thank you very much please be seated do we certainly have a quorum and i'd like to call to order the two thousand and eighteen annual town meeting of the town of belmont will begin by asking pastor bob butler of the open door baptist church to deliver the invocation and i'd ask you to please stand and remain standing thank you good evening let us pray heavenly father we are grateful people tonight to gather for this kind of an occasion we are thankful for our neighbors for the process that unfolds such as tonight that we can be he a time of safety and comfort convenience and we appeal to you would to give us wisdom for the business will be conducted tonight give us grace and disagreements civility of discourse and help us to think of the needs and the concerns of all gathered here tonight thank you for those who have prepared so diligently to present the material that will be deliberating on thank you please remain standing on now introduce the boy scouts and girl scouts for the flag ceremony and the pledge of allegiance color guard advance the please repeat with me the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to their bit of work for which it stands one the first thing and the next thing we're going to do glenn we're going to test the devices for the newcomers newly elected town meeting members you have the electronic device don't do it yet we have an open out say polls open press either one or two one is for yes two is for no normally in voting but this is just a check for being president so glenn are the polls open all right so go ahead and press your electronic device it should show green and once you do it green on your device and it should show your name up here when will scroll through so when it gets to you in the alphabet make sure your name  ok we'll go we'll go through it staff town staff in addition to town meeting members i will admit the following to the floor the town administrator department heads and staff town council george hall the warren committee capital budget committee permanent building committee superintendent of schools school committee and staff planning board historic district commission community preservation committee and the sponsors review committee the boards of health assessors library trustees recreation commission retirement board athena mcinnes teresa hammersley mark aly and radha and younger annie other requests for mission to the floor if there are requests in future sessions just be in touch with me either directly my email or through the town clerk  at this point i would invite the newly elected and re elected town meeting members to stand so the town clerk and administer the oath of office quite a group of you congratulations raise your right hand please do you solemnly affirm that you will uphold the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the commonwealth of massachusetts in the bylaws of the town of belmont and you will impartially perform the duties of town meeting member a position to which you have been duly elected keeping uppermost in your mind what's best for belmont and its inhabitants thank you congratulations i think we have some thirty new town meeting members so i think that's great let me review briefly especially for the newcomers the rules in the most important rules and procedures on amendments as you know we have a requirement for all but the simplest of men's to be submitted three business days in advance there are amendments for the wednesday night special town meeting but no  filed for the articles we're going to consider tonight if i will entertain very simple amendments from the floor but if you're making such an amendment remember our rule you need to my main  emotion make the motion first and then i'll say whether it's allowed or not and then you can speak to it but make the motion when you get to the microphone on the voting  most easy or traditional articles we'll just have voice vote if it's more complicated articles are requiring two thirds we take advantage of electronic voting and i go right to that without having any voice votes and then we have a provision for roll call votes if somebody stands and requests it after the vote and then thirty five town meeting at least thirty five town meeting members support that request and that's easy to do now with electronic voting so we're prepared for a pair for that on speaking remember there's a five minute limit to question a limit of two questions and has to stick to scope of the motion before the town meeting and no one can speak for a second time until all other tunning members who have nots who are interested in speaking have not spoken for the first time until they have all spoken an overview of where what we're going to try to do over the next over this town meeting in segment a tonight will go through till through article seven which is the plastic bags i mean that's our intent our hope on wednesday night will begin with a c p a and hopefully we can complete action by around nine because a nine my intention would be to turn to the special town meeting the only article into that on the opt out on marijuana i'll talk more about that at the time because to say the least there's a fair amount of confusion over that then on the third night we'll consider any  spillover we probably will have not gotten tartikoff late and ninety had and then the made on of of business on that night will be the proposal citizens petition to go from three to five selectman so i'm hoping that we can do this in three nights that's the broad overview at this point but of course it's subject to how much debate and discussion we haven't any particular motion i'll now turn to helen again for the pursuant to the warrant for the annual town meeting to be held today april thirty two thousand and eighteen i l n o brian cushman town clerk do hereby certify that i gave notice of said meeting by posting and attested copy of the warrant on the town corks official bulletin board in the town hall and at least five other places in town seven days before the date of this meeting on accordance with chapter thirty nine section ten of the general laws and section thirty dash one one a of the general bylaws of the town of belmont furthermore i do hereby certify that i gave notice of the annual town meeting of april thirtieth two thousand and eighteen by causing a copy of the warrant to be sent to all town meeting members at least seven days before the date of this meeting and by causing copies of the warrant to be made available at the public library and the town clerk's office all in accordance with section three zero dash one one zero b of the general bylaws of the town of belmont and our representative town meeting thank you all and we have a few years ago we began a tradition of recognizing long serving town meeting members nine years or more who chose not to run for reelection so we'll do that  now i'll read their names and a few of your here and please stand as your names are read so for nine years anthony l carne michelle banker mark smith next well the same four years ago i gave my farewell speech i remember