we have a quorum so we will resume the two thousand and nineteen annual meeting for the town of belmont please rise for the pledge of allegiance right we're going to test the devices as we normally do we can press any one or two and just to make sure that how we all sat any problem all right thank you i now turn to the town clerk for the reading of the war good evening i allen o'brien cushman town clerk do hereby certify that i gave notice of the adjourned session of the annual town meeting held wednesday may second two thousand and eighteen by posting in a tested copy of the notice of the adjournment on the town court's official bulletin board in the town hall and at least five other places in town giving notice that the annual town meeting had not been completed and had been adjourned to meet again wednesday may seven two thousand and eighteen at the belmont high school auditorium at seven pm briefly stating the business to be acted upon all in accordance with the representative town meeting acts of one nine hundred twenty six as amended and section three zero dash one one begin the order of the articles change slightly we're going to begin by will we have to see sharp reports proclamation to share reports and then we'll complete article ten items easy and half and then we'll do thirteen which was is also going to be dismissed on the roll call but i wanted thirteen eleven and twelve we'll be able i think i certainly hope are in some major issue complete action on segment a tonight segment b begins on wednesday may thirty so we're beginning on wednesday so highlight that i think we should be able to complete said meant be in three nights we have allotted for what we should be able to complete and in three will be receiving from through the town clerk from memory mauney an announcement of a public meeting and d p w belmont police department building committee will hold a public meeting on thursday may twenty four at seven pm in the brick beach street center and tours are going to be arranged from a twelve twenty one and twenty nine this will all be in an email you receive but i wanted to give you a heads up thursday may twenty four at seven pm finally a word about civil discourse we've had a number of controversial and heated issues over the last several years and by and large we have debated those you know with strong differences of opinion in a respectful and civil way i don't think wednesday night that we lived up to that wasn't our finest hour i won't review the various kinds of things that took place we all know what happened but i think a lot of it too was in response to the article one sponsors and i think they put forward a legitimate citizens petition it worked with me in advance to make sure they did it correctly which they did and it was an appropriate motion whether want to read with it or not so i don't want to win discourage citizen participation and citizen petitions so i think it's especially important for i mean it's important  case but especially with citizens petitions i think we need to respect our democratic process finally on scope it's the moderator's prerogative to determine scope  and i it doesn't work when two hundred eighty eight people are sharing in the responsibility so if you could bear with me you made think something's gone beyond  scope but it's very much a gray area and i try to manage that carefully not if somebody here is in one sentence but if they're going off for a minute or two so please i ask you to  let the moderator handle the matter scope and then finally let's have a civil good debate no matter how different we feel about the issues tonight so thank you very much we now have mr computer we have a proclamation would like to read a board of selectmen proclamation honoring the belmont garden club it's a little bit long so i will ask the garden club members to remain seated and then at the conclusion would you introduce yourself just forgive me  selectman number precinct two and tell me to member at large whereas the belmont garden club founded in one nine hundred thirty is a nonprofit charitable organization with one hundred thirty six members created to advance the art of gardening science of horticulture artistic use of plant material conservation of our natural resources and development of civic beauty and whereas the belmont garden club and its members have enhanced the town of belmont by its numerous and diverse volunteer activities in generous donations and whereas the bellman garden club has led a massive and longstanding beautification effort for our community by donating sixty flowering calorie pine trees to establish a grand outlay on concord avenue enjoyed by all who pass and spring planting and maintaining numerous traffic deltas most recently installing four hundred rosebushes designing installing in maintaining the woodland garden at the belmont public library that serves as both cases an educational resource to visitors designing in donating the september eleventh peace garden at the wellington station on the town green providing floral designs implants for display at belmont public library in the town clerk's office on a monthly basis hawkins memorial garden at burbank cooperating with many other belmont organizations to enhance belmont center cushing square and waverly square square with colorful hanging baskets implanters organizing it talented members to create flower designs to honor and celebrate town of vets such as the historic society's commemoration of belmont's one hundred fiftieth anniversary the homer gallery in belmont libraries art blooms in belmont event and the friends of the public library to produce books in bloom in two thousand and eleven two thousand and thirteen in two thousand and eighteen and whereas the belmont garden club has an active community outreach program providing monthly craft activities to its garden club at the manor program at belmont manor nursing home holiday flower design workshops for seniors at the beachy center and wreaths for clients at the belmont food pantry in whereas the belmont garden regularly provides for its members monthly programs and workshops in horticulture flower arranging in landscape design and whereas the bellman garden club provides field trips workshops neck to vittie for their junior gardeners to encourage children to learn about the environment flowers and community involvement and whereas the belmont garden club has partnered with the town's department of public works in tree warden by donating plants trees intrigue or watering bags and whereas the belmont garden club has held numerous fund raising activities to benefit the town of belmont including its popular perennial sail sail garden tours and house tours and has donated the proceeds to community planting and beautif efforts in excess of two hundred fifty thousand dollars and whereas the belmont garden club has granted more than fifty thousand dollars through its belmont garden club scholarships to residents of belmont now therefore be resolved that the board of selectmen the town of belmont joins with the town in paying tribute to these outstanding contributions to the belmont garden club has set a high standard of commitment and dedication which may serve as an inspiration to the citizens are here this evening to come up fro you that's half of town meeting session of town meeting vote on marijuana we will be placing that on the ballot for a special election on september twenty fifth also will be having a special town meeting in the fall in order to deal with the marijuana zoning as you recall we voted the other night to have the moratorium go till the end of the year which means that the marijuana zoning has to be approved prior to then so the tentative dates for that are tuesday nov thirteenth and wednesday nov fourteenth the reason it's tuesday wednesday is that monday is the observed day for veterans day because veterans day the eleventh falls on a sunday so it's going to be observed on this monday the twelfth so tom meaning would tentatively meet not schedule one hundred percent but just so you can book your time tuesday nov thirteenth and wednesday november fourth thank you mr daschle and now like to introduce the director of the council will give us a brief report n vocal director council on aging thank you mr moderator for this opportunity to share the background of the age friendly report distributed to this body i hope town meeting members find the report informative and that it stimulates ideas for further action the h friendly community designation was created in two thousand and six by the world health organization as a framework for how cities can best address the needs of their rapidly expanding older adult populations they are p adapted the w h o model for us towns h friendly community initiatives provide an opportunity to thoughtfully reshape the way communities are designed to support the goals of residence for a municipality to be age friendly the w h o and a r p have determined that it must contain elements that impact health wellness and involvement these elements are divided into what's called the domains shown as the petals of the flower in this slide they include housing social participation respect and social inclusion civic participation and employment communication and information community support and health services outdoor spaces and buildings and last but not least transportation for a community to be age friendly it does not need to be perfect across the  rather it needs to assess which domains are weak and create projects to strengthen them the term age friendly can be interpreted to mean friendly to residents of all ages many communities opt for initiatives and projects that benefit older and younger people alike i learned about page friendly from my brookline and newton colleagues in two thousand and fifteen since then many surrounding communities have taken steps to join the network just several months ago governor baker declared massachusetts an age friendly stay by the time the age friendly movement gained steamed in our area it was a good