course slightly more polos out of town will not be joining us this evening so onward we go community announcements do we have any mists the gallery opening a new exhibit on september all lot of groups in town various governmental entities non government organizations will be showing up in having booths and a good way to learn about the town of belmont whether you're new or not anything you  comments from town residents that are not on the agenda for items porch first september eighth how can we forget port first september eighth all around the town so seeing no comments we will move on action by consent signing of the m w a m w r a borrowing lloyd requesting that the board of selectmen sign a one million dollars m w r e what a bond which is interest free the best kind of bit of background this is part of what i'm going to define is face three the m w ira is in phase three of the center's free money belmont his participate in phase one and phase two of the program and now we're participating in phase three the used in this is part of that ongoing a water main replacement program with the m w r a which gives interest free loans for hounds to do such things right this is been discussed a time frame where just to the point we're not twenty fourth year this we've for place for roughly thirty miles of unlined water pipes and we had about eight more miles to go get in there that was intended to be a thirty year program  cultural council rebecca richard stricture of the belmont gallery of art and member of the belmont cultural council good evening good evening thanks so much for inviting us to come the meeting that we went to in july it was really exciting and sort of stimulating three members of the cultural council attended rebecca myself and annette goudreau who's our current treasurer it was the thirteenth statewide meetings held by the state agency that funds the grants that we get to give out the state agency the mass cultural council is having a community's initiative and at this meeting we're stakeholders that were cultural council volunteers staff members that local nonprofits and members of municipalities so staff as well as elected officials they really believe that this community initiative is the best way to get the word out about their goals as well as to involve culture in the community and get some greater good from all the disparate programs that are going on so there's an attachment that i just handed out that you can look at your leisure it's from their website the next topic was they were updating us about regional mass cultural council staff members so i've been involved off and on with funding i used to work for a community arts center in cambridge thirty years ago done other professional stuff this is a new initiative instead of having  local cultural councils throughout the state we now have a liaison who is greater boston area so she knows about individual artists that are applying for fellowships in our town or in a nearby town she knows about towns that are doing this cultural district thing or towns that are looking at culture facility funds so we can compare and contrast and gather information and maybe not be left behind on great innovations so that's why they've reorganized the next thing that happened at the meeting there are about twenty or twenty five of us there was we broke up into small groups and we talked about issues that were of concern and a big concern is how do we get public to know about what's happening in the arts so we fund arts humanities and sciences so i should just say the word culture how to get the public into cultural event yes and one of the things was there's a lot of people like me at that meeting who've been doing this off and on for twenty or thirty years and we having the boston globe calendar that was like one place that everyone could go to just explain to people the article about the bomber gallery one article that the boston globe has published articles well the big story that we had in the globe yeah that was that was a few months ago that was just in some ways it was it was good luck it was serendipitous i do all the publicity for the gallery and i had sent information out to the boston globe to the reporter that i normally work with and she passed it along to somebody else who decided to write a feature and so it was just it was really good timing for us we also have a lot of regular features in the belmont citizen herald a number of front page features as well as the belmont tony and i mean we try to get the word out there is many ways is as we can but to juliette's point is well it's something  that we need greater exposure more visibility and it's an issue that a lot of different arts organizations in the metro west area are all facing it's sort of dovetails with what some other cultural councils are doing across the state we finally found out some of their initiatives which are things that we as a group have been considering but they take substantial funds more funds than we get from the state we're allowed to take five percent of our annual allotment and use it for administrat or marketing purposes our annual allotment is five thousand dollars so we have a small amount we used to have to have a p o box now we're doing some publicity like banners at events so other local cultural councils are trying to create their own calendars but it takes a lot of volunteer effort if you've been on any of these websites that go defunct to keep calendars going what we would light to talk to the town about brainstorm i know the p actually on school websites they had a website maybe that's something we should consider or what we did learn was that some towns actually believe that this is so vital and helps the economic success of town centers that there might be some funds that we can work on to help promote arts organizations in the arts in belmont i do think in the past that when you would go on the belmont town website that there there used to be information certainly about some of the gallery exhibits i mean i remember in the past or is even like the video there was video of sort of somebody just you know went around in and shot some footage again we have a really wonderful relationship with the belmont media center  and the belmont journal we've become kind of a semi