and need to do that for safety reasons regardless of whether you know he he didn't know that look you can you can put as many barriers as as you want and you should write if to be safe but at the end of the day what you're doing here and his concern the one of the ways you framed it to us was you're creating this line of desire from from north to south and no matter what what you do to to to to to put barriers up or or sort of direct  numerous demonstrably false statements mr wheeler just pointed out one of them i have here the easement granted to the town of belmont by the n p t mr burke asserted that the town had bought that land from the city of cambridge that's not true belmont secured an easement from the bta and the easement is limited to the use of a sixteen foot wide strip for construction when mr wheeler pointed that out mr burke then said that all the towns to the west were building on electric utility owned corridor i think he was referring to ever source that's also incorrect the path from beaver street in waltham to berlin is own by the n p t day which acquired it when the boston and maine railroad went bankrupt  characterize his proposal as basically outsourcing a belmont community path to cambridge i would add a community path that has never been the subject of any feasibility study by either committee in fact never imagined by anyone other than mr burke so it's seems a highly hypothetical exercise we already have a community in belmont the first six hundred feet of fitchburg cut off path from brighton going towards wife's station are in belmont so that the rest of that path constitutes a straight line to a wife station the idea that some circular does route through the industrial zone in cambridge ending approximately behind trader joe's and then ascending a twenty two and a half a twenty two and a half foot high bridge  over the tracks to get to the wife is a more attractive route well i guess people can make their own judgment about that i would i would add that mr burke cited tremendous environmental risk on the north side and apparently none on the south side in fact the records of multiple environmental  sampling on the site of the french mahoney property can be reviewed at the website of the massachusetts department of environmental protection and the most recent of those which is reviewed in the final report of the committee path advisory committee in two thousand and fourteen concludes by saying quote the this is the french mahoney property in the north a condition of no significant risk of harm exists to human health for current and all future uses close quote you can find a link to that report on the mass of the e p a website at the belmont community pa th website where there is that you can find that full reports on page fifty three and accordingly request that massey ph closed the file significantly the reason there  levels of toxins including p c b petro chemicals toxic chemicals or lead so that's the north side on the south side of course there's the pure code site and there's also an extensive record of  sampling at the site but to suggest that there's a massive environmental contamination in the north and nothing to be concerned about in the south basically has it backwards the fact is that the path is going to hug the rail line whether it's on the north or the south and there's no operatory reason to believe that railroad waste was preferentially dumped on one side versus the other belmont light also had an environmental sampling program before it excavated to lay the cable to the new substation that review which included sixteen wells also found no significant contamination so i think that that's a red herring i think that to suggest that the head of railroad operations for the n p t has no idea what he's talking about when in fact he's merely enunciating a universal paul it's a policy of railroad operators including documents that can be found on the website of the federal railroad administration is also to rank the south route two points seventy eight to seventy six ahead of the north route there are three elements of that that have changed since november of two thousand and seventeen one has already been referred to the assumption that the town might acquire the pure coach site as part of its plan for a new high school to be able to expand the campus in that direction accordingly there is no budget amount for acquiring an easement taking down the wall of the great escape building adjacent to the tracks or the loading dock on the edge of the pure coat sticking towards the tracks on the pier cope building towards the high school side of the campus that would certainly be in the town made an offer of six point five million in two thousand and eleven or twelve when it was looking for a substation site that was rejected and the town was unwilling to pay eight and a half million i don't know what the number would be today even just taking an easement and tearing down those walls and reconstructing the damage would undoubtedly be in the multiple multiple millions so that number is not in the analysis if you add that number into the analysis the cost criteria in the pair matrix will swing heavily towards the north versus where it is now towards the south in fact and right now the range of cost for the north are four and a half to five and a half million and for the south it's around one and a half million the reason is that there's a fifteen foot wall for the entire length of the channing road backyards that's turns out to be very expensive and they put in no budget amount for the acquisition of the the pure code north building you my name is mary lewis i wanted to second some of what he was saying about the cambridge side of it i'll get to that in a second but first i wanted to say that having moved here six years ago from arlington where i lived about one hundred feet from the minute also to accessing arlington center if any of you have ever been to the kickstand cafe where the bike the bike path splits in the center it's packed all the time and this is because of the bike path in part so i think yes it's recreation it's a park but it's also something that i used to use for commuting my husband used for commuting his commute has increased probably at least a half hour by moving to belmont  because he can't simply walk down an easy path and the idea that people would walk well into cambridge and then take the two sides of the triangle and then to get to alewife is simply on realistic they bite not even bike it but they're certainly not going to walk it whereas if we have a straight shot on the north side it's not only safer but it's more realistic it the students getting to the high school more kids will be more likely to take that alexander underpass coming from the windbreak neighborhood if they can access it easily from the bike path and i don't know how many of you looked at today's globe but two people were killed on a rail line just a few days ago in where i am and so i don't think we should really disregard the  the chances of a mistake like that happening it really isn't worth it and especially considering all the things suggesting that the north side is preferable that mr stanton just mentioned i just wanted to put my boat my boat my i don't have a vote unfortunately but you know say that i i would appreciate if we went forward with the north side i think it's more realistic it's more feasible  we have a timeline ticking and we need to get the stand this is gone on too long thank you be the first to say that this is absolutely bears