correctly it was greeted with three rounds of applause and two of the laughter three years ago on my return i was greeted with such a pull us that it's something i will remember fondly i'm not going to give a farewell speech no it's already been done better than i can do tonight it's time has come that time may have come four years ago so all i can say is enjoyed it very much i recommend it not as a hobby and not as thank you very much my all your service and the others will now have a do a proclamation for one of our esteemed belmont citizens who passed away recently a couple of words bill was a close friend of mine and a mentor and the reason i'm actually standing here today always provided counsel to me whenever i call them and i think as those of you that know him whenever you call them or reproach him in the street or he approached he was always just in a great mood and willing to help in any way that he could i think you serve the time with the stink ssion and i miss him dearly massachusetts board of selectmen proclamation whereas william r skelly of hill road belmont born march fourth one nine hundred forty eight and william scully was a long time resident of the town of belmont who sadly passed away on tuesday april third two thousand football team that was named the finest team in history by the belmont herald at the going undefeated in their season in winning the class b state championship he then went on to graduate to graduate from harvard university in high school sweetheart linda phelps in one thousand nine hundred two and raising three children william christopher and mary elizabeth at the common street home who became a successful businessman and formed his own company and bar much later moving other successful enterprise to new hampshire bill would later in life go on to found the teddy lee and donald ray memorial scholarship to on to two of his high school football team mates teddy leigh and donal ray were both killed in vietnam hundred ninety three he served on the latter study committee in one thousand nine hundred four and served as an elected time me member for thirteen years for precinct five and whereas bill alongside his civically involved parents was a passionate supporter for a new senior center and advocated for a permanent structure during his term on the board of selectmen and whereas bill scully returned to his hometown and became an active aunt here for veteran services for beaumont and a volunteer in the overall veterans community and contributor at the belmont senior center where he advocated so strongly for which he advocated so strongly for now therefore be resolved at the board of selectmen of the town of beaumont joints went to town and expressing our sincere condolences to bil only and friends and offer a tribute to william morris kelly he truly set a high standard of commitment and dedication which the youth of our tommy follow in serve as an inspiration to the citizens of the town of belmont board you so much very body i know how much hard work my dad put into this town and i know he'd be proud of all you guys so keep up the great work thank you so much mr dash will now have the preliminary motion on the order of arc of the articles thank you mr moderator adam dash chair of the board of selectmen town meeting member a large mood at the town meeting here the motions in the following order one through seven ten eight nine eleven through thirteen twenty two twenty one sixteen seventeen twenty three fifteen eighteen twenty four twenty five fourteen twenty nineteen and just caution all those in favor please say i was no adopted unanimously mr dash on the reports thank you move that the reports of the selectmen another town officers departments and committees for the year two thousand eight fifteen k v substation transmission project we broke the project into three three pieces project a which was the substation building in the transmission line that is complete project  with at the end of this fall and project c is our decommissioning of the three existing substations you may have heard that referred to as our ten year masterplan the project really  got under way the beginning of this year and it's a ten year plan as it's called  project b again transmission cut over to our existing distribution infrastructure at the present time the new blip on substation is providing electricity to all belmont and all of our  ten percent or so left that work you'll see us contractors as well as our in house crews over the summer into early fall the work will be on baker street right road and a little bit on washington  opposite town halls for fifty five concord out we expect that to be a five year project that begins as i mentioned january of this year and will take us right through to about two thousand and twenty two  last approximately five years as well finishing up in the year two thousand and twenty seven so why does it take five years it's not a simple flipping a switch like we're turning a light on the work at the substation is basically and other distribution of whitman to to prepare for this that's what takes so long so one result of all this work is going to be completion of the belmont lights objectives to increase our capacity to upgrade  modern more reliable distribution infrastructure and correct power quality issues that town has had over the last couple generations so some project highlights what is our again our decommissioning project it's upgrading and modernizing our distribution infrastructure to a high of thirteen thousand volt system it requires a large undertaking which includes replacing our wires not all of them but a lot of them replacing distribution transformers when i say transformers i'm not referring to the transformers up our transformers that are substations i'm referring to the distribution transformers you see on the needed presently a lot of our system is running at four thousand volts and as a says we're upgrading to thirteen thousand volts so that's where all these replacements come into play so how we're going to pay for this well the overall project there was a meeting vote back in two thousand and twelve which funded our one fifteen k v substation and distribution transmission and distribution project there's some remaining funds available from that bond as well as the belmont like departments been doing side funding for many years now and will continue for the next ten years to pay for all this work so as as it stands today we do not expect to have any impact on the rates or need to appropriate any more money on this project is like the title timeline but it's more of a summary again our decommissioning project is currently underway we are in the engineering design and planning again as i said the first five years w at the end the five years the building on fifty five concord will be given back to the town for its use yes five ten will be working on station two and station three those stations are what we call sister stations they back each other up so the three substations in town should be looked at as a system and not as individual substations we can't