regular feature of that program joanna has been instrumental in making that happen but i feel like with everything we've done again it in some ways maybe it's not enough i will say i'm very pleased make the announcement that we are going to have to door signs for the gallery in the parking lot of the homer building which publicly thanked the trees for helping to make this happen and after thirteen years it was long overdue so i think that will help again i'm i'm speaking more to the gallery because that's something that i'm involved with you know on a regular basis but i was also you know founder of belmont world film so the film festival so i mean it's again you know we were we were just very heartened to realize that something that we're struggling with in terms of how to communicate the riches of things that are happening in belmont it's a struggle that's statewide and with this community initiative the goal of the state arts agency is to get speaking to townsfolk and really figuring out better ways that we can collaborate you know that's what we're here that's the third topic the fourth topic during this stimulating of the and i was just trying to explain to you guys again what's happening with funding so it's a portion of the mass cultural council that goes to local cultural councils we get a portion based on our socio economic numbers so it's not just on the number of people that live in our town but it's about other data that they collect how needy we are in average for the last five years or so we've been getting about five thousand typically what we've been doing is just granting those to applications that come in we hold public meetings we try and reach out to institutions meet belmont is a great place where we talk to people because our deadline is october fifteenth and if anyone has any questions our facebook page is a great way to be in touch with us belmont cultural coun i did attach our recent grant recipients its powers music school its stage ensemble theater unit was a new one mass audubon habitat does a lot of public events the food collaborative has gotten grants many different organizations when what we learned at the meeting was that in some towns there is give from the towns themselves the cultural council in winchester planned and executed the town arts day just recently but the funds to do it came from the town in waltham they end up giving out double the state allotment because community development pitches and money the mayor of waltham was at the meeting so we just learned  like different things and different problems some problems that other towns are having that we're not having but you do feel especially if you've lived in for twenty five years sort of stuck in what's happening in belmont and i love it i'm excited about ports fest i'm excited i'm a new member of the bellman women's club in the home our house and it's being restored there's great things happening but we could be doing even more and that's why the state was bringing us together the last topic that they talked a fair amount about was these cultural district initiative which they think is one great way to increase dialogue between maybe some sort of chamber of commerce between community development planning and not just us volunteers but maybe staff i know there's a new some new fine arts all those people together with the town might be exciting in my mind when we think about belmont center and we have the library has tons of programs already powers music school has events i saw i think my first event at the belmont town great and then i saw another performance shortly thereafter then we have a gallery also here we have a private gallery that's right on leonard state so we almost could be a compact walkable area that would have this designation that might make us seem even more appealing for people to come and go out to dinner and spend money on our retail which is what was important i think that's my topics i just wanted to say again i'm just echoing some of the things that were mentioned previously but one of the things that was mentioned was the idea of maybe the time you suppose he's contributing some additional funds to you know sort of buffered the arts in different communities me i think we had eight or nine thousand dollars but that's when the mass cultural council also was you know there the money they were getting from the state budget was huge so there was a lot more to go around and so it's it's some sometimes it's disheartening that i mean honestly if we had ten or fifteen or twenty thousand dollars believe me we could it would be gone they'd be plenty of groups we could give the money to so i think sometimes it's hard that there are groups really wanting and we can maybe only give them two or three hundred dollars a cycle and things change like for example there's a performance coming up that august thirty first at the beach trade center as part of their ice cream social it's going to be free and we have a relatively new resident the town is going to be doing a children's theatre indian dance and music three fiscal years we have put aside money to pay for the smart meters from our retained earnings to not have any effect on the repairs or on that original estimate was two point to say two point three million dollars that was just for the hardware was in samson estimated there would be two point seven five million total that was with hardware and install the so we realize that we need to wait a year and we need to do some to go shopping with honeywell after eight months here we are with another million people in the bank for from our retained earnings for the last fiscal year and we have a estimated price of one point seven one one one million seven hundred eleven thousand five hundred fifty nine thousand for the hardware the estimated sets the first part the second part is to install we're going out to bid within the next couple weeks and then starting install hopefully in the fall late fall late fall was this a late fall timeframe one is that belmont municipal lay already has smart meters they have a smart meter technology in place they have all the infrastructure back in the day three or five years ago that was part of the original plan that they would start with the infrastructure put in place and then we would just