topic of climate change which is highly relevant giving given what will be discussed at the upcoming town meeting a league of women voters doing their war briefing speaking of town meeting so we're briefing number one which is the nonfinancial the other announcements ok so on to comments from town residents they want to have anything they would like to mention that is not covered elsewhere on the agenda this evening seeing then we will proceed to our annual arbor day proclamation so once again this year in celebration of arbor day the selectmen will issue a proclamation commemorating the event at and with your radio voice would you be would you be willing to read that proclamation for us thank you very much the town of beaumont massachusetts board of selectmen proclamation whereas the citizens of belmont take great pride in their trees and appreciate there are measurable value to the environment and whereas twenty one thousand will be the th year of belmont has been awarded recognition as tree city usa by the national arbor day foundation and whereas trees in force are renewable natural resources which provide us with timber for construction and furniture paper and chemical products electric energy firewood for hearths recreation and respite and where is treason for some reduce energy demands for heating and cooling moderate the temperatures clean the air remove carbon dioxide from the air produce oxygen and provide habitat for birds and other wildlife and whereas trees in the town of increase property values and hence the economic vitality of business areas beautif community and improve our quality of life and whereas trees wherever they are planted are a source of joy and spiritual renewal now therefore we the board of selectmen declare friday april th two thousand nine hundred dollars to be arbor day in the town  are the town's employees civic organizations clubs businesses and schools to join a concerted effort to plant trees throughout the community on their properties to protect and care for our trees and woodlands and to join in observances and celebrations of arbor day and belmont celebration day excellent i wish that we were on to a discussion of identity financing for the wellington elementary school floyd harmon town treasure if you'd like to join us low so between myself and working with peter frazier we look at the opportunities and it looks like right now is probably the opportune moment to go out there and refinance so what we're really looking at if you look at the information in front of you from the senior center perspective we're talking about ninety seven thousand dollars of savings let's not lose sight that we only financed the pot of february so they feel it pretty well up to speed on we are at a month later but it's a it's an opportunity and what i need is i need for you to vote you see it down a very bottom or three weeks later we'll have it all buttoned down so the reason why i'm trying to move kind of fast is because the interest rates are at a very opportune times and this increases the debt capacity for the town just a little bit you know it i refinancing we probably have saved in a neighborhood of about two hundred dollars to the taxpayer you know it's tens of thousands but you know a couple one hundred bucks is a couple one hundred bucks but way to make the motion of the remaining principal of an redemption premium in interest on the town's general obligation bonds dated april th two thousand and nine to february th two thousand and ten and that for this purpose the treasurer is authorized to provide for the preparation and distribution o official statement provided however the no bombs shall be issued under this vote unless and until the final interest rates and other terms of the refunding bonds are approved by the board so i can nd any further discussion one more question floyd  is as a result of this refinance our property taxes actually going to decrease or will the town actually have savings that could apply to some other purpose no this was a direct decrease to the property tax dollars property tax facing us because of the one million dollars borrowing last month this is like a drop in the bucket but you know as i said earlier that adds up every book every book it's full of many drops t ok next topic is approval for the memorial day parade is there anyone here who is representing the veteran services group here all right then i think we've done this year after year so nothing new but we have a request from bob upton veteran services officer to for permission for the board to grant permission to hold the n u a moral day parade in exercises on march the thanks so right now basically almost nothing is changed oh sorry we just want to add one shot down the street on rutledge road right now it's scheduled for the st monday were there which is april th at some point for about twenty three hours we want to go down to rutledge road we want to film a scene where a garbage truck comes around the corner going towards lawrence road lawrence lane and somebody drop something in the trash it's a very simple scene but  about rutledge road is basically if you're on lawrence lane looking up towards claremont there's a nice bend in the road so we only really see from lawrence to that bed and so there's about one thousand two hundred and thirty four maybe five houses there that we really see and three of them are empty and for sale right now we're going to be right in front of the one right on the corner which is six rutledge road and we spoke and heard several times and she's very excited about to talk to them they're going to talk to the members extensively   so yes so that's when it's scheduled for that you know the one thing is like if we start getting behind on i v that day we might push it to the next day so it's not guaranteed but that's when it's scheduled for and we'll just use our officers that we have on i road and probably move them down with us so as long as you make you know if you get calls or e mails from people just to let the trees know absolutely because obviously if someone gets upset we want to make sure we can use the idea the close the streets off and yes it will basically close rutledge from claremont to lawrence lane and again what's good about it is everything around that curve everybody around that curve can just go out towards claremont road or come back in from claim road so we don't see all of that so if somebody lives there they'll just ask the officer they live at so and so address and they'll just be able to get right you know i think is blocked off just make sure the trash checks get down yeah yeah of course they'll probably be a little later in the day that we would do on i v road and grab people's trash put it down to the end of the road mark it all and bring it all back for home so we'll make sure everybody's trash get out and get in that day or really questions or  making a donation to the town so i think that was ryan on one of the st day said you know because they'll be an impact for a number of days you know they had you know in previous situations made donations to communities so they're still in the process right now of working with some additional locations so what they have for us tonight is they have a check in a sealed envelope they're asking us to hold that check we have a purpose that we're looking to make that donation go to but until they have finalized the shooting we'll hold off on opening it i did have a conversation with floyd carman the town treasure because we don't know what's in that truck we can but once we open not check we will have to make that public knowledge at that point because that's the reason for not opening it was we don't tell people what it is and that's because you may go to another community and not here yet disclose the amount if i want you know more about that we will disclose the amount or structure yes it's more about that they haven't worked they haven't finalized the details for the filming outside of belmont or even what some of the individuals like looking at the new location that they have