session with the word committee they will have training session tuesday may thirty first for town really members who are interested in working with voting for money i guess and i too will be there because i could use some of the help so the other thing is this is not live tonight unfortunately i know some people who are sitting in their houses when they see this and it's not o it will be shown i believe saturday and sunday you're not sure i did see it from jeff he put it so at this point i'd like to introduce you to the gentleman of the evening who is going to control to carry the whole evening mike lee productive i know we have a busy town meeting this year with a lot to get through the same is true for this evening also just thanks very quickly the kind of minister's office david and phyllis and and glenn for getting all the maturity gather and go by media for putting this together so that it can be seen at least a couple days on t v for those who can't make it that's really great and again thank you again for all of you take your time out to come here and to learn more about the issues just a reminder to everybody in terms of ground rules this is not a mini town meeting this is not an opportunity for everybody to kind of argue their case for why one thing or other should happen obviously those who are putting forward amendments are putting forward warrants articles will speak to those issues so they can explain so they can speak to them in a brief way  this is not an opportunity to come up to the mike an advocate for a particular position this is rather the time to ask questions to learn more and hopefully again facilitate a town meeting so that we can be even more efficient at town meeting just reminded everybody town meeting is starts on june sixth so monday june sixth will continue on wednesday june eighth and then the third night presumably will be on monday june thirteenth and hopefully it will three nights will be enough if not wednesday june find it useful on some of the basics of town meeting and with a particular focus on financial and budget related issues will do that on tuesday the thirty first of may at seven thirty will be here so all of you are welcome to the extent that that's untrue will dig more for example into the budget at that time and i will be more opportunity for people to ask questions about that are there any questions before we jump ok great again if you do have questions during the course of the event if you wouldn't mind coming up to the mike and waiting it in line if you could please constrain yourself to one question and one follow up just so the others have an opportunity to speak i'll try to keep things on track to the extent that i can and in terms of the flow of this evening you can see you probably cannot see very well on the screen this sort of small but what we'll do is we'll go through the order of the most of the articles in the order that we will do so at town meeting so this is the continuation of annual town meeting but what we also have is two different special town meetings that are essentially folded in two annual town meeting so what you can see here is  article one is just the one that kind of gets everything going article six is the plenty more article on the construction of of oversized welling's in the single residency districts so that only the first motion that we'll talk about at town meeting and also the first one tonight and so we'll go through an order of eighteen you know article eight and eighteen and all the way through we'll intersperse the special town meeting ones also where they go which means that the one on the wireless and the incinerator  will put in where they belong in the case of the wireless when it'll come after article seventeen and in case of the the incinerator will do it after article nineteen you don't have to remember all that i'm not going to quiz you but we will do them in as or what you're working on and for those who missed it the first time this article concerns a single resident see and only single residence great place to start is by being really clear on what is single resident see on the map is the light grey area and as you can see it includes a very substantial amount of a quick word on the history of this article similar to the general residence article we voted upon two years ago the start of this was a citizen's group and if there is anyone from the citizens group here this evening i'd like to recognize them  otherwise they're probably exhausted from coming to public hearings on article six that's why they're not here this evening who brought forward a mor construction on new construction that exceeded thirty four thirty two feet in height last town meeting it was a one year moratorium and the understanding was that they would work with the planning  bring forward a article zoning that covered all of single residents see and that went behind beyond a simple a simple height restriction and so with that i would like to move to we have one summary slide the major points of this article which pulls from a couple different  places in order to put together a comprehensive amendment that dealt with all of the aspects of oversize construction in this area we've done a couple things there are the principal points or list behind me and i'd like to go through them roughly in order of likely importance this is not the order in which passes this article as we very much hope we will it will be a three tier process if you're doing a small addition you go and get a building permit from the building inspect the building commissioner the way you always have if you are doing a sort of medium size non conforming construction you'll go to the board of appeals the way you always have if you are adding more than thirty percent of the gross floor area of your home or if you are demolishing a home and doing anything else but rebuilding it on the same footprint of exactly the same size or of course smaller you will come to the planning board for a special permit that that's the first the second is that we continued and refined the restrictions on height there is now an absolute limit of thirty four feet on how high a structure can be and a limit of thirty feet to the ridge to the midpoint rather  i'd say it's there is there may be an option there may be an occasion when a developer would like to minimize the impact of the size and bulk of a home by lowering the grade in the past the developer hasn't been able to do that we're modifying the restrictions on how much you can change the grade so you still can't build a hill and put the house on it but you can create a valley and put the house in it so to speak next lee we are correcting the we are proposing we are we hope to modify the front backs so as to avoid the gap to look if a house is set back at a very different depth from its neighbors and finally we are suggesting some rich strictures on the placement of h p a see equipment including programming banks that limit the impact on the neighbors and that requires screening from adjacent properties and from the street i think that's the short summary i'd like to turn to geoffrey wheeler town planner and ask him if there's anything he'd like to add but i think we've benefited greatly from the questions that those who have attended the public hearing have asked and we look forward to benefiting again tonight if there are any questions folks are welcome to come up to the mike i will mention that there are five amendments that have been made by a time any member bamma god who is not here today show he will not speak to those you know one of them is substantive in others i think if i'm not mistaken or a bit more of language correction in nature of course we will go through foot because i think that people really need to really see objective lee what this difference that's a great suggestion thank you very much the town meeting member precinct three i don't have all the materials with me but can you speak to violations well to be done if there are violations isn't built into this it's great that we're proposing something startling but some of us would like to know what happens if the developer violates what was approved that is it will be the same process as currently exists for the rest of the town so there is no plan to create a special in force from a regime for a single residence see as opposed to the rest of the town that issue did not arise and i would good in force went is a good thing for all residential districts i'm hard put to see why we would need to them has made a condition that as bill clinton asked to be submitted at the conclusion of the project thank you and i think the only comment i would add is you can't have enforcement in less you have  it might be helpful to it's it is not possible to put very many streets on the zoning map and still have it readable in the publishing industry we would rip we refer to the font that you would should have clarified at the beginning i am mentally making a note to clarify it for before town meeting and this applies the the permit in process and so on applies to non conforming lots to smaller lot whose frontage and who size do not meet current zoning their restrictions on placement of h b a c and propane tanks the hike the requirements apply to all construction i'll set a major construction in single residency and the answer to your second question is briefly you do not get to put this applies to you even if prior to this a very large house had been built next to you but it will be possible as we look at neighborhoods we try we try to find we try to place make certain that the development is compatible with the neighborhood so there would be some impact of having a larger house our touchstone is our touchstone his development it enhanced the neighborhood and so we would look at relative size in the course