not sure who's going to be coming but we've gotten dozens and dozens of e mails on that matter and we're going to convene as the board survey runs seven fifty p m or later we're actually going to have polls by the legal women voters you can call six one seven seven seven one eighty five hundred at six one seven seven seven one eighty five hundred or you can e mail rides at belmont league of women voters  dot org rides at belmont l w v dot org  then this thursday even at seven p m at the beach treat center in the bellman high school building committee will be holding its first community forum i think it's going to be an interesting one to give everyone an update terms of what's taking pictures and celebrate this is a terrific accomplishment it looks great i think for paul wrote it is an incredible accomplishment years in the making right how many years have been doing this project or we were in design midst a chair for about ten years another three challenging project for all involved but in the end it came out just first rate and i think the town had a vision all along about providing access to everyone in the corridor whether they're relying on bicycling pedestrians public transportation vehicles and it was known as the complete streets project it was a wonderful project and the leadership of the town working with glen wanted to say briefly that the three members of the traffic advisory committee that here tonight larry landon tommy i think they'll be the three top of the long standing members who were there with this project the longest in terms of its development and seeing it through to construction as we had a vision understood that vision and helped us sort of clarify that vision and we were able to express that through the design but you know the reality is that there are so many hurdles to clear along the way before you actually put the shovel in the ground stop construction and we do away debt to senator brownsburg for his hard work there was a lot of a lot of presence that was required on behalf of the town at the state level will was there every step of the way and  a wonderful thing for me to support the town through this process and the great work that charlie did with the traffic advisory committee did i mean the hours and hours of meetings sorting out how to how to get this project done and then just following it through from from beginning to end and glenn of and we really just ran a time i think this deserves some attention and i think we should what we should do this selectively was has a proposal as well when we go through i think what makes sense before we  prepare the budget we work with are can consult in russia tell us we've been using them since two thousand and nine and we try to take a lot of things into consideration customers fairness and equity for ability adequate funding of the system operations and maintenance adequate funding there's a structure and adequate funding of the debt maintenance and we always have to look at the ever changing compliance and rules and regulations for say for drinking act and storm water and things of that nature it's so the water financial plan last few years have been doing a lot of reserve fund transfers for capital projects this year for water we have actually billeted to water main projects that  one of them is going to be business as usual funded like we usually do for the f y eighteen rates the other one we consolidated a bunch of open line items for prior capital projects and consolidating all of those and had a significant amount of reserve i should say for for an additional projects right now we're retained earnings the business model that we have is a ninety day reserve and every year we're trying to keep the balance in that range we have a like i said we have a water capital project this year and also we are in the second phase of our smart replacement program and i'll get into a little bit as we get into this next is the sewer financial plan  clancy's here for moral support in super retained earnings same same philosophy we have a ninety day reserve balance or try to keep it within that balance year after year so a big part of our operation is a very assessment that we get for both water and sewer every year that number changes and that's all based on how much we consume if it was a dry season what season or if the the bio oxygen demand for our sewer is at all time high our rates are set by those formulas  so for water this year and there are a give us an assessment of three point two percent and that's like i said before it's from prior years consumption three point two percent increase not a three point t operation for this year they gave us a two point four percent increase and again this is based on a number of things but most of is based on the consumption from our prior year that is fifty three point seven percent of our budget so it's incredible that you know the end of the already assessment for water to the town is forty percent of our budget in that for swords fifty this is for government only correct everybody's different based on the out years what are the two negative years i can make those out i believe it was three point twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four of those are negative after their sort of infrastructure investments twenty one twenty three and twenty three you know they're going to reduce it they're projecting to belmont they're going to know is this a commitment from them or just a sort of projection projection just a projection so twenty in eighteen it's three point two percent increase next year they're projecting four point one percent increase in twenty they're going to six point five two point four three point three and this is an enormous amount of increases and relates to what consumption if we're dry season if it's in there and actually ok so we kind of touched saw a little bit worth our capital infrastructure investment but