let me take care of some preliminaries the town meeting members in the far right center and then the center part of my left after here i believe we have some warren committee school committee planning board capital budget committee traffic advisory committee found counsel george hall any other requests for membership to the floor because me with respect to the advance filing of proposed substance of amendments as you know one amendment has been filed for article two when we get to article two i'll explain the process that we're we will follow the moderator has the sole discretion to allow motions from the floor that are easy to understand please remember however that a town meeting member who wishes to make such a motion and make the motion before speaking to it and not at the conclusion of a speech are bylaws provide that all votes must be taken in the first instance by voice vote however we will use electronic voting per article to vote for the amendment and for the final vote roll call vote must be requested by a town meeting member and supported by thirty five members i will remind a speaker when speaking for the first time who has reached the ten minute mark though i hasten to add that no need to reach ten minute and tell me members of priest previously spoken on a matter should not ask to be recognized feel all others who wish to speak of had a chance and no person may speak more than five minutes when speaking for the second time i ask that all speakers address their question through the moderator and all discussion must be relevant to a motion before the town meeting  five posting a attested copy of the warrant on the town court's official bulletin board in the town hall and at least five other places in town fourteen days before the date of this meeting in accordance with chapter thirty nine section ten of the general laws as well as section thirty dash one one zero eight of the general bylaws of the town of belmont and furthermore i do hereby certify that i gave notice of this special town meeting on november seventeenth two thousand and fourteen by causing a copy of warrants to be sent to the town meeting members at least fourteen days before the date of this meeting and by causing copies of that warrant to be made available at the public library in the town clerk's office all in accordance with section thirty dash one one zero  succeed his father as a superintendent of the highway department his father had served founded belmont forty two years before retiring and for as on july first two thousand and three feet or became the first director of public works and he successfully oversaw the consolidation of the highway water cemetery and parks and recreation departments into one unified parliament and opportunity to spend more time with mary his wife of forty years his children james john and julie as well as his two year old grandson brandon and two new grandchildren that are expected in early two commitment and dedication that serves as an inspiration to the citizens of the we are grateful for his thirty three years a service this community and wish him the very best in his retirement the board of select to welcome and introduce our newest school committee member who was voted in this morning by the joint committee of the school committee and the board of selectmen and who was sworn in today tom computer  we want to welcome and wish him good luck with all his endeavors on the school committee thank you very much with that at the town meeting here the motions in the following order one two that the reports of the selectmen and the other town officers departments and committees except all those in favor please say i oppose now adopted unanimously we have two reports under article one year and a half on the theater task force and god it was important as chair to come to report to you as we finish our business by the end of this year hopefully some of the work that we're doing will continue in the working groups that we formed but doing this we decided to organize a task force in the five working groups who pay education group the revenue opportunities group c capital projects group group d government looking at innovation in other on the phone the top of special education continued issues that we all know about around the moment operations and maintenance instructional modeling innovation alternative revenue sources student services instructional technology we looked at validation of currencies with all the news of how it is they completed that in the very robust they're the analyze our currency structure that's been completed the made recommendations in changes to investigate maximize this is like non profit tax revenue flow i did meet with the board of selectmen and provide a recommendation to increase forking management fees that would generate around forty to sixty thousand dollars in additional revenue implementation schedule for january first of the upcoming year additional revenue growth opportunities or recommendations or finalize the details and also a detailed analysis on new projects growth was completed by the board assesses and so this working group is finaliz representatives on major projects completed in order to develop recommendations and cost estimates for look at debt service costs and schedules for project development that are being finalized we also looked at him management nonghet exclusion project page you go  the financial model projections group they've been working very hard over the past several months in developing financial projections which is really not easy to do based on his stroke of trending future projections taken into consideration  likely recommendations for working groups to develop in a model it's nearly complete i've been sitting in on some of these meetings not a part of this but it's rejection working group city to not it and that analysis is nearly complete continuing to complete reports final report recommendations will be completed by the end of the year i think the plant just point based and where we are is the financial task force which was formed as you know by the board selecting we'll make a presentation to revenue source and i should say i do believe one of the things that came up from out of this is that we believe that even the financial task force itself won't remain in place but the working groups that were formed the remaining ways because i think some of the issues around additional revenue sources in education sound government clearly capital projects physicians will continue and i think he's working groups will continue and it's in place hopefully the members that are par good evening adam dash town meeting member precinct one member of the war committee but i'm here tonight in my role as vice chair of the underwood pool building committee i've been told to summarize the last fifteen months in about two minutes so here we go we started in august of two thousand and thirteen we were known as project manager for got residential him put we had met with town departments we designed the project we went through the conservation maybe the planning board it went to you town meeting we had went through the board of health we had a dead occlusion vote we then went out to  bid had a number of bitters one of the bidders within the budget but then that bitter backed out and then the next bitter that was below that was four hundred thousand dollars above our budget we went out to try to raise the money and the belmont savings bank came through big time with a two hundred thousand dollars matching grant and then all the rest of the community came out with the rest of it and fill nations anywhere from ten dollars to twenty five thousand dollars we've discussed all of the donors large and small all of you and we are here we will strive to get this poll open for next summer we lost a lot of time obviously based upon the vitter dropping out and all this rigamarole you saw in the newspaper over the late summer and early fall however right now we are tentatively trying to get this open for next august it may or may not happen but that depended upon how bad the winter is and whether that slows the work down but we will try to do the best we can but no promises on the timing like to think  cassidy you know unfortunately has left but he's been tremendous in coming to our meetings and helping gerry boyle the combine facilities manager david killed town administrator has been an incredible it's been a community wide effort at town meeting the entire community the town body the committee it's been an incredible private sector i like to think that cottage street neighbors in particular on the other neighbors who will be in are currently being a little bit little bit aggravated by some of the work however there will be some broken eggs i promise you like the omelette at the end of the day like to think the underwood family for graciously donating this land all those years ago we wouldn't be even talking about this subject without it and this does belmont crowd get this going on as an amenity for future generation i'd also like to invite you all to the groundbreaking we're having a ceremony this coming friday at the remains of the pool and you're going to get to hear me give the same speech again in case you're not