just pluck want to weigh without attending to the others stations two and three work in concert together so he has five through john will be working at both locations to remove those substations from service and again as i mentioned will be utilizing remaining project bonds  our depreciation accounts at the like department to pay for this work so we do not expect any impact to rates i also like to just quickly introduce the new general manager of belmont light his name is christopher roy just to stand please stand welcome thank you thank you very much thank you chance to meet her yet she's wonderful we're very happy to give her a big belmont welcome represent the town's legal interests mr computer me member at large moved at the borders like bin b and it here by is authorized to bring in defend actions for and against the town to submit any such claims  to enter into settlement on account of the same in behalf of the town as and when they deem it for the best interest of the town to do so said power shall be vested soley in the  is frost house historic district to see if the town will vote to amend section forty duch three fifteen historic district commission of the general bylaws by oh sorry of course a by law review that's rahman well welcome now please thank you you thank mr mercer we're going to have a presentation and then i will recognize you kathleen fay he will give a presentation on this article  moderator and thank you to michael jackson good evening my name is kathleen fahy and i'm a member of the belmont historic district commission and i live in precinct six the purpose of this article is to create a new historic district that includes an amendment to the town bylaws the historic district commission proposes the creation of a new historic district which will be known as that that is frost historic district that that is frost house is located at two ninety one brighton street and is one of belmont's most important historical assets is one of the few remaining examples of federal period architecture in belmont and the exterior survives virtually unchanged documentary evidence shows that the farm house was built around one thousand nine hundred five and oral tradition suggests that it was built in eighteen twenty seven eight hundred photographs from a newspaper is one of the earliest known images of the frost house the frost house is both architecturally and historically significant architectural historians describe the frost farmhouse as a five day two and a half story home with a two story it is a wood frame structure with clapboards and a foundation of field stone covered by brick since it served as a farm house it was designed with a modest side light entry simple corner boards in lintels most of the original exterior elements have remained unchanged over the years the house also retains many original interior elements including an open  beehive of in and a crane that that is frost house is historically significant because it was by three members of the frost family who were prominent members of watertown arlington and belmont it is also one of the last surviving homes that was originally part of a seventeen acre farm this farm was once part of belmont's flourishing market garden industry and boston market celery was the farm specialty a generation later older town residents could still remember the smell of fresh celery in its fields as late as one thousand nine hundred forty six it was one of the last to be divided for residential development in belmont in this one nine hundred forty four image we can just make out some of the large farm buildings visible behind the house in historic district will be preserving one of belmont's most significant historic resources this new historic district would be in addition to belmont existing historic districts which include the pleasant street common street and the richardson farm historic districts a local historic district is a tool to preserve and protect buildings and properties that are significant to the history of our town the intent of the local historic district is to ensure that changes in additions to the exterior of the building that are visible from a public way are harmonious and do not diminish the historic value  integrity of the district the purpose of the local historic district is not to hold is not to halt growth but to allow for the thoughtful consideration of change only changes to the exterior of the building that are visible from a public way are reviewed by the belmont historic district commission changes to the interior of a building are not subject to review mass general laws chapter forty c give cities and towns the ability to create local historic districts and they be may be composed of one or more buildings or parcels of land that that is frost house historic district will be belmont's first single building historic district other comparable towns have successfully utilized single building local historic districts for example wellesley currently has four since the historically significant  frost house is surrounded by newer homes it's the perfect candidate for a single building historic district it's important to note that establishing the district will have no regulatory effect on surrounding properties in this one nine hundred forty seven image you can just see the edge of a new home built on the right arthur road was cut through on the left the belmont historic district commission has followed the guidelines set forth by the massachusetts historical commission in the creation of the thaddeus frost house historic district steps to create a local historic district include the creation of a study committee that conducted historical research and public outreach michael chesson prepared a preliminary study report which was provided to the massachusetts historical commission the m h c review the material and provided their support for the creation of a new historic district a public meeting was held on october of two thousand and seventeen and a public hearing was held in january of two thousand and eighteen and there were no dissenting opinions from about hers the current owner athena mcinnes provided an oral history of the home and fully supports the creation of a local historic district for the frost house tonight we're asking for your support in creating that that is prost house historic district a two thirds vote of town meeting will amend the general by lies to include the frost house historic district it will then go on for review and approval by the attorney general thank you for considering article three mr moderator i would now like to introduce the owner of the frost house athena maginnis to read a short statement yes please she has been measured measured to the floor ratifications that wants to stop us exterior work to ration visible from the public way require historic district commission review and approval well now i have discussion on the motion under article three chair of the warrant committee and town meeting member from precinct six the war committee has no view on this we're not voting on this but i'm speaking just