time to consider it for belmont for decades the council on aging focused its efforts to realize the long awaited dream of establishing a senior center when finally built in two thousand and nine it then became paramount to build up its programs and services to today's robust level the question then became what are the other needs of our older adult population and what should be done about them in order to find out we saw a mini grant from the massachusetts council an aging organization we had you mass gerontology institute compiled demographic data and elicit feedback from the community as to what it fuse are the needs at two forums that took place and may two thousand and sixteen u mass prepared a preliminary  report that was enthusiastically received by the board of selectmen in september two thousand and sixteen the board expressed unanimous support for making belmont h friendly with then consulted with the mass chapter of a r p and you mass again to figure out the best next step the decision was made to conduct a focus group based assessment thankfully the tufts health foundation who was heartily embrace the age friendly movement awarded us funding for a study in may two thousand and seventeen the research team was back in september a good cross section of the community including officials nongovernmental leaders and seniors participated thoughtfully in the focus groups the study was completed at the end of january two thousand and eighteen and presented to the sea it we hope you can join us for a community wide interactive presentation on the report which will take place at three pm on june fifth at the senior center following that we hope to formally apply to join the age friendly network once accepted into the network the town would need to establish an advisory council comprised of a variety of stakeholders it task would be to prioritize needs from the report and plan feasible age friendly projects belmont is a town of energetic and hardworking officials community leaders residents and activists for this and other reasons i hope the town will embrace becoming age friendly in the end and age friendly makes a healthy belmont for all that thank you  thank you knob a hybrid the report and that's very well done so thank you we now turn to the other report under article one tonight an update on the climate action plan by james both for the energy committee mr b james booth bellman energy committee thank you mr moderator for this chance to speak i'd like to take just a few minutes this evening to tell you about some work that the energy committee will be doing over the course of the coming year to involve belmont residents and including in particular we hope all of you as town meeting members in developing a roadmap for achieving belmont climate action plan goal so in two thousand and nine town meeting it voted to adopt the climate action plan and committed the town to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions eighty percent by the year two thousand and fifty men or g committee was created at that time with a charge of assisting the town in achieving this goal so the first question is why at this point do we need a road map so as we've reported to town meeting before the months carbon dioxide emissions have been declining somewhat in the last few years but are nowhere at a pace it's not nearly quick enough to be on track to meet our long term goals so we came to realize that we need to be asking not only how can we do better than we're doing today but also more broadly how do we get to where we need to go we saw a need to develop an overarching framework that defines timelines and targets so most of belmont's direct carbon dioxide emissions come from two sources vehicles burning gasoline and diesel in our cars and trucks and heating burning oil and gas in our homes so did to achieve the deep cuts in emissions required by our climate action plan resolution a major shift will need to occur will need to move in both transportation and heating away from the use of fossil fuels and a way to do this is through electrification why is that simply put there exist ways to generate electricity without carbon emissions technologies like wind solar and others whereas in contrast there's simply no way to get to zero emissions with something like a gasoline powered car or a natural gas powered furnace in light of this fact we see this roadmap moving forward as relying on two central components on the one hand electrified transportation and heating and move belmont electricity to carbon free sources transportation belmont is already moving in this direction with one of the highest rates of electric vehicle adoption in the entire state and hopefully most of you are aware of the belmont drive's electric campaign that's currently working to help belmont residents discover the many advantages of driving heating by using electricity to move heat from outside a building to inside very much like an air conditioner operating in reverse it's an effective technology that's already being used to heat some homes in belmar but it's one that most people are not that familiar with least as of yet belmont by the year two thousand and thirty and half of retiring heating systems will be replaced by electrically driven heat pumps by two thousand and twenty five replacing oil and by twenty thirty two for replacing gas so a key point is that vehicles and especially heating systems both have very long lifetimes so to be crucial to seize those rare moments of opportunity that are presented when replacing these to avoid locking in further decades of fossil fuel use and with it the resulting emissions of carbon dioxide that will stay in the atmosphere and drive global warming for many years to come now the other part of the story is getting our electricity from carbon free sources so it's a town with a municipal and electric utility belmont late we have the advantage that we can decide as a community the pace at which this similar path and move to zero emissions electricity by two thousand and twenty two so taking together the strategic electrification coupled with zero carbon electricity well allow us to achieve the deep cuts in emissions that we need to to reach our goals so what the energy committee plans to facilitate over the course of the coming year is a broad based consultation with belmont residents both as individuals and as members of town committees and other constituencies in town to work with you to develop this plan through public workshops and other forums we want to solicit your input on the overall structure of this plan timelines and strategies how can we collectively as a town were to accelerate a transition that alternately depend on thousands of decisions taken by individual households and then we'll come to town meeting next year to seek indorsement of a plan that will been developed for the work of many people throughout the town so thank you for your time and attention and the energy committee looks forward to working with all of you in the coming year eligible commitments by the belmont housing trust it would increase housing units where new housing is being built provide incentives to developers to develop affordable housing units of fun pre development work to determine if sites suitable for community housing development recommends favorable action on the warren committee in the straps time roy up stein chair of the warrant committee of the warrant committee voted unanimously to support the motion with the understanding that the contract to govern use of the funds between the the town and the housing authority would be in place or substantially in place by the time of this vote tonight in our understanding is that goal has been achieved thank you mr carmine do you want to introduce the presenters  she for those of you who are new to the town meeting the trust is an official town committee it was appointed by we were appointed by this like mn excuse me it was appointed we are appointed by the selectmen the housing trust was established by town meeting and the state legislator legislature in one nine hundred ninety nine or the organization with primary responsibility for increasing affordable housing in belmont massachusetts mandates that all cities and towns have at least ten percent of their housing stock affordable as a way to fairly share median this is a need across the common  in the past the trust to sponsor developments that added forty four units of community housing including the first for families since the one nine hundred fifty more recently we've been focused on community conversations and input assess the need and planning for the next five years our housing production plan approved by the town was just submitted to the state for approval with these approvals we can now move forward to stimulate creation of new affordable units will work with the planning board identify the best opportunities and that's where the c p a funds request comes in we are requesting the c p a set aside two hundred fifty thousand dollars to the housing trust to allow us to act rapidly on opportunities to pursue affordable housing all funds expended will be limited to allow the uses under a grant agreement with the town and the c p a and the c p a massachusetts law a finds in many ways it ranges from pre development due diligence work to leveraging state dollars state and private dollars to increase the number of affordable homes in a mixed income development p funds will be used to implement strategies that we've developed through a community process as we're putting together our housing production plan we've heard from community members the desire to focus any new development in transit oriented areas so areas like waverly square places where there's already a lot of development or underutilized spaces and we also heard of a desire to preserve the existing housing the existing affordable housing that we have so these funds will help the trust to  implement the housing production plan that was just approved by the board of selectmen and the planning board and it's now