be back on that and add a couple of towers or gatekeepers as they call it for our purposes the two would be  to each other billing would be streamlined everything would be streamlined joining with municipal wait for our residents or for our repairs they could have instance access to their consumption they could see at any given time what their usage is in a day they can use it to try to reduce their water consumption they can use it to try to do pretty much anything they can set a parameter if i use z water please ping me and that will tell them that they've exceeded their amount or that they possibly could have a leak and that for us is one of the biggest reasons why we want the smart meters not only our meters at the end of their useful life which is about twenty years we would drastically reduce our leak people getting large bills because they don't realize they have a lead until they get their bill this this would be could be it we could separate murders or red flags as they would call it if i exceed a thousand gallons in a day they'll ping me and then us to actually and we could then respond to the residents say hey you're using a lot of water in the last twenty four hours is everything ok that's almost at least get caught but they sions exist as the smart meter installed or stall them in place of those applications for messaging and monitoring j markets or public works from what i'm understanding because we're to have the infrastructure in place with monley when the installation that within that quarterly consumption depending on where it is in the month or were it is they would get partial or they would say we're going to wait until you have a complete quarter to to work on it with a smart meter you can go live anytime with because we infrastructure in place and i correct on that mark the other thing too is that those apps or whatever you can use them from your phone and they're pretty user friendly and  on the climate action plan as a result of this conservation wise i guess other than telling people they're using too much water in real time not only that but for from our point of view we are constantly being pressured by them water that she went through a meter somewhere somehow we can't figure out every community has them some as high as forty percent or in the low teens so that's very good but that would actually reduce what the smarmy program would actually reduce that would just help us track some of these leaks down yes absolutely able to zero in the absolute kenworth are right there alone we could catch some of the serious leaks that we've encountered over the years and residents that went away for the winter  came back to a pool that would that's always been a problem has been trying to track we know we have them granted we've gotten pretty low but to try to find out exactly where they are in this byzantine system of pipes it's awfully difficult this seems to be like it would really help would help drastically in it would be done with an attorney for the reserve twenty four hours every day should say so it would tell us how much we consume the day so right now we'd be voting on the contract for the one point seven million and then we'd be voting again on our fee for installation at a later date at a later date correct this is disses just the hardware and the programming software training stuff like that for this piggyback on belmont lights smart meter technology correct you know the question so is it price for training was two hundred seventy five thousand dollars we got it down to a tenth where you knocked a half million dollars off of the price oh good god good job in that hearing that's great that's great i mean if you feel like this is something we can we can absorb i mean it certainly seems to have a lot of benefits we have enough we've been setting aside like i said the last three years so where we have three point six million and a smart meter fund yeah but we cover this and then leave sufficient funds for it's also possible to use this for some word like net metering sort of thing for water is that part of the smart meter something you would do or is there such a thing as sort of prime time water usage dreaming good evening how are you i'm good identify yourself for the public sure i am going clancy the director of community development here this evening to get the boards approval for a contract drain rehabilitation work on common street because all common street this is common street within the limits of the project that we will be repaving so it's roughly school street to pace and road ok so we originally had hoped to do these repairs via excavation and when we evaluated the job site in the spring what we realised was there are so many utilities in common street and not the least of which is a twenty inch  water main which requires a whole separate permit in process by the way we realised that the conditions were going to be so tight the shoring requirements for the way to make sure we properly protected their main was going to be so cost in the end this was really the best leave for us to go and so that's what the contract is that is before you this evening we put it out to be open to be done on august first we received one bid from in in situ form technologies  there david price was one hundred twenty seven thousand four hundred and five dollars the engineers estimate was one hundred fifty seven thousand seven hundred dollars so they came in under the engineers estimate you know we occasionally have a situation where we receive one bid for a project so one of the things i look at to to make sure i can ask for support from the board with a straight face is to see whether or not the bid comes in under the engineers estimate and so so far we've been fortunate on all counts when that's occurred i think in this case in the world of lining soren drain mains the amount of work that we're looking to do here is fairly small weep if you recall about a month or so ago i was here with a line in contract for services which is a little bit of a different animal that's a different type of company that would do that kind of work when you're talking about mains sewer and storm drain mains there is a certain number of contractors that will do that work as well was very reputable they've done work in the towel for