paying attention now and if you've seen this glorious destruction that down there from which will rise the new i realized that we had formally introduced the new superintendent of schools john p failing to town meeting and i want to take this opportunity to do so thank you thank you that article one motion be laid on the table all those in favor please say i suppose no motion is passed unanimous not go do a quick run on on our electronic voting here because we intend to use it for article two so let's  back to the question of the question you want to go back to the question to brian cushman again i know there's some question about color so let's just review for a second the question was do you think rosen's frozen was disney's best movie if you believe so and you are in favor press yes which is one or if you are opposed and think that pocahontas was the absolute favorite please press two which is no your name will appear it will change color as your vote is recorded i ask once again we gave this last time please make sure you are paying attention first to your device if the green light goes on then eventually you will see your name passed by again it is by precinct alphabetical by last name so first look at your screen here and see that the little green light is lit then watch that your name is changed color if you actually decided to pocahontas was not after you have voted and you change your vote your name will change color again it does not record your vote here is just saying that a vote has been recorded for you we hold this open for forty eight seconds time when you want to post the results ninety eight yes eighty seven no any further lavender if you change your a vote again then it will change again there's purple purple and orange it does not mean that your vote has been recorded as specific way it just means that a vote has been recorded from your device remember these are not roll call at this point this is not the kind of roll call question we would do roll call your answers will ultimately be displayed next to your name we have a problem in the back so so what we've asked is folks to first find their precincts in the precincts are going to appear almost two precincts at a time and it's alphabetical in your precinct and your name will always appear in the same slot every time we do this vote so we have an opportunity to leave it up for ten seconds but just remember when we go through six screens that's more than a minute for the answer so the committee decided originally that forty forty was the right number of forty eight is what we're actually going for so ok could you speak up please we can't hear you certainly could be if people choose not to vote remember on this kind of vote there's a yes or no if someone did not push a button and they're sitting in the audience they've chosen not to vote on a roll call vote abstain will be an option so we understand that we have two devices that people have said they have a problem and they are being replaced jack they are on the way to you and i see the other one you know over here david ok gotcha ok so we have three being changed it's just go that's an eating problem i see happening in the front row in there so we're just going to change those devices out and then michael call the question again if you have a question or a problem with yours as  concept that we actually went through before so if we want to continue to do it and go yes and then no that's fine it's just that this is really the time just quick questions to say is everyone a good bike you understand what you're doing k we'll get to that in a moment and while they're working on it let's move on here and then we'll come back to when we actually are voting and go through and make sure it's clear and correct on article two which is a main item business tonight what we're going to do it we have one amendment as you know so we're going to have the presentation first the votes and then the presentation on the article and then after that after that we will hear mr williams he will make his amendment and we will then have discussion of the amendment as we do  then once we dispense with the amendment we'll come back to the full article as amended or not so that's the sequencing but i think in order to proceed in the most helpful way we'll have the presentation in votes first before we turn to the amendment mr ross article to article two appropriation of expenditures by months on a reconstruction move that two million seven hundred fifty thousand dollars be appropriated for the belmont center reconstruction project and to meet this appropriation one million three hundred thousand be appropriated from free cash and further to meet this appropriation the town treasurer with the approval of the board of selectmen is authorized to borrow a sum of one million four hundred fifty thousand dollars in issue bonds or notes under the provisions of chapter forty four of the general laws or bama center reconstruction project that i know a lot of us just saying why now it's really a proactive approach to improve the street sidewalks lighting and access and belmont pain business center the plan was developed to address years of disrepair belmont roads and sidewalks in the center of the utility upgrades that would that are under the roadway are completed water and gas in april of zero thirteen and april of zero fourteen pushing square and waverly square streets and sidewalks will be reconstructed under the tree palo road project many of you have seen the improvements already implementation of belmont center reconstruction plan is the final step in improving our three business centers the process the traffic advisory committee posted for belmont center informational sessions from october two thousand ten to january two thousand and eleven with planning board input final traffic advisory committee concept plan approval was in april of two thousand and eleven the board of selectmen approved the concept plan in june of two i'm going individual discussions e mail private meetings other discussions have been ongoing ever since the board of selectmen the one committee the capital budget committee presentation was on october twenty ninth two thousand project components all new pavement surfaces not only for vehicles but for pedestrians and for bicycle new sidewalks and ornamental lighting everything will be coordinated different types of pavement different street furnishings with the light fixtures to create a coordinated balance center curb extensions of each crosswalk all the latest engineering techniques utilized in order to reduce travel distance through traffic you have herb extensions in order to reduce the amount of pavement behave or pavement that a pedestrian has to transverse to get to the other side it's a very very safe way the new cross walk system at channing road concord avenue and leonard street intersection others traffic improvements single travel lane down london street from moore street to con av eliminates two to three lanes developing and more street which is one of the central points improves turning movements to and from channing road and concord ave it's probably one of our most difficult the project benefits without a doubt it will promote business vitality to maintain overall property value to the community all of the businesses in belmont center obviously feel that this is going to increase their retail volume because it will be more pedestrian friendly and people will want to go there it will be easier and safer to navigate it's fiscally responsible funding plan using reserves it uses the advice that we've got from the rating agencies and all of their financial consultants that this is the way we should do it increase green space in front of belmont savings bank the idea is to as best we can create ourselves a town common that could actually be more useful additional parking along concord avenue there are ten net new on street parking spaces in the overall plan obviously the the business owners as well as everybody else who uses the center is very happy about that improvements at the channing road intersections of cross street and claflin street you'll see them in further detail in a minute but these two intersections are both tricky for different very specific reasons which glen will outline but both of them of being improved both for  pedestrian safety engineering wise these are going to be a lot better allows implementation of our parking management plan where we're now going to use this as an opportunity to implement a parking management plan which at them sure you've all have seen over the years and it provides for dedicated bicycle lanes on leonard street this will allow for when the town of belmont approves a community path and when we implement it this center reconstruction plan will allow for the connection to that community path regardless which option is selected we will make sure that it can be that it is integrated into a community path plan once that's approved with that i'd like to invite clancy to come up and give us a project over  let's get right to it this particular slide is sort of an overview which shows the project limits this first slide is the first district intersection coming down leonard street from pleasant street