no similarity that whatsoever that was a situation in which town meeting had beers been presented with a plan in order to obtain funding for that plan and then the plan was changed without consulting town meeting and i was of the information technology advisory committee we certainly have no expectation that the reports that we send to you bind you to then act those reports unquestioningly that wouldn't in essence kind of make us members of the board by extension so you're doing exactly what you should be doing which is to listen to take the recommendations of the community path implementation advisory committee listen to feedback from the community and then make the right decision for the entire community and for this and we just need patience and there are a lot of questions to be asked i do want to come back to the issue of the building and the apparent need on the south side for some kind of either eminent domain  taking or easement to demolish part of that building my understanding from the rubric that pair used was it any path segment that impacted private property required eminent domain taking and taking of any kind was basically the lowest rating you could get it was disqualifying and i just i don't understand how we ended up with a recommended path route that basically assumed that we would that that impacted private property that implied that the town would be either taking a property by eminent domain or purchasing a property that should have just disqualified that segment of the path outright and maybe if it frosts or some one of the other problems could could help me understand how we got here because it seems like that is just the elephant in the living room and nobody's talking about just briefly respond to that yeah sure so what the consultant did was was you're you property as a fatal flaw because he was in the sam was was not true a private commercial property which is what we're talking about here thank you so thank and precinct seven regular old person not to meet a member i have a few questions before i'll give you my input because there are things that are unclear to me when this summer the m p t a in mast and everybody was see whatever they are to see what their advice would be or if you'd like what what kind of variables all of a sudden are impacted so that we have you know the experts sleeping keeping my we have nothing in town in some ways the completion of the feasibility study was our ticket to have a real project with the state that's what we were getting for completing a feasibility study and that's what we got earlier this summer par did assist the town and making taking that leap from a completed feasibility study which just says yeah you can build this to a project that is now recognized by by the commonwealth by assisting the the town and completing the project need form and project initiation form from that was our entree into engaging with with the state level folks and that was you know facilitated by our state senator our state route we now have a officially designated project manager at the highway division who is going to assist the town throughout this process and  going to have to move into design consultant if you attended their public meetings and of which there were many they made the point over and over and over that and when we presented the final feasibility study that this was this was meant to be a flexible document that the town could use as it as it was the rubber met the road and and this project met reality and in my view that's that's what it's doing now were we we you know we're the town is taking the completed study and running with it so we you know the bottom line is we are i don't know if we have any money left on our on our contract with our or not but if we do we have very little and the next stage of this project is going to be procuring a design can solve maybe it'll be our maybe it'll be another consulting firm but that's that's that's where we are ok i just being in business myself i normally go back to those who advised me and say hey these other three things came out what are your thoughts the other the other question i had s controversy around north versus south from what i understand and the reason why the m b t a won't fund the south is because of that crossing across brighton street or was it they didn't say just a crack that no one said they're not funding anything we haven't gotten to that stage yet ok we can apply for whatever route we want to apply for a state the m b t is saying they have dire consequences dire concerns about the south side so when that goes through the funding process and the d o t steps up and says that i think personally i think it hurts our funding chances but we'll find out i guess when we got to there ok so then what are there other issues with the south side because if it's not just the brighton street crossing then we're talking about something a lot bigger right i think the concern is the broad street cross that's what they've raised in this yes ok with what we had the way that you just phrase what you phrase sounded like it's the whole south side well the brighton street crossing does dictate the side because if you don't cross the tracks you can't you can't switch over sewer so so in the community paths that i have written down on the cape in lexington on the minuteman trail they all when it comes to a big intersection like right on one twenty eight for instance on four into twenty four one of the one of the exits there is a big crossing and they actually brought it in the community path so that it crossed over to the other side and what that does is it actually stops the people from walking or riding it stops them in their tracks and they now have to cross a major intersection given that this is a major intersection i don't know why signaling or signage couldn't prevent a death also i wan say that the two people who were killed by the train were walking on the path that the tracks that i don't think is going to change anything with with or without a community path there is if there's a path running parallel to the trucks there's no the way that they presented this from an overhead perspective i think is a pretty deceiving because you need also for full information and for full effect the at grade level picture or so that you see exactly what the people on the street see i would have taken for pictures if you were around mark you remember the m b t a discussion when they were talking about closing the two stations and opening a new one we had details for details at multiple different grades multiple different levels that's if if if i was doing his job i would have put in a couple more pictures so i'd encourage folks to go down there and look to keep in mind this letter the intent of the what when we got this letter the letter was for for the alexander avenue underpass they threw in this other information the letter from when i read it was mostly about alexander having to be through this other information about north versus south we certainly i think we in the intends to go back to the n p t they go to the d o t rather and get a letter specific to one b which may flesh it out a little bit this was sort of dictum if you will in this letter but it just corroborates what they have previously orally told us it's nice to have it in writing that that's what i wanted to hear but it's right it's good to have it in writing i mean i'm sorry i don't have the time so from from somebody who lives in precinct seven on the other side of her of st believe it or not there's a neighborhood