before the state for certification the funds will help with tools to really shape our development rather than have development happen fines although they're dedicated to the housing trust would be held by the town the funds will be subject to a grant agreement that you heard about and that has already been being worked on by a town administrator and town council and we  will be spent in accordance with the state statute we would have regular reporting to the board of selectmen and in addition when it comes to c p a there's additional oversight that's provided by the department of revenue and ensuring that towns are spending the funds as they're allowed to be spent by statute and then finally there is the nonprofit organization the community preservation coalition that maintains a database that all communities report into to show exactly how funds are being spent so this is accessible to the public and everyone can see so why should you approve these fines we all know that housing is very expensive in massachusetts we consistently rank in the top ten when it comes to home prices and to rents and we simply don't have enough homes in massachusetts to sustain our current workforce here and don we saw we're putting together the housing production plan that many members of our community are considered housing burdened where they're paying more than thirty percent of their income to rent or to to housing costs in fact twenty five percent of our homeowners are considered housing burdened and more than forty four percent of our renters are considered housing burdened we have such a need for new homes in the commonwealth that governor baker has just launched a housing choice initiative which aims to partner with communities around increasing our housing stock so for communities that become these housing choice communities we have additional access to a new fund that's being developed by the state also a priority for many technical assistance and many funds that exist like the mass works infrastructure program so having c p a funds go to housing having a housing trust having a housing production plan these are all important pieces of being able to get to become designated  a housing choice community you want to you may wonder what can we do with two hundred fifty thousand dollars in this housing market and we have a quote here from a developer who's worked in many communities to develop housing and the sentence that i want to point out is where he states community preservation finds allow communities to transition from stakeholders to investors and investors have a voice without exception the most thoughtful and well received communities we have built have included invested community at the table utilizing community preservation act funds so that's gets back to what does belmont want to see what kind of homes do we want we can actually invest in these homes and really get the kind of homes that we would like to see that are meeting a lot of the needs that we found we are putting together a housing production plan and finally we have a quote here from chris clutch man who is the director of the housing choice an initiative program rather at the state level and her comment is not an endorsement all of what we're proposing but she states in from her time as a planner in her work now that trusts were able to participate in real estate transactions in a timely manner only when local governments ensure that a trust is funded the community preservation act provides an excellent source of such basically it states i may think why is that we will follow the accord and how funds can be used according to the law it also states how frequently we will update the town trying to think of the other profession let me say i have a right  front to be the terms how long it can last so we can only have these funds available to us for what was it thirty months thirty months before it would have to go back so these measures are being put into the contract and i don't large good question steve which was actually the warren committee brought this up when it first came to them when i was there and they said you know there's a draft in their application there was a template of a contract but it said you know in this provision you could do this or that or you could do this or that but no one had done chosen this or that and their suggestion was you really should go do the contract first before a town meeting and so we actually thought that was a good idea and we tasked the trust minister's office to go and do that  currently have agreed to the form of the contract at this point this we have to use once a specific projects are identified but it had things like the thirty month limit that the town would hold the money as the template said that the trust would hold the money we thought maybe we should hold the money and if they have a project they come to us and we give them the money if the project meets the criteria and that if that they have to follow on i don't have the most recent version i know george halas been working on it we haven't got it finalized but the idea is to have the agreement in principle i should say at this point it's a result of ups please just on that note just so i'm understanding it so it's not necessarily a revolving fund type situation that's managed by the trust  town is holding it in the town would have final decision i suppose to issue funds or not well if they come to come to us with the a project that meets the criteria under the contract for creating the affordable housing we would give them the money we'd have to vet that the project met the criteria for the trust which would choose the projects that they would enter into some this money could be used to leverage state funds or federal funds the money could be used to  go in there and buy some sort of a deed restriction on the property or you certainly are not going to buy an entire property for two hundred fifty thousand dollars but the idea is to use it to get more money from banks in other places it's tough to do affordable housing without  together from a variety of sources and this is one of the sources which then can be used with our housing production plan at the state level to leverage additional money that's the goal and if it doesn't work worst case scenarios and thirty months the money goes back to the c ok final question could you give us some examples as to the types of things that have been done with these things i've heard leveraging i've heard some some other things but very just do you have any specific ideas so give me a little better  you know access those funds at the state level when there c p a money and volved and it that helps to show a commitment from the community and so when mixed income developments are being built we're able to leverage the state dollars which can give us additional affordable homes so some communities where developments have been built boxborough hudson lexington medway it's actually several and i think it's been used from everything from a small development where all of the units are affordable to a much larger  development you know if we'd had c p a finds with the cushing square development it's possible that we could have gone in and maybe gotten additional units to what was already required under inclusionary zoning so that's an instance where we're getting twelve affordable units which is great it's possible we could've tried to do more by getting an early with pre development and working with the developer or about buying down additional units so it's it kind of it changes depending on what is really happening in a community what's being proposed you know what i was owning allows a lot of different things that can be done homeownership  residents in my district including my grandfather and i definitely think it's very important that we focus on making sure that for the elderly population and i know there are some demographic work done that is going to be booming in belmont very soon so i want to hear we have to s soon with some of the previous things we've talked about with you know making the community age appropriate age inclusive for the elderly and also for young families that are young families that want to go to the school system but they're like i can't afford helps here or the rents ridiculous how can i balance the need for my kids need for having good education with the fact that the costs are very expensive so i want to talk about that for a moment rachel heller housing trust member you hit the nail right on the head our housing production plan highlighted exactly those two groups of people who really are in need of more housing opportunities and i think as we go to develop homes or we want to help out as we work with people to develop homes we look for some of the commonalities between these different types of people you know what i mean are they looking for homes that are near transit or they're looking for elevator excess of old buildings some may be restricted by age but really may not need to be it's really about building a diverse housing stock in our community in places where people need more homes and you know multi family i transit is one of basic needs and specific like you're saying for senior and for young families thank you thank you i think when you are next lives alison town meeting member priest i have a question about the grand structure so when i went back to look at what had been provided to date to town meeting members the only mention of how this grant might work was in the december thirteenth twenty seventeen minutes the community preservation committee and i read if this project were approved the funds would stay in the c p a account in kill requested and they could be released within a week or two of the request and i have some concerns with that real estate transactions can be complicated it's not clear to me that this provides for any review and this is very much a bright line kind of motion in the sense that we do not give the selectmen two hundred fifty thousand dollars worth of discretion so compared to most things that the