of that thank you are there any further questions that tanning precinct one of the guys amendment and also the mention of air conditioning systems here raises a whole question that i don't know how it fits in which you are but there are a lot of people who are concerned by the noise level of the central air conditioning compressors which are mostly you sign your words and they are preventing people from sitting on their screen in oranges or having your windows open even if it's article is written does not deal with no ice dani's by laws are certainly something that we've talked about taking up in the future and it's good to hear expressions of citizen interest in them whether the moderator would permit introduction of noise standards i will leave it to the moderator to say voting on whether we want to compressors to come even closer to our houses so it does become an issue and it would help to have some information about what that what the noise standards are and how they would be impacted by ten feet zero inches of the front facade which i would assume is in the front yard so if you could clarify imagine a simple square house sitting on the  lot take the front of the house and draw a horizontal line to the ends to the ends of the lot both sides what this says is there is a special permit process if you are doing a major renovation yes ok thank you very much thank you liz and geoffrey thank you very much i know that this is a complicated topic whenever you're dealing with plenty of related issues owning it you know it's take some time and we will take some time obviously to me to go through that along with the amendments but in terms of just managing people's expectations i'm not expecting that all of the d prepare in advance a town meeting so article eight is the salaries of what to officials is relatively straightforward are there any questions people would like to ask about that before we keep going ok so the next article is article fifteen and i'll ask carman our town treasurer to come up and join us article fifteen is the article that deals with the stabilization fund for those that may remember opec is other post employment benefits so it's basically retiree health care and other benefits and we have a stabilization fund that we've had for quite some time now and every year we put money into it roughly in the order of magnitude of what we're talking about here three hundred sixteen thousand from free cash and when you add the enterprise accounts around three hundred fifty thousand dollars funding policy was basically take cysteine reser policy any excess money over and above our mandatory reserve policy we would take five percent of that we create i'm lifting numbers out of the financial statement fire by our external auditors currently we came up with an allocation of three hundred forty three thousand as michael said million eight the question always comes up how we investing that money at this point in time we've got an allocation plan where we have roughly fifty percent fixed instruments any other fifty percent in equities the equities come off of the state mandated investment list so it isn't anything that you know we're creating from an s and p five hundred thousand there were in the microsoft the dell i want to run these are very secure investments little bit of a commercial way back when in two thousand and eight when the market took a dip look you want to keep the short ok somewhere in the twenty twenty twenty one percent rate so we took a dip in our investment from a nasa investment list of equities the impact in the time was about eight percent so these are real secure investments that's the much thank you and i'll let folks come up for questions if they have any i'll just say in a very high level just to remind everyone that when it comes to a pattern retiring health care we basically pay for retirees that are currently retired and we also have a liability for people who in the future be retired so this portion is actually for future retirees it's to go towards the unfunded liability which is about one hundred seventy three million dollars if i'm not mistaken and  we basically have this money going into the stabilization fund and for that very large liability when it comes to the current retirees we have about two point eight million dollars in the total budget in one hundred six million dollars budget there's going to words current tyrion so just  rationale for going to the stabilization fund instead of paying down the pension obligations which you know nothing is known with certainly looking out the future but they're a little that every year i have the distinct pleasure of being on a conference call with moody's and is everyone knows no one is a aaa community one of fourteen out of three hundred  eight hundred thousand one hundred thirty basis points that's what it cost us the light department issued tripoli i'm sorry issued a twenty six million dollars bond and their rate because of the taxable impact is almost two percent so that's real benefits of having this aaa rating so as i'm on a conference call the question always comes up what is the community doing to address opec we've got to trust we've got a policy we're finding it those are the things they expect out of a aaa community as michael said the liabilit one hundred seventy one million dollars where we're finding roughly three hundred fifty thousand dollars so we're doing just what moody's is asking us to do address the liability i not sure that it's not going to we're not just going to make sure it's an excellent question jackson question article eighteen it will be dismissed as i understand it and so i'm not sure it's worth getting into i just i just totally fair question ok so we'll move on to article nine and article nine is deals of the enterprise funds themselves and of sammy does it make sense for you to come up and speak to this are there any questions hi everybody sammy baghdad the board of selectmen article nine deals with enterprise funds for water and sewer and storm water services these are revenues derived from the water and sewer rates that you paid quarterly and you know you see the first part deals specifically with the water and price funds which is the water rates that you pay and  and be deals with the sewer rates that you pay the rates are set by the board of selectmen and based on a projected budget and what these two amounts the six point eight million and roughly nine point two million are the anticipated revenues based on the rates that we set these are enterprise funds which means that they are in effect operated as separate businesses from the rates they pay for their own operating expenses so they're not paid out of the general fund property taxes real estate taxes so this article allows us to take the revenues raised through the water and soar rates and use it for the operation of those services town administrator anything to add or only question now i'll add one more thing where  you will notice we are also in effect i don't know if it's the right word but supplementing or subsidizing our rates by transferring sums of money from our retained earnings from our savings  counts savings from past water and so we're payments and that allows us to keep the rates from increasing too much our goal is that these rates increase less than five percent a year which is what they are doing we have wondering whether this is moving and if you could talk more about that issue and is the size of this appropriation relevant are we're standing in that hearing ok yes you're talking about an article that specifically mystic valley watershed ok what we have done this year is we have increased our budget to monitor that outflow by approximately two hundred thousand dollars over last year and i am i correct so it is something we're cognizant of we're aware of and we have built increased funding towards that effort into the rate i just don't want us to find ourselves in there some sort of court order so i guess that's wh would say that i'm a human january of two thousand and sixteen the board's lekman through going clancy's efforts presented a comprehensive review of the work that we've done on our so in stormwater it's on line i encourage you to look at it and i think it's a good story in the article that you reference was data that was somewhat dated and we updated it we were in a more favorable position  i just further on that discussion what is the what what is the effort in terms of sealing of the pipes this coming year that relate to that problem of leakage and can and contamination going into our brooks and streams and the mystic river the allocation that slike when baghdadi mentioned the additional monies will be used for investigation in sampling to basically identify the sources of the contaminants in to then come up with a capital plan to do what we have done in other parts of the still more system is to identify areas where we need to do remediation just give me a sense of the timetable glen's here but i would he's working on that now with our consultants and tech to basically take a for the near future if fred we've provided for additional funding to accelerate it as much as we can it is we are cognizant of the issue right we do want to address it all mercier preci thing i'll say is these are operated as enterprise funds separate businesses that that pay for themselves and you're kind of blurring that vision by shifting some of those operating costs on to real estate taxes because now they're coming out of the general fund i'm not aware if other communities do that but i think it's a fair question that we can look into reauthorized basically that allows you know charging of money that accumulates an account and is spent for specific purposes and if there's any want to add to that floyd but are there any questions about revolving