great ok so i just handed around the agenda the for the first time will take care of an agenda just very quickly is dealing with the minutes of january thirteenth and then we'll spend the really the meat of the time talking about in fact you may spend all the time just to be clear talking  about the minuteman there are some items we have on the agenda that are kind of nice to get to use and then there are things that we really have to talk about in the minute man as that is the big one so if we get to the other items on the agenda terrific and if we don't we'll just get to them next time so just a little bit of a heads up if we need to take all of our time talking about the we will do that all right ok so all of you received or receive a little i recognize a little bit later than normal the january thirteenth two thousand sixteen minutes is there anyone that feels uncomfortable given the timing of being everybody publicly is that arlington as the single largest if i'm not mistaken thing the largest center of students to the minuteman and arguably least properly represented from a voting rights perspective etc and the current agreement has  perhaps the single last incentive to actually vote for the for the new agreement that's not to say that that we won't think it's a good idea or that i mean we think it's a good idea we'll talk about that as a group and how many of course you talk about it and we'll talk about it tomorrow night in the league of women voters w so called escape clause and my immediate reaction to that was this is a bait and switch lot of people shared that view but also my first thought was well this is outrageous and why is doma living seven  around send back their students where on our balance sheet with the other remaining nine are going to have the old debt to pay and who knows what's going to happen with the facilities agreement and whether or not it's  one of two bad choices either locked in on agreement we could not get out of we were either going to pass the debt would be on our share of one hundred forty four point nine million dollars or perhaps even  payments because it would be borrowed debt so that i threw in the towel and i said i think i'm going to vote for the debt when it comes around now along came the cavalry which was selectman and somehow out of the ashes they revived the old agreement that i had worked on the committee to the one nine hundred fourteen version of the revised agreement and made the compromises which i think helped the small towns reducing the five minimum and letting out the unlikely in one vote and you take a look at the new order and what's going to happen again one of two things either the debt is approved and particularly if it's improved district under the old agreement but under the new agreement we would have a more flexible agreement a fairer agreement would have the ability to attract the nonmember towns and under the them to change it they preserve their right to or accept under a two thirds vote of the school committee any nonmember town it sends the kids is going to pay their fair share both capital and and  going to have to do a lot of soul searching in the first soul searching to be under a new agreement would be should we consider selling an agreement i said selling the whole piece of land up there reconstitut building it closer to an urban center and bringing the methods in the war of towns and the wall films into the districts the much greater likelihood of doing that under the new agreement in addition you look at it under the new agreement there may be some light at the end of the time to end up with the don't want paying a fair share of its debt and all to pay fair share of the operation and seventy you know individual stats are of long before us that got together and say let's build a career in technical vocational high school to educate our children you know under chapter seventy four which we still have a requirement to do legally and ethically and we passed over it because we felt that the timing and we were prepared to support it this is a better agreement and the reason i think it's a better agreement is because of that one one of two provisions that we that it on top of the twenty fourteen agreement what really was the rub for me all along i think the rub for many of us is that we have a lot of nonmember towns like watertown mefford in waltham there are continuing children through the vocational high school because the operating infrastructure was not really reduced to the point where it would only s e the district and they were paying an operating fee that was determined by the department of elementary and secondary education but they were had no requirement whatsoever to pick up a fee with the some dialogue and debate you know much the ministration that they got agree with to have some but hey guess what you can come back and pay come back and have your children educated which is great that's wonderful right but i have to pay a cap a fee or beyond that on the debt for a cap a fee so what we first start up by saying if you leave the district you can come back for ten years or maybe it's five years and i think in a call that the end and i had we came up with there i came up with or someone did that you know instead what makes sense was in bed in the new agreement this provision whereby if you are a nonmember town and you send your children to the district be that a town that has just declared him with drew or some of these other communities that you are required within our constitution if you want to call it that or new constitution to pay a capital fee clearly that needs to be approved by jessie and there is no provision and that is two thirds way to vote by the school committee and if you look at the numbers that you might have in front of you if there's only nine towns remaining between arlington and belmont we have more than one third so i'm hoping that our colleagues and wanted to know it and would if in fact this issue were to come up in a future school committee mean to waive the capital fee for a nonmember town that we would both say no that it would be unfair to do that and so i think it is a and to me i felt that it was a dysfunctional district that has been for quite some time from a governance perspective i do believe in weighted voting if you send more children to the district you should have an ability to have a little bit more say on certain matters so i do support only to this point if you want i mean belmont is  incremental benefit to belmont from a proportional voting perspective and i think in a working group we always discuss this point and that is the ideal situation for us is to reconstitute the district meaning that those towns that want to leave well you know thank you very much goodbye and the towns want to remain we can remain and hopefully within the revised regional agreement one in which it's easier to get in and perhaps a little bit easier to get out because today you can't get out as you know let's all sixteen  waltham might say you know what i'd like to join district that way would have a say a vote at the table portion of voting i'm saying what programs are being offered and i could be wrong on that and there absolutely is risk in approving this agreement ladies and gentlemen i will tell you that this is somewhat of a close call i fully support it because there is downside risk that we're left with nine towns no cattle feed being assessed which i think is unlikely but that's a possibility it was sitting there nine towns would have building that even one town it's too big for  i don't i have confidence and believe that that will occur but that absolutely eyes wide open everyone of the table here and everyone to tommy need to understand that that is it's just that is a possibility i don't know whether it's remote or not but it clearly is a possibility if nothing goes our way that's what we what we would be sitting with i'd like to think that everything will go our way that we should port we should support this regional agreement that's reconstitute the district i think maybe one or two of the declaration towns that want to leave will decide to stay hopefully specially a town like sudbury that since twenty four kids and maybe one or two other towns i don't know that we decided not to support the building or  plus or if it doesn't pass then we're faced with these monkey repairs at this facility no different than our high school look we need in high school we got approval isn't that wonderful that's our focus as a community frankly is high school but we also have this obligation of being a member of this district and i think we need to fulfill it and remain we don't need to know some of the other communities and move forward under a new agreement stuff so you for that and to bob as well just to clarify a question when you say we'd ideally reconstitute the district do you mean that this new agreement is the newly retired district or do you mean to say that we would actually do a new agreement towns that it's more other community some of the towns and not want their part members of the district today would somehow feel the