town meeting has approved there is a great deal of discretion we don't have a copy of the grant agreement to study so perhaps counselor one of the selectmen could speak to the details of it and what kind of review is contemplated before any contract is entered into remember last year the board of selectmen george hall might have more information on the most recent version of the contract that's been a go she added but i mean yeah the affordable housing trust picks the projects that come to the town they ask for the money if it meets their criteria they get the money they choose the project if they don't it goes back to the fund if there's a delay in issuing the money and they try to put money down to how a property and they lose it that is a definite possibility but it's certainly better to have a chance to get it in one or two weeks than to not have the money at all i mean the war committee has a four hundred thousand dollar reserve fund is not unusual to give a committee control of certain monies for certain purposes i guess george halas been working on the contract itself the details i apologize i don't have the actual most  recent version of it in front of me i have the original version but that's not where it is right now mr hall did you want to tell us where we are that maybe answer the question with some more detail whole town council the agreement works off of the the affordable housing trust application to the community preservation committee which identifies  range of possible uses for the money most of which in excuse me because i've got it on my laptop and not in paper deals with  planning let's see i mean anything from the feasibility study point of a project through investing  and construction but so that's the range that's identified in the application the grants agreement basically says that when the affordable housing trust identifies a use for the money that meets the description in the application they they may apply ask for release of the funds from the town in the town must provide that within fourteen days they must the use of the money has to be only for community housing as defined in the c p a if it's funded soley with this grant money and if it's a contribution then they to another project then it has to be proportionate to the towns and this minute and it just description in your grant application will provide the funding for it subject to these basically procedural and other requirements  i think two comments the first is that often in town meeting we see the agreement before we pull to money and the second is what i have not heard is that there will be any review of the actual contract signed by the town that that will be the sole purview of the housing trust is that correct paul george howell town council i think if what you're driving at is is there a discretionary role for this like mint in identifying whether it's a good project or not a good project and that's not what the contracts if there is if the question is is it a qualified project does it does it fund community housing in a manner described in the grant agreement then that's something that would be verified before the money would be one more clarification real estate contracts particularly when one is cobbling together the money from many sources are complicated and liabilities can be created i think what i've heard you saying is that while the town will have overall sign off on the project there will be no review required by anyone in the town other than the members of the housing trust and those like the housing trust that's correct i mean that the whole purpose of the housing trust of a stablish in affordable housing trust is that it is actually a kind of a quasi independent entity it's off budget it's actually a separate body politick we make clear in this agreement that the town doesn't have any liabilities for the actions of the affordable housing trust so affordable housing trust can obtain funding from various sources municipal and private and you set up a board that that determines how that money is to be spent so i think the whole purpose of this is to use the device of a a separate trust to try to generate projects rather than to do it under the aegis of the normal municipal government structures so what you're describing is not is a feature not a bug a choice not a ok but our housing trust actually has many experienced people on and we actually have a track record of producing housing as well as having partners like metro community development and the other thing too is if there is an affordable housing development being proposed we would rely on state partners as well i work for an affordable housing nonprofit organization at the state level called chapter citizens housing and planning association i work with we work with partners who have a lot of expertise in financing affordable housing and they work with communities all the time to understand what is a good development and you know and that's what do diligence is about some of these funds can be used early on to know if it's a good project or not but just to go back to what we've done we've developed four units of started by saying because i thought this was nothing more than slush fund and indeed it is a slush fund let's call a spade a spade on the other hand i finally came to realize that in the real world if you're really go anything done you need a slush fund you need some money to be able to move and move quickly you can call special town meetings and soulful and we did in think because it's maybe  some of my concerns and some of my fellow members will want to commit is concerned we want to get this agreement in place and frankly i don't think the agreement constrains you at all really doesn't it's still a slush fund but you need it you unanimously recommends favorable action on capital budget committee and mary mahoney chairman of the capital budget committee the capital budget committee took a vote on the revised dollar figure for this article as follows this project will fund the stabilization of the historic mclean bar and to arrest further deterioration so the town can find an appropriate use the barn built in one thousand nine hundred fifteen was originally part of the mclean farm it is a new england style bank barn made of brick with cast stone lintels and water table and a fieldstone foundation it was acquired by the town in two thousand and five as part of hundred ninety nine zoning agreement with mclean that also included the lone tree hill conservation land highland cemetery land land set aside for affordable housing and numerous other agreements related to new construction on the mclean campus this agreement was approved by a seventy seven percent majority of town meeting members and by seventy percent of belmont voters in a special referendum election the barn is administratively part of the lone tree hill conservation land is and is under the jurisdiction of the land management committee it is subject to both a conservation restriction held by the  historic preservation agreement that are both part of the agreement with the plain it is listed on the national register of historic places as part of the mclean historic district the primary short term need for which we are seeking finds is stabilization to arrest further deterioration and make the building more secure so it is not susceptible to vandalism the scope of work and the projected costs were determined by a study completed in early twenty eighteen by preservation architect spencer info and structure snores structural engineers while the barn is generally in good condition water penetration unsecure openings interior voice or insects and proof graffiti all pose a threat of increased vandalism and accelerated deterioration and should be addressed immediately working with the office of community development the land management committee and the historic district commission the console developed a cost estimate for the minimum of work needed to secure the building and slow deterioration while the original application to the c p a was for two hundred thousand we were able to eliminate some repair work and scaled the project back protecting the roof from moisture penetration particularly replacing some missing roof slates and securing doors and windows painting the wood trim and window coverings and adding security lighting and cameras it also includes architectural and engineering costs and a ten percent can dinged contingency and the general conditions includes things like construction mobil and security fencing invasive vegetation removal another recommendation of the study has been approved by the land management committee and funded using other sources the consultants estimate for the reduced total one hundred sixty eight thousand and ninety four dollars so we reduced our original question request by twenty five thousand and just a note because that is a little bit less than what we're asking which is one hundred seventy five thousand this is a study level cost estimate and so that gives us just a tiny bit of flexibility given that it's an old building and once we get into specs and bid documents it's likely that there might be a slight adjustment as one of three historic town own buildings listed on the national register have storage places this work is exactly what the c p a was intended to support and as it is a den a fight as a priority in the town's community preservation plan the project sponsors the office of community development the land management committee for loan tree hell and the historic district commission recognize the importance and urgency of securing and stabilizing this important historic structure the agreement with mclean has worked effectively for over a decade and the hospital and their development partners have acceded their preservation requirements of the agreement we also agree that the best long term future for this structure is a viable new use and we look forward to working with all of you and belmont residents to make that happen town meeting has repeatedly demonstrated that it values to towns