improvements include wider sidewalks and dedicated bicycle lanes in curb extensions at the cross walk is the extensions of the cross walks there the bicycle lane is shown running next to the parking lane single traveling on linen street which is what exists today this next slide continues the side of the road just past the cross walk at the cross walk that is located in front of el centro restaurant that's this cross walk here we receive some feedback regarding loading zones in the design and we'll make an effort to implement loading zones past the location of the crosswalks one of the concerns we heard was for example if a motorist is heading down lennon street towards pleasant street if you have a truck parked before the crosswalk here in a loading zone in this location here otherwise as i said the single lane which exists today continues down leonard street curb extensions at the crosswalk to shorten that crossing  this next slide shows the intersection of channing concord and leonard street just to orientate ourselves here leonard street is more street coming in here channing road on that avenue but this is the area where the traffic during the peak hour in the morning particularly right at the restaurant where the roadways are mentally opens up this is where that single lane of traffic becomes two lanes as vehicles jump out from one another to create the second lane the traffic coming down more street to try to get into the queue will also form a second lane and in some cases depending on the volume in the courage of the driver they may even try to create three lanes of traffic coming through here what this concept aims to do is keep that single lane of travel the rue asked more street through because that avenue once you gain the intersection that  single lane of traffic then opens up to the two lanes that we're all familiar with today but this does a couple of things as indy mentioned in this presentation by maintaining a single lane of traffic through here what we have found in i'll speak to the barrel experiment in a moment but what we found with the experiment was if you're coming from the underpass and you want to make this left hand turn movement up concord avenue that single lane of traffic means that you only have one lane of traffic to contend with there you try to make that turn if you're coming out of chanting road either trying to scoot across or take that left hand same thing you have one lane of traffic to contend with it's a much safer to make those churning movements because you read and react to that one car that's coming through as opposed to the two or three that could be coming through under the conditions today what it also does is by actually going to back up a slide introducing this extension here which allows us to hold that single lane of travel what it also doesn't shorten the distance of this pedestrian crossing here which we feel is important for pedestrian safety single travel lane also allows us to introduce the cross walk in this location here which makes the area around the bridge more walkable i should point out that this concept as you can see includes a cross walk system in this location which is closest to the underpass we've heard back from several people who feel that this would not be a comfortable place for them to cross the street and while i can assure people that i'm still blown away by that whole frozen question to be honest with you but it ranks up there pretty high in my house but anyway you know even though i've tried to assure people that from an engineering point of view of the cross walk in this location meets the sight distance to stop at stopping sight distance requirements we have no means intent to do something that people will not feel comfortable utilizing and so we are looking at the implications of dropping this cross walk out of the design and  as we button up this design over the next few weeks that is certainly one of the goals that we have you know you're in front of the belmont savings bank parking lot only there was a roadway that passes through here with six parking spaces as you can see by the proposal that all goes away the green space that exists there is expanded the goal being to create a larger town common hopefully something that will attract pedestrians and users something that will be more utilize d and really be sort of an attractive welcome to people who are coming up from under the underpass into belmont center to have a nice green space immediately on that approach we think acetic lee is is a good  thing you know what i'll keep the slide up all the talk about the barrel experiment you know we place to the barrels in front of a sigh restaurant and then down in this area here to mimic this single lane of travel you know we did this a couple of years ago in you know we saw the improvements that it made in the intersection here at the time the traffic sergeant for the police department lived on shannon road and he was able to report to us th benefits of people trying to come out of chinning road during that peak hour so we knew that it was more readily in this intersection we felt confident that the turning movements were safer and more efficient as a result this time around when we put the barrels we wanted to take a closer look at what was happening with the queuing around the center and so the four weeks prior to placing the barrels out someone on my staff every morning from seven thirty to nine o'clock would go out and they would monitor the backups on pleasant street lifton prospect street and on leonard street if the minute increments so they did that for four weeks then we put the barrels out and did the thing five days a week for four weeks we we monitored the backup as we wanted to obviously gauge if there was any impact with the queuing in the backing up as a result of that single  lane this is always the tough part i took the data and i tried to present some kind of a graphic presentation that i could use to to evaluate this data so i came up with maps i plotted the what i used half hour increments five days a week for four weeks before five days a week for four weeks with the barrels try to see any obvious changes as a result of the barrels and boy i can't find it what i did is i actually compare the days of the week so i wasn't looking at a monday with barrels versus a thursday with barrels i took every monday mondays with barrels of mondays without barrels and i looked at the data half hour and commenced to see where the traffic was backing up on pleasant leonard left and sometimes even up to prospect street trying to see if there was something obvious with barrels without the barrels what the data shows is that on any given day because of the variances of the traffic flow and the volume that's trying to get through belmont you can have backups on pleasant street out to route t without the barrels in place you can have left in street backing up onto prospect street as far as princess lane without the barrels you could have the barrels in place and experience the same thing it was really no rhyme or reason i could find no correlation that suggested ok this must be a map with the barrels in place based on what i'm seeing it wasn't that clear cut so that is the best analysis i can give you as far as what we discovered when we put the i know intuitively there are people who feel that that just can't be i can't i have no response for that other than to say that in our monitoring of the situation this is what we found in the four weeks before in the four weeks during the one thing that i will say that it was very obvious was the impact in the efficiency of how the intersection of channing conquered avenue and then its street functions with the barrels in place and i think that that's important and i would like to say that that shouldn't be lost in evaluating overall what that single lane means the belmont center well you know while you're thinking about the backups on pleasant and clifton in prospect i would ask you to also consider the efficiency of how intersection is functioning in the center because i really think that it all should be looked at collectively  this slide is up concord avenue heading towards the police station we've got the biggest building here a town hall complex here the plan would widen slightly market avenue on this side and that allows us to implement a parking lane along the town hall green space area the cross walk here remains because of this widening there is some impact on the slope here right at the bridge  we've tried to do is implement some kind of a green space area where people could also come sit down here have lunch do what they would do lydia has christened this the sausage for those of you who haven't heard about that what i can tell you about the sausage is we are going to continue to evaluate the value of the sausage and if we determine that it's not worth the effort and will certainly drop it out if there's a feeling that there is some benefit to having that additional green space then we would move ahead with that so this is channing road this is coming out of the center clapham street heading up to the parking lot in this direction this is the intersection of cross and channing this was a design that we actually had back a few