so in order to you know address their ability to have conversations and work with those individuals they've asked us to hold off until the film is complete so yeah i was going to as this is not a number the associated with that it is not going to cover the full project but yeah as you see we go got some money on the incinerator slightly good but but it will make it will make a dent in that and you know see everything you guys have done and it's really been awesome working with everybody specially the neighborhood over there everybody been so great and it's excited and we look forward to actually doing the filming and i can't say no to captain america can i  that's right well thank you very much we appreciate the donation so could i get a motion to accept you know accept a donation from permanent studios for the police if you know we're building project nd favor thank you very much much mr mr church just since i'm here so this request that they had tonight was obviously for filming in a different location a small stuff comes up for the remainder of the filming you know unless it's a major yeah it isn't the st time we've had filming in belmont it's gone well so fast and i think it would be more you know if there's major day changes or anything like that obviously anything major changes would have come back come back but if you know there's a small take a few minutes i mean everybody knows you but again would you mind and sure of course i'm mike wood near the town moderator so the proposal here would be to change simple change the term of the town moderator of the table let's talk about article didn't thank you yes no no i'm not covering the rest of it so it's i've gone each year i've been talking moderate now for about for twelve years as i go around and collect signatures each year that but i began to i said well i should really look at this not for me individually but as moderator to get some history so i did that and describe what i discovered but as a result of that i decided to put this forward for town meeting to discuss i think it's the right move and i'll support and speak to it but i'm not lobbying for it or in any way i think say this is urgent one way or the other i do think it's the right thing to do so if one goes back to the history the belmont representative town meeting act of one thousand nine hundred and twenty six provides quote that moderators elected it each moderator elected at each annual town meeting so at that point it doesn't even say for a one year term that was the essentially the function of the moderator which they handle town meeting and town meeting disbanded and that was it and here later  another moderate for that town meeting but obviously the visitation of moderators change over the last ninety three years and many other responsibilities appointments to committees planning town meetings special town meetings training for a town meeting members and so as in all positions they're much more fulsome if you will than they were in one thousand and twenty six so what's happened is very gradually over the years towns have gone from one year to three years most recently in the last three or four years south hadley and needham so then the obvious question is well what's the distribution across the state so i reached out to the moderators association which are my counterparts across the state and a couple of years ago they did a survey and they came up it's for chile exactly evenly divided three or appointments so all are three years now the only remaining one year is the position of town moderator so i think if we were forming down government today and somebody said why don't we have an i don't have to go through the list again all of these offices three years we'll have town moderator be one year i think we don't scratch our heads and say that doesn't make any sense so my feeling is the time has come to do what other towns have done and we'll continue to do this at the same three years as every other town office on a conversation i had with adam dash  following discussion of this adam he suggested to me it would be interesting or helpful to have a rotation whereby the three town wide offices were not part of  treasurer town clerk and moderator if we go to three years do it on a rotating basis so the original language had been two thousand and twenty but now we've looked into that and the town clerk has just been re elected so moderator does not serve out a full three year term for whatever reason there's other stuff to tory provisions for how to fill the office at the point george hall looked into that and said that that would be a vote of town meeting as i recall to fill the remainder roof to it's a very hilly district and that's reflected in part of the the regulations that we've taken a look at so what it basically does it extends the protections in terms of development for the s r c and it looks in particular this special parts of it that have to do with the special permits and things that take into account the topography there are some places where it goes like this and so you might in another district have a hike that would be ok but when you piggybacked on top of the other one it makes a significant difference for the people in the be to the amendment and have an effect both single residence district b and c but as chuck says it's a different district in several ways one is that the minimum lot size for conforming to the conforming law sizes larger it's twelve thousand square feet not nine thousand however it turns out that that neighborhood in that neighborhood two thirds of the homes or non conforming there and smaller than twelve thousand dollars lots and two thirds of those are actually smaller than thousand square feet which is the limit for s r c so it really but it's a kind of a bifurcated neighborhood there's a there's a part sort of up the hill on top of the hill that's large lots of the rest of it coming down looks a lot like when brook only gets on a hill and so the way that we worked with that is we would like to not forbidden people from adding stories or adding height in their houses in that district but to have them come to us for a special permit if they're going to raise the idea is to bring that kind of additional protection so that's the nd difference apart from the lot size that we're looking at the rd concern that we have and this is a new piece of it as well is that people who have large homes already the trigger for in the s r c is that if you're going to put an addition on that's greater than thirty percent of the existing house you need a special permit doesn't mean you can't do it you just have to come to us from it what we've noticed is that i  to come up with a median size of addition that we'd like to put as a as a as a limit so that either you're thirty percent or seven hundred square feet and seven hundred dollars square feet is the key is thirty percent of the sort of median home so if you want to write so so if you want to build something that's thirty percent that's great or if thirty percent is greater than seven hundred square feet you need to come to the planning board  we just we just don't want to have we want to have a cut off so that people who have very large homes don't end up putting up a one thousand square feet that's you know but right because it's under thirty percent so this is a new thing  that came up in that it's been coming up in the s r c recently and there have been a couple of examples where people have had very large homes and put something smaller than thirty percent on but it turned out to be an extremely large addition relative to the rest of the neighborhood so that we put that additional protection in there again to combat the problem of the of topography otherwise and we should we should also note in terms of this that this was not a project that that the planning board initiated per se but it was initiated by the neighborhood there who was concerned that the type of over development that is that has taken place in other neighborhoods might also affect them so they haven't had significant over