need to join i don't know if your check point of view on those well i don't know i only know that project a way out of the equation think that this is a better agreement there are issues or provisions in this agreement that work to our benefit margin things revised capital allocation formula and the weighted average of i think those are net neutral to belgrade and so i don't believe they should sway the decision eight weeks ago before this effort to revise the regional agreement was really rekindled we were faced with the prospect of considering a building project under the existing  and i can get into it later if people want i came out in november despite the same concerns that bob referenced about the size supporting the new building project i do think this is the open question i do think divorcing the regional agreement from the building project is still the right way to go the change i think in the latest version of the regional agreement and the things people have to weigh are two factors in my mind one of which i always understood the other which is the first one is this a get out of the district free card for seven communities now we don't know how many communities are going to exercise that we don't know whether the selectmen or the school committee members of those communities were really speaking for the town in town meeting so it's not clear to me whether all seven or none of the seven are going to get out but they're going to get out we're still going forward with the character of six hundred twenty  funding for that project so this is going to be coming back to our community quickly in terms of what we want to do a building project so so one thing is the get out of seven communities can get out i now believe that there is i think this is a better agreement by inserting the requirement to assess a capital facility the into the agreement itself heretofore minivan was still going to have that ability but it was going to have to vote for it and negotiate immediately with each nonmember community of which there are twenty odd nonmember communities that capital facilities fit so now it's embedded in the agreement but it's still subject to dessie approval and dessie can change their mind at any point over the next thirty years i'm so there's a risk their communities who are now faced with an eight thousand dollars per head charge or whatever the number works out to be may very well be incentive to find other non minuteman alternatives and there's always the risk at least that has been reportedly in their previous agreement in this was the change the car alluded to that we found out about thursday i always understood from those select wins discussions that we were going to take the vote for the new debt with all the existing towns under the existing rules but i thought that the provisions of this agreement as it related to the debt would be effective once they were approved by all sixteen pounds those is the escape clause that people like bob spent so much time trying to craft as part of the original original agreement are now going to be completely irrelevant for the only you have to declare your willingness to leave the district and with an average of thirty kids going to minuteman each year and given its proximity vs other vocational technical school options i think we want to stay in the district so i can call them mine few is that yes there is risk as mark said to voting for this agreement if you are dead set certain that you are come hell or highwater against the building project the you dramatically increase your chances that the building project doesn't get built by voting no on amended original agreement because we know arlington has said they're not going to vote for it without the change in the way to voting in the capital nation and we have some number of communities up to seven saying we want out so they're unlikely to vote for me but it could still be passed and we could still be subject to a building project that maybe our town meeting maybe our citizenry in a general election says we don't want any part of and that the cape clause is not available i think net net on balance the marginal improvement in the regional agreement is worth us supporting we were going to be in the position of potentially having to the building project ramp down at eight weeks ago anyway and i still think it's not a certainty that we're going to say no to the  think i am not very persuaded that the revised regional agreement will be enough to reconstitute the district i think we're going to end up with a look at what i'm skeptical that the revised medford cambridge which are already part of this of loose affiliation called the solve part of it i think it's going to encourage some of those larger i'm not going to the communities to think about other alternatives i do think we we run the risk of having to build a school on the serving a smaller number of member towns but i don't balance i don't believe that the right vote is to reject the regional agreement and arlington has been very distressed with the governance of minute man for a very long time and we for instance we would we will try to have impact on the budgeting choices that minuteman was making through the ninety's in two thousand and we failed because we're one vote out of sixteen and the towns that were voting you know it over would make a book that increased their bill from twenty one thousand to twenty one thousand five hundred dollars which for them was just absolutely non issue and for us to change our bill from one meeting to town meeting to try to defeat the budget trying to get a six town because that's what to takes a town meeting level to defeat a budget and of those two years one year we actually did successfully defeat a budget but when you're trying to manage a school where the way to do that is to show up at fifteen other towns to try to convince them that the budget is wrong if you're not in a government structure you're happy with and so we always knew that the capital was where it was unanimous consent was where we were going to have the leverage that we finally needed and so in  two thousand and ten was article aren't as article fifty eight when minuteman came and asked for the feasibility study of money we negotiated with minuteman they said they would approve it because relatively small money bob served on and plus the town mansions attachments traitors met a few different times and then of course then that original agreement what ten thousand proved it one time but no in five didn't vote the amount of course of the five that didn't vote arlington was one of the and that  t i'm really excited that the coburg got into this place where i really think we can get to sixteen yeses because i really think that this regional agreement is going to dramatically improve the governance of minuteman  it should the structure where it's one of sixteen and the structure where it's like even capital and even all these things are not inherently fair i think that we're going to i think we're going to slim down minuteman school committee and i think we're going to have  individual out of their area and that was not a good governance structure for minuteman either  e change just unlike the three weeks just before two thousand and fourteen is that it used to be if you look at the voting weight it's half by student count and half by just the number of votes there's a period where it's actually strictly by number of votes in arlington had a one third vote like that version a lot more so i mean there have been i think so i mean i can say that we've supported this but they're all you know we fought tooth and nail for a bunch of things and we can see they've done a bunch of things because you know that's the nature of this beast is you have to get to a place where sixteen towns can say yes not a place where you get everything that you want so that is the answer about why arlington foot yes i do just want to share just a couple thoughts about the debate that the belmont is having one is that i would encourage you to as much as possible separate the regional agreement from the debt because the only thing you can vote on tonight is the regional agreement and the the debt is theirs to look at there are so many  unknowns as are being outlined here and if you're voting on the regional agreement doesn't commit you to doing anything related to the building but it leads to a better minuteman going forward and we need that better been a regular report for our talent and work kids if how is it that we're ever going to get this district forward if we don't take the baby steps or this one isn't even a big step this is a huge step it is if you want to vote against the building vote against a bill that i completely understand but do it in the context of a functioning region that can move forward and educate our the fact that everyone is committed to the notion of providing a high quality technology cation for our children whether that's in arlington or whether it's in belmont i think that there is unanimous belief that is the right answer that question is how best to do that i think there's also