back there that belongs to belmont i happen to live in it the fact that i can walk five minutes to fresh pond in twenty twenty to thirty minutes around fresh pond and potentially get to those employers who i just visited on friday by the way in that area that in the triangle  or the probably the quadrennial the fact that now you're connecting us to our own bike path even though it's in cambridge you are now giving four hundred homes just in my neighborhood which are which are all double and triple triple families you're giving us access back into belmont which we don't have we have a cemetery and she crosswalks to get us to grocery park like this is this this whole community path and potentially linking it in back into belmont like the south side speaks to me on so many levels because we have been so under served in our in our neighborhood the path in general i want to explain my point of reference when i was sitting at that meeting was the incident that occurred at the intersection of lexington and sycamore street so when we're talking about north versus south what was in my mind was and i expressed this at the meeting the wisdom and the potential criticism that we would face by coming forward to the community with an option that we quiet people to exit a path across two active rail lines and then have to the prevailing path of travel for someone is to get from point a to point b in the easiest possible way and i'm concerned with and that is the s that you see on the plan that if that is this that the concern from the gentleman from the bta was there not even a walk on the sidewalk they're going to walk right across brighton street right across two active rails to pick up the other half so that that's the genesis of this sketch you know it was and it was it was a response to a concern that i waste at that meeting and just wanted to get that out there so people tommy in member precinct four and also a member of the of the attack i've also been an advocate for the past path for quite some time in organizing a community effort around information about the path and things like that that people take they determine the desired path by the least amount of effort and the job in engineering is to pave the desired path when you're on the fitchburg cut off trail you're right there and you look and you say my my destination is to go that way straight that way the desired path is to go going in or side just so many it's always been my contention that that's the safest least cost just overall best route and i'm really really hard and i mean this is an exciting time for the path we have state advocates that are pushing things along at an enormous such a much faster pace than i've i've seen in the ten years whatever it's been that i've been you know participating and advocacy for the path we should take their counsel and we should roll  with it i would say that there are there are three new pieces of information that we're basically deliberating about two of them due to speak to the path being on the north side of the track and the third i would say is largely at this point not not worthy of our consideration because it's it's about plans in a town that we don't control that are merely plans at this moment we have a fish bird caught off trail it has a huge volume it connects cambridge to our our community it is the path the people are going to use it's the path that we should come to construct for in my opinion so i just i just have one one for the point which is i'm passionate a number of people out here are very very passionate and they don't agree with me but we're friends right we are we have e mail exchanges that are right right there cordial ok we are in it about our alternate views when we decide and build this it's going to be great and people are going to disagree very vehemently with each other but they're going to come together right our job right now is to get this done quickly safely lowest cost best possible path we can people are going to come together afterwards don't worry about  jurgensen percy for i've come to most of the meetings on the path i want to add a few things i push it the fact based discussion i'm also very excited about the potential of all the funding that's been been revealed and commitment to get to a design phase with the spring meeting  and that we and they are allowing time for more fact discussion to add some facts on this particular intersection and i like design meter seas and i've read the report carefully they stitched together routes and got scores by stitching together intersections and connections it turns out that the the last intersection here had three options one was a north to north overpass one was a south to the north overpass and the third was an act grade crossing that did not distinguish north and north and south to north and i think unfortunately was a complex matrix already and so probably adding more things but that's an important distinction that would have enabled us to without having pair in the room help distinguish this particular aggrey crossing south the north and north north  so that's not in the report that the difference in the two routes was one point at the they said seventy six seventy four in the presentation and meeting ten it was seventy six seventy five there were a point difference from being south side the south side route versus the north side route a crossing of a railroad track distinction of that south and north vs not having it north north i believe without you know the calculations would have tipped the recommendation to a north side that the scoring would have  otherwise we don't know if there's a lot of other things that have changed the dimension today that you would need to be considered but i think it's important distinguish that the report itself does not distinguish an aggregate crossing that includes a railroad track or not one of the thing is that they mentioned a fatal flaw one of the several fatal flaws one of them was explicitly and bta has rejected the proposed alignment and so i'm sure i guess it's unfortunate that the n b a opinions come out later but that was a fatal flaw and so distinguishing and that great crossing south to north and north to know what i think it be an important step in helping frame the discussion in the facts that come forward as we consider them in the future one of the fact i want to bring into the discussion i live in the netherlands for a while i think it's an apex of bicycle safety a month ago a family of four was killed at a railroad intersection that was very well protected so there's nothing we can do to protect her from no first i want to talk about a little squiggly line there if you look at the power report it doesn't say the alternative to the south side is to go on the north side if there's a problem with your coat are in this case this little issue would be the same thing as a problem not being able to get the fuel code but the report says is if you can't get through pure quote you come up around hit and just street if you come up didn't that makes that perpendicular so that resolves the m b t is all issue about going parallel you would actually be coming pick perpendicular you would go straight across and then you would take a left over there so par already put that in  report i also by the way on the report the only reason the scores were close was because they weighted the school was so that people who were bikers got twice the vote in some of the categories so it really wasn't close if you and got one vote one person now on the cost what you're