as an individual the only thing i know about the house other than it miring it from the outside is reading the description of it on the in the assessor's database that's on the town website and one thing that's noted there and i have no idea if it's still accurate is from around one nine hundred ninety eight there's a notation that there's about thirty five thousand dollars worth of termite damage in the foundation and there's no record of a building permit since that time so my question is or this is really directed towards the c p a because this is what triggered the thought in my mind in the event that the house is designated historic district  and subsequently there is a request for c p a money to do foundation work if that's necessary would there be an arrangement by which the town is reimbursed for that work when the house or if the house subsequently sold because i think that was the arrangement or other c p a projects in town that involved private dwellings funds fell into the historical aspects of the c p a act any money that was granted there would be a historic restriction put on the property to recover any of that money there was a future sale thank you very much polls open for those of you know who if you vote yes press one no use to yes for one no for t right the polls are closed can we show the tabulation again we do it again apologies let's do it again please one yes two no mr clark and mr thank you very much to the stark test her commission clarke charles clarke chair the planning board town meeting member of precinct four moved that the town vote to amend the zoning by law pertaining to section six two point two time limitation as scene mr mr pinkerton good evening steve pinkerton vice chair of the planning board and tell me member precinct seven this is a very straightforward and simple article  in the general residence district renovations to existing homes renovation this improvements additions are not covered under this they're covered elsewhere in the zoning by law  in addition this only covers construction in the g r district the general residence district and as you can see anything in yellow basically th district spreads through across the south of town the red line is the railroad the bulk of it is in precincts three four five and seven that's the to your district so new input into new construction that was happening in the neighborhoods there was no public process really for reviewing new construction  in in the districts apart from simple zoning law changes there was no input into the design over the last three years since this has been implemented that transparent public process has been increasingly refined and applications are going through very smoothly at this point you can you can see the time go down when developers respond to and submit all of the materials to community development we can get them through the planning board relatively quickly that is due to the work the hard work done by my predecessors on the planning board as well as the neighbors and community development staff but the really heavy lift was done by the section sixty also sets out standards to ensure that buildings are constructed in a manner that's consistent with the neighborhoods let me run you through a few examples  and the top slides the top pictures in each of these slides is a is a before the two thousand and fourteen amendments in this case we've got a replacement a single family home with a really monstrous two family townhouse and fact that the whole neighborhood has been littered with relatively large family townhouses in place of relatively simple single family homes in the slide below a smaller basically a bungalow in the center was replaced by another single family home but notice how consistent it is with the two families around it the idea here and what has been accomplished because of the  four team amendments is has been to restrict building to be consistent with a neighborhood or two more examples you can see that before the amendments we had this this is on waverly street where the first congregational church was we've got garage forward facing homes really very massive after the developments we've got essentially the same footprint if you will the same volume of housing it's another two family but it's much more in the sort of spirit of a new england country home again before development this was a single family on whole street a massive two family went in in its place down below we've got a house on a vacant lot basically in birch that is a single family that's more or less consistent with a single into family around them the last example is one of the poster children this is that side by side townhouses on waverly what you have below is in waverl terrace there are three single family houses there the two in the in the sort of foreground occupy essentially the same lot age lot coverage as the two townhouses above i don't know where those two houses along i can somewhere in maryland maybe but they just don't you know they don't work here these houses the single families where you've got same number of units going in place but they're much more consistent with what's in the neighborhood to date the planning board has  reviewed and approved applications for ten single families and for two family dwellings that's eighteen units altogether there hasn't been any indication that we have slow development of new property in town  developers have been working with us rather enthusiastically and again those who come in and work with community development and submit the proper documentation comes through the process pretty quickly what we're asking you to do is to eliminate a sunset clause that was put in because this was a relatively new exercise for the planning board and they thought was that we ought to have a second review after a few years to see how things are going and i think we can safely and confidently report to you that things are going quite well and we ask for your support this requires a two thirds vote  discussion of article full article for things it is just this section the one section and the absent subsections will be remembered would the motion maker like to rectify that and restate the motion or do something i can so i think it's important point i'll consider  the progress of the moderator to say that the motion was read as section singular sixty point to thank you hi kevin cunningham precinct four as one of the people who helped push for the original moratorium and then this ensuing change in the zoning i'm in full support of removing the sunset cla e and i think that this is a very effective thing the other the other thing that was very important we came to the planning meeting various people who had supported it most of the things that i say is if you don't vote for this the whole section gets dispensed with which i think would be a very devastating results so even if you don't like parts of it or something i think it's much better than the alternative i like the whole thing so i think just that you vote for it as well  this one of the developments that mr pinkston showed