basically the water main project that we're doing right now is all the online cast iron pipes from one nine hundred twenty  earlier it's about ninety one miles of main answer and this is her plate we have ninety one miles of line i mean excuse me this program was for thirty eight miles of it or about forty percent our system today point five percent of it after the two projects that we do for f y e we're going to jump significantly with seventeen thousand five hundred forty one hundred feet so it will bring us up to i believe seventy eight percent so for the remain forty three fifty three miles is your plan for what we need to do with this unfortunately mr chairman this capital improvement program will never will never cease hundred seventy five the water department took on a huge cleaning realigning of all their large diameter water means the largest water main we have in town is twelve inch so back in seventy nine hundred seventy five they went out and they cleaned a road that needs to be reconstructed we look at the age of the water main and sometimes it be that little gray area that we say you know what it would be in our best interest to renew that water main right you know so we do continue beyond twenty twenty eight where the next twenty twenty five thirty years will we would have addressed all of the warning me that i would know probably to address them all probably another thirty five forty program new storm water sampling was completed in november two thousand and sixteen illicit discharge detection elimination plan is being completed that will detail the investigation strategy move forward all work is in compliance with standards and then on the part of the capitol is i'm sorry we'll get to that next with water to do five hundred thousand from sewer and one point one million from water retained earnings our current meters are at their about eighty percent of them are at their useful life about twenty  years give or take the penny on the model if you haven't heard about smart mia program you can use your mobile device hooked up to your meter program you can look you consumption instantly ill get rid of the problems that we have with leak detection you separate amateurs that you can you know give yourself an alarm or alert if you consume more than a certain amount of gallons per day so it's and we were able to do reads from radios that to your plan to replace all the meters it depends on how aggressive we're looking we're looking at a year and a half to replace them all we can do it any error it would just depend on the cruise time of year things like that so like i said as planned approach sixty seven percent of our sar meters right now are over twenty years old and eighty percent need to be replaced so for this year with everything that we just described with capital and sewer work there we're doing with community element we're looking for water we're looking at two point six percent increase and for sewer a one point eight both a when they look at our rates they know that we are investing in our infrastructure systems that have really low water rates that that's a red flag and the very  percentages for each of those sides of the equation so they're not and a lot of those enterprise funds are structured differently some and some that service some don't include at the average average family average consumption got it and then they look at the cut the chart the basically the feed so some of it has to do some i know some towns if you did their formula and you just went above a little bit i think that we should run the enterprise funds based on full cruel accounting which means that the matching principle applies which means that you should report in record revenues in the period that you're responsible for and reporting on in the same for revenues or expenses so i'm concerned about the town's funding of the employee benefits and i'm more comfortable with the pension solution that we came up with this year which extended the funding schedule to twenty twenty nine and as d so that's that's recorded in your in your your financial statements as your expense for the year i'm less comfortable with the open in the reason  is that the opeth expenditure that floyd assigns to the different areas and in particular the enterprise funds is calculated on a free cash flow number which has nothing to do with the expense it's just it's it's it's complicated but the in my opinion the basis is wrong because you're not wrong i don't want to say wrong i'll just say no longer valid because great but that the free cash calculation was that opals to fund it had nothing to do with expense but please could you know but that's my point that in so you're confirming what i say which is that it has nothing to do with the expense yet the expense needs to be run through the income statement in what we're running through the income statement is a calculation based on something that has nothing to do with health care expenses that's a problem for me i don't think it's the right way to run an enterprise fund and  i would be a rate increase of seven point eight percent and how much for the other one sewer is three hundred twenty thousand eighty four dollars and i would be a five point six percent increase right now but some of that is covered in lloyd's calculation jim is a proposal to fully fund or kind of the enterprise fund currently have an allocation of twelve full time employees to water so the you know require a contribution that's just this year's in reserve it's a policy we've put in place several years ago we're not fully funding at all or you know require contributions because we're not very few not required to when it's really an estimate and a cruel based on our financial statements has nothing to do with our act reported there were two actually one was last year which was that he discovered that they discovered the open committee discovered that the cost that was being used