historic character evidence by your overwhelming support for thaddeus frost house we hope you will consider the broad support for this much needed work from town departments organizations but clain hospital and the trustees of reservations and help stabilize the mclean barn and to close i'd just like to read two sentences out of the national register nomination this is prepared through the massachusetts historical committee and approved by the national park service  in the department of interior the mclean hospital national register district is a resource of extraordinary significance one has history spans over one hundred fifty years and embrace is a variety of contacts the most important are local agriculture and the evolution of psychiatric care and treatment the district survives as the largest and most visible vestige of the agricultural it's very difficult to know how much the final cost of this project would be certainly stabilisation cost is put forward here but i would assume that there would be other costs and i'd be very interested to hear if there's an estimate of the future costs that would be needed to put this building to a particular use or even some some uses that would be contemplated for this building in the future mr clancy to moderate it like clancy director of community development  the effort here was specifically to address the fact that we had an historic resource that was decaying the purpose of the study was to make recommendations to arrest that decay there has been no talk no conversation about what the future use of that building would look like what i can tell you is that in terms of everything that was recommended by the consultant on what is being presented tonight everything that would be achieved is something that would be in place and would remain in place and it's not something that would have to be disturbed or disrupted should a future use ultimately be identified with the exception of the plywood covering the windows i mean obviously ultimately an end use for the building would would remove that plywood but one of the things that we feel strongly about is the fact that if tom meeting chooses to fund this project this evening one of the goals is to present a structure that looks vibrant and looks like it is being valued by the community and therefore it presents itself as something that shouldn't be vandalized and shouldn't be mistreated the put the plywood on the windows even though it's plywood on the windows the number of the wanted committee and i'm glad that the belmont does respect its historic character i hope i'm one of them that you respect folks this is a waste of money as a previous speak it just said there is no in use even thought of for this building and then never will be for two reasons first of all the best judgment on the square foot basis to make this up to code in use usable for anything is in a lot of about two million dollars so figure where that sits in our priorities of that capital more importantly the restriction on this piece of property says it can only be used for environmental education or for storage of the equipment for the for the cemetery so it's never going to be put to any practical use and we'll be back here in five  years looking for money to remove the graffiti that goes on after the rigger fee is removed it's in this budget and we will be back will probably not me but in fifteen years again seeking to mass ball because it really has no future they change the names so damn complicated but the com sells a start when probably one of the most premier historic preservation organizations in the entire country and they have figured it out that in order to preserve the eighteen in the century in the nineteenth century buildings you have to figure out an adaptive use for them in the twenty first century with some sort of a covenant that the outside will not be changed and yet they can be put to productive use and they can be preserved and they make compromises i'm aware of a mansion on beacon hill that was turned into office building for a professional society and they had to agree to have an electric doorbell so there us a little minor compromises but the building get used to some kind of productive use so i say as we hear tonight if we were to vote no on yes on this this will go away for another five years until we come back from money to repaint it if we vote no for this we have to open up a pot for where we have some discussion with  mclean of the historic people whoever it is and to come to a common understanding of what to do with this bill in to change the restriction on its use so the tongue gold for an r f p for something that is productive and we can have an in use before we spend the kind of money to talking about tonight now i heard then i didn't as the previous speaker to say that no the billing is going to fall down in a year so let's have that dialogue for the next year as to what is the possible uses let's change the restriction figure oh we're going on this before we spend one hundred seventy five thousand dollars finally as i say to those people who say well we entered into this agreement with my claim based on we have a mo obligation first of all town councils that we have no legal obligations on nothing that's in forcible so it is in a does come down to is an obligation and i remind everybody here that with all of those buildings up there we don't know whether mclean even cares about this and i think we've some correct me if you can ask them and then not to fall apart here so i would say three maybe four things one are just reject this for today that we to approach mclean and see what kind of obligation we actually have or if they care and three as already schedule i believe discussed we discuss a plan for that lone tree hill area and this as part of it so then you guys can come back next cushman not here is town clerk i'm actually here as the chair of the land management committee the comments are right on the mark in some ways however we are asking to begin the process we would love you to participate in the decisions that would be coming up about what to do with that point we believe it is a very broad based community conversation it's not going to finish in a month and we know it took over three years to get through the mclane deal so we expect that we would like to take our time and do that in a thoughtful way in a really inclusive way so we would encourage you to consider this as let's save this boring so it lasts through a belmont decision process which we all know might be a month might be ten years secondly the comment was made as to whether we have any kind of continuing relationship with mclean hospital and i'm not sure it has been made clear but mclean hospital was one of the sign on they wrote us a letter of support to town meeting recommending this project to be done and they contain they hold four seats on the land management committee which is a private public partnership there are four seats for the town of belmont and four seats for mclean one of which is held by their chief operating officer so she voted with us to endorse this project as a land management committee as one of the sponsors and they wrote a letter that says they support it this  mr moderator in town meeting elizabeth pugh town meeting member precinct two initially precinct eight for the past forty seven years i first came out i'm sorry forty three i first came to you at this meeting hall in one thousand nine hundred seventy seven and that year the big issue before the town was what to do about the very aging fire station in belmont cent er and i made a decision then that i really ought to go and look at it firsthand so i went over to the fire station unannounced walked in was very nicely taken care of and found out what i felt that i needed to know to vote the things that eventually determine the history of what the town did to that particular building and what indeed eventually became to new fire stations and many other buildings in this town i make it a point with anything that is to be discussed in terms of building or grounds to go there see it walk around look at it walk away come back doing this with this building the first time was last october and i've driven by it and just thought funny little building what is that doing there walked around it looked at it the gorgeous brick the different aspects of the architecture the land around it which has possibilities for wonderful things but this building is a good size many wonderful things could happen the year it that discussion remains a little bit in the future is my feeling but it is as buildings that we know that have been developed from nothing to something and those that have left us and left us poorer as a community because they are no longer there i really think when i did the math this last time i asked our ten treasurer how many units we have paid taxes in the house and in the town i think you said something like eighty four hundred is that about right and you divide that into two hundred thousand we're asking twenty dollars apiece twenty dollars and eighty cents i think it is to hold this building until we can have further discussion on it so that it might be shorn up and last us for a time to have further discussion thank you i am an old thing for thirty years i've enjoyed the conservation land and all seasons and never really looked at the mclean bar now i've walked it round twice the bar on can be used for educational purposes that phrase is wide enough that we could line up all the town vehicles side by side and drive them through into a better future  not an architect or historic preservation is what friends who are have told me that this is a rare hard and special building that deserves to be sa meeting has a lot of smart people surely you can think of uses for a barn that was built during world war one when belmont was barely half a century old adjacent to rock meadow it's easy to reach from the parking lot there's more level land along mill street for expanded parking but often there's a  there so slow down we