looking at on the north side is four point two million dollars on the south side is one point five million dollars for this little segment now you said that you had asked for one million dollars to do the design study which it said would usually about ten percent of the cost of the total so in my mind one point five minutes one hundred fifty thousand for the million dollars you could pretty much almost build it on the south side so i don't understand where that million dollars comes from but again there's a two point seven million dollars more to put on the north side than the south side i would note that i think sounds awfully good deal if we could get it for a million dollars i think with all the drainage in the screening stuff keep in mind of course the state is paying for the construction we're not we're just doing the design so if it costs more you know it's the state's the state's concern more than it is our concern i guess the one thing i want to ask you but i'm not following you understand if you're talking about the high school and you come out of hidden sure hidden sure comes a bright street on the south side of the tracks does not and then you would have to pick up the cambridge part of the path on the north side of the tracks is stuffed across the tracks of brighton street right but not in that six in that way that you have on your little diagram there you would  good state department transportations diagram it's not my that their argument was you're going parallel and then people cut across if they're going parallel my argument is that they won't be going parallel they'd be going perpendicular so there's less likelihood you would go straight across it and germ cross  they have that's one aspect of the safety no one has done a proper safety study overall it doesn't address that the majority of this town is south of cancun avenue now if you do it on the north side they have one access point to reach to so they all still got to go down cancun avenue if you do it on the south side you have multiple access points so they don't have to everyone doesn't have to come down it also doesn't address safety concerns such as people you've got a minimum half a mile isolated path with problems with the grass that people would be trapped up there if there was an issue so i find it hard to go strictly with m b t a safety issues when you know looking at all the safety issues that they don't have to be w together not just one particular safety aspect i also think it's probably for you know how did this report and probably feel like ten thousand dollars they could amend the report and do a serious look at one way or the other into this continuing further down the south i've heard points going back and forth several ways but have some think a serious look at wouldn't be much more for them to look a look at that little little stretch t continue and and the last thing i want to say is i'm not going to debate it here probably take about a half hour to explain that mr stanton was wrong about as assumptions on the environmental concerns and what he had said mr burke but that's not we don't have the time  just just to be clear on the funding what they propose but the par report suggests for funding the committee was very clear and said that put every single bell and whistle you can possibly imagine let's do that let's go in for the rolls royce of paths a lot of those features that were put in there ultimately don't have to be designed or constructed so therefore then the costs associated costs will go down accordingly or could go up accordingly depending on what where the community wants to go with it so just to be don't necessarily take the dollar amounts that are listed here and take them with a grain of salt recognizing that those could fluctuate at that by the time this project as a construction point sorry we're not in our usual room so are having a little trouble with the technical stuff but yeah i mean keeping in mind that the the amount they were seeking for the c p c for the springtime meeting is a million dollars that does not change just to clarify what you were just saying is that yes melissa macintyre precinct eight resident town meeting member cyclist pedestrian car driver and most importantly right now mom i have an eight year old son and i'm here speaking mostly on behalf of him there's  response which says it quickly becomes apparent that a child or other person distracted or unaware of the tracks could venture out into the path of a train without encountering a crossing gate and i'm thinking of my eight year old son who quite likely would be diagnosed with eighty h d and probably will have a d h d for a long time and is the person who would walk out in front of the train without thinking or without realizing that that's there i'm also thinking about when i went to college and the joke was that they put in the sidewalks where the students walked rather than putting in sidewalks and the students then walking on those paths much like in boston where the the story is that the streets are where the cows walked people employ myself to the board is in such a way that we when we first we were kind of forced into an understanding with the with the d o t in regards to having our building permit and is one of which was to have the easement of an understanding in place in order to someday support a community bike path that may go along side of our property she is going in with we understand that and we were we are big boys  understand that was an agreement that we're kind of forced into and had to go on with and as the time has gone on we've watched the peer group get selected the funding came to town meeting they did an extensive research and put a report together took two years to put together and they came in favor of a group that was going to be on the south side so we said ok well that's good news for us i mean our business has grown we've lost a lot of the wool will end up losing a lot of our parking probably more than half the parking will stream we have a negative effect on our business and history and that's our problem but it's very frustrating to watch as the you know it comes out of say a fable response for us because i will say on a personal level that i will would like the idea of a community path my family would use and i support it for sure but to see that it was that the south side route was what won out with what i would consider you know the professionals that do it that spent a lot of time on it to come up with that result to put it on the south side and then subsequently the sea pact route has met and spent a lot more time on the nuance is of it that i have came out with a three to two in favor of supporting the south side as well that it's been an extensive one and it keeps coming back out to go to the south side and it just seems to just keep coming back to kick the can to try to get it on the north side and i just see this being a little bit frustrating but thank you hi heather i have a sister member of the c p r committee i'm a professional engineer and has spent my over twenty five year career as a transportation consultant worked in a number of paths throughout massachusetts and new england i don't know jeff if you could go path either on the north or the south side i think bikers will be accessing the path from both sides right because bikers com across in every direction and they exit in every direction and this is an entry point to the path  i think what we do need to keep in mind is that by keeping it on the cell side we're not limited to limiting other