in our actual world report was an could estimate your actual cost and that's the breakthrough that ralph described and that's the one that we have proved so far right not right so my problem with  having the enterprise funds fully fund there are in having it based on another another reference is that i think we should be in a liability and frankly there are some that believe that that's all we need to do what you were asked of which will never will be asked to actually fund playboy as long as we continue to sort of be able to pay to go on or other post employment benefits percentage increase the reason that there is an actuary down every two years also is because the population changes so it's an ever evolving number which i realize you know but it's so jim yes i think you raise is ok if you very important point that you know we as a town cannot ignore we do have this open policy and at the time it was signed by the town administrator by the select by the warrant committee and it was vetted i'm not saying it's the right policy but i think you're asking and i'm not i'm not critical yet another saying going forward we should think about a different no and i don't disagree with you i don't disagree with you  the the hesitancy i have with this of this approach is we've committed in the past to a policy a target of not increasing our water and sewer rates by more than five percent a year and you know i don't think it's fair for us to sit down and you know increase the rates to six and seven percent without a larger public discussion i mean that's a lot of money to some people especially retired people and i think without you know some more discussion and preparation for four for such an increase you know i think it would be unfair for us to sit here tonight and change that policy but but like i said i mean i think we do have the actuarial r f p going out i think you're raising the right issues and i think we need we need to make a more comprehensive look at our whole liability issue and and how to satisfy ok i think those remarks are acceptable to me i believe the enterprise fund should cover their expenses that basis yeah i'm not saying we may not get there i'm just saying it should be part of a larger comprehensive discussion and we shouldn't you know some of the residents with sticker shock on their water and sewer rates actually have second highest in the certainly heard that tonight i'm not sure i agree with that at all i mean what it means when you say nothing everything isn't ok everything is ok we're finding our expenses we have a significant capital investment program we were replacing a lot of water means i'm not certain what is manage that estimate of why ability which perhaps is the terminations the pay should go approach that we're in right now is the appropriate one the state expects us to fully fund our pension liability which you know based on some of the work that you've done and others we want a good course for but there's no expectation to fund this estimate of have liability at all no community is funding it we do have a funny palsy which we put in place we've done a lot to me adroitly is a more that we can you probably think we need to wait to see what the christian square neighborhood they may have questions as well sage environmental responded to every one of those comments and the response of those comments ranges from that sort of clarifying the opposite their position on a particular issue all the way up to recognizing that a particular issue that was raised is not necessarily under their purview and they acknowledge that they have directed those comments to another entity for example if there were concerns raised about bedrock on the side or soil conditions related to something other than we mediation efforts then those issues where we where we referred to the joe technical engineers on the site so they saw through the comments the response of them and they know the comments that as they have come in  who is a licensed a professional well known in this industry and i think the neighborhood was very appreciative of that to look at the region plan as you mentioned and the way i understand it is that the license a professional or the developer sage has a requirement to respond to the comments that's great but nothing more than that just response correct that is correct that that that is correct but understand also that if a particular comment is raised that addresses an issue that maybe say should not consider or maybe required c h to give a little more thought to it i think they acted accordingly it be the comments that were received  were received and then dismissed out of hand i think c a g than the attention they're required to give ok great right that you know i think if i could just another minute i think that people at home would benefit by this i just rights comes right out of the plan i just want to read what the purpose of a ram plan is because i think it's important the overall objective of the rand is to reduce concentrations of site related  compounds of concern are contaminants of concern in the subsurface soil and ground water at the property so that is really at the crux of what this plan is aimed at is it is aimed at recognising contamination that may exist in the soils in the groundwater and then coming up with a plan to remediate that condition and as i said at the at the meeting a lot of the concerns raised we were related to dust and dust that would be generated on the site  as of right now the toll brothers and sage on the site have five different monitoring locations within monitoring any dust generated at the site those monitoring locations change day to day based on activities that are occurring on the site there are always at least two of those monitoring stations between the activity and the residential property to make sure they're intercepting any dust that may be airborne and based on what those monitors