probably a reason one of agreement although i post what i want to speak for all of you that the current district agreement is dysfunctional and the governance structure is not representative and for me just without without getting into how i feel about the the  version of the agreement which out i will share later but i think there are four things that i think are fundamentally problematic at its core with the current agreement number one the voting rights are disproportionately allocated to  communities to the dover with a very small number of students has the same power as arlington which is vastly larger and it's the very point that you made before and i think that applies to us too but i think that's fundamentally broken problematic about the treatment that's number one number two we have an agreement today where nearly half the students and potentially soon almost half the students actually come from out of district and we have no capacity to actually apply legitimate costs appropriate levels of costs to those students right whether it's operating for that matter or particularly the capital costs and i think one of the questions that i think we'll talk about is does this new agreement actually solve that well enough but that's that that is a core problem which is that capital costs and other costs are not purposely allocated to nonmember towns dozen or two or three under the current agreement it's virtually impossible to withdraw so if you're one of the seven communities that has indicated that they want to withdraw whether they do or they don't ultimately the current agreement essentially makes that virtually impossible so i think that's fundamentally problematic about the current agreements that's my issue number three with a number four and i realize you say that it's that it's we want to think about as a related we have before us in the immediate term within the next hundred twenty days the both the opportunity and the risk associated with a one hundred forty nine four point nine million dollar new school which may happen under an existing green may happen under a new agreement some believe or better may or may not happen and so that is in fact you know within the realm of the world and you know as as dan pointed out there's a leverage currently when there's  big building projects coming up and then once it's approved there's not you know that that goes away so i think the four issues to me is that you've got again voting rights half the students from nearly half the scenes from elsewhere virtually impossible to draw in this giant building project which potentially creates cost and there in what i mean specifically about the problematic thing there is that if the new school is built and it is not utilized so if we build a six hundred twenty eight person school and only three hundred kids show up the people that actually are paying for that school will disproportionately share in the cost of that of that school so that that is that is i think the risk you know you have to believe that you're actually going to get some reasonable level of utilization  again those are the four things that i see and i'll just open the floor now for discussion comments on any aspect of the entire debate so far jenny a couple people to say one it's true that building a three hundred still high school would be a good idea so that's just for the building i think that roy is right there you talked about leverage a minute ago like with regard to the building agreement i am very unhappy to hear that the administration might hold the agreement back if it is approved by all not to take it to the commissioner in time for it to be approved to be in force for this question about the building and i would imagine i know that m s p and s c are not the same thing but i would imagine that since the state has approved the project there is some desire at the state that the project go forward and therefore to the extent that there is some leverage with the commissioner to get this done i hope that the school committee will prevail upon the superintendent and the rest of us will prevail upon the state generally the commissioner to get this done so that this actually does take photographs for that vote because it would be crazy if it didn't mean that's why people have been working so hard to get this done so that we can actually move forward together with this new building question and have it be calculated effort i don't know i have reached out today to the assistant superintendent of finance and said this is an important topic if you can give me any insight before tonight's meeting we should not hear back from him i said be prepared he is going to be at the briefing tomorrow i said be prepared for that question to them out i do not know if there is a statutory or regulatory process reason why dessie can't move quickly however unlikely in my opinion our community will exercise that the taking of the being crammed down on a building project you don't want off the table as a risk i think dramatically improves the odds would the optimal size of the school be based on a program x instead it took the mandated enrollment sizes from the m s p yeah and look at it clearly a school of three hundred three hundred is less that what program menu but you go from sixteen vocational programs to thirteen ish or so so would not be catastrophic i've always conjectured that without having this discussion we've never had this the and it it's befuddling to me that we've never had the discussion what is the right size school that we should build we've always been reacting to the superintendent saying here's the you i've always felt that somewhere around five hundred five twenty five in that range would be a reasonable size school that would not result in huge program cuts and would give room for years i've not been directly involved in it for thank you to mark and dan and bob and jack for spending all their time on it but one thing i've heard is that it's not just the structure and the end there are constitutional  functional but it's been the relationship with the senior management there with the with the with the in leadership if i mean just as i hearing all the issues that people have  going to be persistent questions of what he's left in the minds of people like me about about the just buckin leadership itself and so one of the prospects of it seems to be you know by changing the voting and up and up if it turns out that that the four towns with the largest state really are going to send board members who are willing to in and maybe even even though i think about whether there's going to be a there has to be a fresh look at how the future of the school gets a lead there not that i think it's possible that you could have a much more working i'm working relationship between that between the staff and the board then then this is this is not going to solve that problem so jim if i might mark comment on that i think i've been somewhat alluded to  other members of the selectmen and that's exactly some of the topics we've discussed i mean i still have concerns and will have ongoing concerns with if if this regional dream it does pass and i hope it does about our relationship with the current administration i think that's been dysfunctional as well my sense is that the administration unfortunately doesn't really listen to some of the member communities but instead listens to itself if you will and so i think that needs to be dealt with in some way and we have to reestablish either a better working relationship with the current administration or in the future if we're part of the reconstituted district look for ways to perhaps change it i mean i will say that publicly because i have said publicly before that suggested the current superintendent would continue but i really believe and i know chuck agrees with me on this that our relationship with the administration has to improve that where one of you know where the third or fourth highest submitter of students are i think clearly is the number one and they're there to not only serve our district and so we should have a seat at the table and be listened to and i hope that that will be the case in the reconstituted district and jim i think you make excellent points i'm not sure it's as kids who went there but to anything the superintendent suggests therefore it's not necessarily a small town versus a large town issue i've had listened to a former or former school committee officer saying look p d occasions that minuteman is its own municipality there are people on the school committee who don't view i've and i've been lectured on this when i said i think my job is to represent  community and minuteman members there are people on the school committee and it's again not parlayed into large versus small who their job is to advocate forcefully for minuteman on matters and that's a different approach i'm not sure although i do think the idea of having the board of selectmen as an option not a requirement as an option appoint school committee members does create a sense of more accountability but i  am cautious and skeptical that that dynamic