funds i mean i can say a few comments revolving funds are basically funds that are raised by those activities ok those are what are charged for people to participate in those  activities itemized in article sixteen the fact that the expenditure limits may increase a little bit over last year is a good thing because because it means more people are participating in those activities and that allows the relevant committee like the council on aging for example to provide more programming to those that participate we i think from experience some of those youth activities apply to elementary school kids and not necessarily high school which is why you may not have experienced them ok thank you all right thank received the project itself will be whole and it's my understanding that the end would pool pride is going to continue one through the end of september through this season at the end of september we'll kind of revisit with the committee and see what monies are left over that would be back to the meeting next year but what we're doing here is we are in effect avoiding to go out and borrow another one hundred twelve thousand ok so well we'll keep moving what i do next is actually move to the special time meeting article number one so if any and start i will join us this is an article that the citizens petition relating to the installation of interior wireless telecommunication facilities and so let us just point up the material if you would mind just taking a couple minutes just explaining their rationale and thought process and then obviously folks can can ask questions to the extent they sarno town meeting member precinct three and i'm also with another co sponsor of the citizen's petition karen barb making her ocean town meeting member of the precinct to we submitted to citizens petition for a special town meeting and collected two hundred forty two certified belmont registered voters because it was a special town meeting you need two hundred that least i have that list if anyone wants to see the names that sign your constituents i have it with me i assumed all cell antennas were regulated similarly meaning i thought they all required special permits let's look at the first thanks glenn i became aware that even though our by law written in nine hundred ninety eight by the way requires special permit it's a little hard to see there is an s p on exterior cell antennas s p means special permit it's allowed in every zoning district with a special permit whether it's business residential five what we found however is right above that interior wireless cell antennas have a y meaning by right meaning even if it's visible enclosed in glass which we've seen it does not require a special permit in fact this is also true in every zoning district whether business residential right across brings us to our simple zoning amendment glenn the next slide thank you all we're seeking to do is close the loop and sure that neighboring residences and businesses can have their voices heard and have meaningful discussions during special public hearings and that all applications are treated equally and you'll see what we're proposing is across the board stole out everywhere but by special permit belmont uses special permit for all kinds of changes of use for example family day care home child care a large family private school conducted for profit including nursery dancing music schools to dog day care air b lodging and boarding no other words daily and weekly special permit personal dog kennels windmills require a special permit but you can install a wireless cell antenna by right and turn into a business contract to essentially change or use become a business with no public hearing we see this as a serious loophole and arizona  law where urging transparency and consistency this amendment will not prohibit cell antennas and the zoning district as you can see just a special permit just provides for more public process greater transparency and opportunity for meaningful comments and will keep the zoning front for interior and exterior cell antennas consistent no surprises without a special permit cell companies don't have to answer any questions about strength of antennas they don't answer those questions without a special permit they don't have to answer how many different carriers or antennas might be initially installed how many will be added and finally we expect to see some developments in belmont in the near future cushing square waverly square itself pleasant street incinerator site the renovated high school belmont hill school other locations my experience is that we tend to focus on zoning changes after something happens and we go the ups and then after the loop all comes to light we seek to change it so we're proposing that this is a good time two thousand and sixteen so right time to get in front of a nine hundred ninety eight outdated and inconsistent by law if we don't pass this that town meeting now it will be two years before any of you can bring this back to town meeting what developments what by right installations could happen over these next two years with all this potential development so this will not prevent installations it'll just give you a voice and it will give you more information and give us more information it's about transparency and consistency that's it and thank you are there any questions pressing to try meeting number can you enlighten us as to what other communities around us are doing thank you we're working on that for town meeting and i'm going to ask our to refresh my memory but i know lexington the special special permit and i'm trying to remember the other town as we're doing this research was a brookline you know was a lincoln  so we will have more information for town meeting but as you can imagine calling all those towns and getting that information for a little bit of work but we found a couple with special special permit thank you in this amendment about interior and habits which i can't see and i also understand that under the federal communication telecommunications act the issue of health is completely off the table so that the only conceivable issue would seem to me that if somebody is pulling an antenna when they garage and i can see the only conceivable issue be would be some claim which is on proving that they may be unhealthy with the amount of putting out that being so  if we have a planning board special permit what is the issue going to be we can't speak about health care concierge how is it not in harmony with that thank you thank you it actually would go to the zoning board and not the planning board just so that's that's one thing and it sounds like you might be one of the it's just information some of us like to know ahead of time what's happening around us like to collect that information and make a decision about whether we're for it there are also some conditions and me see if i might even have that slide the next one thinking we might get that question this one with the special permit the requirements are a little different and let me just say one of them is there's more consideration of neighborhood in adjoining property concerns it also prioritizes citing the towers on municipally owned property bringing much needed revenue to the town that would be something that isn't considered with the buy right but with the special permit they would have to first look at municipal property so that we would get the revenue and consideration of the nature and uses of adjacent nearby properties thank you jack jack white's precinct one judith i'm going to confess my technological ignorance here i understand a concern about an antenna that may be used to bounce a signal to receive it rebroadcast or whatever but of a building like this one had to set up kind of a wireless communication so that people would have fi access everywhere would that require an antenna and would that antenna be something that is legislated under this by law because it's at least as i read it very broad in scope when it says wireless intents it doesn't say antennas used to transmit signals it just says wireless antennas i'm going to say this give a simple answer and maybe someone else knows we're not changing anything within the bylaw so the wording of the wireless is is as it's been since one thousand nine hundred ninety eight where only saying if what you proposing falls under that somebody might know if it does it would just be a special permit so we would be notified and have an opportunity just to you know part of the wireless some sort of kind of repeater system right now they could do that by right under this would they be required to come for a special permit to improve suspicious telecommunications walls i don't believe that would be great to clarify because it seems to me materially different in terms of the impact of this if you have to come for a special permit to improve the businesses i'm trying to get a sense of who this him thank you can we have a backup slide ready in case that question came up when i think it's the next one after that well can you go back for once that show that clear the site since it came up on the screen you may be interested it just has to be interior and it's allowed by right in this is enclosed in glass so you could have a glass enclosed antenna that's the bell savings bank but to answer your question the next life these are the cell antennas in belmont now we have nine i'm also trying to collect information about how many  but it's not close to any residential property it's on a commercial street so that's number one then you have the church street that's in the local business  on the third one on church street in a local business zone number four is in a single family it's a it's a cell tower up by the cemetery it's on twenty five hundred square feet a vacant land even though