years ago when we rebuilt cross street unfortunately it was right around that time that the board of selectmen were forced to change the parameters of the paper mansion program because of lack of funding and so we were not able to make the improvements in this intersection that we wanted to make the belmont center reconstruction project is a great opportunity to grab this concept and implemented properly right now there are the plastic dollars that are in place mimicking the island that you see here and this is white paint g the parking lot here in the proximity to the center we felt that in point of view we should try to do something to make this intersection safer we talked about a concept like this of sort of squaring off these corners however it was brought to our attention on a couple of occasions that you know these these long sweeping radius around these corners is a great place for landscapers to park their trailers while they run into the senate during the summer to grab a sandwich we certainly didn't want to take that convenience away and so we settled on a plan that created an island in the middle where a pedestrian could find some refuge walking from want to corner will maintain an area along the curb line for longer trucks to be able to cross at the bridge this is a very difficult location to place a cross walk because once you get up along common street the site distance just isn't there i mean most of you are probably familiar with the fact that the nearest cross walk is  all saints church as you move away from all saints and head down common street towards the underpass there really is not a good safe place to site a cross walk this is really the best location that we could find but once again several people have commented that even though from an engineering point of view this seems to work a lot of people feel like they just wouldn't be safe crossing in this location because of rafiq coming from the underpass traffic coming down a common street continue to concord have been you know we've already made the decision to drop this out of the design so really on the sly what will remain is really just fixing the asphalt there is no longer a need to long island the center island to pick up a cross walk in this location so really the limit of work on this side of the bridge will be to fix asphalt and we're also going to propose a couple of want to mental lights on this side of the bridge as sort of a welcome or are an indication that you are entering belmont center is a couple of examples of the you want to mental lighting i think i mentioned it at the league of women voters night that when we were considering the want to mental lighting i had representatives from the planning board historic district commission a representative of the merchants the designer has a landscape architect on staff and so we met a couple of months to talk about what made sense for the center you know the participants visited other communities looked at things they liked and didn't like the level of lighting the look of lighting in terms of the actual glow this is what was settled on you know i don't know  need to get into the real technical specifics of it but it is proposed l e d lighting the there are different lights proposed in different locations so for example this unit on the left something that would be meant to purpose of this would be to light sidewalks and even the facades of the storefronts along leonard street first we would advertise for construction by january sixteenth of two thousand and fifteen open bids on feb twentieth go through the process of evaluating awarding bids be ready to award bids by march twenty third issue a notice to proceed and have the contract to hopefully with the cooperation from the weather be able to begin work by the middle of april i believe this is a one season construction project  my hope would be that most of the impact would be during the summer months when things tend to get quiet in the center in the goal is to have the project substantially complete by the end of  october so we're asking about an itemized breakdown of the the estimate for the project i know ellen circulated that the town meeting members this slide in the following slide is presents that information to minister just to go over the project cost we're asking tommy to approve the appropriation of two million seven hundred fifty thousand dollars that includes a total project cost of two point six million dollars with an additional one hundred fifty thousand dollars allocated for bid contingency again as glad mentioned out we go out to the marketplace where not we have a good estimate but again where the victims of what work is out there were contractors are interested in bidding the work we believe we have a good estimate but we wanted to ensure that we had adequate funds toward the project if you appropriate the additional one hundred fifty thousand  as part of the two million seven fifteen we don't need it the treasurer will not borrow for the funds so again that's a safety mechanism there to allow us to receive the bids in to award the bid based upon our initial estimate of two point six million  dollars when we advertised the project this came up at one of the informational sessions will advertise in the papers two point three million dollars not for the total project cost so that contractors know what we approved for a project so that funding vehicle is not available to the town we have one time cap of funds that are pending with regard to the sale of the cushing square parking lot in the sale of the would fall road parcel and those are pending but they're not available tonight in addition to that as we mentioned the legislature in prior budgets is allocated additional funding to season towns for dollars which means that additional funds of approximately one hundred two hundred sixty one thousand dollars if the governor allocated the full three hundred million dollars that was allocated by the legislature instead of the two hundred we would have received in increased funding which would have helped pay for the project in variety ways so the the before you tonight is the recommendation to fund the project through a direct allocation of one point three million dollars from free cash and financing the balance of cash is and how it gets created free cash is the town's savings account or its reserves and how it's created is when actual revenues exceed what was budgeted for revenues that were contained in the budget and or when the actual expenditures are less than what was budgeted so again if you have surplus revenues over what you budgeted or you have expenditures less than what you budgeted those balances get calculated into free cash  certification one of the examples of how that can happen again if we have vacancies in the department for a portion of the fiscal year obviously an individual is not in that budget position and they're not getting a paycheck or their salary savings and those evaporate when the position is failed but in the interim while you're waiting to fill the position you're not issuing a paycheck so that generates salary savings in departmental budgets during the heating season  if in fact we have a mild winter when we don't use what we allocated for natural gas for heating those savings are generated by having an expense less than what you budgeted the same hold true holds true for snow removal costs if it's a winter where we don't have as much snow as we typically get in the budget balance is not expended those available funds are returned to free cash on the revenue side we have variety of revenues that fund our budget one of which that our motoko vehicle excise revenue in the year where the economy is appears to be getting better folks may buy new vehicles and obviously with new vehicles there's a higher motor vehicle tax that is paid and we know that typically in the spring when the commitment is issued to issue the excise tax bills but we can only do estimates prior to that meant issuance by the registry motor vehicles so in case some cases like last year we had a higher motor vehicle excise taxes than we had budgeted same holds true for meals tax again if more folks go out to dinner more restaurants open town and we budget in amount if the revenues come in higher than what we budgeted those excess revenues get piled into free cash building permits same principle we have an estimate for what we issue when building permits it's a very economically sensitive revenue but when we have revenues that are or building permits are issues for ren vations or large projects like the belmont hill school of the kinds of projects that over exceed our budgeted amount for building permit fees those go into free cash i would only point though there is that overall when you set the tax rate one of the certifications that you have to give to the department of revenue is what your revenues were for last year actually what we're using for a budget for the current year and they look at that very closely to make sure that you're not over budgeting you're not property tax revenues but we have to be very conservative in our revenue expenditure productions but in particular with revenues to make sure that you know our proves our estimates in fiscal fourteen