read out of that dust certain levels may be triggered if they are they have they have the means on site to mitigate so for example of dust rises above a certain level they have a water truck or something that they can use to apply to the soil to keep that dust down they also have another monitoring  volatiles in the dust itself and if those monitors are triggered they have procedures on site that allow them to evaluate exactly what triggered it wanted to ring and then how to address that real time on site this is primarily related to the contamination from the tops cleaners right so it's tops cleaners there's also some historic contamination from up from the gas station that was on that site many years ago so the plan forward is to proceed with their plan right the release abatement measure plan and i think it's important well for there to be access to you into town with the times and regards any concerns of folks out there we certainly plan to perceive that way you should be aware that toll brothers is the meeting of the twenty seventh is to discuss some minor changes they want to make architectural lead to the buildings in advance of their returning to the planning board for convey thank you for your welcome i know our folks are showing up here we're running joanna i hosted a free document shredding event last year when it was very well received i did it and for not knowing last year it bumped up against the town recycling event so this year i decided to move it up earlier so i do have one modification to that possibly i requested eleven to two on april twenty third but this afternoon i was alerted to a possible conflict with the time with a business commitment involving an open house that i may have to do so i'm asking if i get the approval well unfortunately one of my clients is of being unexpectedly relocated it needs to get  house on the market that weekend anyway that's my problem not yours but with your revised well i don't know so why what i'm asking is it possible to get approval for the day and then run the new time by i'm save everything i was six years ago materials places where are you ever going to read those again probably not so here's the irony i hosted this last year and i didn't have enough time to get my own docu since together they  oates's time and commitment and dedication to the sport program and he was the involved at sport program for twenty years and he was an active member and served as a president for twenty years of  effect right now expires this spring so we need to do something to replace that by a law that's in in effect this gave us the opportunity to kind of look at it holistically work with the planning board on some refinements we've also worked with the bio review committee as well to clean up some of the language so i think it's been a very great collaborative process this time around between the historic district commission and the planning board and we've come up with a new new bylaws that is on the warrant for this town meeting there are few things to note in this revision and we have an updated list and we did talk about that a little bit when i spoke with you about the survey project the original list of unprotected historic buildings was one hundred forty nine and seventy one new properties and the survey gave us the additional information we needed to take some of the properties that were on the old list off due to lack of integrity and that means that they there been a lot of changes over time and so they're not or they weren't as significant as some of the new properties that were surveyed so their relative significance in belmont was a little bit lower the intent of this one hundred eighty two property list is to provide a small bit of protection to the most important unprotected buildings and  then there were a few small changes and a couple and one real content change to two content changes to the bylaw with the help of the bylaws review committee there's been some you know formatting changes and we've deleted the severability clause because that's covered you know in the town by a loss in general and they also added a definition for the word yes yes in fact they had a member who was designated to work collaboratively of the commission on the language and their input reflected very much in this in this bylaw the sunset provision rich wrist bands but instead of three years it's now five years there's an exclusions section and the exclusion section is in there because one of the challenges of the last bylaw was the definition of substantial demolition and everybody stumbled on that in fact the office of community development building department was very concerned about that because you know they're on the front line and they're having to make decisions on a day to day basis about building permits you know what is substantial mean so the exclusion section in the bylaw really addresses the things that are not covered so it's really intended to deal with you know big you know whole buildings not require some run to come deal with a you know as a small so you know one of the reasons why i really needed that new survey was to update the list so i think it's a much better list this time because we have better information the other thing a couple other things in the new law we have standardized the delay period to twelve months previously it was twelve months for non residential buildings and are non sort of single to family residential and i'm sorry let me start over again oh th north cation well there's the first day at work there's a first step and that is it has to be determined preferably preserved and that determination there's a public hearing and the community has the opportunity to weigh in and if it's so that does open the opportunity that if there was you know i can't think of an example off the top of my head but if something was happening in the town it was the town's best interest and people weighed in