will change dramatically i do think what will change dramatically is on the financial matters that i mentioned that the talents for whom the votes that have a financial the occasional education and i i guess i would like to revisit the five issues that i brought up last time that we've talked about like this very helpful i'm glad from arlington you came because that was i think what you said actually was probably his sitting with me the best so having those five those five things one was whether we would the reasons to vote yes would be for instance we would save money under it but it looked to me from last time as though our susman actually goes up something it's for all practical purposes i think it's a wash in one case and this is just cap over the seven times are going to leave right if i said it well we don't know that i mean there have been some of those seven towns whose objection was that previously the capital  allocation had a one percent minimum allocate one percent of the total allocated to each town and then a five student minimum that five student minimum on top of the one percent allegation is be changed to one student minimum several towns have said infor you know how representative the selectmen is for the sentiments of their towns hard to know but there have been several towns who have said that will be enough to change just to stay in the district there are some towns like lincoln who select and said you know what i think this is something that we have to put out to the voters i'm not sure what the sentiment in my community is so i think it's an overstatement to assume that those seven would leave if the seven do leave it's seven leave and predicated on the assumptions that minute man has no months assessment goes up about twenty thousand off of a base of about three sixty now people have to make their own determination in decision as to whether or not that's material enough to vote against the agreement but that's the order of magnitude it's you know we're talking about the impact of the change in the regional agreement on our system for capital but neither is there any significant cost savings correct right so secondly would be the weighted voting which has been described i mean i'm not sure how much for belmont how much effect that would really have it seems as though it only really would come to play if you're going to do something like reduce the new school size which sounds like it's probably not going to happen or stop the debt for the new school which is a whole separate argument replace the superintendent which for the life of me i have no idea why you've never done that but that is for you but i don't think we're going to get enough increased power out of that for ourselves to really have any major effect on anything so i'm not as it doesn't seem to me like a heavy reason to vote it's an issue that i'd actually if you don't mind i'd like to i like adam just finish because there's five do have a couple questions but these are these are things the third one would be if we wanted to get out and it's been described before it's not like i can come up with a realistic alternative i don't particularly want to get out of that as others have said i think the programs are great i've been down there i've spoken to the cook the kids they have these sometimes i'm a lawyer come down and talk to them the building stinks the programs are great it's kind of sounds like our high school a little bit but the the problem is at least at least with the new agreement there's a process to get out of though it seems fairly onerous the one question i did have because looking at the papers that we got if we're not all if we're not allowed out responsible for our share under the revised regional agreement we'll get that one percent of the total assessment regardless of how many students we send so if we found another alternative and decided we were going to be technically is number three that's under my larger get out which is number three and i get the whole part about cramming through the financing is another reason why i'm not a fan of the administration because i don't like the way they're playing the timing of this to get it gain advantage against the wishes of a lot of the people they're trying to serve but again the fourth one would be to get out of the district get the out of district schools to pay the average average capital cost and you've explained that that they don't it may not be legal to do that dessie may not approve it has anyone got a legal opinion on that is that something that we can even do reserve the right so i mean they could say you have thought i had made it man this year charging at the average and next year they could say you know what that's really very painful for those nonce of member communities you can charge him up to a maximum of pick a number from half the average  they have the right to do the capital to do this that's capital they have promulgated the rules the rules that they're putting forward are saying that if you if the project is a school building authority approved project then that debt may be passed on the proportionately to nonmember talents and whether it's been approved legally i mean the lawyers and does he say yes i mean no one has sued no one has asked for that but i mean so in the question of has had a legal review yes ok well let's get this number four and that's actually sort of leaning that goes into the in the fifth one was we get the new agreement we have sixty seven towns leave you have a reconstituted school committee we have greater weight there's weighted voting and then there's an ability to maybe get yet a new agreement because now you don't have to go to all sixteen to get  approved and get a new agreement this one may be kind of better but not great to get to the great we have a better chance of going to yet another reconstituted agreement because you've got you don't have that one hundred percent you've got rid of the small schools  send to many kids have been kind of knocking up the works all this time was you still need to get all of the right hands to agree to it and a further amendment of the region will require the most of their approval of all the recommit themselves to make it a better district right so i mean it's hard to hard to separate the debt from this because i sort of think of it maybe too long the lawyers and i'm trying to i'm thinking strategically the whole long game here and how it all plays itself out and then do i want to vote yes on the agreement to play out the debt things i think the school is too big i agree with i like what you're saying i mean i don't agree with roy i don't think you have to go to six hundred we don't have to stay three hundred there's a lot of range in between which would be more of a right side school i mean more kids are coming in and you may need better extra space i'm just not a fan of the way it's being manipulated through the administration of the minuteman district but it's not your fault i mean it's just what we're stuck with  shame is it's a good program and i'm just breeds resentment and you're right it's dysfunctional and that's the problem i was talking with an executive in another town which was looking to get rid of their vocational and do something different on like a you know they're going to be building this new larger minimum and you may have you want to send your kids over to that and they're like yeah we're familiar with what's going on there hell no he said i don't want anything to do with that mess that agreement mess the building mess no so the word is out there so i don't know how many of these nonmember towns  towns that you might be able to draw in who are not even sending kids here now because the perception has been that the management and the membership in the school and everything's just not not being done what done well so i'm not i'm not optimistic about bringing in some of these other people i don't know refine intially whether that's worthwhile but i guess time will tell this is a real tough one this is a really tough as because it's that because it's a really new agreement really lousy and this one is like a lousy minus one so it's sort of lousy minus one is better than totally lousy but it's not great but it's a path towards doing something lousy minus two three or four so i can't come up with a better alternative so i guess i would be in favor of it but it's kind of one of those hold my nose what we wanted to do you know is it exactly what belmont wants no it's not but it's better than what we have that's my point of view and jack has a good point he even he's not convinced that nonmember towns will join i know for one thing you'll never join with the current agreement ever i absolutely do feel that there's a better chance i can't he indicate what that is that they were doing with a new agreement because there were droll options are easier it's easier to get out today you it would have to get fifteen of the communities to agree that we would have to leave that would never happen like i think it's been referred to as hotel california right and at least under the new agreement there