we used approximately two point one million dollars  free cash and we added to that balance one point three million dollars we have a total free cash amount certified as of july one two thousand and fourteen of seven point five million dollars what we were able to do is replenish the excess revenues in excess in expenditures less than budgeted other two point one that we used and were able to increase the balance by one point three million dollars that was achieved by very various factors of unbudgeted revenues which are not guaranteed to reoccur again or in the same amount but those include such things as the collection of deferred property tax and tax title collections based upon the good work of the treasurer and collecting outstanding taxes we received a reimbursement one hundred ninety thousand dollars for reimbursement from fema and mima for the blizzard that happened in two thousand and thirteen it's a while we get your reimbursement but we got in fiscal fourteen  expenditures that were made in thirteen we received three hundred thousand dollars in bond premiums on the sale of our twenty nine million dollars bond sale that took place in the spring of two thousand and fourteen and we received one hundred eighty thousand dollars in our medicare part d reimbursements for the drug benefit so again we had a windfall this year of an additional one point three million dollars is the recommendation of the treasurer supported by the board of selectmen to finance the belmont center project from a direct appropriation of one point three million dollars from our free cash balance of seven point five million dollars which will bring us back to where we began last fiscal year of six point two million dollars we will bomb the balance and the first year payment for the principal and interest is one hundred and sixty nine thousand dollars that amount decreases over the term of the bond issuance based on the estimates but about one hundred thousand dollars in year fifteen of the  we are basically using one time funds for a one time capital project and the this is a balanced approach to finance this project by using our free cash balance in a prudent way which still maintains our flexibility and allows us to deal with unanticipated expenses and to have enough money left our free cash account to maintain the amount that we use in our annual budget appropriation we also feel that the amount that we're allocating on a yearly basis to the principle and interest to be funded free cash is manageable and can be met on a yearly basis for the next fifteen years overall if we believe this allows us to maintain our flexibility but also allows us to reinvest in our infrastructure there's been some comments about using this free cash for other kinds of projects in town the bigger ones that are coming down the pike such as a new high school or  facility play station library incinerator site or other projects those are major projects and they will require a debt exclusion from the voters to in order for those things to be financed and approved by tom meeting so this is a project that is not small but it's not terribly large and as we said we've talked about this and we've come up with a way we believe that allows us to fund it by using a lump sum from free cash and a bond the balance and to manage those funds years and what we've used in free cash over the last five years again from the balance that has been certified to seven point five we've noted what things would hit against our free cash balance in fiscal fifteen and glenn the l is what the project will hopefully look like at its completion thank you thank you mr calle i now would like to call on mr williams to present his amen that million seven hundred fifty thousand be appropriate for the belmont center reconstruction project and to meet this appropriation the town treasurer with the approval of the board of selectmen is authorized to borrow a sum of  millions of a hundred fifty thousand and issue bonds or notes under the provisions of chapter forty four of the general was or any enabling authority and to take any action necessary to carry out the very mahoney chairman of the capitol budget committee with five members present the capital budget committee unanimously recommends unfavorable action mr weldon williams you can thank your just expand on your proposal  moderator obviously i'm swimming upstream my concern with the proposal is primarily financial and i have a bank a banking background granted it's commercial but i don't think there's much difference between commercial banking in this above banking or household banking except in this simple banking should be less risky because we have the power to act one of the fundamentals in in commercial finance is that if you have a long term project finance at long term and i believe this project as by by glenn and  presented here this evening is clearly a long term project part of also part of the financial proposal that david in the board of selectmen and the others put forward say that we should bond at least half of it or approximately half of it but we're looking at fifteen years but by any definition that i'm aware of this is a long term capital project and i think it needs to be funded by long term capital which would be a bond issuance and also for the reason that i don't think that they're talking about is free cash is actually free cash in my world free cash is an income for cash that doesn't have another claim on it in our world this cash as david explained is created by actual revenues exceeding budgeted revenues and or actual expenditures being less than budgeted mt on an annual basis the goal is to replenish use so it can be use again for the operating budget subsequent year now it so happens that this account that they're talking about is morally entitled the free cash capital f capital c but it is not free cash in the in the sense of the definition that i just read to you what they're trying to what it what should happen to this money is it should be returned to the operating budget to the make the budget easier to manage in the following year in not spent on new capital initiatives and that's the primary financial objection that i have with regard to  the way the financing is set up also on the topic of new cash i think a reasonable argument can be made that we do not have any free cash in any case in the town of belmont because of the pension obligation that that we've created in the past that will require us to pay one hundred eighteen million dollars over the next thirteen years this obligation  was due to past decisions made by this body and doesn't go towards current operating activities instead it repairs errors of the past i think it's  critical and at this point i'll say that i did take advantage of the e mails to send these remarks to each of you so that it wouldn't be too confusing speaking to this evening but so i  apologize for you i'm i'm reading also from that e mail and i think it's critical that we that every town meeting member know that the town's current plan the pay down the pension liability requires us to divert money from the operating budget to currently that amount is six million dollars which would normally be available to fund our schools our police fire public works  library services and other services moreover the current plan further requires that the six million dollar allocation or diversion be increased at the rate of seven percent a year for each year in every one of the next thirteen years eventually it ends up at eleven million dollars in the final in the final year that will be diverted from the operating budget take care of what was overlooked in not taken care of in the past  with student enrollment in class in climbing dramatically our schools cannot sustain the squeeze that this robs from peter to pay paul brad a g b a the also it will also lead it could also lead to some intolerable reductions in public safety public works in other downside services and i don't want to be overly dramatic but obviously the the warrant committee has approved the the motion as originally proposed in the board of selectmen and david in in floyd supported as well but but i think we have to be able to connect the dots here we o hundred in eighteen million dollars to the unfunded pension money and we're taking that ash over the next thirteen years out of the operating budget now without going into any other detail on that if you must understand easily that there's going to be an impact on town services and i apologize for this next section michael said i could do this but i'm going to put it another way because a lot of people they that considering these financial facts are confusing so i put it in into a personal household financial example for those of you who read the e mail and basically what it says is that if you find out that you have a major roof repair and make and you cut back on other items in your household budget so that you can make the roof repair and then you find five grand from an saidee in a bank account that you forgot the question is would you put five thousand dollars against the roof repair or would you use it to buy something else and do a new project i think the answer is clear probably you would put it against the