and they were were historic district commission yes you make a determination whether in fact it's proof preferably preserve yes it is them which needs to be delivered not necessarily there's a so there's a third step or second step then the commission will determine what to do about a delay period now in the in the last three and a half years we had one homeowner who came to the commission wanted to to do with a demolition permit they had you know done their homework that a raid on problem in the house and we waived the demolition period for that homeowner because there was a health and safety issue and they had done their due diligence ok and that there's also the provision to that if even if it's determined to be a proposed reserve building and the twelve month delay starts if during the twelve months the historic district believes in determines that the applicant has worked to their best interest or done their due diligence and there's nothing further to really be done on this they can then  a building is not demolished so someone files for a demolition goes into the process with the historic district commission they do and they do not demolish the building after their twelve within six months after the twelve month period then the building stays on the list and what that does is that prevents folks from just filing for demolition and getting themselves lid off the list with no intention to demolish the other thing i do want to add and i think i've mentioned this once before when i was here we have retained the appeal process and that's why in what was an bylaw goes into effect that is to say the attorney general has approved it jeffrey and spencer will still send out a mailing to all of the owners on the list and they have sixty were those people on the list specifically noticed we are going to be noticed after it becomes the law no no we have a public meeting scheduled for april thirteenth and  that determined eligibility for the west has also been included in that invitation so they can see for themselves they can read the document in for themselves to see oh yes i guess this makes sense that we should be on the list or not on us depending on how they feel about ok and then  second question lauren you said that the list of properties is composed comprised of properties that wouldn't otherwise be protected yes so that means that property say within the pleasant street historic district yes would not be on the  they are otherwise protected yes right virtue of being in the district yes that's correct so so that's why it might be a little bit confusing because someone might say well you know the home or house for example is the most sick one of the most significant architectural houses in belmont why isn't it on the list it's not on the list because it's in the pleasant street historic district so we have pleasant street in st the richardson farm historic district there are the two renovated fire stations that have preservation restrictions and then there is the mclean hospital historic district which has a different kind of preservation agreement in place so those properties all have some kind of  preservation instrument in place so demolition delay wouldn't add any protection so why should they be on the right right so how does this work i buy my house in  'm just curious well you can reach in and say ok you bought your house twenty five years ago but you're not free to do it yeah i guess which is part of the reason why the appeals process existed to begin with is that there was some sense that you're right in belmont as a class a community where people buy and stay for a long time and they buy with a certain set of certain set of rules and regulations in place and then all the sudden to put another layer on top it was felt very relating to one property should be all in one location so now if you go and look up thank you look more lauren meyer decides to put a house on the market if you go and look up her house you will get in the building permit you folks have deconstructed a house and taken most of it down therefore it's a complete replacement they try to get by the seven back you know grandfather provision that or a grandfather for all of our community yeah and then you go yes is that most communities and certainly in eastern massachusetts have demolition libelous it's very very standard and our bylaw particularly with the exclusions in there is you know less just restrictive than many so i need to tightened it up to have a tight list of properties and make it very very clear what's included and anybody is here for the board of survey one seventy eight more street that is going to be continued we're not going to have any substantive discussion about that this evening at all i think we posted it we try to do it via a number of the residents that have had some interest in that and that's going to enough so there's a signed purchase and sale agreement there's several amendments to the p and s in terms of sending out a closing that we haven't closed yet because it's contingent upon getting the approval for the common back and a liquor is signed the landlord has approved the assignment of the lease so basically as long as we have the common approved and liquor license at the same time then we will be able to move forward with that closing of the property or the business rather so basically the sale cannot be consummated until we hear from the state on the liquor license so when i said i think it was meg i spoke to the town clerk's office is the one who told me that the comic and the liquor license have to be hand in hand and it's my understanding that obviously the liquor license goes through the town first and then sends out to relations the board for one right so my main concern and approve the license as we're sitting here i think we can i mean you know the only question i suppose out of fairness is with a loading dock we got a voluntary restriction