is a better  lower than if they were members does it compel us to join this new district reconstituted strict that perhaps the governance has improved and they feel that it would improve and have a seat at the table and at least to give them that opportunity to debate that point today there's no debating it we wouldn't join it we'd be looking at and say why would we ever join that and yet we did you know in ninety seven yes because i think in ninety seven this community made the right decision that is i mean i was and i'm old enough to have gone to the junior high and i think we're we're providing was a called shop i guess a vocational education in the basement wasn't really education for the kids that really wanted alternative and i think this provide because i think you're demographics this change dramatically within sixty member towns and over time because we were sending twelve hundred kids the district numbers were and i don't remember those times but we were and it's gone down over time  the ministration fill the gap if you will with nonmember towns and that's when all these issues came there so i think you sort of i would like to share a few comments of my own in a minute but i want to give the people the option to talk for i do that and just a question is does  independent of the public gave ten regional schools the ability to do that as dan said in conjunction with an m s p a approved unfunded building project so it's not all capital which is why as bob said if we'd start to repair the building without the deaths it without the m s b a loan we would not be able to assess nonmember communities of capital facilities fee it's only associated with the debt service for building projects but that centers to minuteman dessie agreed to lower the two wishin at vocational technical and schools from what all one hundred fifty percent of the foundation budget the hypothetical budget of how much you should spend on education two hundred twenty five percent so our share of what we can charge nonmembers unities is going down yes you could make that decision two years from now as a relates to capital  they're not going to regardless of the regional agreement or not they are not going to give up their power or authority over those fees today we can assess anything so at least we have a better opportunity to everyone watching i'm trying to assess probabilities when i have very little hang on to this sort of how likely is one outcome or another you know how likely is dessie to fast track approval of an agreement how likely is the ministration to actually give it to them early enough to fast track the agreement and i don't know what their interests are not the administration so much i don't know what jesse is interested in and i mean to some extent the approval of the green might be thinking that it's going to take place after the death because you know to to to lose more member towns at a time when you're sure to get from some perspective this is harmful because it doesn't have the same sort of collection you know resource availability it don't want to get out and so that that is taken out of the debt making it harder debt burden on the other tell and clearly the other thing that's really uncertain is will does he allow us to charge you've just been talking about the assessment fee will other towns send their students here if they are being  to at least reduce and somehow minimise the necessity for capital i'm assuming this is just to pager it's got a two sided sixteen member towns nine member towns and with the numbers are that's from the administration is that correct ok you know feedly obviously that you know what changes on these is not only the number of industry students that drops with the nine member towns but you know you know sort of nonmember town and i think that's a risk and so we're left with ok what's the probability of a nine member district a sixteen member to fish or somewhere in between what's the probability of getting the assessment based on the average assessment of member towns and assessment fee for nonmembers or something lower or not at all what they are what's the probability that they'll actually send students under that kind of system versus look for alternatives and something on them because that is it would help oh to know you know this this particular point shows a very small difference in the belmont to suspect you know it's sixteen member towns it's one point one eight million that are right as to what two point one point two five five million if it's a nine member district under their assumptions it'd be good to see what's the downside what's the sort of worst case scenario under the current agreement in sixteen member towns and under the nine member district either which is how much does it change if nobody if the under the sixty member town has sixteen member towns remain belmont's assessment goes up and we call this off in memory but i'm going to say sixty eight our assessment goes from three eighty two to five zero seven so hundred twenty five thousand in round numbers is what the delta interestingly enough not to get too deep into the weeds it actually doesn't matter how many member of a from the capital allocation doesn't matter how many people from the member towns go it only matters what your percentage relative to the total because once those outside fees are credited then the remaining debt gets run through this capital allocation formula and so if it's three hundred students four hundred students or five hundred students from member towns it doesn't in total assessments going to be and that's affected by whether we're seeing any income growth so if we receive you know capital facilities the rig the highest risk under the scenario of seven towns fleet is one hundred twenty five thousand plus or  above where it is her where the serial number jack did to be if versus the sixty eight thousand increase so it's only about what thirty two plus twenty five dollars that's all that is roughly three eighty two to five zero seven with seven is irrelevant to whether the new agreement on only two minutes so many passes you pass but my point is under the new agreement the danger that mark made reference to is under a facilities agreement that gets to individually negotiated interviews the agreements it's like their work i mean the administration and frankly get nine votes to do almost anything and they will say exactly what bob said we can't simply can't afford to let to use an example watertown walk out with their sixty students and their eighteen thousand dollars worth of annual it is something if you factor in some element of special education and so on transportation something on the order of twenty one twenty to twenty one thousand dollars per student is that a fair guy david cohen and i don't really have a good handle on the transportation comes down to twenty to twenty seven thousand dollars to one seventeen assessment or so fifty one divided by twenty six to twenty eight thousand dollars so so it sounds like there is something in there in the order of a seven or eight thousand dollar difference in operating cost between being in the district and not the district then of course you have the capital cost which if this gets built would add on a film school about eight thousand dollars per student to build as i for a day or two just doesn't matter what the  dollars so are our costs will go from twenty eight to thirty six ish right and the number towns are currently at around let's say twenty twenty one right so if you believe you can allocate the operating cost that's one thing if going to actually pay this additional eight thousand dollars just ask me to pay if the assuming does he agrees to impose it right and they say i don't want to pay twenty eight i want to i'm going to potentially go somewhere else all right then  and for the sake of argument you have a half empty school if our cost is not eight thousand dollars incremental per student is meaningfully higher than that which i think is the point that ann is trying to get out i think bob is trying to get as well which is that the assumption of a fully utilized was actually an important assumption but from a capital point of view the calculation i was that from the capital point of view only a full school seven town has a million one hundred fifty or so of capital coming from the nonmember towns if you reduce that to zero and say what percentage of the remaining capital was belmont share that's where our capital assessment in aggregate goes from three eighty two to five zero seven so our exposure if you collect zero facility zero facility fifty dollars on the capital side is one hundred two thousand because if it disappeared i mean that that that of it again there's other assumptions about what the right cost is what's the cost of the total debt or whatever but under the assumptions that minute man has put out our incremental risk is call it a third part let me let me let me let me make it it means adjuring even more let's just say that we built a new school and i'm just for just to exaggerate for that for the purpose of this option we pay for everything