it's in a single family zone because remember it's allowed never the fifth one is the armenian church on concord dab which is also in the single family zone but again when you look at the aerial shots and i have all that with me if you want to see there's no single family home near it in the number six is the con cushing square in a business so there isn't in my answer so i get it just to clarify are these nine antennas all of the antennas in belmont that are either interior or exteriors currently scope of this so i thought i so can i just clarify so number six so none of these are in private residences they're all in either apartment buildings churches or the reason that i'm asking is when our precinct was discussing the last night it came up with do you want your neighbor running a business so it sounds like this isn't a residential issue meaning someone in a private home running a business is likely a business or a church using their space it's not prevented in our zoning we're saying is it's by right with the current zoning the fact that that hasn't happened in a private residence that we know of doesn't mean it couldn't happen it's allowed to and there would be no special permit we would be notified so my final question i apologize what type of height do you need to install something like this to private residences have the height where they could actually accommodate this type precinct four we talked about how there's doesn't seem to be a safety issue with associated with these antennas and i do think there's a safety issue with having so much dead zone in belmont i was taking my clients through a home my client fell down the stairs because they had just signed him up and i went to use my cell phone to call for help and it was a dead zone and it wasn't until i got out of the street that i could make the call so i do think that we need to cons story and do you have a question asked so my question is doesn't it seem important that we know we have these dead zones and we know it's affecting our businesses in belmont as well as perhaps the health and safety of some people younger couples are now not having landlines  replying or relying on cell phones do we think about what to do with those people that otherwise wouldn't be able to call for help i think you i'll repeat that our art the article does not prevent cell antennas it does not change the current zoning it allows exterior and interior cell antennas in every district so there's nothing stopping it you would then be notified and you would go and speak for it but it's not being prevented with this article this is just a process and a transparency so that we know about it ok thank you  your carrier and you put it in your home if you had bad soviet section inside you plug this this into your into your into your connection to your i s p and why are your  reception was better because basically what it is is a miniature cell tower inside your phone home and as as a certified geek i will tell you that those cell towers actually scale and i'm wondering if they if the use of those them to cells in your own home would be affected by this article this is this article i don't know what do you mean would you need a for the people that so i think just as iraq has a process question this one sort of similar to the jack white wice question which i think it would be very helpful if you in the in the group could be having to have clear answers about that question before timing i think that would be informative for everybody  i'm i'm not an expert on that i'm just looking for transparency i'm looking for communication should an antenna and i would ask that question maybe at the hearing but i i don't know i'm i'm having trouble whether the zoning boards a great body to it would be a change of use it's a business it's changing to a business use and we're just looking to have the special permit so that there's more transparency and we know about that change whether it's in our neighborhood or jason business in the business center that's all david wester precinct for thanks for the examples of special permits and when i think of the special permits and the zoning i think of the setbacks the heights like the last article we had in the front yards or noise from th impacts were in the examples you have a special permits are are that what what what are the other ones that regulate the inside what's inside the walls of a home or institution or commercial establishment you know i read i read the one family day care child care private school for profit which is why are special permit so i get day care right which has noise traffic associated are there examples in need for special permits that are restricted to changes inside the walls only i don't know the other way just trying to make a consistent interior and next area well the inconsistency to me seems like the question would be handsome to some of these people who are concerned if they put in their own homes for their own use maybe we should be thinking about only if you're connecting if you're coaching a resource an income from this judith you mentioned that it's about transparency and consistency and i understand all that you then mentioned briefly that with this change because it requires a special permit it would mean that first divs or that the carrier would have to go to a town municipal site first to try and do it as opposed to private and i hadn't heard that before sun tried i thought i'd like to get a clarification i was wondering if jeffrey might be able to when we go back to that flight to the right there this is from the special permit language in our by laws that says prioritizes siting towers on municipal own property bringing much needed revenue to the town so they because it's in our bylaw already they would have to demonstrate that they have looked at municipal properties first that would be a priority before it goes to private so the town would get the revenue so the difference here then in addition to the transparency is also that somebody would with a special permit requiring a special permit they would have to try and put it on municipal property first instead of a private institution like a the general middle school in our neighborhood rallied and the reason we didn't want it was trucks the only trucks we see in our neighborhood are let's get trucks we didn't want the maintenance trucks coming by all the time so my question is  that's a question jeff or do you want to answer that ok in that case i think it's ya in that case that that's certain that's a real consideration for a neighborhood and they should the neighborhood should have some input maintenance ok thank you very much so we'll keep moving just in terms of a process check it's now a fifteen my expectation is that we will have a hard stop at nine o'clock and so just so everybody has you know their expertise is clear we'll move on to article ten article ten is sort of the meat of the budgets we have one hundred six million dollars budget in fiscal two thousand and seventeen and basically all of the money that is spent either is either in article ten or article fourteen which is the capital budget so to the extent of there are some other expenditures for example the chapter ninety funds for the roads that's money that we take in and immediately kind of pass it through essentially to the roads that's article thirteen but so so article ten is essentially the meat of the budget and this covers all the various parts of the budget i'll spend some time obviously a town meeting going through this going through the revenue side where the funds come from and in some detail on the expenditure side so i'll do that at town meeting i'll also do it on the thirty first to the extent that you're interested in in coming in here in a bit more detail about that and if you have any questions it will be more time for kind of q and a on that educational session on may thirty first so if anybody has any questions about any particular area of the budget i won't go through every element here in detail you may remember that the budget is broken into essentially fixed components what we consider fixed components are in the budget and then there's the operating part of the budget which is about right around ninety million dollars out of the hundred six so an example of something that might be fixed would be debt here that's ten i or minuteman which is ten these are things that we can't really control as a town meeting whereas as a town we can decide for example how much money we spend on the police or fire the schools questions about article t that would include the grounds and the school buildings and town buildings seven or go and and i think that's now under way yeah my question is if we could get a sense as to the progress and secondly i just have another d p w does great work in many areas but just as an example the other night i walked through the wellington school property and the grass is on cut trees dying it's not been weeded and i just wondered how that was going to be covered by this new unified method of maintaining the facilities in belmont so let david  kill our time mr speak to that in a second as you may know we decided several years ago to consolidate school in town facilities that is overseen by a board which is david and john failing the superintendent of schools and one of the things that you'll see that happened in two thousand in the fiscal two thousand and seventeen budget is that a large chunk of the facilities costs have actually moved from the school budget to the town budget so if you see the growth in the school budget is shown as point nine percent if that facilities money had not actually been moved out of the school budget and stayed there the school budget would have grown at six percent not at a point nine percent the town budget is shown as growing at