on transfer until town meeting took certainly could certainly set the mood on the side of the table and and and number two it wouldn't mean that you could never sell the business although it would mean you'd surrender the license to the town and then the next buyer would apply much like  town and i knew the new buyer would have to go in as if there was no liquor license at all for a new application for a new out of the question it would be more difficult than this you know this board feels as though i mean you're practically speaking you know it's the same location right like to see the amendment before so short so that would be may third which would push us out a substantial amount terms of what we where we are with our pianists and i'm sure the seller wants to get that passes and then there if it passes thereafter obviously the state will have to pass a statute incorporating that correct that's correct ok so you would anticipate if everything goes well with the town they passed that  what the articles that you're interested in this want to stop to accomplish is that any and all licenses cannot be transferred that you or the businesses so sold to a new owner for that current business in the current location  and let me just say that there are a number of folks here and i'll give everyone you know an opportunity to speak i think some of the business owners here as well so we want to be fair about that i think some of us of all of us have done some diligence on this between last monday and today center and in the town like ours our mission in addition to the obvious of bringing fresh and local produce to the people of belmont and supporting local agriculture and educating people about  healthy eating and the healthy environment that keeping local farms active in massachusetts does also states that we provide a social experience that helps build community and enhances the quality of life in belmont and i love photos like this because i think they show so much of of of that if you look closely in addition to the produce which speaks for itself you see a woman in a wheelchair who's taking advantage of a farmer's market that's located in an accessible location you see another woman pushing a stroller same thing if you look really closely you can see a guy playing the guitar who might be one of our local ministers and you local merchants victor leon the owner of foodies made a statement to the belmont citizen herald saying that we're thrilled to hear the belmont has a farmer's market and we have no issue sharing a parking lot with them he went on to say we feel their presence will help to draw more people to the center and insane that he is borne out by data from the u s department of agriculture which has extensively studied farmers markets across the country and documented the increase in dollars spent in local businesses by shoppers at a farmers market in fact the same people who believe in shopping local believe in shopping local way oh i was going to say that it made that may not be visible to the merchants in the center because if you think about it when are you going to buy your fresh produce at the beginning of a shopping trip to the center where the the greens may wilt are the tomatoes may get squashed you know you're going to buy it at the end so that may not be completely obvious to the merchants but we've done surveys of our shoppers and they always say that are they combine come into the market with their errands in the center mr foley also raised the issue of the farmer's market use of parking spaces stating that our presence in the lot adversely affects parking for potential shoppers in the center and at least one of his tenants reported to me that she came away from a meeting with him feeling that the entire back of the parking lot would be taken up by the farmer's market and there would literally be no parking for for their customers so i thought that this photo might be helpful it shows outlined in red the one nine hundred spots that we use twenty one days a year and it the vendors it's in our rules that they park on the side streets for the not park you know they are not parking in the lot that was a comment that was raised to me about that yet is to no end when the spaces with these places that the vendors also park here so you have park there and then as happened two or three years ago during the two years ago during the construction a couple of times we had a car sneak around the barrier parked there and set up the whole market around that parked car which ok that wasn't didn't work that well so it's twenty one they hold the market on the first days and thursdays is one of the days that they looked out and it shows that on thursdays there were anywhere from more than sixty to more than one hundred unused parking sixty i think the number was sixty two but it might have been sixty four to over one hundred unused spots on thursdays ok ok and that's obviously throughout the year but that was when macy's was still open and you know that there were shoppers use in the store and then i also want to repeat what i don't remember if i said it last week or not but the the decision to put the farmer's market in the parking lot came from the board of selectmen and we actually reviewed the minutes it's from february fourth two thousand and six volunteers had been searching the town to find a spot for the market the board of selectmen were aware of their desire to create a farmer's market were supportive of it and they finally said look there is no other place and i wasn't involved at that time so i don't know if they were motivated by the data that shows that people who shop at a farmer's market actually spend more dollars in the center because of because of the presence of the market so we've got a couple of fluffy pictures these are some of the intangibles that we bring to the market this is our collaboration with the library storytime happens at four