roof repair but that you wouldn't have to constrain your operating budget as much as you would if you did but i think there are two decisions to make here tonight one is how are we going to finance the reconstruction project so it's my belief that since it's a long term project it should be financed with long term fund i can't really understand any other argument about that however if the project then the question becomes should the project go forward in my recommendation is that it should not because our operating budget is already being overwhelmed by this pension obligation and if we have any so called free cash it should be returned to the operating budget  can repair the damage that's done annually by making that pension payment thank you very much thank you thank you mr williams we now will open up for discussion on mr williams amendment and i would like to keep the focus on the financing of the project once we decide which is the purpose of the amendment once we dispense with the amendment in either way we then will discuss the full project mr jones mr moderator ralph jones on meeting member precinct three there's a very fundamental financial principle local government finance also applies to corporate finance and certainly the household might add that is one needs to distinguish between one time funds and recurring fund funds in the free cash account or one time funds they come by in the free cash because of one i'm events one of the most basic principles of local finance is never never put one time tongues and two operating budgets and that's exactly what i heard mr williams oh that the one time funds be diverted into the operating budget problem with doing that is that those funds don't recur so if you set them into an account and spend them for recurring events those same events are going to occur next year in the year after that and those one time phones will not be available this is going to rock solid basis of our budgeting for the past twenty five years and i think it's a very sound one same sort of thing would happen in a household by suddenly got a fifty thousand dollar bonus one year it would not encourage me to go out and buy a new car which with every current expenses year after year that would be a very strange use of fun what we're doing here is taking one time funds putting him into a one time expenditure which is the capital expenditure and i think that's a very prudent way to want run the town and it's been very fundamental to our fiscal affairs for as long as i can remember mr  time funds to fund operations it is a fool's errand eventually to do run out and we had to cliff two or three years from now there are alternative issues that we need to consider for the next several months ladies and gentlemen but to drain our free cash operations to me because absolutely no fiscal sense whatsoever and i've been in the commercial side of business for thirty years as a c p a on the commercial side of business you also don't have the issues that we have a rating agency percent perspective we can't overburden our balance sheet with debt you know what small amount of debt but over time we're going to have significant issues we need to address what a new high school which is a front of us perhaps a new because our debt service will be significantly seven figures significantly less so why should we put more debt on our balance sheet we have the luxury this year this year have a fairly robust free cash position i think this is a balanced approach we should use some amount of free cash drawer it down prudently and we looked at this financially as we also know and understand that perhaps sixteen we may have a need to fund operations as well we could fund operations with the five to six seven million dollars in three years early enough to just police fire and not doing the kinds of things that we need to do because we don't have the turn backs any longer because we've increased our infrastructure and we don't have the revenue source that's the it's hopefully at some point perhaps we said an override in this community though on the pension side i take exception to the point about errors of the past we are on a funding schedule statutorily to fund our pension fully it's an obligation to our employees to fund the pension statutorily by two thousand and twenty seven now the law provides twenty forty but we as a community of the side it that we will fund or a pension by two thousand and twenty seven so we've taken a very conservative approach on that so that we can redirect hopefully redirect twenty twenty eight those sixty several million dollars payments to our pension obligation to arc increasing cost which is a crisis and you've heard our town moderator about that as well we've done everything as a community as we can today to address it we need support at the state legislature to change some laws as relates to be open to what we're doing as a board select having sat on this board of selectmen for four years the continued strain and operating budget will have some really difficult decisions to make over the next several months in terms of that this is not the time and place to make a short term decision and we have long term issues in front of us thank you yes yes ma'am chris doyle precinct one i agree with mr williams with mr jones and with marco polo and i will vote affirmatively for this and that's all reconciled by the fact that really isn't we should be borrowing more and not using cash is because it's a rare day when you can borrow fifteen year money for two and a half or three percent so i using the roof example if i was to come into five thousand from my i wouldn't i wouldn't go and spend it on a car i'd make the decision on whether was going to borrow more for the roof based on what interest rates were and if they were two and a half percent i would borrow that money for the roof and if they were seven or eight percent like they will be in a few years when we have to borrow for the high school then i would use that cash to contribute to the project right now we have a rare chance to borrow very very cheap money and to not use cash and we should take advantage of the current interest rate environment to borrow this extra one point four million to pay for the project the in my mind the pension is a red herring and shouldn't be brought into this at all and i have no i'm supportive of our approach on pensions but i think that's a complete red herring to the finance plan for this project also i read this motion to just say we should change the plan of finance for this project this wording and maybe someone can tell me if i'm wrong says nothing about how the free cash should be used so voting for this doesn't then redirect someone to spend that on a one on something that's going to be occurring an over an obligation that would be incurred over and over this wording only changes the plan of finance for the project it doesn't say anything about spending money unwisely so i would say i support said about not spending money on something that's going to incur an obligation over and over i support mr williams amendment for none of the reasons that he stay david i'm sorry and i feel support what marc says and i think the pension is unrelated in a red herring so i would like to borrow two and a half percent money all day long well we have it in a couple years when we go to the high school we won't you have that access  although i'm i'm still not convinced about the project and will speak to that later after we voted on the amendment as for the tough budget decisions what i saw in the information that was provided to us is that we have consistently actually used free cash to make up for shortfalls in the operating budget and when mr polo talked about us having the opportunity to choose whether we need an operating override in order to make up those shortfalls the board of selectmen has not given us the option of voting on an operating override to make up for those shortfalls and i for one would welcome that opportunity to try to make the case to taxpayers now  several years is a town meeting member time and time again we've been told that free cash is not to be spent on special projects or special interests various groups and committees have come and said why can't we use free cash and time and again the warrant committee and the board of selectmen have told us that that's not what free cash is for it's our rainy day fund this is not a rainy day i did not see any shortage of you know street lights right now in belmont center and  i try to refrain from the larger comments but i don't see that there's an emergency that we're trying to solve right now by dedicating free cash to this project and to the rest of the project later thank you outrage the current borrowing rate that we have factored in is four point seven five which is based on a fifteen year coupon so in other words when the bonds of price the price fifteen years out that it might be some bonds at five and a half some at six summit three but at the end of the day the average cash when i put this financial plan together and just to be right up front about it i was the aca tech this financial plan i was well aware that we were going to get somewhere in the ballpark of a million three of some years