twelve percent again had those funds not had been shifted  then the the growth in the town side would have been four percent so that's just an example of how that fits all the changes affecting the budget i'll let david speak to your question more specifically primarily for utilities and putting that under the facilities department budget they'll be a couple more phases next year will move the cost of the custodians under the facilities directors budget and the library thereafter  in terms of the responsibility for the cutting of the lawn at the wellington i believe that comes under the jurisdiction of the school custodians tony my correct that so to that extent i other than it not been done well i don't have a good answer for you other than the fact that that typically has been a school function with school personnel under the direction of the school department in a combined facilities  clearly the the facilities director does have oversight of the facilities and the staff but i don't have a good answer why the grass hasn't been cut to be honest  all the money will come out of one budget which is the facilities budget but i'll let david speak to that so at the end of the day we do have a work order system currently in place for maintenance requests at the end of the day as michael just said all the ok so we move keep moving will move to article twelve twelve is the authorization of transfer balances it's about four million dollars it comes from different sources this is essentially revenue and so what you'll see here large one of the large chunks of that for example is the use of one point seven million dollars of free cash or otherwise known as the reserve the proper name of it is the end reserve fund balance otherwise known as free cash and so the use of those funds then funds essential part of one hundred six million dollars budget that we just talked about so these are these are sources of funds from various places are there any questions about article twelve one thing that i will do and i did it made town meeting was i gave an update on free cash will do the same so the one point seven million dollars is part of the a partial draw down of free cash that we're doing that takes us from a starting point of seven point six million dollars of free cash in july of two thousand and fifteen we've now spent one point four five million dollars towards the modulars and if the one point seven million is spent and then the other money that we talked about the open stabilization fund that will take us to about four point one million dollars of free cash that is remaining and so again i'll show you a chart of that but that's kind of the high level on free cash all right so c no questions article twelve will keep going article lev is the next one article levon is one of two articles that relates to the general stabilization fund you may remember that we funded the general stabilization fund last year with about one point seven five million dollars of money that had come in from the override but we did not have a specific appropriation for last year so the override of four point five million last year we only needed a portion of that for fiscal sixteen and we took the remainder of that one point seven million and we put it into the general stabilization fund david am i getting that number it's one ok i'm rounding so yes one million six hundred seventy four thousand thank you so that the money is in the general stabilization fund so there are two weren't articles  it and then put it into the general stabilization fund for the purpose of extending the override so that is what that piece is and then i'll do it at the same time article nineteen and i'll come up to talk about article nineteen but article nineteen is a citizens petition from sarno that speaks to taking one point one million dollars of the free cash and putting it also into the general stabilization fund and i'll let bob speak to the to the merits of that if you if you can picture in your mind that four point one million of the remaining free cash that we will have right the guideline that we have used we've established between the work committee and the board of selectmen is that we would maintain between three and five percent of free cash three and five percent of last year's budget in free cash now and last year's budget was magically about one hundred million dollars that makes the math really simple that means you would want to have roughly three to five million dollars of remaining free cash so if you have four point one million dollars now after the things we already talked about if this one point one million comes out that puts us at that three million dollar floor right so that's basically the simple math in terms of how free cash works but i'll let bob speak to the merits of article nineteen repeating what michael said just a little bit as you recall when we passed the override last year for four point five million dollars it was sort of known going in it was in the financial taskforce model that not all of that money not all of four point five would be needed  idea behind it was we don't we don't need all of it enough like sixteen but at some point not too distant future cost was started seeding even the increased revenues and we might have need for that money later so that's pretty much why the one point six seven four million was put into the general stabilization fund last year so to be available for the subsequent appropriations the and at that time meeting as you would call voted that last year in addition some of us who were looking  at the time i felt that the the financial task force model was very conservative in terms of its revenue for obviously good causes good reason if you don't want to count on getting revenue you're not going to get what we felt was really on the conservative end so that we believe that should the financial results for belmont in the years coming be better than we're being forecast that that would be also provide an opportunity perhaps to take some of that money and bank it for the future the idea would be that maybe in to school nineteen that money we could be used again to help fund the budget and thereby help as michael said extend the impact of the override and put off the time when another old override before michael certainly reviewed them with you in terms of what happened to free cash in the past year basically just summarizing it revenues came in about two point four million dollars higher than had been forecast and at the same time costs or expenditures came in about one point four million lower so if this is routine this does typically turn backs in the budget so that that's how the free gas gets replenished every year this was a particularly good year so that having gone down from i think a balance of seven point one free cash the year before we had to be even higher balance as of last june thirtieth it was seven point six at the time when i put together when i first developed and proposed this  petition was back in february my thought was ok the doc to be a chunk of that cash hopefully that's a chunk of that cash we can bank we can put it aside it'll be there it'll help fund this future budget and put us on a more stable footing in that regard still working on the mountain and i needed to take stock of what else was needed you're going to be asked and michael just showed you the transfer article a motion going to be asked to put one point just over one point seven million into the operating budget  to fund the f y seventeen budget about three hundred sixteen thousand dollars as floyd said earlier is going to come out of the general fund to be deposited in the open stabilization fund and last month at the special town meeting  we all through ved putting one point four five million dollars to purchase modular classrooms for the general school as michael said that leaves about four point one million dollars in round terms the free cash guideline that he referred to talking about having free cash maintain your free cash balance of three to five percent the lower end of that is three million dollars the idea behind the citizen's petition in the motion to put one point one million dollars in is basically to take the remaining free cash that's available and put it into the stabilization fund i think the benefits that will accrue from this in the purpose that we're really doing it is that in a stabilization fund only free cash it's going to require a two thirds vote by town meeting to spend that money  i was speaking with preaching to tell me members last night and someone said very simply that and i was that's can make it harder to spend it and yeah that's what it's about has to pay you have to meet a higher threshold it's my hope that i fifteen is a great harbinger of years to come and we have some good years coming and that you know that'll extend the override further that allow us to put more money in here but maybe not maybe not we won't know until each year when we see how the how the books close  the in a sense using this money for future budget appropriation is kind of the default purpose but it's not the exclusive purpose of the general stabilization fund that's simply the repository i'm proposing to put that money in there because that's where the selection proposed in tommy voted to put the one point six seven four as a good place to leave that money in the meantime what's also good how about the general stabilization fund is it doesn't make it unavailable for any other purpose the town meeting deems appropriate  if other needs of a presented to town meeting either is necessary or important and more important than trying to hold this money for other into the future is fully available to be done if for example we go back a year ago this year i don't believe there are any budget shortfalls being asked in terms of using