o'clock every every afternoon and a whole host of children come to belmont center and i doubt that they listen to their story and go home they probably get something to eat something to once a year and works with that looks like all kids but also adults to create art based on vegetables and fruit so in addition to the shoppers that we bring into  center who then go and spend their dollars in the local merchants we also provide a space for local restaurants and food businesses to offer tastings and build their customer base we particularly reach out to new businesses in the past two years we've had twelve different businesses come some more than once and you can see i think that's the phoenix grill and savina and i believe that's the  we also give priority to belmont based farms and businesses to come to the market as vendors and in the past five years we've had nine vendors who participate regularly in the market who came belmont last week i shared with you some of the numbers relating to our food assistance work which is very important to the volunteers around the food elaborative so we've got a picture of somebody loading up a truck we have vegetables at the end of the market day and our farmers donate depending on the year in the drought situation anywhere from seventy five hundred to fifteen thousand tons of food to an organization called food for free which distributes them to local soup kitchens and and food pantries we also underwrite the delivery of almost one thousand pounds of food to our our belmont food pantry we grow two hundred  thirty five pounds of food for the food pantry in a in two gardens in the community one at bethel temple next to the parking lot and one up at rock meadow and these are also opportunities for volunteers to come and work with us to learn how to grow food we match one thousand nine hundred dollars in snap which is what food stamps is now called and we started a new matching program where people are given people who are involved in the wic program and income eligible seniors are given coupons to spend at a farmer's market and last year we doubled the value of those coupons you know giving away eight hundred twenty five dollars to  families in need and seniors in need two years ago on the last day of the market which is always a kind of a bittersweet moment shoppers are saying goodbye to their vendor favorite vendors volunteers are kind of thinking over what we did right and what we should do better next year so two years ago we offered our shoppers the opportunity to write thank you notes to their favorite vendors and some of them wrote thank you notes to us including that one which reads the belmont farmer's market is the best thing that ever happened in belmont we believe that a farmer's market contributes to a thriving business center we see an absolute synergy with the mission of foodies and belmont books and we look forward to ongoing collaboration with belmont center merchants we support the small businesses that give the center its character and we believe that we bring we bring character to that table tition that came forward i thought that because of the signatures that were on the petition that we needed to delay the hearing until today i think it's only fair because you know everybody's voice needs to be heard and if you if you try to do things with without the full hearing then you know we just end up with problems go forward but i think we were all surprised by the opposition so i'm wondering to open it up for comments that you know we should have both presentations first and then open for comments with you see what i mean is there a second presentation am kevin foley of law tele properties and i have len syme here also with our team he helps coordinate some of the town planning i apologize i think the tone last week i would have liked to had a better tone we are for the farmers market so we need to make that clear i think a lot of the merchants have an issue about parking right in the issue that we really have is not the farmer's market everything that you said is wonderful we would love to either here's here's what we would like to think but we would love to pick a day that works much better for the center if you look at the busiest days in the center wednesday thursday friday saturday those are very busy days what we would like to do and we've suggested this to the farmer's market early earlier in the process was either monday or tuesday if it's on a thursday we can still consider it out so if it's on a thursday we would consider the outskirts of the center a different location but the issue that we have is thursday afternoon is a very busy time so i love working with our tenants we could even co promote we'd love to be creative but there are several issues that we'd it's because there has been an inability because of the food is construction i speak you know of course i spend quite a lot of time on thursday afternoons from june through october in the belmont center parking lot and i see parking spaces i don't see people circling i don't see people coming to the market and saying oh my god i couldn't park so i see parking spaces available on thursday afternoons and i've been  started in two thousand and six the people who started it the volunteers who started it looked around at the surrounding towns there was a saturday market and a tuesday market in lexington and wednesday market great day for farmers markets we absolutely could not run a farmer's market on mondays this year because we have our vendors who are set and lined up and also i i have a hard time imagining making a decision based on something that might turn out to be a problem that hasn't been a problem for twelve years i understand that you know with the opening of foodies and belmont books in the other shops that there may be more people coming to belmont center both employees parking and shop in the park but it doesn't take all day to shop