should think about what makes belmont special our history our people and our  buildings the sixteen so sorry seventeen sixty thomas clark house and common street or the eight hundred seventy waverly congregational church as late as early eighteen hundred so almost everyone in massachusetts was congregational descendants of the now that church and the house  what replaced them isn't hideous it's just not distinctive or unique we've done much better as my friend soup you said with a fire stations and waverly square in the center and even earlier with town hall but only because a smart dedicated people who helps late tonight we can do the same with a bar please vote to possible slammer you're next thank you mr moderator and marie lambert precinct town meeting member i'm also a member of the board belmont citizens forum one of the supporters of this project and i ris support of this article i lead nature walks around rock meadow very right next to the barn and at lone tree hill i've taken more than two walks around the barn participants in my walks are fascinated by the history of this land and also of the barn the two things that fascinate them the most are the connection with mcl and the farm which fed the patients for forty years on that site including the one hundred fifty cows that were housed they are and the uncounted pigs that similarly the second thing that they're fascinated by is the opportunity to contemplate our agricultural history as mr chessen so powerfully alluded to i am excited about all sorts of possible uses which would be outside the scope of our discussion the c evening i trust the land management committee including its mclane members i find a suitable use and i don't think that our investment in stabilizing the barn should be held hostage to having decided a final  use or set of uses it doesn't take much imagination to get under that education umbrella or to imagine mclean being on board with a reasonable modification to the deed restriction which is what it would take to support an exciting distinctive use for this property so i encourage you all to support this article thank you michael you are next michael mac yourself about the building are concerned about people breaking in our concern about illegal use are you concerned about the whole building in the areas not safe who do more police patrols try to prevent some of the cost here or is it just like you really think that there needs to be a larger focus on security i'm just offset future costs the police going by in general like what are you considering evaluation of maybe a little seeking cost here might be helpful compared to like always having police were told around there that need more people are tagging the building or feeding it or damaging it or maybe do to present an attractive enough building so that it discourages the fijian people from doing anything untoward up there because they'll see an asset that they believe is an active vibrant building and therefore not a target for that type of behavior so i think part of this effort we hope with the electronic surveillance that is included in this in the costing is to provide that level of security and therefore take some of the burden off the police department who right now you know given the limited resources they have to begin with does this in chief correct me if i'm wrong but does occasionally find themselves at that site because of the grief you know some of the behavior that goes on around that saying thank you i just was curious thank you much sir thank you mr magara precinct one several years ago we've heard presentations and promises and dreams and hopes for the park house and we all said the fs yes except for me i voted no and i predicted that what we were doing what the meeting did that night would come back and haunt them because nothing was ever going to happen to the clark county well tonight we are being told by the historic commission and it is very hard to say no to the historic commission it's a nice bunch of people they have a good mission and it's hard to be against history but here the earlier motion it was for two hundred fifty thousand dollars to help real people have real houses here we're spending one hundred seventy five thousand maybe maybe more just to stabilize a building for which we have no plans no future plans no use and no expectation and i predict and i will remind you it future's meeting that i predicted you will be asked to keep shoveling cash into a black hole to make it even more stable prettier more accessible to have high thought i why he fired every other imaginable thing inside and everybody will forget that one point we could have said no i agree with bob mclachlan  thank you allan schreiber town meeting member precinct eight and a member of they weren't committee i'm one of the i think it was five who voted for this i disagree with my colleague and i'm not going to speak to the historical merits i think lots of people have and i think it's very valuable i'd like to speak to the relationship with mclean and the you know what was described to us is yes we do have a contractual obligation to do this this was part of the agreement we put together with mclean you can argue that it's an enforceable however if we default on our obligation we say it was described we release claim from some of their obligations so there are like a chanst include things like the space for affordable housing to be developed it includes the space for i think it was an office development or commercial or whatever it was at mclean so in my opinion while i would like to know the use i would like to know everything we're doing i feel like voting this down is penny wise and pound foolish we can really make a significant impact on the town budget if we can develop those things through mclean and if we release them from that obligation by not making this move which yeah one hundred seventy five thousand is a lot of money but in the scheme of things when things can be much bigger than that it's not a lot of money so for me it's an insurance policy for some of the things we need for the town budget in the future support of the investment to preserve the building and its structure so that it can be properly developed for in a future use now i we've members of the precinct three have been going around all week  trying to understand what is happening and i can say that the precinct three members are many of them in full support of this and have found you know all the little language and have looked at it and believe that there are a variety of uses that would be appropriate for this facility and we need the time to does to figure that out and to work with all the parties that are interested in developing it it's an opportunity for a future you know income or office space which we seem to be you know having lots of problems problems within our town i think it's wise to preserve a structure that exists as opposed to trying to  cost to tear something down if it gets so deteriorated that it's no longer thing and just as an as a near somebody who drives by this every day something that just looks bad to have graffiti all over it it's  not what we want to do to attract i mean it is attracts more and more problems so i would hate to have our police officers have to defend a building that's got people in it that we don't want or our firefighters to have to have something when somebody tries to light it up in you know to stay warm and have it because they brought broken in so we need to secure the facility we need to make it slightly for our community and we need to preserve it for future beneficial use so i support this  and encourage my town meeting members to do as well chair of the warren committee you know the warrant committee strives for openness we have a public discussion period at the end of every meeting if anybody from the public cares to join us we have a very open debate amongst ourselves as i think the discussion between bob mclachlan and alan schreiber just indicated and over the weekend i received an e mail which i wish would happen more often but i received an e mail from a resident also in the kendall gardens area identify the person who sent me the note in the first place we discussed the mclean project a lot over several meetings this is i think i wrote this on saturday a majority of the warren committee came to believe that the highly restrictive deed restrictions on the barn should be revisited first we have estimated a cost of about two million dollars to convert the barn from a shell to a functioning building it does not seem possible that such an outlay would ever happen given the current restrictions on use we would like to address that question beef before spending such a large amount of money in the meantime there was no evidence of an emergency condition that requires immediate repair the deed restrictions call for the town to preserve the structure on the other hand there appear to be no legal consequences if we first investigate easing the restrictions on use a second consideration was how best to allocate limited c p a funds the current process is not good at planning for the long term projects are proposed each year and they are generally approved of they fit within the c p a rules for eligibility the community preservation committee also exercises some oversight on the scope of the projects for example they opposed the original request for installation of copper gutters and downspouts as part of the barn work but there is little consideration of how to deal with future projects the warrant committee has become concerned about this issue of how to allocate c p a money over time that is what is a good policy for saving up c p a money to be able to undertake larger projects in the future it is reasonably foreseeable that future requests will be made for the community path feasibility study restoration of the incinerator site to usable open space and preservation of the exterior of the police station these are important but costly projects the planning for the community path is likely to cost over a