free cash but last year you may recall you voted something on the order of think seven hundred eighty thousand dollars for the snow and i had badly overrun because of the winter we had similarly there was a stabilization fund appropriation from the special education stabilization fund of two hundred fifty thousand dollars once those kinds of necessary expenditures the money is available to fund them if that's necessary in the absence of that kind of need for the money the money stays there and hopefully goes to again contribute toward funding future budgets and holding off time when another right might become necessary other questions require a majority vote well now we're going to take a substantial amount of that and put it in a fund that's going to require two thirds thereby obviously reducing the amount of free cash available just plain to fund the regular budget as a bit of a process question because to put the budget together david i don't know if you can count on this money it's still our money was going to take two thirds vote to get it out so is it going to make the budgeting process that much more difficult last year we talked about the override in our financial plans we knew that in fiscal eighteen we would need the one million six seventy four that was already appropriated to the stabilization fund to balance the budget and so in the models that we've produced we assume that we will need the one million six seventy four to balance the budget that's a currently in the general stabilization  in fiscal eighteen when you use that one time money it will not be available in fiscal ninety can't spend the same money twice so it's one time money that's available from the general stabilization fund that we won't have to balance the budget in fiscal nineteen and that is consistent with what we had projected in the financial taskforce when we produced the report last year so i think that seventeen's imbalance based upon our projections eighteen will be in balance with the assumption that by and large the one million six seventy four will be needed in some part and then eighteen and nineteen it will not be available so we will need to find replacement rev or reduction in expenditures to balance the budget yes and man precinct or so it says right there second item our guidelines require that three million are main in free cash so what you're going to do is you're going to put us right at what we need to have is the three million it does seem like we need to use free cash every year it is easier we have town meeting a group of us have been elected to look out for our citizens it is we do have crisis situations we have a growing population in belmont and i don't want to point that money into an account that is harder to get and so i have a question and i wondering why it is that we're doing it this year and we haven't done it before and that is that could that be because maybe it's not a great idea in putting into general stabilization fund i'm honestly i'm following suit in terms of what the selectmen proposed and what we voted last year which was to take the money not needed to support it put it into that stabilization fund does it make it harder yeah i think it does make it harder does it make it all impossible or if you if you believe that putting it into the fund requiring two thirds means that somehow important tone needs are not going to be met that in the opinion in the in the judgment of town meeting and then perhaps you don't want to do this i don't believe that's the case i believe the case is that it sets up a default it says that ok if we leave it if we don't need this money that's great we know this money is going to be this precisely defined future budgets that was that's the purpose of it if you believe the something more important in the judgment of tell meeting then you're going to appropriate either because it's necessary it's considered more important i don't think anyone's going to be sort of controlling that other end of the intel meeting i think that's where that responsibly authority ought to live yes jeevan hong piecing data meaning member i agree with it in theory we do that in our own homes we set aside money that's extra for emergencies and so forth with the idea that it's for a crisis an emergency so i'm thinking we set this money aside god forbid there's a crisis an emergency or we're going to be able to access it right away trying to have all the time you know members come together get that two thirds vote truly in a catastrophic event how can we get that funding i understand what you're saying to the process that would have to we have to go through but the same is true for a cache creek cache cannot be dispersed with a timing boat so a special time media under any circumstances a special time being would have to be called it's i i seen other than the two thirds versus simple majority which i agree is different i see no material difference so just to be clear there are women and it comes to dealing with emergency related issues are things that are greater in cost than was previously anticipated the generally two broad approaches and now there is potentially a third that we that we use the town one is that we have a warrant committee reserve fund which is a foreign thousand dollar fund that does not require a town meeting in order to appropriate it so there's something that happens it's an emergency there's a process of the work committee has but a whether it's a department or a school department or whether it can come before the work committee and can get access to funds with our actually calling a town meeting in the case of an expenditure that is larger for example than the four thousand like the example that bob gave of the seven hundred plus thousand dollars and in snow and ice money that money came from free cash now whether that money would come from free cash or the money came from a general stabilization fund or for that matter for example a special education stabilization fund all of those require a town meeting to vote in appropriate them what bob said is true that the standard the voting standard for a free cash vote is a fifty percent vote the standard for a set subsidization sorry a stabilization fund funding increased our free cash amount by about four hundred thousand dollars this year maybe five hundred thousand dollars of it that there was a difference between what we had in free cash in two thousand and fifteen versus two thousand and sixteen what was that the increase in free cash from last year this year is three point eight million dollars not not from the not from the july first balance from the july forget that's what you're getting at yes you're right some of that understood was was bent down so the replenishment is a free cash drop down to i'm sorry what did free cash drop down to after appropriations last three point three million last year down to three point three i went from three point three million and then back up to seven point six million right but that was that was more then free cash had been the year before that yes it was and now it's about four hundred thousand dollars friends are saying with so the way to think about it is that on average we tend to replenish free cash by about three million dollars it's actually more than that last year but if you look at the last six years the average is about three million dollars of our free cash replenishment on a year over year basis so i guess my question is if we're saying that we are as we're doing better is doing better saying whatever is above that replenish mint is what we're going to put toward the general stabilization funds that we're not drawing it down to so that we can't actually allocate anything else from free cash for the rest of the year i mean  you if you take it at three million then there's you're at your minimum you can't well just to be clear three million is is three million of free cash it's essentially our rainy day fund so we're saying is we'd like to maintain a rainy day fund that is about as a certain amount of money you can spend it down to zero all right tom meaning can choose to spend it down to zero it would be it would mean we would have no cushion of any kind in terms of free cash at that point ok and it and in previous years we've given our sleeve put ourselves within the middle of the range of our cushion which is three of five million what i would say is that we did not have really a range until last year we established the range last year at three to five percent at the end of last year we were near the bottom of the range we were ended at three point three million was near the bottom of the range this proposal which i'm not suggesting whether it's a good or bad one i'm simply saying this report is at the bottom of the three to five percent range if i might add and i understand part of i think where you're going  i'd be more concerned if i were you i'd be more concerned if we were up here if i was up here proposing that we spend the one point one and it would be gone that's not the right that's not my proposal is simply to save it in another box not use i'd give i want to see what the difference is what the what the real difference for meaning is between putting it out here literally living in cash and taking and putting the sort of appropriation stabilization box looking is there a difference i just want to go ahead  did you want to finish that was basically i want to hear your sponsor technically the only difference is the the threshold you need to meet to to vote it out you need two thirds majority of town meeting to vote money out and indeed to put money in this this article requires two thirds majority as well to put the money into the stabilization fund so technically that's the only difference so when you're saved saying it's saving it would be the same for just didn't