development in that neighborhood but their concern was that that could happen especially given the geography of that it would make a significant difference in the homes there and the quality of life so it was brought by them so it was brought by them and worked on by the playing board so and you know the message we clearly heard was we would like the protections that we see that come from the as her see district and that we see in the actions of the planning board we would like them extended into special permit but it doesn't define a a limit to what could be done it just means that if you do something that exceeds the criteria in the article it has to come before the planning board you then may approve it or disapprove it or agree to some modification is that it ok were of those applications and based on this criteria that is now within the warrant they'd be in those past twenty four years said they would have only been two of those k two of those applications would have had to get a special permit and how many generational issues here like there are in many places in town and we understand that there will probably be within the next few years a number of houses that come on to the market and when that happens that will trigger a change and it's also the economy at this point is very good there's high demand for houses and belmont and we're seeing in the s r c and we're seeing in the g r as well that people when they're buying houses want to invest in the houses and they want more so we anticipate that as the market you know as the fire leaps over pleasant street and goes up there we will see a situation like that so now's the time to put our fire was not being proactive is smart i think this is a this is a good way to harmonize the single resident zones i appreciate the planning board being proactive in taking neighborhood concerns like this i think it is a good thing and i'm glad you're mirroring what you've already done i'm perfectly in favor of th going just to understand it more completely what happens if a house is torn and there's a tear down that this would not be applicable because it's so structures no longer non conformist similar or similar rules that the old house was torn down and they're building it over again can if they want to they can build the same house buy right same house eventually but if they want to add to it the same rule applies but if you also thesis here down if you tear down a house depending on what the dimensional requirements are if you're conforming you can build to the dimensional requirements of the district if you're not conforming in terms of size or step back or any of those things and if you don't reproduce that the house that you have in place you would fall under modified to try to to and to marry since so it does sound like this will likely increase even if it's only by a few the number of cases that come before the planning board i know you guys have got a crazy full docket in the past finding time to take these on whether they were s r c us or b has been challenging are you confident that you'll be able to absorb it i think so i also i mean you know because of the cut off of the is it the thirty percent in the seven hundred and fifty feet the smaller ones will will go to the zoning board but the larger ones the ones that impact the neighborhood in a strong way that's appropriate for the planning that should be what the planning board so you won't be in but this keeps them from doing with every little dormer yeah yeah right agreed i guess in a follow up question is how is this one inboard of being able to manage their workload do this actually put move a lot of that on to that and potentially potentially the but do you think is e p a has the capacity for i know one of the complaints we have heard from town from time to time is it takes a while to get these things through and so it's been to find capacity taking stein for someone to go through a process doesn't necessary mean that the doesn't have to pass before it just means the process is longer right what if there are stays or other things where the board is not getting to it because of the time on the agenda or the frequency of their meeting i think that's a that's a frustration measurement of what we actually find though in terms of the planning board is that people will talk to us about the time the projects take but part of that is the process of getting of you know if you get denied you go through and then you go through and you submit to the building inspector you know that takes time the building inspector takes a look the building inspector says no and then you have to reformat what you're doing talk with community development and then get on the agenda for the playing board and i think one of the things that we found two things we found with clearer rules generally were getting more compliant applications on no not always and we're trying to where we formulated working groups that are transparent and public and we're trying to tell people and and we're telling them through the staff that these are these are the dimensions and these are the kind of developments that will go through the planning board and will be acceptable and what we found is what we have found that applicants who have listened to jeffrey and spencer and listen to the planning groups go through the process relatively easily those people those applicants who resist this suggest and resist what the working group says and come to the playing board anyway create a longer process for themselves so that's what i think the dynamic is on this and i think both in the g in particular the process has been more expeditious i think in the s r c since we've changed things i've noticed in the last year or so in general the process has been better the process gets slow down when applicants want to push every single part of it they want the absolute height the absolute and they want a modest everything right there yes there's you know our the way we live and our every you know you need a computer room and everybody needs an office and everybody needs a family room in the vicinity that you need that so being able to be more flexible when you enter the process and really keep your eye on what the goal is do you really need a bathroom for every is many times an applicant will go hire an architect and go off in talk about what they want to do their house they've spent a year coming up with that design and we see it after the intense conversations between the family and the architect to get to this point and now we're telling them oh by the way you need to do x y z what we're finding is that with the g r in the us are saying is that the word is getting out that really really should come see it beforehand and then go deal with the architect and so there will be a little of that of the population and educating the population about listen before you do your work just come talk to us about what you can and cannot do or what the process is and i think that will help and i think we also find i think we also find for for those applicants that go through the process and listen if you're going to build you know a larger edition on to your house or a larger house if it's appropriate to the neighborhood and we have several instances of this in the bazaar see and the g r as well we will help you we will help you so when it's a cooperated process i think it works pretty well the basic changes in this is to sort of bring this bring some clarification in place in places that were unclear on this and also to move us in terms of inclusionary zoning so that we're in line with with the trends in other communities in the area so you'll see in some places here we have we have  have changed the percentage on on things we've left some in place from six to twelve we left at ten percent from thirteen to twenty we've changed that  as opposed to thirty to forty in more than twenty at fifteen percent part of this is not only in sync with other neighborhoods but we found in terms of development in town you have major you know housing where they have very large things so