million dollars we think it advisable to try to take a more long range view of h limited c p a resources could best be used to meet competing priorities a majority of the warren committee felt it was better to avoid taking action on the barn until its long run future could be more clearly identified these decisions are never easy or pleasant and the debate on this issue was particularly long particularly long i said it our april twenty fifth one committee meeting that ultimately each member would have to vote what he or she thought was right and the final vote was opposed and five in favor and then i advised her to get in contact with one member of the war committee who was opposed and another one who was in favor to get a broader range of views if she still wanted to get more information  add or subtract if you don't agree with what i'm saying but let me speak for me at least this is a basically a three part process part one stabilize mothball barn that's what we're talking about tonight part two identify use part three do use and you know it's not as if we haven't taken title we took title to this without a use we took title to the incinerator without the use it's not as though this doesn't happen when you get a ability to take on some property the towns taken on this property  i should note that the it's a town building and it looks like the pictures you saw which is a little bit disgraceful for the town we have a should also know that during the c p a campaign when there was the election to adopt the c p a or not this was one of the poster children we use that we use the underwood pool and we use the mclean barn and a couple of other things too as what we could use the c p a money for and for some reason the mclean barn after all these years is just not gotten to yet but now we're getting to it  i believe we have an obligation to follow through with the town's promises and commitments there is a contract with mclean and yes if in the contract if we don't follow through it's not like they're going to sue us to do something but it does release mcclean from their obligations and i think what people are maybe not looking at is there's a bigger thing here a bigger board and you're looking at one chess piece we're trying to work forward to engage with mclean and to do work with mclean going forward on a much larger scale and if we don't do this one thing if we don't keep up our commitment they're not i don't see why why would they bargain with someone who breaks their commitments i've certainly seen that in other towns where the mare will say you know if you come and do this i will do that and you come and do this and they said well you know we just decided not to do that in the development community knows the talent you can't you can't trust in the people you can't take it at their word this is something we promised to do we took title to it with the knowledge we were going to do it mclean made obligations on their own which they've kept and for us not to keep ours on our end and then release mclean for the obligations on their end is really going to hamper our ability to do things going forward with them which is one of the things that we're currently working on so i urge you to look at the whole chess board and not just focus on the little pond here because there's more involved than just the barn in and of itself and as you saw when you first your barn you think some rickety red thing that's leaning to the side but that's a substantial building i mean that's not that's not a little thing  and if we can come up with some uses for it that we would like to do and there are slightly outside the scope of the restriction perfectly happy to go back and talk about whether or not we can amend that because i think generated activating that building in some capacity would be beneficial to the town and also i guess correct guess what soupy was saying a minute ago is that the amount of money that's put into that keep in mind the c p a funding has a partial state match so i think she's overstating the amount of money that belmont people are putting into this because it's coming out of the c p a and last i would note this is what the c p a s for i mean this is what we voted to do was some of the things that the town budget can't afford to do but that we would like to do but it always just we never seem to get to it like the playgrounds and the tennis courts and the underwood pool and stuff like this and yeah maybe this is a little close to the number and the affordable housing piece we just did i'd like to see the affordable housing piece larger to be honest but maybe that's for the future  we don't we have to compare each project we're looking at c p a against two things you've got the temper sent ten percent ten percent pool that's reserved for affordable housing a start projects and open space so you need to compare projects against other projects in their own category and then projects against the funds that are limited so what i am looking at and i'm going to follow on what roy said is for me what matters most right now is the community path and what matters actually as much but in a different way is the high school and my understanding is that we can use some c p a funds for the high school we can certainly use c p a funds for a very expensive feasibility study i meant that the field to the field in the high school and so i looked at this project and and problems that i think i've stood up before in community discussions and talked about the that our entire family bikes my husband me for our children everyone but me has been hit by cars on bikes and my husband is in another accident about three weeks ago that left his shoulder unfortunately permanently maimed  that they can do pout becomes fairly pressing for me and also for others is a really this for me was a vote of i want the barn on the community path and we can't afford to fund everything we have a very large and important vote coming up on the high school if we cannot show is tell meaning that we are sometimes saying no in some way shape or form i think it's going to become difficult to win the argument that we're being fiscally responsible in i concur with selectman dash is emphasis on our relationship with mclean and also i appreciate very much the work and the analysis that's been done by the land management committee and the historic district commission these are both very fought full and hard working organizations and i think we should give it i support i have a practical point and that is that if we don't spend this money and stabilize the building we're going to have a building that rating and we're going to be spending money at that point in a rush a way to keep it safe and maybe even have to deal with demolition and so i think this is a wise expenditure at this time of the hundred seventy five thousand dollars  mary kennedy time meeting member precinct three i'd like to just briefly mention how we got here this evening and i wrote an e mail earlier to our precinct this evening and what happened was i live over in kendall gardens by rock meadow and i was driving home on mill street one night and i noticed that the light was not on over the barn door there was a blue light and a white light they were both gone the next morning as i headed in the opposite direction and i went by the barn again and what appeared was the graffiti on the front the next day there was graffiti on the side and i got out of my car and i walked around the bar now this all transpired back in twenty fifteen but prior to that there was a study that was put together in two thousand and five november a structural analysis report not the one in twenty i believe that you said you had but in two thousand and five it was suggested that we take a look at this it was not until twenty fourteen that there were some action taken and in twenty fifteen january is when the light over the door and the graffiti appeared in january twenty fift actually march fourth i attended the land management committee meeting for a long tree hill and i asked for a call of action to preserve the barn and i believe laurie is it you were there and we talked about it and she said you know we can't get this in front of town meaning to twenty seventeen well here we are today prior to this meeting there was a poll put up a spotlight on the bar and the windows and the doors were boarded up and it was cleaned out and that's the status of the barn to my knowledge today i think that all of us here is a town need to begin to have a passion and a commitment to the environment we don't seem to have it rock mad if we were to take a vote on the people in the past year or who had ever been to rock metal stood up i would say probably two thirds of the people in this room couldn't even tell you where it is i always so surprise i'm sure many people haven't even been around the barn and yet they're going to make a vote this evening i've watched a lot of the feast c p a funds go to recreational facilities of fields and and using that as preservation and restoration this is true preservation it's also going to become i would think a facility for a teachable moment for schools our surrounding communities to be able to use this i think there's a way to get the money back in the future it seems like one hundred seventy five thousand dollars to stabilize the bar we just spent seven hundred eighty thousand dollars on a playfield and last year we spent additional monies on a playfield i hope that people will vote yes for this i'm going to vote yes for this this evening thank you thanks for canada you were next and then we go over there thank you very much mr moderator robert kennedy precinct three the sum of the discussion tonight about people who don't feel like the money might be well spent are worried about the future and whether or not this bar has any use in the future i've spent my my life as an architect and a planner worrying about some more projects to this and i'd like to just without getting into a discussion about what the specifics would be for the future of this bar let me