access points by keeping an eye on the north side the next access point is at the high school proposed underpass so now you're you're driving more people to use these two locations those four hundred homes that were mentioned earlier you know everybody on the other side to get to this path now needs to get either on this very i don't know how many of you travel in britain straight in the morning but it's dreadful right and i'm sure glenn's well aware of it but it's not an easy route to pass through never mind introducing additional bike path traffic that would then be crossing the tracks i think we also need to be mindful that whatever happens here is going to be a major crossing i think that probably will require a bike signals ation there's no way that anybody would ever travel on brighton street in the morning if we introduce something going in the other direction that was uncontrolled so there's going to be a major crossing here and probably on both sides of the tracks to be realistic if you can you go to the other the but you're doing there just as a question whether it's because of someone else or is this point is trying to understand everything about the north and south why is the south side provide more access i'm not challenging you're just trying to understand that point because the way i see it is that the access point fortunately will be you know it's going to be beneficial to be alexander ave that's a great w for the town so that's one access point for both the north interstate the south and then if it stays in the south side what are the x s point besides bright street is there well the entire length would be open correct well i mean you could then you'd have to work with so so the point would be that you'd have to create perhaps i don't know whether this is possible access points from school property is that the point you're making well that would be open correct no i don't think it will be you know i think i think the way i'm thinking about think perhaps the school system is thinking about this is that this still would be some kind of a barrier along the school property i think if you look at community paths now i work down in cambridge park drive and the building and you can just go through the high school parking lot and just remember right up there and  possible way to get to the high school and i think if you can only get to the bike path either at the underpass or brighton street i think a lot of people being on a very street thank you i think now if you could go to the other map jeff the overall the cambridge plan i think it would be shortsighted for us to think that cambridge isn't going to do this work anyways this works so you know i think in seven years we're going to have both of these access points in and we might show here that mr question what i was asking jeff which we came to like to me and brian said this is well perhaps there will be a bridge going over you know it sounds like that would be wonderful for you if they did that but they still there still but how does that happen right i think if you see the blue that's a connection of a path that integrates into a local roadway network that will have complete streets any project in massachusetts is going for how did cambridge would have to sponsor that we would like we look to work with them without question right and so how does that move forward and seven i mean within seven years i mean nice to have that overpass but again the light went off in my head that we have to still build a path that we don't control in cambridge right i think we're really hot just asking a question imagine i know and i understand you say i think we're really hung up about getting to a life and wife isn't the end all be all destination right i think a path to get into the fresh pond network there's a number of trails that are being built to get into boston shortening that route right now or what he's thinking about the routes that are in place today but the secretary of transportation is dedicated i'm sure senator brownsburg is aware to implementing a number of paths and complete streets throughout the city the state a network and i i think you know we're looking at one little spot right now but that one little spot in what's on either end is going to change by the time this is built in five years eight years but this is a fifty year to seventy five year project that we're building so i think that you know we did spend almost two hundred thousand dollars of the town's money on this feasibility study and got a recommendation i'm not in cahoots with brian and michael like you know we've pretty had predator pretty impartial group of five people on our team  and we took a vote based on the recommendations of power and you know i hope that we can move forward with that it almost feels like if we did move forward they'd be less of a stumbling block because we do need to have a major safety i concern with all is that is if we move forward based on home we got from the d o t that if we don't go on the north side then we if there's a risk we don't get a path that all night empty chilled little bit by the the language in this letter if the community path never comes to fruition the underpass of alexander ever means an important safety feature that's telling me that they're in visioning they could just do the tunnel and then just say no to the rest of it which i don't want to see well i find it confusing because i do a lot of work for both  be commenting in regard to a path i think from the safety standpoint of the crossing it would but i don't think that he would be involved in affecting the funding of a project that no over the recommendations and m p o would be a very big piece it's but i think the reality is that they're going to be crossing on both sides and we've got it's going to be i you know glenn knows it's a tough situation we've had a death in the in the town we can't just say oh put the path on the side and have one crossing there's going to be crossings on both sides i think it's it's only the safest thing to do for the project so i don't think that that should be the limiting feature of moving forward thank you thank you heather my name's david chase i ride a bike a lot i've been commuting to work on a bicycle for the last twelve years the last three of them and i've been exclusively commuting by bicycle so i've been wondering have been interested in this path and want to get done and i've been paying a lot of attention to what i see and the choices that i make when i'm like how i choose a route and what's good and what's bad a direct route is a good  and direct route is a bad route i will not go so i have a seven and a half mile option to work and i have a six point one mile option to work and i have a six and a quarter mile option i take the six and a quarter that puts me on guard street concord through cambridge the direct one is much nicer rides on better routes safer routes that i know are quantitatively safer  money don't do it because it's longer so direct routes matter even though i've been doing this for twelve years and i am now willing to ride my bike all the way up helped belmont hill if i have a choice i'll avoid a hill if i have a choice i'll avoid an overpass climbing things is bad direct flat routes are good the other thing i've seen is that on the minuteman trail  people talk about oh you know racing on this trail there's everybody there especially on weekends and basically on weekends i don't go because it's so busy and you know i usually run errands and i don't run errands it but there's