we have very small things we're not having things in between cushing villages like one hundred and ten or so the developments that are being built in where really square are two ten unit buildings there are ten and eleven i think for smaller developments like that it won't affect them at all ok and i think that the next developments that we will see in town will probably be along pleasant street and i think those will probably be senior related when they come and that then they will be in the fifteen percent at that time and i expect those to be large  developments i expect those to be more than fifty units i would guess i think we'll see to two large things there do you want to walk through a couple of the other ones sure  have current bylaws has a reduction for mixed use development so that only ten percent of the development needs to be affordable regardless of the size of the development so we recommend removing that so that the percentage is based on how many housing units are built the change had why don't you originally the rationale on that was as i recall it was to encourage mixed use and that was put in place for basically that was done about the time that we're doing square which seems like a long time ago so it was to encourage mixed use and the thought was that so you give mix use a break to encourage that now there was a district on  that we thought we were going to get mixed use in and instead we got a bank we got two banks as a matter of fact on to polo road so that's why that was put in place to attend her age that and on the residential who let's say you know you get your bottom floors commercial space and you have your upper floors you're not counting the bottom space for residential anyway so you know hitting that so when they did it before on site and so we it was a long clear way it was written so we propose some clarity to this that the amount of funds that would be given to the housing trust would be based on the entire development so just making it clear because it could be read a lot of different ways before how that payment would be calculated and the current by law requires that the developer would go to the zoning board of appeals to have a decision on this and we recommend the before the planning boards that the planning board can think this nice neighborhood we're going to buy our way out and put it in that neighborhood where the poor people live and i mean less of a concern and belmont but but it was it was a goal a concern i mean you don't want it all you know with people on the hill putting it all down you know and the other issue is honestly if you i mean what what our what the what i think the goal of both the planning board in the housing trust is in all of this that what we're doing is it's clear there's a need for more affordable housing in town the if you take a look at a development like we just had in mclean that was proposed there a potential buyout on that par estimate was that it would you it would sort of be in the five million dollars range and we looked at like how many units could you actually build for five million dollars not that many as opposed to having let's say fifteen percent they're supposed to having fifteen units up there so we want to promote affordable housing and we think this is a good way and i think this also furthers our housing production playing oh yes we you know we took that on and i think we got to walk the walk as we're  doing it's not like we've gone way out on a limb some yes some no so we're being more aggressive but i mean but it's but it's also in terms of if you take a look at this of the balance of the equities the between the real sta community and affordable and terms of what you can build i mean clearly from a financial point of view and we see this in other towns that have this rater higher it's feasible to build at fifteen percent the larger institutions you know one of the one of the churches or any of those large institutions comes into the market this is good to have in place right so the smallish mixed use project is proposed and the developer says you can't make it work with these percentages because they could have made it work with the original language what's is there any room to negotiate this or is that the i don't think we can determined on what you can built ok and so would clearly be in a case like that if they want to build that they can only afford to pay less for that they cannot afford to pay whatever that prices for the land that doesn't make it work so that so that you need to build something else or you renegotiate the price you can't negotiate from the zoning  hink about the economics of it you know how much is it going to cost for me to comply with the bylaw and to build what i need to build does the price of someone's asking for their property make sense and it's important to make it make belmont we're not forcing people out and keeps you know lower income people in all four understood that if if and then there are so few actual developments it's hard to know how this will play out but if it did turn out that developments were discouraged and the result was nothing happened rather than some modified development it would be worth maybe revisiting this in the future there would be something that we could certainly think about i don't think any of the zoning that we have put in place at least since i've been chair and even before that has inhibited any development at all heard it to be on a charge that i mean if you take a look at what we've done on south pleasant street we're encouraging it so we're waiting for the market to respond and you know it takes a while for it to chew through so i don't think that's an issue and these numbers are not out of whack with our neighboring communities if you want to build in this entire area this is something you'd be used to seeing and you're going to do country building and you're pro forma something i mean and the problem that has had in terms of all sorts of economic development in terms of housing and you know commercial and all that is the lack of land i mean that's been the issue so it's it's hard to test thank you thank you very much have a nice new animal rights there were animals article five of them a minute general byelaws relating to animals in kennels what board of health is the state's animal control regulations to increase the fine structure for both animal control violations and kennel violations so the proposal before you is really just to come i was unaware of the citizens petition deadline so when i learned it was two days after the email i sent i quickly went to file a citizen's petition to try to make sure it got on the warrant and then in speaking with the board at the time cha dash agreed to put it forward so last week the board of selectmen moved to add it to the warrant themselves and i think it's a really important motion as of now i think close to seventy towns have changed their name from board of selectmen to select board examples of nearby towns that have made the change recently arlington brookline conquered winchester dedham needham milton lexington town meeting just voted overwhelmingly guess now it's two weeks ago to change their name select boyd is the name that all of the towns that have made the change have have switched to i provided data last week from the massachusetts municipal association which now when you go to their website calls it kind of board of selectmen slash select boards and talks about select men and select a board member so i think it's a really important statement and it's the right time for belmont to make the statement as part of being and inclusive and welcoming seven i think this is a point where the only non gender neutral board in town i mean the school committee board of assessors everybody else has just got a name but we have for some reason were not so it would bring this in conformity with everybody else r is there an item in the budget to refinish the door taking donations this story may have an issue with that but i think the boarding of the languages we have a year to implement it