years and i fully support them and i hope that the board will approve this contract and if you work with this company before it's absolutely in situ form is a terrible and ok they were one of the first companies with the sec knowledge if not the forest and they didn't work absolutely ok we've had great success with them over the years they've done a lot of different things for us always worried when you only get one bid but if a kind of reputable bit early you have experience with them they're under the cost is kind of hard to say not one hundred twenty seven thousand four hundred five dollars second if it were i was the chair while you're signing can i make a brief statement about some of the conditions of the roadways in belmont common street being one of them well i just feel like we're at a point where we need to get some information out to the public because i am aware that there's been some talk in the community and this is a be a good opportunity just to get some information out so before common street as everyone knows was under construction for quite a while with utility work and road lawndale street to other roads that have been under construction clifton in prospect street with national grid being locked up the utility work that's necessary to finish those projects is at a standstill one of the reasons why the timing is good for us with this line and contract is in such a form can get in do their work and get out without any fear of conflicting with national grid screws because they're not on site right now but but i want people to understand that we're not for the lockout it's likely for example that clifton in prospect street would be finished that's not a road that's in the people in your program but that is a road through the public works street opening permit process that would be paved paved in some way because they have to restore that roadway well that's on hold because the national good work hasn't been completed piece and road lawndale common street those are roads that are in the paper management  program unfortunately we can't move forward with any of our reconstruction work because national grid hasn't pleaded the chill of the work so i just want the community to understand that we as a town you know community development public works we obviously are aware of the condition of these roads and you know when there isn't around the corner yet and so i think we're watching the situation to determine how much longer we can sort of tolerate this before i think public works has to consider taking some action to make sure those roads are going to be safe to get through winter we're not quite there yet we're hoping obviously that the situation gets resolved quickly because i'd like to fix some streets before the snow flies if that's possible but but i just want to get some of the information out there and i appreciate the opportunity to do that it's great good to know because i know people people are wondering but when it's a labor problem that doesn't relate to the town it's a force mature situation we really have no say in this  will take whatever it takes to get resolved and you know when is the last day at which you feel you can generally do paperwork well i mean if we're all if we're in a project in where finishing up a road for example november first is usually a good day to target if we're talking about going in and starting reconstruction probably mid september is as late as i'd be willing to go because at that point you've got probably six weeks that you can count on for the weather before it gets a little sketchy come november so if we can start road construction by mid september and this is this is reclamation this is legitimately road reconstruction as opposed to some of the other smaller projects that will do in the couple of reasons and so the hope there would be that when we get a contractor on board regardless of the status of the national grid lock out we know that there is work in that contract that can be addressed without delay and so if i can get that contract executed by really september we can get them in there for you know four to six six to eight weeks of work at least knock out some of the stuff in that contract before the winter comes common street and common streets under an existing contract we're just waiting to fix the street so that's a little bit of a different animal pace in lawndale in the contract that will be before you in a couple of weeks look forward to already as i'm sure the people thank you know thank you and take care of the foot subject getting it steve darren some of the director of facilities i'm here to seek your approval of a three year cleaning contract for the town wide services with a total value of one million eight hundred eighty eight six hundred  forty dollars we had four bidders the low being one million to fifty in round numbers the high bidder being three million five sixty one the low bidder was disqualified because they did not  technique comply with the bid as requested and we have chosen m p building services for the one million eighty eight because they were the best qualified and responsible better one and two we have three years of experience with them in the system and ok i had a question about as with the so we talked about that fuel contract and how your contract you know this is deals with two things right there december renewable or january nul or the tough part with this contract as the summer time is their busy season so it's difficult to find one that ends in september because everyone is back and loading their contract and for the busiest time of year and spending all of the money with very little chance of recovery so they typically expire during this period of time well i guess as long as we get a jump on it we won't have  rational reason why you would have one bidder coming in at one point two million and one coming in at three point six million for pretty much the same work as tactfully as i can say this the low bidder typically bids very very low and struggles to provide services which is in part why we moved on i can't imagine why the three point five million is twice the bid or accepting a lot i just don't really want the job but they'll take it sure the premium for and we saw with the pool you know five thousand six hundred