everybody even during the week you will see people roller blading skateboarding roller skiing there's a blind woman who lives in arlington who feel safe walking up and down that path talking on her cell phone with a k just back and forth back and forth people go and buy doesn't care so everybody uses that path and it feels really safe and i think that that's a goal to shoot  for one other thing which is kind of got me bothered this talk about the south side i have not heard a solid buy in from the school committee that yes of course this will happen and until i do i assume this could end up like our new library which didn't get built because that didn't have buy in from the school committee so i don't want that to happen i see that as a risk and that seems like something that should be resolved i don't think that was in the and brighton are horrible this is actually something you should watch out for the town has many paths that they markets bike routes that me experienced twenty eight thousand miles on the bike in the last dozen years i don't write on those routes i choose different routes i don't know what formulas they were using but they manage i mean i can discuss at length of why this one is subjectively less safe why i choose the other route but we have the town designers have blind spots and they make mistakes because they're not riding bikes and they just don't see these things so they don't know what that is all also note for just because the nature of time and we have a lot of items left in our gender that after this line we're stopping so i laura vanda heard precinct four well we're lucky because the gentleman in the brightly colored shirt said just about everything that i want to say i just i'm excited to see this moving forward i really i really value the safety question at that intersection and so i hope we really consider what mass dot and bt said i'm sorry it came late and i'm sorry we don't have pars adjustment for that but yeah straight and flat and direct and i am also concerned to hear what the school committee school administration school building committee has to say i haven't heard it yet originally i believe there was concern from the superintendent and discussion with the school committee about the proximity of a path to the current school but with the change of that we are  on a path on that side and i don't again we haven't officially voted but i don't think there's any strong objection from the school committee to having a path on the south side rosen town meeting member precinct fo r so i'm going to the actual feasibility study people it said how perry would respond to this the changes the new insight i would consider the letter a big complication and i want to see it built that's the primary thing no matter what the decision is i would like to see it built so referring to page forty nine it says should addition additional adjustments to the recommended route be needed there are splits ability in the town can refer back to the matrix scoring so if it were frame back to the matrix scoring and looking at prices an issue  the first contingent route which it offered so it already put this in here was to be the north and the only challenge that's listed there is that it says the alexander avenue underpass may not qualify for pathfinding which is no a moot point so i would consider that to be contingency using their own matrix this would i soon lift the north side  that when you're at sea the anchor in the chain aren't the most important part of the system to stay in one place it's the pin that holds that together so i want to remind you will it seems to be pass that yes we need the money for the receivership for mass start to make this happen just like they need our two miles a path to complete one hundred fifty miles from boston the fitchburg and not once have i heard this mentioned we've talked about it in the path in our communities several times to make sure that that is fully understood just think how foolish mr ray would be if he said well no we can't give you the money because we want this way but in turn we don't have a path built should we extend this another ten years if the russes misters kids at night as well as many other people on this board have volunteered their time so with that said i'm going to leave that point as if he is a very important point in the big picture that we own the last two miles to town to belmont alton the last two miles make one hundred mile link of the central rail trail point one point two i'm not going to go into the north and south as has been debate and i think it's a lot of information on the table it does change but to that point relative to the squiggly line that jeffrey put up i understand that but we also have to destroy and we have a solution on the west side from belmont center going to the west to waverly and in that position you have ten times as many problems with pedestrian crossings as compared to brighton street so i think you we have to all roger up to say if we're going to santa and there's not one stoplight there to protect the pedestrians who will go into the master trains cross street yeah they made a little extra berm but it's not the berm that was originally designed on cross street about six years ago and that was on the table if you go down concord have towards cambridge that's a real berm to stop at this tree interested to stop pedestrian traffic from crossing getting hit by cars that really slows the cars down right now the only thing that's happening across street cars are flying right across so i encourage you also to look at the number two you know this because whatever we just demand on the eastern side we need to meet on the western side and it's my belief that ten mean i have a very close friend that's active in the us knows this is well in the community path community if you will he sat on a number of boards at the state level and he's always told me for years that we are considered the missing link and i think we need to sort of take that under investment we are the missing link the thing to keep in mind is that the m p o process is a competitive process that pits us against other communities that have things some real wants to put the mcgrath highway on the ground in medford has their thing and arlington is their thing it will put this forward if we don't go forward with our putting our best foot forward united with something that we get letters from the state saying yes we support it we could lose out not that it's not a good project north or south that we could lose out to some other project and not get funded so you i think you need to stay tuned we're not done with this but i want you to go home at least and think about if it becomes northside or no path what do you do i think that because that may come to that we're not there yet that very well may come to that point and i think everyone used to think very seriously about that because that may be the pinch point here and we may not like it that just may be the pragmatic reality of it and the other part of it is hey and the market alluded to this maybe we get both maybe we get the path that we're on the north side and maybe we have another path that goes over this bridge and we can all go everywhere and bikes that be the best of all possible worlds but i don't know anybody other elected officials anybody else wanted to say anything this evening we could all right stay tuned staying  really i'm really really happy to see everybody here tonight in all sizes good thank you time for the donation next except six hundred dollar