down the road when we're going to be financing a high school every time i have a rating call that's being tate in moody's i asks the same questions over and over again how are you using your a using your money for capital projects are you trying to have a smoking narrow with the operating budget when i have the conference call and much what i will be saying to moody's is and by the way is three major projects that we're going to be funding is an underwood pool which is five point six million dollars the underwood full is made up of two point three of c p a money one time four hundred thousand of contributions into me and nine in debt so it's almost a fifty fifty match we have a twenty seven million dollars shot term borrowing the belmont municipal light plant which was voted by town meeting about three or four years ago darling will be for a couple of years then we will be sliding that twenty seven million dollars to end stock and style will pick up all of the permanent borrowing so now when i come into the belmont sent  got a sizable free cash balance this is a one time project you know they'll they'll ask why aren't we considering some of that instead of loading up by our balance sheet major projects coming down the road in the next five to ten years one hundred million dollars high school a twenty eight million dollars d p w facility a twenty million dollars police station and i'd known what what repairs we might have on twenty year old cherry middle school and some of the other schools around here i have no idea what that's going to be but we're probably looking it a debt somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred fifty to one hundred seventy five million over the next ten years cash available for this project but only this project and i'm also concerned regarding the lack of transparency around this decision and i appreciate mr carmine explaining a little of this to us but in general who decides how much free cash we should have on hand and if there is the amount above what is who decides what that excess is spent on just a few months ago as we just heard we need an extra four hundred thousand dollars for the auction i didn't hear a peep about cash being available for that yet that was clearly a community priority and a remarkable private fund raising effort had to be undertaken to find those fun so i suggest that rather using free cash for this undertaking people on the whole project if it is  and then we perhaps need a committee maybe not unlike the day to make recommendations as to what to do with the extra cash but let's prioritize what we do with those funds and how we spend our money and let's make sure there's complete transparency around that decision making process and let's not just throw money at a project simply because it is shovel ready thank you mr cunningham kevin cunningham precinct four question under the under the existing proposal without the amendment it's my understanding that the part that is a bonded that doesn't go out to the town doesn't vote on that it just is that we buy town meetings vote it says go ahead and bond it is the is the bonding in the amendment also simply executed by time funds for one time project on every project capital projects one time i mean you going to be able to high schools centers i mean it's if you if you go to movies and you can basically find something this worth  half a million how are you going to get one hundred to two hundred million for the high school and things like that i mean i think we should just i don't i i understand what mr williams said and previous speaker talked about a red herring pensions or you know basically that's just a number of this out there although mr kast anita would probably like to have his pension when he retires but it's something that i think if you want these things you have to pay for him and presented the taxpayers and bond it not just take the free cash and say we'll pay half and then what are you going to do when you when you're looking at two hundred million dollars for all these projects what's movies going to say there is this are you asking question yes mr carm authorizing the debt issue though if in fact the high school project becomes a force because we've been approved by the m s p a partial reimbursement that will start the process of determining what the total cost will be and that kind of project will require the issuance of debt which will require a dead exclusion which basically is a vote to allow or or authorizes tell meeting to assess property tax over and above the proper two and a half limit that's what a debt exclusion is and then tell me to name votes on the actual bond authorization similar to what they're being asked to today and that's that's how the funding will happen will happen through debt issuance for the larger projects are you or relationship what we do it at tonight's town meeting might be a blip what we do is six months from now we decide that we're going to use  more free cash into the operating budget is another blip but each one of those lips as i said earlier i'm on a recorded line dealing with  asking the question one is the town management making recommendations that town meeting is accepting and not accept is to town the signing to use lots of one time buns the pay for operating budget issues is that not recurring somewhere along the line we have to have sustainable revenue consider this a mine a capital project and preserving the integrity and that relationship i have with moody's to me is very critical i would say that probably over the next three to four years we will be having that conference call dealing with the high school project but you're telling telling us that you coming up with half the money for this project out of apple i mean sat out of free cash will allow you to borrow upwards of two hundred million dollars for moody no that's not what i said we're trying to preserve a triple a rating we're one of thirteen communities in a commonwealth of massachusetts bring hundred fifty one communities where one of thirteen in all of our behavior is more on it financial condition how the management makes decisions those are the important ingredient into a moody's rating so you using this money from free cash in moody's eyes will give you keep your aaa rating i think mr carr but right again mr common briefly but i think he's answered the question  and others in the room if you've got a fifteen year bond for the half of this project what is the cost and shouldn't cost be given to us tonight in addition to the two point seven sorry a one million four hundred fifty thousand fifteen year bond is one hundred sixty nine thousand to me and seven hundred fifty is three hundred twenty nine thousand so should the number not be on one of those numbers should be on either the amendment would be the larger number added to the to seventy five to millions of fifty or the smaller number should be should have been added previous  project will not cost us anything but two million seven fifty zero that's how much we're borrowing whichever way we choose and then there's an annual amount that we pay for that borrowing and mr carmen explained how much t pass or it costs a little bit less ok and i think that i mean that's a third of the project that's a third of the price of the project if you had all that did you have a second do you have a follow up question i mean you have the answer i guess i did the money as you talked about earlier and i'm stepping into the previous conversation before the amendment you got questions square park a lot and some leno  you know that let's come to that mr white after this and then it's amendments on the finance whether or not of the model for me to consciously vote for this i have to know when these monies are common in now we don't and where we're focusing on the amendment and then you can come back but there's a common give us any debts that are going to come to fruition soon so we'll know if we're going to get more money is after we will that's appropriate mr yes of course that's relevant to the amendment but cabbagetown treasurer the question always comes up about a couple of attentional revenue sources would fall road in in the cushing square parking lot from my perspective it's not a bank one me in three of that is truly one time money that will not reoccur but realistically if we were talking three years ago you wouldn't know when the money was coming in but we're getting closer to cushion square we know that he has to have that piece of property and he asked to pay for it in order to complete his project which is right on the edge so how close to the edge are we to get in this money mr plough mr polo and then i think we'll go capital perspective but it's speculative at this point if we knew we would sit here and say let's wait for them but at this point they're speculative no no i think you answered my question thank you i don't want to i don't want to take this to long you didn't answer the question i asked you don't know as t with a budget within the budget is an appropriation last year was two million dollars of free cash that was certified that we put into our opery but budget for twenty fifteen to we're not sitting around spending free cash we can't spend a nickel  spent is