dollars so each of the total country fell us one million then the right numbers the first year is five forty five six the second year is six fifty six three fifty third is six this program so are we going the approval of the entire one point nine million or just the one point i only made so i move that the town toward the three year cleaning contract to n p building services schedule we will open september fourth is the big question all of the major systems have been tested and are running will be right on schedule with the inspections the paving is being done and beginning tomorrow some furniture has already been delivered there was a two hundred thousand dollars plus contingency on the job with not used very much of that all right able to do some much needed work on that school as well in terms of some of the get plantings and some of the other means and upkeep that was kind of a critical part of this project the pavement imagine the blacktop was also partially be done right yes i hope when we finish will represent a model in town about sixty percent of the ground work in the front of the bill mining was damaged in the course of construction in the contractor owns about sixty percent of that but we are going to have all of the walkways in the front of the school repaved extensive weeding of all the beds really and scabbing of all the beds and the entire front lawn will be replanted it will look much different when it's finished them to add to that while we're talking burbank you know we have a bunch of tires that are on the units when they were delivered from a practical point of view there's no reason to retain them given that they will in november for four hundred thousand for that phase one a which is the alexander underpass right i went to the last community preservation committee meeting and made the presentations patrice was out of town just just reporter and i went and made the presentation for us for the four hundred thousand dollars for the off cycle request for the c c p a money for the alexander avenue underpass piece so and then an application is due then there's going to be the next meeting in september that's going to go to the special town meeting in november all types of marijuana stablish mint other then retails retailers and to cap the number of marijuana retailers in belmont to twenty percent of the number of liquor licenses in the town which at this point would mean to the two marijuana draft of the language that will go on the ballot which basically is shall the town vote to amend the bylaws to do those two things i guess yes or no and so and then there's a summary by town council here explaining that know overwhelmingly passed by town meeting at the at the annual town meeting or the special time you can live in town as it was and then the polling locations of the usual one through eight and there will be one item on the ballot and this will be so and you voted in favor of the ballot question which we did your in and you have to opt out right and so we've decided to a meeting decided to opt out for everything but retail and then to initiate this follow things nearly as closely as we do and i just read through this and i said right somebody by town council i would read through and understand what a yes vote is it's not clear to me what the implication of the no vote would be or said differently if this were to fail advocate i think this is just to mess with what's going on not to advocate for one position so now i'm not suggesting we advocate a more suggesting it just be as clear for the for the voters possible but it sounds i mean this isn't to be going in the  marijuana of the medical marijuana zoning is in place the medical marijuana law exists nobody's applied for one but that exists already in belmont this has nothing to do with this is only for the recreational the two totally separate laws two t is that we are currently an opt in town is the bit of education that i think most members don't know so i don't know where that statement could be made but what our current status is and i don't know it can't be on this ballot right now but it seems to me that i don't think people realize what our current status that we're we're we're in but we have to opt affirmatively opt out however what were we are right now is a moratorium is your call town meeting passed till december thirty first for none nothing can happen because what opting in means is allowed could be i guess some citizen groups campaign that are opting in and not opting out we didn't opt in were in but i think the point is the vast majority of our community members don't understand any of this right so i think this is the challenges we have to work to educate as much as possible and this is a partial opt out opting out of some things but not everything and so the confusion if anyone can take it on is stating what our status is right now before the vote have i think that's what tom was trying to say if you said i don't know what is our status right now and the question is i don't know town council wrote this i'm not i can't really i don't feel comfortable bills to everybody with information in them so hoping that the press will also assist us in disseminating what's going on here because it is kind of arcane and complicated and it has to go to the voters because the voters in voted in favor of the ballot question legalizing so the only way this can be we can do any opt out of any sort is the voters have to adopt it and that's what that's what september twenty fifth is all about reverse short vote there's only one thing you'll be in you'll be out you won't miss any time information at that point that i mean adds up to like i don't know if it's one hundred as in the pretty high pretty close to an eighty percent or something that he just gave away it's fantastic i mean if if others are interested in town and leaving money in their will or making town a beneficiary of some sort of an instrument we would be very grateful it's a great way to give back in particular to the library you've got here is a pretty well but this is a it's great when money just comes down from you know what i got mine from you know wonderful you know of good righteous people like this i appreciate when people give back so it's very very twelve thousand dollars and second