donation from the belmont youth activities and dare into the belmont police department for k c a c four r j restorative justice does membership want to do the  did say those of you want to go outside and talk we still have a lot more to do here tonight so please thank you feel free to hang out in your public building out in the hallway that would be great and you are right now we're going to take six hundred dollars for belmont from the belmont you think tip it isn't daring to the police department group to help us fund our annual  last thursday and i think this is a wonderful program for our community and i want to thank the police chief and other members of the police department jamie because it is well the assistant chief for embrace seen this restored of just as my eyes were opened at that meeting and it's it's in arlington it's supported by our district attorney marion ryan and others and i think in our sheriff i really think mr chair at some future me perhaps not the summer of at some point whenever we can fit it in metropolitan area planning council and easy question so are you here interrupted my introduction ok i'm back akiane from the light department of energy analyst ok so what the green communities have been great when you talk to us about what we're always been going and what we're doing now so the reason we're here is because we've been hard at work compiling this year and report draft and so i've been working closely with nicole on that and also folks from produces office glad to have been great and people from facilities and expection anyway what we're doing right now is compiling all sorts of data and adding it to the report from last year's so what do you have in front of you know here funding which of course we want to maintain yes so the deadline for the year's report is december third owner acquires a signature from we're calling it the oh yes oh we're here with the draft it's not complete but we're hoping describe to what the rest of processes yes so the interim report itself is this longer excel spreadsheet that you have and it does have a lot of tabs to it which makes it seem very complex but it's actually just giving update on a few key criteria of the thinking these programs so and this year actually has a simplified report for two of those so for the vehicle in mentor instead of listing the hole  example or just listing any changes in that fleet this year and also with the permits that trigger the stretch code instead of listing every permit that's triggered the search code instead reporting on how many permits triggered the stretch codes on and how many of those are residential and how many of those are larger commercial projects the meat of this is talking about what energy conservation measures have happened in the past year so that's the part that we want to get out of one of the things we're still waiting on dates for and then looking at the data in mass energy insight so i mean i and that's where this these slides come  from to just give you an idea of what we're looking at so far and the interim report is basically explaining what measures have been taken over the past year what  data looks like and explaining differences in the energy use based on what we know happened in those buildings right and so you've already met all five of the creature it during the designation round and so criteria three is the energy reduction plan so that's mostly what they are for is on the showing that you're continuing  we're looking like we're going to meet that i think so we're in good shape and the coal looks at a lot of different communities and she's been pretty positive about what she's saying right but this is about you know have an electric vehicles in town i mean there are any number i mean was wonderful that we finally qualify which  great but you know we need to continue that sort of drive efforts to to reduce energy consumption right as i could and so that is the nice thing about this program is it doesn't require you to pick any one path  get there right so you don't need to switch out your whole fleet with electric vehicles and most please don't take that as a pathway it's more about aligning energy conservation measures with the goals that you already have as a community so for example and here in one of the reports is buildings to target so that shows you like which i have all the buildings in belmont which ones are you using the most energy and using  that's why i'm saying senator yeah that would be great well i'm not saying i need to know every little number but if everyone takes a look at it in and especially back if you guys say that it looks real like the numbers are real i'm not a scientist but if you say that they're all realistic numbers and they're all and where they're all achievable we meet the qualifications and the actual text of the form of the document i have no problem with aids i can't find the number some of the slides here this gives a nice a higher level view of what we're what we're looking at to get  given the time of the time of the evening but folks are aware a town meeting we started a process of informing the community about our intention to reinvigorate this process  is going to be some meetings over the next couple of weeks with the objective of getting the school committee in the board of selectmen embracing a process that will ultimately have a bunch of community involvement in input process so we're going to patrice and i and the superintendent and the school committee chair will sit down in the week very likely after thanksgiving sit down try to lay out that calendar the goal is to put together an r f p process that after after community input that will hopefully start in the december january february timeframe where well that it so correct correct and i think that's exactly the situation we do need to before we kick off the r f p process arrive at a decision on location and if it is that school should be used here it is a school when i mean there has to be some kind of agreement  people stipulate a number of the requirements that are important to this community that any responding group would need to adhere to it won't stipulate every aspect of the partnership but will provide a high level framework that they can then respond to so we will have to put that together very likely we will want the school committee also onboard with that because regardless of whether or not it ends up on the high school site or not there will be one of the big users of the facility and will have a perspective as well so i imagine the hour of p will be both of course like be community input so i want to talk about that very quickly and then second of all is location and then we need to sort of arrive at a location decision i think it will be partially driven by the incinerator conversation which i think sounds like now will continue through the work that's been done i think we're prepared for it but i think we need to hear from chris on the storage piece no i agree here but i mean we've asked i've asked patrice to see if we can get a little bit more grounding on the opportunity for the rink on the incinerator site as well to because i think there's two sides right so getting community input in terms of here the two sides are thinking about here where they have to say might be helpful i think that's part of the consideration and the other is one of the other and with the center is that right here's a here's the ideas let's hear from you yes we sa later so i think watch take a look at that and see if we can actually get it into