everybody we all we have all the students so we don't have the member towns aren't we're not we as belmont  twenty five or twenty six twenty six essentially of of roughly half if under under if it's half don't show up from other towns what i'm saying is let's say we're every day we pay a hundred percent of the capital right so my point is that if if half the school  empty the people that remain have to pay twice as much by definition unless i mean some lessons on not losing like the sense of math the core assumption is that the schools utilize so if you believe of the schools utilized then the per unit cost is actually pretty similar if you the number of towns that are leaving but it's the number of students so the point being that it's not double the cost you lose sixty five kids leave the district if you it's fifty three in total of the seven town leaving that's correct fifty three fifty seven students whatever it is and that's ending in a student's back and that's that's that's one thing or the second is if the nonmember towns that represent nearly half the students choose not to accept the new higher price and go somewhere else right and you have a half utilize school the remaining towns that are in the district whether it's with the seven in or observing or whatever the remaining towns pay twice as much as they have to pay the full cost of the school and had m assumptions that there are only nine member towns it's a million one fifty or whatever of that five point one million is being contributed by nonmember communities if that the minuteman us projections about the contribution from the capital because they're assuming that we're going to grow this is the hockey chart that you want to get the statistic that you pointed out there assuming that the member town in roman is going to go capital to the member town after you first apply the nonmember contribution so it matters what percentage you have of the total but it doesn't matter what is the would if we had five if we had ten percent of the member town and roman of three hundred or we had ten percent of the share of an unknown a four hundred or ten percent share of an roman a five hundred that's was said let's take that out of district contribution and make it zero ok and then say how based on the percentage that we're projected to pay of the total how much does it go up how much of that incremental do we now know are we responsible for that's the one twenty five the one twenty five again that assumes that we are significantly increasing the number of students we send but it doesn't address the matter  higher now under each scenario there absolutely is a risk that no cap a fee will be assessed ok absolutely michael so that mr chips are two forms a risk one is that the capital fee is not assessed because jesse doesn't allow it grif second is that it isn't the i believe there's absolutely no ability or no path zero that will result in a nonmember town panic out in might from my point of view and jack sort of alluded to it as well there's no mechanism i don't believe that the forward and you're right mr chairman under the current agreement is a higher probability the building project will not before there's also a high probability that will be assessed significant repair costs over a period of ten years building fail with perhaps no must be a reimbursement that's unclear at this point so i think the sixteen member count projection is completely flawed because i don't believe at all that the age forty one will ever be assessed i just don't think it's possible it the fee for nonmember accounts i mean if you think we just sit back and just take that i don't think we would but the fact is i think there's a higher probability it could be assessed because it's in our agreement does use that we haven't gotten approval yet review this and say they don't have a problem with it and we have an ability other than a truth which weighted vote which if you look at the weighted vote right now aren't in boma together as more than one third i believe there's a higher probability that the couple fee will be assessed a number of accounts could it not be assessed absolutely there's still that probability as well i think the other point the other point i missed him you were making and i'm not disagreeing with this is that if in fact as jack indicated t are assessed as couple feet and there's no way out of it they could find alternatives and so we're not just it's more about that it's less about the risk of the capital side although that's a risk it's more the risk on the operating side as these towns that's one of my points which is the training in the schools leaving and not increasing member or member when you've got especially when you have a new building which in new york and there are certain costs let's let's look at that first section where the eight forty one is the contribution from the nonmember community let's just let's not worry about that the three components of the capital allocation let's just say for the total debt service is five million one so let's just call it eight hundred thousand is coming from the nine member communities four point three it's coming from the member communities if  for that the four point three gets allocated through this capital allocation formula and it belmont is ten percent of the responsibility for that four point three million dollars  eight hundred goes away we are responsible for ten percent of that differential right it and it it doesn't matter what the base of the total students are that got to the ten percent it only matters what they were percentages relative to those of the minuteman communities you if belmont is ten percent of that assessment the portion that doesn't come from nonmember communities our exposure if that's driven to zero is ten percent of what we thought we were going to get from those nonmember communities again that is true because there are one hundred students one six hundred three point six roughly one sixth of the students from nonmember towns as opposed to the current reality of nearly half from nonmember towns so you're starting from an assumption that isn't consistent with  reality and then the logic then flows from there which i get right under saying that that's not where reality is right now but what i'm saying is if you turn that one hundred three zero if you turn the one hundred three to zero and you leave the five twenty four sure but if you if the five twenty five twenty four is not what's from in district now how many students are coming from in district right now so three eighty five right subtract out fifty because those are the seven towns so three thirty so so roughly so if four fifty seven every town grew at the exact same percentage for the exact same number of years if that base is only three thirty and you get zero of the one seventy you say well how much does the three thirty how much this the three thirty base have to pick up and as long as belmont is ten percent to three thirty or ten percent of four fifty it doesn't matter what matters is what percentage of the extra debt service is our share it's not the total number of member town students that are attending that drives it it's the total amount of non  you know when when you think about this kind of thing you think about what's you know what's the what's the best case what's the expected case what's the worst case was allison the former chair of sort of famous talking about you know worst case scenarios and obvious exactly what the answer is it's hard and i also would just say very quickly that i think that i'm incredibly grateful and respectful of the hard and intelligent work by you know folks who are in this room of the working on this for a very about you know why these worst case and there are things are things we shouldn't necessarily be we should discount these words to scenarios and scenarios number one if he doesn't allow the capital cost structure we kept a cautionary to be allocated to nonmember towns that would be there's some uncertainty about whether or not that could happen and so we don't have as you well so that's that's number two and i'm echoing something that bob actually had on the a pointed out before there were three if if we build a new school for six twenty eight which i believe actually has some of said the probability of that happening increases in a substantial way if this agreement passes if we build a new school for six twenty eight and only only going to use converse some smaller number of students come you don't utilize in school our costs go up jim described it as a failure our costs go up however you want to debate what the exact numbers are whoever is sending the kids there are cost go up on the capital side and as seven point our costs go up on the operating side as well right mark made that point so that's a worst case scenario you know you want to utilize the school right number four if we don't want the debt if we actually think that the new school is a bad idea unless something else happens unless we write some new thing that encourages watertown to join as i think a this is it for the next sixty years