spend in free cash is really going to france is the boat threshold make it more difficult to put in  account to our savings account we're moving it from one account to another but the standard for removing it from the new account is a higher standard but we don't get any more interest we don't get nothing special so all of this is really a different pressure correct it's a it's a different threshold and and again i mean just from where i'm coming from i think it's in the interest of the town i look at the next couple of years david already said he's probably he's thinking right now based on his current estimates he may have to tap all or some of that one point six seven for next year for the f y eighteen budget absent any other money let's say just three or hypothetically say we spent down to three million ok absent any other money york we don't get a great deal of replenishment next year it could mean that in order to find the f one one thousand budget we'll get another overri but that's ok from my point of view what i'm sent what i'm trying to do is say i don't if i can if by putting some of this money into the stabilization fund fund i can increase the odds that money is going to be have three more articles to go through the incinerator and then the capital budget producing date free cash general stabilization fund i'm all for saving the money from the override i'm all for delaying you know how long it's going to take is to me more money my perception and i think there is a in addition to the technical piece that i think there is a difference in perception we use free cash for a lot of things we use free cash you know to buy modulars we use free cash to put in the to the pension fund and a whole bunch of things we do use it also for the operations for the operating budget the general stabilization fund as i understand it is really focused on the budget and the operating budget in the future and so i think there is i don't believe in what you know david maybe in floyd can correct i don't believe there is any constraint in terms of using money in a general stabilization fund so any purpose for time you can use it for any purpose that wants to use it for ok i do like the idea that money is going to be all collected in one place you know sort of with the idea that it can be there for the future budgets when we need it i think that's a very healthy thing i was curious about the distinction if i say yes i agree with you i agree with you i think technically the one difference ok but on the other hand what it also does if the money goes into that fund in a sense you're right it is primarily designed as the one point six seven four was the intent behind this is primarily to help fund future budgets if it's available at that time if it doesn't it's not a restriction on use but the default is that the money is there if at all possible they are not using it is going to delay the time when another overwrite not might be necessary and i think that's an important consideration because when we do appropriate money it's good to do it within the context of knowing not just that we want to procreate for this purpose but we're not going to have it for some other purpose as well there are opportunity costs and so i think that makes it a little bit more explicit thank you think about either one of those buckets of money whether it's free cash or whether it's general stabilization our one time funds those are money is that we have once and when we spend them they don't kind of necessarily there's no guarantee that they replenish themselves now having said that what bob showed and i'll show you again a town meeting is that we for the last six years have replenished about three million dollars of free cash because of revenues that are in excess of forecast or turn backs on the expense  there's not a guarantee that we're going to get those three million dollars but there is about three million dollars we've seen over the last six years any time we as a community get come spend more than let's say two million or three million dollars of free cash we are  beyond our ability to replace all right so when we think about for example using one point seven free cash this year if you were to add that to a one point seven million dollars that we've that we put aside in the stabilization fund that's three point four now we are starting to spend beyond our means so we as a community will need to think about how much one time money do we want to spend each year in the budget because it's either going to be sustainable or we're going to hit a wall and so i just want you all the think about that if and hopefully that makes some sense ok so management and maintenance about the state conveying the incinerator site to the town that property which was state owned was used by the town historically as a later site where trash would be burned it hasn't been used for that purpose for some time it's been essentially open space the town since it is the town contamination the town is responsible to clean up that site regardless whether we own it or not because we were the user that contaminated the property our estimates to clean the site and cap it so that it can be used in the range of four million dollars we had with the help of our legislators requested the state to pass special legislation authorizing the state to convey the property to us and we would pay this date the purchase price from the state that we requested would be net of our cleanup costs  cap the site so we did hear from the state recently made within the last month or so we received a letter saying that the property has been appraised the appraised value is one million three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars and the state has said you know you can move ahead and buy the property from us that is the appraised value but we will credit any cleanup of contamination costs that you document to us so as a part of that process what we need to do and this is all a process dictated by the state is we need town meeting to accept the conveyance of that property since this just happened in the last month the board of selectmen did vote to have a special town meeting within the town meeting sol that so that we can get the authorization from town meeting to accept the incinerator site from the state is that clear and he was a represent and marie mahoney who is the chair of the capital budget committee and we'll talk about articles thirteen and fourteen together and those are the final two of the thirteen is about as i mentioned before the surpass three of chapter nine highway funds for the roads and then  the pass through for chapter seventy of five hundred thirty five thousand dollars and five hundred thirty five and eighty nine dollars five hundred thirty five thousand and eighty nine dollars and section b of article fourteen is the balance of the money for roads this year which is one million six hundred and one thousand seven hundred dollars which includes the money from both the two thousand and one two thousand and fifteen overrides with a two and a half percent increase over the years that brings the total for roads next year to between two point one two point two million dollars i thought i'd put those two together if there are any questions about roads if not i'll move on to the list of other so part of article for team is the list of discretionary capital items that we are proposing to fund this year i'll just move through them relatively quickly and see if there are any questions but i'll give you a little background on each one first the aboveground mobile lift is for the department of public works that is to it's a new piece of equipment replacing an older one from the one nine hundred ninety s the new one will allow us to be able to lift up the newer trucks which are heavier because this has to do with maintaining our own vehicles in the public works department sidewalk maintenance is something that is new from the override this includes a two and a half percent increase from last year of the two hundred thousand dollars that was put into sidewalk maintenance we have agreed as a capital budget committee that this amount will be set aside every year just like the roads money it won't be rated for ambulances or boilers or anything else so two hundred five thousand is again allocated for sidewalk maintenance the sidewalk management program which is beyond that is money to establish a plan consultant to come in and give us a plan about  how to address the sidewalks and priority order we have such a thing for the roads this will establish that for the sidewalks which will allow the departments dealing with the sidewalk maintenance to have good information about what should be done first we think that's a valuable thing to do the sidewalk vacuum sweeper is actually an interesting story because we are going to share this with the town of arlington the original request was for eighty thousand dollars we have discovered that we can share this with arlington it was taken down to forty thousand sorry yes forty thousand it was found then that the original request was a little high higher than the budget was necessary so it's down to twenty six thousand three hundred that will allow us to maintain the sidewalks particularly the newly created sidewalks in our commercial  heavier trucks now i think maybe somebody can answer that question i assume they have to be sent out somehow as opposed to doing them in house the police department has requested sorry i'm sorry go ahead th maintain the sidewalks and particularly the new ones in the commercial areas since they've just been done we need to be able if if you don't have this kind of equipment my understanding is it has to be done in a more labor intensive way to get the sand out of the cracks if you will and that this will be valuable in maintaining