for groceries it takes you know half an hour those are going to be in an hour kinds of cars so my suggestion would be let's have the market and let's pay attention and let's see what happens thank you yes sir  understand the market is already set for the coming season and what we're really hit talk about is what it's going to be like in the future it allocates agus guess town sense a resource summer and that's fine we have no problem the good news from our end is just to put this in context is that we now have signed leases for six new retail tenants and there are still space to be around each other we don't want to displace the farmer's market unless it's really no alternative but it's a question of i want to say tell walking the dog but the  which is the high up and great to use for the a veil of hawking resource ok it may be thoughts in future years the market could be rescheduled to another day which would relieve the problem for us but if in fact thursday afternoon and early evening was really the only time and as things prove out the parking demand from our stores on from the other merchants in issues within moments and i think everyone that is here tonight and watching at home understand the challenges at times with parking you senator in we also as a board suppose support the businesses that are involved my center and look forward to merchants on parking issues not only this year but in future years and i think that was the covenant that mr foley was referring to that in talking to david carroll when we this issue was raised again we get it we understand the parking is a businesses to continue thriving you know i think that's a quality of life issue the food collaborative the farmer's market is also quite a life issue it's been there for twelve years and needs to continue to be there if when foodies comes online commitment i was trying to make less money even that way but i'll make this even on behalf of this board so if you're fine with move forward the farmer's market we are as well i believe and let's keep the dialogue open and see what takes place there and not close our eyes to it but also continue to deal with these parking issues you know the problem is a lot of poise work here the other problem is we all drive we've become lazy we've that's why one of the think the most and we've tried to make it more some specific observation operations and how the two you know can work together i mean we are speculating on the impact foodies would have at this  point hopefully will have a big impact that would be good for the center ok but after we collect that we ally data then really the time to start the discussion is early in the fall you know and not a few months or a few weeks before the collaborative has to set their schedule and start getting so i would certainly encourage and support that approach does that timing work yeah and then when would you historical point the group that formed the farmer's market were originally a group that was working on making belmont a more walkable town and the so it was the walking committee of belmont that than an offshoot said well if we had a destination maybe people would walk and that's the case in the feedback that we've gotten in the past week from a lot of people is that they do walk that walk to the farmer's market question for you i last question that's just so that the public gets the answer instead of me right now as i understand it you know floyd carmen don't you yes the parking clerk but he tells me he's not responsible for this planning and so you know it comes back to the board of selectmen and you're working with david kale so i believe the businesses in the center have get permits or de permits really ok so you you actually have if you have sixty that means you have thirty percent of the parking lot that's not the sixty nine or for the whole town the sixty right behind our for customers not only are customers but customers of the saturday and then the remaining one thirty one are either for long time customers or employees and you can either get a permit you have sixty of those hundred thirty one is that correct well there are businesses you know i don't mean your recline just the emergence there site i'm going back to my point again there's there's two hundred spaces there's one hundred thirty one in the back of the parking lot in of those hundred thirty one six there are sixty tags that pay for i'm aware of that that the merger that are designated for the employees is that correct no those are for customers the first sixty this is that the parking lot sixty of the hundred thirty one spaces are allocated for employee parking if if they purchased that's correct permits yes so and then if i project forward could you go to that ye ok well whatever yes jim good night so that takes that takes twenty of the hundred thirty one hundred nineteen you know a lot of people don't bypass is that there are many people who work he so in case there's a misunderstanding about where the food market is that's where the food market is inside and it lines and if you counted those today i counted one thousand parking places so just so everybody's on the same page because i think it's important you know when you have a deal i agree i think that what would a good discussion would be how many spaces they take that's pretty straightforward nineteen twenty twenty how many employees where they park right and then obviously how many customers and would love to w date but with which is four hours right on every thursday that come through that farmer's market so for the residents of our community who folks there in this audience they frequent it so it's been a huge success in needs to continue kevin i would also say that we have we have a number of letters that were submitted to the slot and mailbox you know in in favor of continuing this year and those letters are public information so i would invite you all to you know take