was idea was to have it take effect i talk to now that i have a take effect at after the next election so that this board for the next year would state boards like when that would start clean with a brand new year brand new board a new chair vice chair all that clean going forward with the new name and that would also give time for so you know  that when it happens it's all in place but i presume we could start the transition think you would if you were printing new stationery for example not that we print stationery days you would actually start to use the  the climate action plan and members of the end interview committee  that really doesn't need a lot more discussion the energy committee appeared at the special town meeting last fall and said we will see you next spring and now we are back t reported to town meeting last fall we talked with the light board last early last fall we talked with the select board the board of selectmen i need to get it and they have it the board of selectmen and  february we had a forum last week to explain this article and we have a nd form this wednesday night in the our gallery to explain it again and the gist of the article can i think i've got this down to three or four sentences number one is that even though town meeting these are long sentences even though town meeting voted in two thousand and nine to adopt a climate action objective of reducing the town's emissions by eighty percent by two thousand and fifty and while the belmont is now for the  emissions we are not reducing emissions at a rate sufficient to meet the goal of that town meeting approved back in two thousand and nine the energy committee and when i say the energy committee i mean and found that by a long ways the primary emissions in belmont come from transportation st from buildings nd residential buildings nd and from electricity so if we are going to change what we're doing in order to achieve the climate action objectives that that can meet in approved a number of years ago we have to address transportation buildings and electricity and number three is that the energy committee thus prepared what we call a roadmap toward achieving belmont's climate action and the roadmap addresses electrifying everything that's the overall state strategy it means moving toward the purchase toward incentivizing the purchase of electric vehicles it means moving toward incentivizing the when people convert away from oil or replace oil heating systems that they move to electric heat prime's it means when people move to replace gas heating systems they move to electric heat pumps and then finally it means that in order for all of or for it in order for any of that to make sense it means that belmont light needs to move to be is this year going to achieve a fifty percent emission free supply so the notion of moving to a one hundred percent emission free supply is is not only a not a crazy idea but that's a pretty low bar but it's not only not a crazy idea but nama light is aggressively moving in that direction anyway when we spoke with belmont white about the road map i lied when i said i could say this in three minutes municipal utility belt we as belmont light have a responsibility a whether or not a legal responsibility that's not the issue but an ethical responsibility to do what the community wants us to do and to achieve the objectives that the community wants us to achieve the way to find out what the community wants is to come to town meeting with this resolution climate action goals that him meeting adopted in two thousand and nine so that's what it's that's what this resolution is all about  question yes actually i don't really see the point of having a non binding resolution well the point is to f number one is a number of years ago we heard through town council that the town meeting has no authority over belmont like it's a town meeting may not each and every member of the belmont community as a municipal e o and electric utility through chris roy the general manager has said that aggressively they should pursue the a and emission one hundred percent emission free supply again if assuming that this resolution passes chris roy would take a very different message or better let me not personalize it will take a very different message if this resolution were to pass one hundred and eighty to one hundred and sixty than if it passes stuck in the past  differently and having satellite boarded by his or committee i actually don't agree with characterization but in any event i would point out that some of the language of this article actually reflects significant modifications to the original road map as a result of discussions between in the light board advisory committee and chris roy and i'm concerned about what for example the original roadmap had a goal of one hundred percent green power by two thousand and twenty two without any regard to reagan packs and now  here the two thousand and twenty two i think is gone and it includes language that was i think developed in the light board visors committee one hundred percent carbon free electricity as soon as feasible consistent with a modest rate impact so in general i believe certainly within the light board advisory committee on the part of the general manager and i i believe town wide there's a desire to meet the  the general goals of the climate action plan but actually doing it requires specific actions in terms of sourcing of energy analyzing rate impacts i not clear ultimately what signal is being sent when we talk about new vehicle purchases and heating systems for example what happens if new vehicles are not fifty percent if electric vehicles vehicles are not fifty subscribe to achieving green goals but i think i think it's better to have the town meeting vote on its specific actions rather than  general resolutions such as this nature which could be construed as binding down the road when actually it's not clear what we're getting ourselves into well we know this resolution is binding we not only know that the resolution is isn't it's not binding on my right it's not non binding but we know that can mean we know that we've been told we as a community am changing leaves here that we know that we as a community we as a town meeting don't have the authority to adopt binding resolutions that would bind like and i think that for the st time ever through the through the roadmap what we've done what we as the energy committee have done is we have created specific measurable interim  stop stepping points toward achieving our eighty percent reduction in emissions and there is nothing binding about it if we get to the point  where you can look in the bottom here if we get to two thousand and twenty five and find that fifty percent of new or replacement heating systems are electric heat pumps replacement of oil fired heating systems if we are not meeting that objective that means in two thousand and twenty five we as a community need to decide what to do differently that way but if we don't have a specific measurable goal then what happens is that we continue to do what we've been doing for the last ten years which is to say well this project looks nice let's do this this project looks interesting let's do that but there's no way to measure whether we're making the progress that we need to to make and the energy committee is the committee that was charged with implementing the climate action objective of achieving eighty percent and we believe that this is the the way to do it and we will now look you know every couple years to see if we're on track to me us this is aspirational i mean there's no obligation to anybody to do anything but i think it would be good for tommy to set a general direction so we could set specific policy especially as we go through the bomb in light strategic plan because we're not doing polling or anything like that keep the regime reasonable not to just say we're going to do it by two thousand and twenty two whatever because you have a my point is that the language that was brought to the light board advisory committee did