decided by this body this is the appropriating body mr roberts no you're he's already spoken so we need to have individuals so not spoken and we'll get we'll get to miss dora paul roberts town meeting member from precinct eight so i have a question and a comment or carmen it would have a kind of guidelines that the town uses for free cash in terms of the amount of free cash that we like to keep vision of a revenue department a revenue division a local services suggests that we have one he in anywhere between three to five percent of our renewable budget we are in the process of working closely with the war committed to come up with a freak if i'm sure you've seen our the scotchman's at the board level something that i've always thought was important because we have always had this annual debate how much free cash can we use in our operating budget we always feel that pressure you know that right we feel the pressure to on a cattle project as well and so we're in the process of establishing probably less of a policy more guidelines in terms of the use of free cash but the d l s s three to five percent you think about three or five percent or a nine million dollars ninety million dollars ninety five million dollars but budget it's four and a half to five million dollars that's with d l s suggest so we spend on the one point three and then if we consider sixteen to pay know how things turn out in the spring that sort of thing you know we're very close to that number so i think if you look historically we've been low blow that and i think we've built it up a little bit over time so i think it's prudent to have somewhere in the three to five percent range and that's based on a recommendation by d number the work committee did an analysis on this it's all over the board and surrounding communities and i don't think as a community we should be all over the board i think we need to come up with a prudent to use guidelines because sometimes policies can hinder you you know and sort of handcuff you rather it be a guideline that we try to adhere to if possible and if we can't because we're in an emergency situation that we can't as drivers there might my point is returning to the home analogy i think in essence what we're being presented with here is a decision of whether we want to finance one hundred percent of our borrowing or whether we want to put a larger downpayment on and finance less of it and i think for many of the same reasons that as a homeowner you probably want to try and put as much down as you priorities i might have other priorities as well but given that this is here and it's and it needs to be done which i think most of us agree it does this town's decision to try and pay for more of it and finance less of it from a financial standpoint seems to make a lot of sense to me especially given that process pepper diving our free cash we're putting our budget out of whack by my inclination would be let's not get too clever with this if we want to try and pay for more of it financed less of it that makes sense on a financial basis for the town to do amendments in advance i have best accepted the amendments and not asked for a second thank you yes the second question is we heard a discussion about all these major projects coming up it will require  make sense and we certainly did that as a relates to the underwood pool which was two point nine the point nine but this level of boring you know as we considered it we didn't believe that it was necessary to do that we were hoping frankly have the funds from the projects that we discussed earlier would follow road in pushing village has not come through and we believe the question the moment senator is ready to go we think it's vital to small enough projects to get done  we clearly understand and certainly the financial task force understands there's a number of projects major building projects we need to consider over the next fifteen twenty twenty five years and we'll have recommendations the task force to the board of selectmen abo that and we're going to need to ask this body and the residents of this community considered get exclusions possible of rights as well and unfortunately we have to consider very seriously the need to reinvest in our community this is something we need to should all understand that but i have to admit that i don't may i may i wearing my day hats say that it begs that exclusion and adds to the property tax level and this bonding is done within the two and a half a level one debt exclusion adds to that this does not it's is it because all of a sudden we've got some other debt it's not there and it's still within prop two and a half now it's a decision that we just said decisions whe it they do it within the budget now i didn't think within the law that was within their purview to make that decision but i guess i'm wrong it is a moderator if if i may attempt you made a trying to present to you is a balanced approach and i'm going to come back to that at the end again a balanced approach this is not a dead exclusion a dead exclusion would be a borrowing that would be paid for on people's real estate tax bills so it would go out to the voters they would have to approve it this is in effect getting paid from general funds it's a borrowing and that town is paying for it from our general funds ok so it is not it is not coming out of additional taxes on people's real estate tax bills so what's that mean you know and i'm telling you my thinking when we saw that chart up there we saw that a portion of free cash has been applied every year to help supplement the general budget to account for any shortfalls well in effect how are we going to pay for this general borrowing it is probably going to increase our free cash our location into the general budget to help cover the cost of the spiraling which is my first point under the town's balanced approach ok that annual debt service is one hundred sixty nine thousand dollars much easier to absorb than the annual debt service of a borrowing of two hundred seventy two two million seven hundred fifty thousand which is about three hundred twenty one thousand a year that would be three hundred twenty one thousand that we would have to either cut services in order to pay for that or again in effect increase our allocation from cash to help cover that so and more balanced approach is if we are all one million seven hundred forty one million seven hundred one million four hundred fifty thousand ok that's an annual debt service of one hundred sixty nine thousand dollars small our annual debt service and over fifteen years we would save approximately five hundred thousand dollars in interest payments versus borrowing the entire amount and that is why i did not support your amendment i understand the argument that money is cheap now but i think we have to see how that affects our operating budget our free cash allocations and the long term interest rate savings we have had a nice increase in free cash over the last school year approximately one point three million so yes it it it is convenient to take that one point three million apply it towards this project and still keep us at an adequate free cash level you know of o six million over six million dollars in effect the current rate that we had over over the last fiscal year so again this is meant to be a balanced approach we take a little bit from free cash we borrow a little bit we're able to absorb it in our general and our general operating budget and at the same time by taking some money out of free cash we're saving about five hundred thousand dollars and interest payments over the fifteen year bond period sam with all due respect a very nice speech but it's only a daughter of magnitude i'm not supporting this full borrowing whether it's one sixty nine three sixty or eighty thousand the money still has to come from someplace and it's still going to cost money to do it and i'm still not clear that the treasurer and selectman and center have the authority just to present it because it happens to be within their balanced approach my bigger concern is that over the last five years we've stockpiled about five million dollars in addition in free cash at a time when this town meeting suffered through whether we're going to vote for a police officer to be at the high school whether we were going to pay for the butler playground when indeed we told the parents to raise the money the same going for joey's park the same going for not putting in sidewalks and curbs and we do our streets because the money's not there and yet all of a sudden we have a million three foot beautif due for a break i'd like to get a vote on the amendment before we have a short break so let's see if we can do that yes some around precinct two i call the question thank you question is called all those in favor please say i suppose nay it's approved by a two thirds majority will now vote on mr williams amendment are we ready to do it electronically or do we need a couple minutes one minute let me take a vote voice vote first all those in favor of mr williams amendment please say i was oppose nay well amendments defeated but i'd like to i'd like to well let's do it when we come back let's take a break five minutes and then come back thank you