right as much as my sense right so that's that's that's number four and if you if you fundamentally want if the if the fast last worst case scenarios if you believe that you actually want  reconstituted districts not recounted in the definition of the way we're talking about here but reconstituted actually includes in the district key nonmember towns like a watertown or like in medford i think there is a high risk that that doesn't happen if we sign this agreement now right so i think that the you think about the you know the sort of worst case scenario things or risks associated with this i think those are the five that i think of i think there are a lot of things that are that are positive this agreement is clearly better in the absence of a new school which is several people made this point in the absence of a new school being on the horizon this agreement is clearly better than the old agreement the problem is the complexity of the new of the new old agreement it's to be sixteen member towns and let's assume the same number of students are there the same proportion of students in the sixteen member towns that roughly speaking if nobody else comes to the party or nobody else pays to come that we're talking about those who are paying something our system right now it's not like it's three fifty three the estimate we're going to add sixty eight thousand to that somewhere so basically at four twenty one k so as an annual assessment for the capital mark's point in other points that that worst case scenario is less likely when you've got an agreement that actually has a provision saying well charge a capital fifty so i understand that certainly but it sounds like the worst case scenario body six thousand dollars and you rightly i had compared those two and compared the two you know for still under the two scenarios but that's that that's basically it if i said that the worst happened that's the incremental impact of approving the on the side of whether yes the yes it would be me is new agreement versus old debt approved debt not approved in either the case or whether the debt is approved or the debt is not approved leave me with the new you i just want to push back a little bit on your worst case scenario because it seems to me that you're assuming that no alternative but to scare everybody away with the  lender standing under the agreement is that if two thirds of the board decide that the capital assessment fee is not beneficial it's worse then you could either lower it or do away with it altogether because part of the downside here is the operating costs and that's even more significant it seems to me than the capital downside and so i think that there is leeway under this new agreement to make it work and fill the school even if that is a fair point a small point that no one's talking about jack and i don't know we get them with the total capital fee that they would pay if they were a member but we would grandfather them i don't know if it's an additional incentive i don't know if it's enough for them to say yes but clearly that's there  you believe dan that was that the number towns are more likely to join the new agreement so let me rephrase actually do you think that there is a high likelihood or at least a reasonably high likelihood that nonmember towns will join the new district or do you think that they likely will not join the district but they'll just keep coming or maybe they will come in on what you what your what your general my guess is that with that it's it is unlikely that someone would join i def the seventh of may have i completely agree that under constituencies related to the trade which is related to the medford shop program so we're not going to get medford in so long as this man is connected to that machine you know that doesn't last forever but it's the type of thing that drives the decision watertown to me is always the most likely and and the i think the thing that would most likely trigger someone joining is if our in district and roman actually started going out and up and we started squeezing people and we started saying no more that w agreement forward i started working more with our delegation specifically senator donnelly's office and they met with dessie and the message was make sure that you work really closely with in a man and because of the way the timing worked they actually already work and so we talk about well does he approve the agreement does he actually read the agreement read like this and made changes and said i mean there weren't substantive that they were just there and then they said you know here it is coming back and i have it i'm sure we can go back to that well again and say look here it is here's the timeline here's how we get this approved so to me that would be my leverage to get in plus i'm also quite confident that reference on the school committee that are linked to this member of the school committee will not be willing to push the unless anyone feels actually very strongly about this is actually not to have us vote on this tonight i think this continues to be a very challenging complicated issue and i think it's worthy to kind of have more discussion about it we do have a meeting on for a third just prior to th february eighth meeting we of course could briefly meet with or the various meeting but i'm an offer and something that we will go down that's on february third at our work committee meeting unless someone actually advocates right now that they think we should be voting on this right  forum for people to argue the pros and cons of this and that's actually going to be a little bit challenging in that environment so i mean i'm going to try to manage that carefully because this could be you know it's you know again many tell me i'm not looking for many town meetings tomorrow all right so i'm not here anybody helps arlington and it's very important to arlington i understand how it helps seven pounds and said you know it's great i'm looking at belmont spur specter ok and  it would be ideal if we can remove disagreement from the minuteman school project and debt but the fact of the matter is i've realized we really can't because if not for that project this agreement wouldn't be before us right now and what makes it so difficult to read and understand as a lawyer is it is so riddled with  discussed here but what i walked away with is there are so many unknowns there are so many uncertainties both from a legal matter i can't tell you for sure how to interpret this agreement and just last thursday we heard minute minutemen's you know minute man came out and said the new agreement doesn't take effect until july first two thousand and seventeen and then when we questioned it it got deleted from the fact she ok we don't know where this is we don't know where this is going but as a lawyer you know when i advise a client and i read a contract i like to make sure legally that there's some certainty that there's a clear direction and this just does not exist in this agreement and it worries me it bothers me second from a fiscal perspective there's also a lot of uncertainty listen to the discussions on the numbers belmont go right three four five years ago in fact when liz was chair i think at the time when minutemen came up with an eight hundred schools eight hundred students school and belmont said no you've got to right size the school you've got to ri size it to the membership and this is what got all this going i think belmont got it right unfortunately we cannot right size the school anymore it's down to six hundred twenty six students and this is it take it or leave but since we can't right size the school we have to right size the district we have to reconstitute the district it's the only way that we're going to get the uncertainty away from us and reconstituting to me is not letting seven six communities walk away and walk away scot free from the debt while other communities like belmont and arlington you know have to take that risk and some of them have said well we're going to come back and be part of the district because you're going to need us and we won't be responsible for the death what we really need to do and the two are tied hand in hand is we need to reconstitute it district the district in such a way communities to come and get them in now and if we can sit here as a warrant committee as a board of selectmen and be fairly certain that we can get five hundred students from within the district because we  constituted and expanded the district rather than country contracted it i feel a lot more comfortable i am looking for the right answers i don't know where they are but but you know as you of the board i just i just felt an obligation that the warrant committee my colleagues heard two nights ago you know and those watching here tonight you know are able to appreciate i think the magnitude of the decision that's before us particularly in light of the fact that we've got and this be a approval to build a new high school because that's that's another financial issue water tower we could get medford we could get him in we would and we would have this is i mean