not have those limitations and it was only as a result of discussion within the committee that the language you see here is was developed actually that language and unfortunately it predates two of the three of you  the light staff and put in this supply policy yes but the the language that was brought from the energy committee did not contain that language and i imagine that  next couple of years because technology is changing all the time that the appropriate strategies to achieve the climate action goals themselves will change and i just i don't think there's any certainly no doubt in my mind that the that the town overall is committed to achieving climate action goals and i just i don't think it's wise to adopt language that here is actually quite specific with percentages and dates in a sort of thing when and when instead we could of this article could have been much more general and aspirational such as we commit to achieving the climate action goals by two thousand and fifty or something along those lines but the house provisions that are so specific which really should be deliberated in detail when an actual decision is to be made i  don't see the point of this i think it is important for the energy committee to actually monitor such things as emissions from cars and emissions to from from space heating and that sort of thing to figure out where we are but it doesn't need a resolution of this nature to get us there to give if i might given that it's non binding doesn't it effectively just become i think as adam said it an aspirational target and if we fail to achieve it well then you know we must we must adjust accordingly but it gives us a sense of progress against the longer you know i'm concerned that even something that as it originally passed was non binding starts to become binding i think it becomes  d i just don't see i don't see it adds actually to our ability to achieve a climate action goals i think it enhances our ability to meet the climate action goals and i think that the strange language they assume is feasible consist of a modest rate impact actually provides flexibility for technological change allowing us to go faster or slower depending on how things evolve and we have with the times when i could see that that other provisions here would also evolve over time and meanwhile we would then have a static static resolution that's not keeping up what is not static as we did this we did the climate action plan and now we're coming back with you know nine and now here we are doing this and i was soon if things change we can come back into it there in any organisation that does strategic planning typically will update what we thought was we needed quantitative goals we as a committee need a quantitative goals but we didn't want to present the quantitative goals to town meeting to indorse what we're only asking can meeting if you look at the the resolved that we are dissolve clauses we're asking town meeting to be two things one is to adopt the roadmap recommendation for pursuing strategic like for cation with its goals and time light staff the the where with the where with the flexibility to move quicker or to slow it down and i think that that's not only good policy i think  it's something we have to do i think there's two different parts in it the direction although it's not a binding direction as roger said to belmont light about  the power supply which is something that's within that the power within the control of the town or at least of belmont light but i think the nature of the emissions and such that clearly electrification timelines come down to thousands of decisions by thousands of households so as with the original resolution it's hard to see any way that could ever be binding on the town as a right so those are kind of into how a homeowner go yeah so those i think are sort of self evident lee always will be aspirational and that the leavers to the town the town can do some things to help move that along but ultimately that's more a matter of an aspirational thing speaking to the residents as a whole  talk about our resolution which i think is article nine supporting for town meeting to support the right to repair legislation that is pending in both the state senate and the state house  that would create a really expand actually in existing right to repair that we have in massachusetts for automobiles to all manner of electronic devices which as you all know these days comprises a wide range of things  from home appliances to wearables to smart phones and actually knitting can tell you a little bit about massachusetts one of twenty states that's considering that has proposed legislation like this and kind of give you a sense of where things are  access to what we need to fix our modern equipment so parts tools manuals and software design to repair this is a this campaign is growing quickly we've you know since we put in this petition massachusetts senior senator elizabeth warren has endorsed this idea on the campaign trail and this sunday the new york times editorialized in favor of right to repair  so this is all of our work to build exposure to the idea that i mean in america we throw out foreigners sixteen thousand cell phones every day we make these a one thousand dollar supercomputers that are one of the most useful things ever made out to say in star trek they have five different devices like what a smart phone they could not imagine something this useful and we treated as if it's disposable and meanwhile like trunk waste is the fastest growing part of our waste stream and they actively block our ability to repair these things which is why  you know this campaign is happening all over the country basically people are getting fed up with the disposability of these electronics the repair technicians that used to exist they're doing billing in number and so they if we put together a coalition through  repaired org and we're fighting these battles all over the country when and right now in massachusetts there's a bill this bill pending in both chambers neither have seen a committee hearing so far this session yeah and then i was  you know one point of context would be like in new york state there's a lot of lobbying disclosure for when you register to lobby against a bill and when i checked after the session ended when i should have to lobby in albany against that bill dovetails with what i want to say which is one of the things that we're trying to do here in massachusetts is to generate grassroots support voter support because i think there is a tremendous amount of grassroots support for the right to repair  example when the right to repair for automobiles was on a ballot initiative back in two thousand and twelve i believe it passed by something like eighty six percent to fourteen percent so this is something that when you explain it to your constituents there's tremendous support for the idea that as an owner of a device you should be able to repair it you should have access to the software and diagnostic codes and spare parts to be able to maintain and service your own property or hire someone to do it for you but it is not something that has that top of mind for people it's you know we've i think if any if it any point something in your household is broken and you've said to yourself it's probably just cheaper to replace it that's an indication of the degree to which that type of thinking has sort of penetrated the popular culture because the reality is it's not cheaper to repair it it's much easier it's not cheaper to replace it it's much easier to replace it and it's easier to replace it because manufacturers have made it hard to repair and so this this article lays out kind of the case for belmont which  is it's in our interest as a community that cares about the environment it's in our interest as a community that wants to support small business like repair shops that might set up shop here in town and may earn a good living for a family or a few generations of family fixing phones and home appliances and it's in the best interests of you know kind