was just down the street from where i live and i know that that process went very smoothly and the existing  buildings fit into the neighborhood much better than the original ones that were put up where the congregational church used to be and also another thing that i like about this is that it also will allow for community input in to ensure that we just don't have a cookie cutter mentality of where a developer swoops in and starts tries to shoe a property into any neighborhood just because it's convenient for them and so i fully support this and i ask for your vote of support as well as charles charles aman town meeting member from precinct three and as previously mentioned chair of the by a lot of the committee but in this case not speaking officially i'm fully in support of this of this motion however i have an issue presentation as to this article and maybe i'm getting ahead of myself maybe one article five is raised i'll see the whole article laid out but it seems to me that when we're adopting bylaws that they ought to be set forth as they will appear in the zoning law and and i think that what we've done here is it's very helpful to see the cross outs and the additions but when it comes to been considered very successful by both the planning board and the residence as it simply provided clarification regarding zoning requirements and critical oversight to the development projects without being an undue burden on developers as you know development has continued in our general residence district so i hope you will enthusiastically support as did the unanimously by the board of selectmen and hit number one and vote yes and thank you to the planning board for doing this and any further discussion final vote is two thirty eight in favor sixteen opposed obviously more than the two thirds required article five is done on and mr star for the planning board hi there don i'm town meeting member of precinct five member of the planning board i'm as zooming this motion has the same problem that the town photo man and the zoning by law pertaining to sections not conforming single into family residential structures as set forth under article five of the warrant for this town meeting ok votes all planning board recommends favorable action mr star a good evening my name is ed stars and i'm a resident of prospect street in precinct two i'm here tonight as an appointed member of the planning board to present article five i'm not a town meeting member article five is the second of the two articles related to the general residence district to see evening section one point five point four a of the zoning by law currently requires that the planning board review special permit applications related to the extension or alteration of preexisting non conforming structures in the g r district and that's what's hashed out there between twenty fourteen in february of twenty eighteen the planning board heard thirty seven cases on properties in the g r district the special permit applications represent a significant portion of the planning board's workload the amendment as shown here there's the new t t would reassign the smallest of the special permit applications those involving less increases of less than three hundred square feet to the zoning board of appeals most of the smaller applications are for minor improvements  such as decks and small dormers the planning board will remain responsible for reviewing special permit applications of more than three hundred square feet which will include most additions and all new construction if approved the amendment will give the planning board more time to focus on forward looking planning initiatives and larger development projects the planning board requests your support of this article which requires a two thirds  e one moment please terms of the motion i'm going to do this if we missed one reference i'm going to do the same thing i did an article for and read the revised motion which will be in the record to see if the town will vote to amend section one point five point four a of the existing sorry of his zoning bylaw non conforming single into family residential structures my dear leaving the existing section in its entirety and replacing it with a new section one point five point four a as f weiss precinct want two questions number one this shifts work from the planning board to the zoning board of appeals is that zoning board of appeals embracing the new work and secondly in making that shift from the a planning board to your first point arc the chairman of the planning board house conferred with the chairman of the zoning board of appeals and as i received positive feedback on this change slightly different the planning board is set up for a very deliberative process focused on with it with a design emphasis these can these cases frequently require consultation will be more streamlined for these smaller applications and that they'll be able to move through in a single evening and perhaps with less upfront consultation with staff as well stars planning board well this is just the g r g r district so they're worth thirty seven cases that came before us last year and i believe that it's less less than half of them so i may have cases i would my my estimate it would be approximately less than twenty of those would have gone to the zoning board of appeal if it was three hundred feet or under so that's over for you period of member precinct four that's five cases per year now but i saw here that so it will not it will affect the plan the zoning board schedule a little bit but it won't be significant yes thank you mister talk about non conforming single and two family houses i think there's a hyphen missing after singles so it would be single family into family and i was hoping that you might want to fix those let's see if we can let's see if we can see this other discussion under article five in all our older records now that we're going to semantics i think maybe we take a look at that because i think we've got a few places if i'm correct so we don't have to go back this is bob started ellen o'bri clerk you're correct your your memory is perfect except it's only applies to the general bylaws there is a hyphen still in the zoning by law and it's taken me eight years to get there so good for  the polls are open i don't tabulation for the record is two forty two in favor nine opposed obviously more than two thirds thank you to the planning board how turned to articles article six mr carty what will be a motion to dismiss and then we'll discuss the content of this under article seven mr carthew mark or if the turn meeting member precinct one move that article six be dismissed i think that requires a second is there a this issue as their own and it will be taken care of in article seven tonight is there any discussion on the motion to dismiss saying not all those in favor please say i was opposed  of the general bylaws by inserting a new section eleven plastic bags as set forth in the document substitute motion for article seven amend general bylaws plastic bags as offered by the by a lot review