i have i can tell you in the dozens the number of attempts that we've tried to get that done so i just don't want to i don't want to think that that's a stone unturned it's just a stone that has not we haven't been able to squeeze any water out of them just go to say i want to think about i would like you to think about two different scenarios or where two different ways of looking at this one is minuteman has problems so let's stick with the status quo the other one minute man has problems so let's adopt the original agreement which was fix so many of the structural problems that helped them and back and that's why arlington chose that second door we do not that we think that many of those problems we do not think that doing nothing is the right way to solve it we really think that this regional agreement is the way to move the district forward i appreciate for your patience thank you and thank you deborah coming ok in the comments for we move on do  and i want to just to make a couple of points one is that eighty five percent of the students minuteman go to college but just a point of fact the other point is that  the seven that are getting you know correct me if i'm wrong are leaving behind the assets of the district and it's been assessed that they're also walking from the  which we haven't discussed tonight what is the difference between and i know the answer for this but i think somebody else should say what is the difference between the state stepping in and supporting the construction of the new school versus us fixing when you run through ineligible costs and caps the state reimbursement is about thirty one and a half percent or so of the total one hundred forty five million blind process we are grandfathered under a forty percent base reimbursement gets up to forty four point seven five because of some credits were we to say no to the school building project and really enter the m s b a process that forty base goes down to thirty one percent so you lose nine percent of the cost of the school if you decide to step out of line the point i wanted to highlight was that there's forty million dollars on it it would be more that if they say forty five to forty five million in the military so if we if we don't agree to the new district then there won't be in the new school there won't be  t issue in the states not going to give us forty five billion yes correct sammy spoke at length the other night about reading the agreement and trying to figure out what it said and i wanted to ask you sir what do you think of the agreement itself if our chairman can make sense of what's written i have a banking background we always worked off term sheets in the deal points were in the term sheet and then the attorneys paper the agreement and we check to make sure of the agreement you know that the deal how comfortable are you and how comfortable your town meeting with the agreement we're comfortable the way we i would walk through it somebody has to take it section by section and i'd say the authors of it who is the person who is my go to and i have a question ok and then my final point is in terms of looking at the new town it seems to me that your graphic limit which towns could go there have you have you did you all go to every town in that in the circle you are going to be possibly come to minuteman is is that how they came up with their directions so that we're not we're not we're not daydreaming about new towns that might might join if it's a known number of minutemen did have conversations and has had conversations in the past with what they call the big three which is medford watertown waltham they've also had like cambridge has its own hit house vocational program as does boston so even though they send large numbers they only tell that i can think of that's not part of the district a lot of those nonmember communities are looking to use an example burlington burlington's part of shore sheen but a couple of kids go to medical man from you know even the so the only community that beyond watertown and then medford wall of them and cambridge are part of this solved collaborative the only one that i was aware of that fell outside of that was wellesley well she's not part of any district and i know minuteman did initiate conversations with with wellesley but all of those conversations are the superintendent talking and so i don't know how to read the answer of how it was so you would agree that thing for anyone who's who's thinking who's on the fence about this or is maybe thinking no should be thinking about because it's while i fished for myself i would much prefer a different agreement for than this one that actually includes the watertown's and others it's highly unlikely that's going to happen in the next hundred twenty days or whatever time period that would be required in order to actually make this get this assessment so i think that's one of the things that needs to be thought about it if you if i could follow up if you go back to the worst case which is three hundred to one one twenty five rounded up to four hundred to make it easy rounded up to five hundred to make that easy that's a twenty percent increase no twenty five percent increase so you're getting a forty percent reduction in the capital cost but worst case is a twenty five percent increase if everything stays the same you see what i mean worst case  and which towns are in and which towns are in and and so under the old agreement if this doesn't pass we clearly have a silver bullet element to simply have to go to town meeting and vote no the likely would do this they would go to a district wide vote you know all of this right under section and sixteen as it is not the sixty in the popular vote is for forty eight hours on a saturday in the middle of some day that no one's around of carrying and so under the old agreement we don't have that and so under the old agreement you can rest assured that even if we were to vote no in may or june this is going to a district wife of and what the calculus is minuteman school committee is going to meet and i guarantee you and engender item for the march first minuteman school committee meeting will be a vote to authorize the funding and so then towns have sixty days a new school as a leadership time leadership selectman finance committee capital committee and vote of town meeting we have all said we will propose a building without a new regional now how many votes do we actually deliver to the ballot box because of the amount of money that we're talking about like i don't know if you guys like him and probably in the air one of the spreadsheets there but for us the building is a one point six one point seven million annual payment for us that's at that exclusion i don't know whether it's so we possible yes i think at the front the funny thing which you will pick up next time is you know if you don't support the new school you actually would as you said before you would actually be opposed to this agreement right but what i would have it would literally guarantee that there is no school without a new agreement but i write hope that one would take a broader perspective and think about where under center is you do support the new school i'm not saying you do but if you did support the school for either because you get there must be a money for any number of reasons you actually made the argument that you would we would you should or used sport in school then you would go for it and those are the only reasons as you just said dan why you would do so ok so quick couple process comments it is now at nine forty two in my apologies for going along and we will try to educate the population of the extent that we can on this topic which i know is challenging there will obviously be more educational take place on february eighth when we have one meeting because it's such a complicated issue for a process respect of the letter that i want to by by the state through that's actually seven point six million dollars of free cash so i will put that in and i will also make some other changes because obviously we now have an n s p a process for the high school so there's some other tweets that need to be made that letter i will send out in a red line form that will come to you get to the c p a on the third again feedback on this stock you can you have electronically the one is handed out beforehand i want to finalize it will finalize the letter if we if at all possible from february third will vote on this on february third and see you all tomorrow between waverly and belmont center on south boston street that's good news and they are pursuing the option of keeping the existing waiver he swears station open and try to get stuff even after the expense of some dollars so that what minute man's plan is is that the first ten who voted no at the meeting they're very determined to go forward with the debt they're not going to wait and see what how many towns voted yes or no the first time their votes no they will then go to call a special election now they'll leave the school committee to agree to do that you know so it's you know the full committee has to