just tell you that let me let me give you just a peek into the future in general and belmont belmont is a very special town for a number of reasons but one of them is that it's a very unusual town for the land that is used for on one side of the hill versus the land on the other side of the hill we are very fortunate to have open space that we have and in the future we are going to be required to make the eastern half of the town denser and denser as the population rises and the open space that we do have is boy is going to become more and more precious many of us appreciate it now but in the future it's going to be a very precious and rare commodity the rock meadow and lone tree hill don't stand alone over there as you all know there is also contiguous  it the beaverbrook preservation the reservation waiver waverley oaks and habitat up on the hill and the land extends to the west to connect past the hospital and and so forth the barn happens to be central to all of this and in my estimation i think the barn development of the barn will be central to all of the use of these properties some of you may be familiar with a new building that's just been built out of walden pond it's an elaborate building for open space that is a fraction of what we have here my vision for what the barns use will be be will it will be used for many of the things that the walden pond building is used for their educational purposes sound kind of remote but it would take very little in in the interior that barn to make it useful that way panels showing where the open land leads to where the trails lead to where the wildlife goes and so forth will become very very simple to do with panels and lighting and so forth and  i'm losing my track train of thought here thank you but i'll cut it short but just i just would like for you all to think about the future of belmont fifty and a hundred years from now and what what that open land is going to mean to everybody here and how cambridge doesn't have it somerville doesn't have it all the surrounding towns don't have it and we do so look ahead enjoy what we've got come walk on a path that isn't paved and over a stream and listen to the waterfalls out there take advantage of the open land the future depends on us having the vision tonight to save for the future save the barn please thank you cushman there is money in there for so called electronic surveillance and we've actually been working with the bellman citizens forum another open space interest group to see if there might be solar solar powered cameras those kind of wildlife ones we all see we're not necessarily talking about some kind of extraordinary surveillance system where someone is constantly monitoring it people have ways technologically and paul probably the guy right behind you can answer some of those questions but we're not anticipating that most of that so called money for this security is because we have exactly one light bulb there which i think mary kennedy is the one who said once it went out that's when the graffiti began motion just to make my comments brief i think the issue of vision is really an important one and i think we do need to have a vision about the use of this site you know i can certainly remember being in this body in another meetings when the underwood pool was in such a dire state and we were looking at the underwood pool and saying how are we going to keep it running how are we going to maintain it over the next summer or two and there were people within the community who stood up and said i think we should just let it go and you know not continue investing in it the town has other priorities and this isn't the top of the list obviously now with the refurbished underwood pool it is absolutely vital and against use all the time this building can be the same throwing out some ideas we you know i can see it as a youth center i could see it as an environmental education center that we could rent out for functions i could see it potentially as part of a future elementary school there's a lot of space at this location and so this barn while we might think of it as well we're going to have to run away this barn structure and use that barn structure of course it could be part of a larger development at that site and we could preserve that barn structure as part of some larger development so we do need to think in terms of that and  you know assuming it meets the the requirements of the of the agreement with mclean so the other thing i would say is you know again the two million dollar number often numbers get thrown out in town meeting that then everyone just sort of except at face value we haven't gotten a firm number on what it would cost to renovate this bar and we don't know what those costs are and again it might be a small piece of a larger development that suits some need for the town so don't take that two million dollar number and say oh my god two million dollars where we're going to compensate million dollars this is this would almost certainly be a c p a project and who knows what you know the ultimate plan for the site would be this wonderful barn could be part of a much larger development and we need to keep that in mind  so that's all i'm going to say and i hope people join me in voting for thank you i'm here and then back yes pam eaker precinct eight member new member of town meeting i just have three very brief thoughts to share one is that belmont is known for volunteerism and if we have a project like this i don't see why we can't call upon volunteerism to help with the work under professional supervision to cut down some of the cost to a timeline where we at a decision is made by which some other decisions need to be made so that we have an agreement with mclean and third that  we can do some fund raising we've done it for other causes in the past i think we could do it for something like this mr morris here move the question mr mercier has moved the question  let's hear the voice vote all those in favor requires two thirds police say i was opposed now clearly more than two thirds are going to how going so the motion is approved debate and let's do an electronic vote on this motion ten dummy when you're ready pollings open if you support the motion oh yes if you oppose it oh no thank you the final vote is one eighty want to favor fifty nine oppose it passes let me get a sense of town meeting to stop longer than we thought i just want to get a sense if you support finishing we are going to dismiss article thirteen eleven and then focus on obviously the article twelve those question is whether we finish tonight or adjourn to wednesday so those dismissing this article secondary to the steamed by law review committees appropriate disapproval of the petition is written in conclusion that alternate language to amend the petition would be confusing and in artful none the less my efforts have purchased sixty to one hundred twenty seconds of daylight on the issue of electronic roll call vote i will be very quick in two thousand and twelve belmont's committee on electronic voting at town meeting indorsed electronic voting for three reasons to increase efficiency of voting ensure accuracy of votes and provide accountability of town meeting members aggregate capture and display which is what we use does not provide a means by which votes can be verified are left trying to check at the initiation of town meeting merely serves to demonstrate that the device works not that it works accurately moreover aggregate captur display of town meeting votes does not provide constituents with data about their representative votes the current file law provides an in adequate and time consuming process to rectify the deficit thereby  efficiency as evidence by the events of last wednesday as a quick aside in other towns which vote using electronic voting devices arlington brookline lexington to name a few the process is vote to end debate vote on an article using electronic roll call display the results the town meeting and on the website that's their process they do that for most of the items on the board as you will recall on wednesday after a lengthy debate we did have an electronic roll call vote this was our process as a courtesy and to ensure recognition from the moderator i notified both the moderator in the town clerk prior to town meeting of my intention to request an electronic roll call at town meeting we voted to end debate we voted on then we voted on the article the results  then following the process laid out in the bylaws i stood addressed the moderator and requested an electronic roll call vote there was muttering people rightly complained the town meeting members had left the building the moderator allowed my request and explained the process of an electronic roll call vote we voted to determine if we would have an electronic roll call vote the roll results were displayed enough town meeting members fifty one transparency eleven members sixteen more than the requisite thirty five voted to allow an electronic roll call vote we voted on the article again the results were displayed and will be posted on the town website if they haven't already they probably have so the by law review committee was correct my petition was confusing and in artful the by law i would petition is also confusing and in artful so here we are despite our current confusion and in artful by law i encourage all town media members who endorsed transparency to request and vote for electronic roll call vote henceforth this will determine the desire for and drive the four corners of any related petition in the fall  saying what i'm more i have no i don't have any problem dismissing a sonic i just want to make sure that when they come back with this type of thing that we have the backup of them during the election doing all the voting without the article that there moved that article live and be dismissed is there a second we're going to debate this in article twelve after the break any discussion saying on all those in favor please say  no it's adopt inanimate take a break and then we'll