committee that has been distributed to two the primary goal of our plastic bag band is to slow the persistent and potentially catastrophic environmental damage that occurs when these non biodegradable materials are lost into the environment and allowed we cyclable paper bags or reusable checkout bags environmentalists have learned a lot since the earliest bans plastic manufacturers started essentially a plastic arms race creating thicker bags to get around the by a lot of requirements still using these harmful chemicals are by law is modeled after wellesley's in arlington's which closes the loophole they manufacture could always make a five mil bag but banning the chemicals addresses that problem it's worth noting that though paper bags are allowable under the ban our intent is for customers to move away from single use bags and instead use bags designed for hundreds of uses we believe that by educating citizens and having a ready supply of lifetime bags we can achieve a significant reduction in waste fellow town meeting member ellen schreiber texted me a few days ago with a picture of a bag snagged in a tree outside her home lamenting the fact that will likely be there forever and unless somebody plugs it off she  right it will be there forever because of their aerodynamic structure even when properly disposed of they often blow away and eventually are carried into lakes waterways and the ocean they make up the third largest type of litter from land based sources found on us coasts when plastic bags finally do break down they do not dissolve into benign substances they fracture into smaller and smaller bits called micro plastics these small particles present the greatest long term danger once they enter our oceans they are there forever bags are created from nonrenewable fossil fuels the estimated of four hundred thirty nine million gallons of oil per year only about five percent of these bags are recyclable and if they do make their way to recycling plants they often are snagged in equipment we're a town with many highly educated caring intelligent people who do wonderful things to support our families our communities our earth despite our desire and our knowledge a study done by the sierra club shows that we belmonte ans consume seven point three million plastic bags a year it's approximately three hundred bags per person the average used time of a plastic bag is twelve minutes that's a lot of damage for a little bit of convenience but they are more than unsightly an estimated one hundred thousand sea animals die each year due to plastic debris it's likely you've seen the recent photo of a sperm whale found dead off the coast of spain it's intestines completely blocked by plastic you've also probably seeing pictures of the so called pacific island plastic plastic bag floating off there sorry that's two times the size of texas a recent study using data from waters around the british isles showed a statistically significant decrease in plastic bags between one nine hundred ninety two in two thousand and seventeen that can be directly correlated with the introduction of plastic bag laws and ireland scotland england in wales on deck right now that are considering the bans the other figure which right now says thirty one percent this number is changing all the time has been approved in towns it's now thirty three point one percent  the citizens covered by benz we are committed to working with our merchants to educate and drive home the message that shopping locally is a better environmental choice as part of our outreach we've met with the belmont cent business association individual retailers senior citizens and health a public forum we're speaking with retailers about getting a top bag made up that would have the logos of stores as a way to advertise and show support we want to think the belmont board of selectmen for their unanimous decision to put this byelaw in front of town meeting the belmont citizens forum the belmont democratic town committee massachusetts audubon habitat the mystic river watersh association the sierra club the massachusetts state representative dave rogers state sen well brownsburg or the surf rider foundation the massachusetts chapter sustainable belmont chocolate dream bells and whistles the belmont bookstore directs revolve foodies our specialty is in growing up we sale all parchments who are in support of the ban no one is arguing that our collective waste problem will be solved by plastic bag bans alone however such laws are commonsense easy effort to eliminate the most harmful forms of waste as well as to build support in awareness needed to successfully solve larger waste management issues what we do affects our planet please join us in support of this law there is no real paper substitute such as newspapers dry cleaning meat and such those will still be allowed to be plastic bags also this is being phased in in two parts there is a part by november first it would go in for retail establishment of thirty thousand square feet or more which is basically star market and then starting february first twenty one thousand it would go for the other retailers and the reason for that is a star market does this and other tent cities and towns so it's not a very big lift for them and secondly a lot of the smaller retailers have already purchased a lot of plastic bags we want to let them at least use the inventory and gear up for this and give them ample time so and obviously as linda said i mean you can recycle paper bags with your recycling as you know you cannot recycle those disposable plastic bags in your recycling you would have to take them back to the store which to be honest very few people do so i would hope that you would support this article thank you yes it is his get closer thank you in an interview with chemistry professor david tyler posted in on the university of oregon is website reveal that plastic bags actually require less stress on the environment in the paper or cotton bags and bags they use less water and require few chemicals and produce less greenhouse gases than the other two options plastic bags have half the carbon footprint of the cotton and paper bag in two thousand and five united states department of energy resources that go into creating paper in the posting in the process creates but the amount of waste in the industry by comparison the petroleum industry has become a fashion enough to create very little waste according to david and tyler in the plastic bags given away for free in the store was abandoned as an increase in the types of plastic bags that people can purchase to fill the same jobs with the free ones providing the guardian reporter reported a four hundred percent increase in the dental line plain black plastic garbage bags sales when the free plastic bags became subject to plastic tax in ireland so it's a four hundred percent increase according to the reason foundation plastic bags has begun a little problem as it seems they make up less than one percent of the visible wouldn't it make up just point four percent of the waste and don't even cut down on