of the public broadly to do this and so as a body as a town meeting we're again nonbinding resolution encouraging  both our representatives senator brownsburg and representative rogers as well as their colleagues to support this legislation you know this is doing is asking us to you know symbolically a non binding lease to recommend approval of mass house bil seventy representatives supporting him just like seventy seven dollars in total in the house side and ten or twelve in the senate so well once again i don't know why ten meeting is getting involved with a nine binding resolution that relates to legislation especially when i doubt more than a handful of members of town meeting have read the bills in the house and the senate the right to repair bill for cars a couple of years  ago i believe resulted in either a negotiated settlement with the manufacturers or resulted in compromised legislation but that was because the legislative process worked itself out it seems to me that it would be much more sensible to carry on this campaign at the state house i don't see really why town meeting should get involved in the fairly complex intellectual property issue when when the vast majority of town meeting is just uninformed well i think this is an opportunity to inform town meeting about this legislation and has obviously as part of their preparation for town meeting they can follow the links in a stock i'm in and read that legislation i think the odds of that are close to zero well that's your opinion and it's a cynical one but i don't agree with you  i mean we take positions as we will later on this evening over all the time on welcoming you know on things that we make recommendations to the state legislature just back up our legislators they can go and say vote in favor of it some other senator hey can you come town meeting represents the citizens of belmont it's a voice is a democratic voice representing the twenty five thousand residents of this community and if you don't think that that has a message to our elected representatives at the state level i'm not sure where you would get that notion of course it was we passed a welcoming town resolution that had no effect in the law we can't change the behavior of our state legislatures but it was still an important resolution to pass as a community as a statement of our values and i think this functions in the same passion in the challenge i am supportive of this to be clear but i think the challenge to roy's point taking to the extreme we could end up in a situation where in front of town meeting we're debating it could be in for the state house and i think that would be maybe not the best use of town meeting you know taking to the extreme you know in this in this particular issue i am in support of this and comfortable sort of advocating for it but i do i do wonder a little bit philosophically where that line is which all twenty thousand two hundred and seventeen senate bills came to town meeting i would agree we have at the moment we have one agreed and that's why i'm comfortable with it but i do think there is a philosophical question as to legislators in the state house have lawyers working for the telecommunications industry and the appliance industry sitting outside their office stores every day ready to talk to them about this bill the people of belmont do not have representatives  there and so this is a way to communicate to our representatives that this is something that has visibility at the grassroots in their community and it worked to pass has the support of the you know in essence a legislature of belmont and i agree with you it's maybe perhaps not a scalable approach where every legislative issue would be brought before a town meeting for a yea or nay but of course we know that that doesn't happen in this case this is one way to gain more visibility and also get a public body voting affirmatively for this as a way to show to people that people are paying attention to debate a town meeting will be healthy to have none you know none the less and despite how the outcome of the article actually is because like you said it's non binding if it goes up or down court streams the world but i think the discussion in the in the education of town meeting in the viewers at home would be all right we've had a fix a clinic here in town that happened february th it was very well attended and i think a lot of enthusiasm and we've got another one on may th there is a solid line connection between the right to repair and committee in the capital budget committee recently and they all voted in favor of all the projects but they both tabled for the moment the clock because they wanted to distill information i would suggest because i would like to hear what the warren committee and c b c have to say to not vote on the on the clock this evening and we certainly have meetings prior to town meeting where we could do that but as far as the rest of them they were all i believe unanimously favorable so and and i'm actually in favor unanimously in favor of all the rest of them anyway was the other clock plays out and we have the decision from town council on the clock which we shared with the committee and this capital budget committee at their request which is why the table it said wanted to review the message and i thought that was only fair so i'm comfortable i think that's not a bad idea when we take we tabled that one and we can come back to it some part music festival bandstand ninety thousand dollars this is the construction second on favor i clepe upon preservation of restoration of vegetation twenty thousand dollars nd all in favor and last but not l right metal habitat preservation control of non native invasive vegetation twenty five thousand four hundred dollars so i can only favor so we're just  would go about moving the rink forward this provides you kind of the steps that need to happen in order to get to the end which is a negotiated lease with any prospective better the st thing what we  know there's been some discussion about the town just kind of right doing itself which would obviously wanting to some type of execution so we felt that this was an important action taken by both boards so then we can move into the next step which is to  type of our of p based on a school committee and board of selectmen votes and actions we guarding the size of the rink the programme of the rink the location on the site of the rink and then working with council draft a lease and then we go into the other steps of putting g could happen during the private public partnership approach st the st part obviously any drafting of our p would and the draft of that our pm lease would be brought to the respective boards which are public meetings i would think you would need a public that's like where the where the meat of it goes after their piece out there and accepted that a lot of the decisions are made agree which is why i was only calling out that i think we do need to know that there were we did i wish more broadly i think we should make sure we hockey he had a problem with that is if the hockey communities are going to be actively bidding on this project we did want there to be skewed line we wanted it to be very clean it was a daughter figure skaters i checked it being called a hockey proper programme and parking parking and i clearly this would have to be addressed you know in our people but i'm wondering if it's useful to have a discussion even before that stage because in talking to some of certainly one of them was the question of you know is there a green meant that we would provide enough spaces the school committee were right in a space for we get half and does that become part of you and do they have to have things like restaurant in know things that would expand the size of the building to have to skate rentals i mean writings that are there a lot of pieces to this puzzle if it's just the rincon half bare bones nothing else it's very different i think the biggest challenge is the fact that we have an elected to elected craft one our p that's going to