the investment we've just made in the new sidewalks that we have in the commercial areas restrict warming and we  will water over the top and more equipment and more labor to run this well it's less labor my understanding is that this will be less labor than the alternative for keeping the sidewalks clean except of is part of that it's the last piece of the new radio conversion for the public safety departments and it will allow them to use their radios appropriately the health department is requesting an animal control then this is replacing the one that's quite old and is in dire need of replacement this one will be appropriately outfitted to carry at to transport animals which the old one apparently is not particularly  and so this seems to be a good investment this year the library will replace the boiler the library had to shut down i think nine days last year because the boiler was failing this will replace a  less efficient boiler with a more highly efficient boiler it will also be able to be reused in the case of a library renovation that is our understanding the fire department is requesting replacement  turnout gear for twenty five thousand dollars this was originally funded by a grant the regulations now require that or at least recommend that every firefighter have two sets of turnout gear because coming back from a fire once that has to be decontaminated before it can be used again the fire department is trying to get that equipment up to sort of a place where they can then begin using their operating budget to replace the appropriate number of turnout gear every year to be able to keep up with this requirement and this will do that for them so from now on this will be in the operating budget but the capital budget committee  has agreed that this year we should bring the equipment up to where it can be maintained at an appropriate level and therefore we're requesting twenty five thousand dollars for the turnout here the ambulance replacement is actually going to cost three hundred  sixteen thousand dollars there has been fifty thousand dollars a year for the past three years set aside from ambulance receipts to be banked against this ambulance replacement which has to happen every five years so we they are requesting one hundred sixty six thousand to make up the difference from the hundred fifty that's been banked over the last three years so that will replace the ambulance this year the next item cardiac monitor replacement that seven thousand dollars is actually to be banked in order to replace that cardiac monitor next year so the money is being accumulated to be able to replace that and this is a seven thousand dollars deposit if you will to replace the cardiac monitor at the appropriate time and the questions about public safety the facilities department the this is the largest item that we're funding this actually is a more complicated item this new fire stations so called new now they're not so new anymore but the new fire stations have had leak problems ever since we opened them and there has been litigation pursued by the fire station building committee for all the years since the fire stations were opened to try to get the money to fix these problems the statute of limitations was running out they had to come to some kind of an agreement the agreement was that the town is receiving just under one million dollars from the construction companies that were part of the process to build the fire stations and the actual request from the capital budget embedded in this one point four almost one point five million dollars is just under half a million dollars instead of the total amount the total amount is put into the capital budget but that includes the settlement from that's coming in from the construction companies don't you have a question about that coming from the settlement that's right that's right the d p w garage ventilation improvements this is long overdue we know that these buildings in the town yard have to be replaced upgraded sometime soon we hope but with the high school being on the state's list now and several other projects underway we really do have to take action the heating and air quality in the  garage is not up to where it should be we have to do something about it and in fact when we voted to approve this request shortly after that the heating system gave out so we really have to do this this year this really isn't a choice don what he estimated beyond a time when you're going to do something with the grudges i don't think the town has an estimated time yet and i think we hope to do it soon but there's no plan to put it before the voters at this point so i the next item on the list this journey if you wouldn't mind keeping a tight if you miss me next is the security upgrades this is a an ongoing project we try to fund at the request is roughly one hundred thousand dollars a year we cabin been able to put that total in this year but we've funded this to the extent that we can this is an ongoing project to upgrade security in school in town buildings the next one is a boiler replacement the same thing as the library but when brick boiler has to be replaced it will be replaced with a more efficient boiler  the under the schools the town wide course switching network equipment for sixty thousand dollars is crucial this is truthful to the town's fiber optic network these switching equipments have to be upgraded roughly every i believe it's five or six years and the town can't do business without it so it really has to be done the maple terrace sidewalk installation is the last thing here that is thirty eight thousand this is to remedy a very dangerous situation that the butler school where there is a part that side along the school where there is no curbing or sidewalk that's appropriate to keep cars and children separate when they are approaching the school or leaving the school and so we've years would just do anything to triggering anything no i don't believe so ok which of these things are multi part of multi year i got a sense of some of them can you just sort of say which of these are the our multi year efforts versus single time ones well i think that the security upgrades are the only multi year funding we could do this year there are several other projects which are in that same vein but we couldn't give any money to them this year and i think i know the answer this when the d p w garage ventilation if we were to have a new building i presume that that those would not be usable in the in the future that they would not be recoverable i don't know about the boiler maybe i don't know if curious here i think that we asked that question and i believe the answer was some of the equipment might be but not all of giving sixty eight sixty five roughly yeah that's an ongoing request i think we gave one hundred thousand or close to it last year it's the this is the third year of the west so it's an ongoing project every year they can use some money so i know the words security and school together and they were not meeting that they were those are all sort of scary thoughts well something i don't think you should take on that i don't think you should assume we don't have security in the school buildings we  do these are upgrades and it's not just the school buildings it's also the town buildings and so this will be used i think actually this this particular year they're doing more planning than actually buying equipment but among other things i think they're upgrading the cameras that will be there are cameras there now but i made don't know if they're going to add more or if they're going to be upgrades but there is security in the buildings now but there's an ongoing project to make it better so the schools for example i know  people into the schools certain doors are locked on the day that they have a good security plan in place there's just continual upgrading of the security to be sure it's right up to date i would much rather give them one hundred percent and sort of have sidewalks  fourteen has to do with the press box at the harris field and this is something that has been couldn't be done with the original harris field project for the new turf field in the with the two thousand and one project because they did not have a plan which was approved by a da to make it handicapped accessible without extreme cost and so it couldn't be done so all that since that time they've been working on  it working on it they now have a plan which has been approved it's going to cost two hundred and forty thousand dollars we are intending to fund it in the following way there was forty thousand dollars left over from the debt exclusion from her parents field first project which was in two thousand and one there is one hundred twenty five thousand dollars left over from the second time we did the harris field which was in two thousand and fourteen that was through borrowing so that is what we are requesting to re purpose with this town meeting to vote to repurpose that money and then the remaining seventy five thousand dollars is going to be raised through the prom the boosters and through private donations my understanding is that they already have pledges which amount to approximately fifty thousand dollars so they'll be another twenty five thousand dollars to raise but if the town agrees to put in the money that was not used in the original projects that was left over if you will then they will only have to  seventy five thousand dollars and we will have the press box so that is the explanation thank you so much any for squeezing so much into a short period of time thank you all for coming in just a reminder  we'll see you then it generally and if you are interested again in the informational session that michael moore and i will be doing it's on tuesday may thirty first thank you all for coming