the litter when van instead there was an increase in the litter in san francisco after the plastic bags were banned the national center of public analysis says most at least ninety five percent of the reusable bags from overseas most of those are from china not only does that mean an increase in fuel needed to get them to the united states but in many cases the bags from china contain toxic chemicals that fermented in the production of the bags in the united states banning bassett blags in lieu of cotton a paper could have a negative impact on the environment overall not to mention the inconvenience of not being able reuse those bags for everyday things or like lining the trash cans protecting your belongings or even cleaning up after you know animals though it may sound plastic bags a functional durable and reusable needed to carry a lot of groceries at once plastic works better than in the paper for that want to keep you on what clothes or sho separated from other items in your big bag a separate you know shows from your clothes and your luggage a pick up after your dog plastic bags were that a you can reuse  in bathrooms bedrooms home offices instead of buying separate bags for your smaller trash items reusing and recycling is the thin plastic bags which is possible because they are so durable and multi functional compared to paper cuts down on their carbon footprint even more by passing this law against these very usable plastic bags you are just kicking the can down the road and making it worse for the environment after a couple of years using the reusable bags those bags end up in the landfill which is not recycl meeting member many of us in town spent hours on saturday cleaning up our land and i have poison ivy to prove it that i was there for hours i wanted to suggest that this isn't enough used to be that we saw a lot of these plastic bags in the woods this year we saw more of the meat and produce proto spags and ice cream bags disintegrating and really hard to pull out because they're even thinner and i would like to suggest that we add come postable meat produce and ice cream bags because if they were composed to pull then we wouldn't have we would have very little to clean up i'd also say like to suggest no thermal paper receipt we saw a lot of those those are really bad you can't recycle them because the ink is bad the papers bad for us there are substitutes that take away cups we should have compostable parts to those again that the one of the biggest things in our woods and then all the stores that sell take away cups i'd love to see recycling there's no place to put them when you go and take your get your coffee so that's why we end up getting rid of the last i don't know if there's a good solution but diaper wipes remember trying to sleep in on the mornings i was hear the birds chirping outside my window sometimes even at four in the morning but i i was like the sound of our nature at the streams you know the brooks always remember when i would walk back from the high school again go by the pond in you know by the reservoir and things and hear the sound of the water or hear the sounds of birds chirping so that it is very important that we try to look not just for my generation the generation beyond us to try to leave a better world than what we what we leave behind so i really would that all i feel like this is a common sense measure that we can use to protect the environment not just for my generation but generations after me thank you thank you mr roberts paul roberts town meeting member from precinct  rise in support of this motion and i thank linda for her great auction thank the selectmen for bringing it forward i see this as a very commonsense measure that is really designed to increase our increase the friction between doing what's convenient and doing what is in the best interests of our environment and our society and i think we can all remember i'm certainly old enough to remember back in the day when you used to put your leaves in big plastic glad bags at the in the fall and throw them away and i feel pretty confident that those leaves i raked in one thousand nine hundred nine are still pretty much intact somewhere buried deep in a landfill because that plastic bag is completely impermeable and doesn't allow those to compost we were smart enough to stop doing that in towns past ordinances to stop leaves from being collected in plastic bags to collect them now in paper bags nobody is inconvenienced by that we do that without thinking about it and it's much better for the environment this is basically the same idea nobody is going to be burdened by using a paper bag or ideally as linda said a reusable bag instead of a very convenient but very damaging and polyethylene plastic bag i'm a jogger i run all over town and i can tell you i don't go on a single run that i don't see a polyethylene bag in the gutter swinging from the tree branches blowing around in the street and i try and pick them up when i can but when points out many of them are on retrieval and so again this is a really common sense effort that will get us all doing the right thing that won't cause an inconvenience and it will be really good for our environment and i heartily support it was wondering if the presenter of this like a man could master this question many of our neighboring towns have actually required a fee of generally ten cents per bag that is purchased i was wondering if that was ever me member large it was discussed amongst the committee and such and we were told and i guess our town council could always correct me that cities can impose the fee but towns cannot so therefore we could not and if i am wrong i'm sure that mr hall will correct me on it but that's what we were told that's why you see for instance cambridge will have a fee there is no fee associated with what we're proposing today i think that would comment of how there are just times when you need a plastic bag and and i do appreciate his research and reading that but i am very supportive of this article you know i am very passionate about trying to do everything i can to be protect environment and i don't know the last time i actually got a plastic bag but i have tons of plastic bags because i eat loaves of bread and they always come in bags plastic bags or i order clothes on line and they always come in plastic bags you cannot escape experience of countries or towns or cities who have put in a ban have had with behavior change and whether there's been an increase in paper bag usage or recycling bag usage that would argue that this is better for the environment because of the cost of paper bags says mr mercer was mentioning i just was wondering does anyone have any data on that  california is a leader in this movement so what happens is that in the first couple of years it appears that there is an increase in paperback consumption and then it levels off to the pre  and days over all plastic consumption dramatically decreases in ireland there was a ninety five percent decrease in plastic bag usage yeah i heard that in your earlier statement but i hadn't