get that and it's going to be require a lot of communication between a lot of different people i think in the book was to try to get the key requirements from those two boards on the table really really the things that were most important to the groups and then to start beginning to draft an r f p that would embody those in and could be made available for each of the boards to propose and sort of tweak but the idea being better to be somewhat iterative up we can talk about these issues because the time we kind of punted them saying well that's what they are they just they are peace or we kind of need to start to drill down and perhaps you know the chairs can work together based upon input from the groups and then the groups can take them  separately i mean that we're not that large a group i mean i think we need to communicate a committee when the three of us but yeah i mean we can just put it on our agenda and deal with it yeah i agree but you know i think we need to have a joint another joint meeting with the school committee to hear them out especially since they now have you know new people and i guess step one here and it's in step two with the help of community development the plan is that largely the town and glens group thinking the development will do the drafting of their fee but we'll have to work closely obviously with the school because of the nature of this and because i don't want to wait till the fall when the weather starts getting cold and might be best to see if they would be willing to me that was the other thing it was discussed i think it was if they don't they don't typically meet but if they were holding up the process could they meet once we don't we don't typically build things like this so i think it's an exceptional circumstance you know just for a timeframe i can tell you that the community path which was more defined project they are of peers been in development since we know what to put in the yeah absolutely exist you could build this any one of which right yes are going to be locker rooms for harris field built and you missed that was one of the one of the requests in this from coming from the school department so we've got the beginnings of it right so why don't we work to the chairs will work with patrice and superintendent to try to put a rough set of dates against this that we can see what that looks like in what the process is and then we can for the next meeting bring back enough data and we can discuss with the times  reasonable i think adam your point which came up a little bit earlier today in the discussion of maybe the school committee does convene at some point this summer to keep the process moving if necessary we can ask whether or not they would be amenable to that but we'll come back with some  is not on our side but that reg agreed agreed on multiple levels and the one thing i will know the is in your packet and i don't know folks any chance to see this and we won't go through it in detail in the interest of time but there are six they were thinking about phasing in they were thinking about the overall site they explored various different options that were on the weak link in a half soccer field a baseball field as well as a soccer field and somewhere in the ballpark this is the work of the financial times for you know he's been working with the financial taskforce and they're just kind of getting up and running so we needed a little bit more out of the thompson or the contract before you is not to exceed five thousand i don't think we're going to need the full amount but we found instead of keeping coming back my math five thousand and three dollars and it's almost a nominal amount but what are they going to be doing for that money because we had a spreadsheet model and then there was a document and i the document doesn't really advanced much since last summer yeah it's really worked i mean tom yes so i think this is two things that we're specifically looking for them to do one is to continue to iterate on that model to both  help refine it with some updated projections from the school committee and some refinement on the town side as well as support some scenario planning with the goal in doing so of also training of our town staff so that we can do some of that internally so this is hours of work to do for the for the discussion is that the group can make it a set of informed recommendations so as patrice says i think their participation will be invaluable but i suspect we will not be yeah i think it's a little bit we just need a little bit more all right thank you it's i will sign this new material keep moving and so signing of the special meeting weren't so the final was before you and the papers that had given you i would say there's one change that i noticed that came through from memory and article one she was asking at the capital budget committee included in the reporting out there makes oh yeah so other than that it's we've been over this our yes so article one is the additional corporation for the police station men of asian article two is kind of cleaning up some of the books and transferring some money back into the kendall fund the treasurer's goals as well as mine is to put as much into undesignated fund balance as we can but one question on that well why is that going to the kendall fund came from yes some of it really will come from some of it is some of it is just a good place to park it under the statute they're telling us we have to appropriate the money in order to use it which is going to be going towards doing some design work at the lex and sycamore intersection and the article four is a per year bill that came unfortunately as i had a discussion with george today if the money was already appropriated then it's only a majority vote and it can come from the available fund this is available free cash yet we change it it's available  be an internal appointment therefore it should be a receipt so would have to appropriate it every year ok i know in december we had to identify how we're going to use the money moving forward i think the plan is to kind of be so this is another one of those support the state legislation ones but this one is to increase the match of the c p a which has been steadily declining in the earth some bills in the state house to  and i'm all for the state putting more money into that fund you know we could we could use a letter so because this came in so quickly what we'll do is put it on letterhead and leave it for signatures if you yeah well you know your question you know i move favorable a move in favor to endorse an increase in state funding for community preservation act letter to tell meeting members this is included with what goes tomorrow to town meeting wraps you have a look at it look good to me pretty straightforward i was curious whether or not we have an estimate on how many days we will ok and then we will head into executive session to consider the purchase exchange lease or value of real property of the chess players as i have that in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the public body alright just to get clothes out on the community path timeline is nearly final agenda item here discussions continue as conversations to explore the kit the specific requirements that we had on the southern pac and that discussion could potentially depending upon how the outcome of that involve a vote so we will put that on th budget committee do a straw poll on the various capital projects going forward to whittle them down because as always the value of all the projects need to be done in town exceeds the amount of money allocated for such so that we do a straw poll to whittle them down and  we're going to be taking the final vote thursday morning this week excellent anything really i have nothing i have nothing so present do not see a ton of ministry if report was there  treasures discussion as an appointed position and it says the referendum failed by a margin of fifty eight percent about fifty eight percent about fifty eight percent that sounds like a very high margin failures at