the calendar maybe to take to do it in december perhaps it has to be you know first we can january going to midnight this one definitely won't do it for gets too bogged down into the budget that i mean liquor license application from the belmont gallery of art for their event on december seventh december seventh from six to nine yes yes i can always in favor i sixty three belmont street dunkin donuts last cushing down its fifty two church street and dunkin donuts slashed her pillow down as nk three fifty three trip hello rock and i wasn't emotion i was reading that you want to say so moved so moved i thought you were making a motion pleasant street shell located at three thirty seven pleasant street second i was in favor a move to approve delivery licenses for pizza delivery service at seventeen dollars road an advantage limousine located at two ninety four if it's more a circle i have one question trying to tell you what heat with us gentleman does perhaps the same here he parked his car in his garage ok one car for a livery right i'm not opposed i just want to know if you off hand you know it's just it's just odd to have a commercial license in a residential street zoning wise but they're star markets company just on the renewal license him that there were conditions associated with this license yes and in terms of square footage and all of that and i don't know clearly it's there in a lot of people in our community  utilizing it not trying to dredge up old votes but i know that part of the record there were conditions associated to granting this license and for a vote on this not to make a big deal out of it i'd like to understand whether those conditions are continuing to be met and primarily what they were is the honest what it of the display and you know and then keeping it in that area that the thing that troubles me is when you go through there you go through other aisles in the store and they have like ping pong balls and those red cups and it's quite clearly related to the liquor but they're not advertising liquor out of the little area but i like are related stuff to bring this up at this point and we knew this in the past but i know when when this was presented to us it was like this small little displace rather store and clearly if you go in there it's floor to ceiling this place and they've been you know they're great you know business within our community they've been a good corporate neighbor i just want to make  first it was a very contentious very contentious vote yes it was a very contentious issue and i think we need to win one and i was there as well as one of the things that i was vocal on before i got elected as well i'm just concerned i want to make sure they're following the rules if they are no problems i mean i've i've bought wind there it's a nice facility you know so if you want the other four so i move approval the liquor license in or  road is the address for them seven which is pretty much that i've said so so is everybody rushing in with the republican tax money to get their taxes paid in twenty seventeen where we had one point four in revenue collection and term tax for the town two point three was the school was by that we are seeing that money could be utilized for so the landfill stabilization currently kaplan filled that proximately seven hundred thousand short any building project maybe short of funding and then capital for facilities department it's my opinion it's one time money agree with you because we're not going to get that a point for next year it could be sure that that's and i'm the only point i want to make that there's a certain component of turned out let me say this words a certain percentage of free cash that is in fact it will be that it's not just one time because there's always turn back so i know we can trend that and i want to get into that detail discussion but to me i've always looked at this  ways one time cash i understand that point clearly but there's a component of the free cash that is recurring in nature every year i think with this new concept of policy right revisit no i think that goes to my last last point which is the i think the town and i said this at the warren commission needs to figure out what what they want to do with when situations like this come up where they want to put it yeah i mean it's better this way than the other way but i think we need to get that calm sort of policy first before we start spending the still ok so we have been receiving questions in the cards to food composting at the incinerator say there are several reasons as to why food composting was taken off the list of uses and recently met with a composter offering to provide service to the town for curbside composting but due to no final decision being made on the company that it was not a viable option at this time i've attached a letter from the town's environmental engineer that outlines the reasons we've recommended fuken past and be eliminated from the list of uses for the site so i attached that letter right but we've already voted two we had seventeen uses we've got them down to five i mean we can't do them all right this is good ideas or not i mean with this one got eliminated unless something is i really don't want to keep reopening but no this is going to go to decision five and now we've got to cut down from five to one and we're going to move forward we can't just keep going back and taking things putting him back on the table or never going this is why we never get a decision on this issue we just keep not making a decision  mean the letter from the langdon environmental consultant which basically doesn't recommend doing the food composting at the incinerator site we do not recommend that the town pursue the potential use of the landfill site for food waste composting operation bruce haskell and develop environmental put those on the website along with the pair group report which i believe is already on the website so if you can link all that into an easy plate piece and then maybe even have it on the rotating thing like take the andrew gillum letter off and replace it with this like if you want to know about what's going on with the there's a lot of this information and i hope we clear the air tonight on that but i think people weren't here and they're not going to see it the more we can put out the facts credit better it will be and that's what the presentation was the spirit of that in the spirit of that have we been in touch with cambridge to get their color on that report we've been in touch with the planning department in cambridge ok so we know kind of words  this is a proposal from the building committee that will come before the selectmen hopefully once bids for the building are accepted and so the plan for quote before next summer if the bit come out but that's the point the point  so in regards to december twenty fourth and december thirty first what i'm going to propose is hard to close on the twenty fourth staying late staying open late to five o'clock on that wednesday and thursday directly after christmas and then december thirty first that's a day where you traditionally open till seven pm because it's a monday closing at four is there an issue with people coming in to pay things before the end of the year i mean this year won't be like last year but sometimes you know there are people who need to get a permit or something before the year and i mean considering that we used last year were closed for it's because we're up until seven more nor moved on favre thank you for staying with us good night