heard about the one to two years that's really helpful and in terms of i mean if the goal is a behavior change i was wondering if the proponents or the board of selectmen was putting this article forth as any sort of public campaign to advocate for behavior change planned and after the board of selectmen tommy member a large we do not have a particular plan in place we would certainly be publicizing this when it occurs as it is use as i said earlier there's a long lead in for this it's not taking effect on the vendor first for basically star market and february of twenty one thousand for everybody else there's a long period of time in which to do public education i think the public campaign for behavior changes independent of it's a separate thing because one could many of us have changed our behavior already and just advocating for more people to be using reusable bags seems like something that wouldn't need to wait for this to go into effect sure i mean at ashdown i mean i i certainly have a trunk full of reusable bags and i take them everywhere i go  ration of a public campaign thank you i think you were here before the  dan stevens meeting member precinct four mr mercer had quoted this research done by university of oregon professor david tyler in so portland oregon and plastic bags and william it week at a local newspaper near in a suburb of portland interviewed mr tyler about that and they asked porton in two thousand banned plastic bags and stores did we make a huge mistake and david tyler responded it comes back to what environmental impact you're trying to alleviate if you're worried about global warming or the amount of waste going into landfills or the amount of water used to make a bag then yes but if you're worried about plastics in the environment and their effects on wildlife and litter no they didn't and i just wanted to mention that you know there are different environmental concerns that are addressed by different measures and in this case the the comments about plastic bags having a larger carbon footprint those might be true but all of the first hand experiences about litter and effect on wildlife are sort of separate and the researcher the quoted before would agree that banning plastic bags in that case is not  yes that tenney precinct one i received a letter from a constituent who basically said the same things that were said but she had one other issue that i promised i would bring up that i notice there's nobody here from the board of health but she was concerned that the you reusable bags which are kept in our trunks where our tires are and set down on the floor and everywhere then get put on the counter where people's groceries go so she was concerned about the health effects i had not thought of that one the other thing i wanted to say before somebody maybe can answer that is worried that there is not a good substitute for picking up after dogs and i feel like we finally trained kids and everybody to use those plastic bags to pick up after their dogs so somebody will have to come up with some easy to use solution i think for that two i don't know what studies she's referring to but when we were looking at the issue we looked at a lot of studies online in there is not a single study that shows that there is any danger in using re useable bags no issues whatsoever and using these also if you have any issues toss it in the wash or rinse it out in the same not a big deal thanks paper bags and setter and it's important to think about the tradeoffs and when we enact these things and to to change behavior that things don't say the same in a vacuum like the behavior here might change but behavior here will will respond and there's just tradeoffs but my question was you mention that there were studies on sorry you mention that there were studies on usage around decreasing bags an increase in paper i was wondering if anyone had the opportunity to speak with any of the businesses in the other towns that didn't act these bans and what the impact has been on the businesses and the reason i ask that is i don't shop at the star market in cambridge anymore because it really is an inconvenience and i used to pass through and hop over and because i am i get there and i've gotten all bags again and so i actually do pop back in my car and head somewhere else where i can get a bag because it is a huge inconvenience and so i'm curious to know have we thought about the potential impact on the businesses here even though i know we're using paper bags but the impact did not happen there was no impact at all on retail stores a lot of the merchants you know talked about how online shopping was really the you know made the biggest impact in their sales but the fact that somebody had to you know bring a bag it didn't change anything and it's actually quite rare for somebody to bypass a store and drive out of the way just to get on my say ok so hopefully you know education whatever we can do a lot of behavior modification and be kinder to our play and things yes ma'am jesse bennett hiding in your bags your reusable bags was funded by the plastics industry and surprisingly there in usage in two cities where they've had plastic bag bans for a while there's been no increase coli or other pathogens it is simply not the case that you could get a real big buildup of bacteria in your bag that would adversely affect your health in normal use if you have  like if you have an immune to deficiency or you have other health issues it is a good idea to pay more attention to the germs that are around you and maybe wash your bags were often but there's been no evidence to support that this is a real health issue so and one other thing a suggestion to how to remember you can actually set your if you have an i phone you can set it to remind you location to do something so i have mine set to remind me when i pull into trader joe's or whole foods earth star market to take my bags out of the car it's really useful melissa macintyre town meeting member precinct eight i got up to speak because i received an e mail from a constituent which was so pleased about in this case he asked me to somebody who i respect greatly by the way who asked me to vote against this and as i've been thinking about it goes tremendously against my heart and against my own tendencies and motivations and very much against what i believe the mandate was which is to vote in favor of what i believe is the best for belmont so i plan to vote in favor of this but i also thought that i should maybe as a way of making a donation which week of charitable donations anyway i'm going to buy eight reusable question to terminate debate all those in favor this is not debatable although it's in favor of terminating debate police say i was opposed now carries by more than two thirds so i now have the vote under article the motion under article seven all i'm going to do even though it's a majority required is an important change so i will do it aleck tronic lee when you're ready  let me see let me ok we'll let me let's take a five minute break and then we'll do we'll begin article ten