on favor i find you just want me to say yeah thank you mr may i were hoping we could have a picture of us the four of us or the five us holding the note that we got sure and they are going to utilize it turn on the mike if you could really appreciate all of you coming in the seating really wanted to make sure we have this we want to do anything on this front without talking to you guys because obviously it's your elected body and this is your bailiwick as well and but that just to frame it before we get into it this is for the public with this is been sort of been we had a discussion about this in one of our meetings up at the high school private town meeting so it wasn't on t v right here but the idea was to see with relief could be granted to seniors for  taxes in light of upcoming you know could be large projects coming down the pike and there are various different ideas that were floated one of them is this is increasing the amount of the senior work off that seniors can do work for the town of work off part of their taxes and increase the cap on that the second one was this property tax deferral program where seniors can defer their taxes till the other sell the property or pass away and whether or not that interest rate could be lowered or the age limit raised lowered or some combination of the two and then the other was didn't institute a residential exemption for properties that were not owner occupied thereby essentially shifting some of the tax burden from owner occupants to absentee landlords in which i know it's more complicated but i'm just again just for a moment obviously there are cashflow implications to things there are and  various other especially if you increase the work off possibly tax loss in some small level of people took up the program spades but on the other hand it's an opportunity to allow people to continue to live here is seniors with the debt exclusion and possible overrides and such coming so with that it's wonder have the discussion with you going to see what the board of assessors thought i know and what i think novel was at that when we talked about last time we did briefly talked about we didn't really do anything like the we've been supportive of the residential work off program for a c is for a number of years and over the years the legislature has taken upon themselves to increase the limit so it's more keeps   the request was to go from seven hundred fifty to fifteen hundred or so doubling of it but that doubling is only about twenty people are currently taking advantage of it so that would bring in a increase of about fifteen thousand dollars and  money but it is something i would have to kill set or it would also specially to keep in mind if a lot more people took advantage of it we could wind up you know having a larger impact so but we're in favor of recommending it be done in the past we've taxes it is theoretically increasing everyone else's tax bill by if it is one number but it is the doing it so our recommendation was that we put it on a special town meeting to do it so that we just have it is voted at that time so that everyone is aware of  and then a discussion of what it is and why we're doing it that we had now you know and i understand i mean i just further as we because they talk to the town council i guess it was just to clarify with the process right legally is granted we can do something different but the process legally was that is the board of selectmen decision to do this right and that we can take it to town meeting we do not have to take it to town meeting we could vote it and explain it a town meeting or we could vote it and then town meeting we could say but it's contingent on town being approving of that but that's a choice we don't have to do that i just want to clarify that just to be clear about the process and again it's that has always been the first time we had to do it tommy had to approve it but once it was approved you could increase it going forward and that's the point we're now we're increasing it again we've always kind of brought these issues to town meeting and again just so that people elected members of tommy could weigh in on it again if it was explained a town meeting that would be also acceptable i think it just needs to be addressed so that everyone's aware of it and i think it's a good opportunity for us to publicly get everyone to understand there is an opportunity to do to see work off program try to get more people to take it an issue if they need to and my concern was what we had to do with the timing of it all because the special town meeting is until after the debt exclusion election and i thought it would be it would be best to sort of tell the seniors this is happening prior to that vote so they could see that where they're not sure well maybe it'll happen maybe it won't time meeting or privatize meeting won't and it's like a week after the actual action so it just seemed a little i want to be hiding the ball with them i want to tell them we're either going to do it or we're not going to do it definitively certainly we could explain at a town meeting but like you said this particular of those items i listed this is the smallest of all you know it's going from seven hundred fifty dollars a year to fifteen hundred dollars a year for twenty people and they do work for the town as we discussed they do work for the town that we might often have to hire somebody part time to do they do a lot of work the council on aging currently but they don't have to if there were retired person suppose there is an argument that assuming that they're working for you know a reasonable wage that this may actually be neutral in the budget in the sense that we would be paying for outside resources to do that work that is instead being done by a senior provide vital aside i would say that in general our volunteers are what makes our operation what it is these individuals sixteen in two thousand f white eighteen  limited servers at the launch site so all of these services are vital for us oh and the database mentioned should measure mac database entries so  so beyond the hours that they put in for which they receive the the compensation they they volunteer beyond those hours so they give us a lot more value than just the eleven dollars per hour for a limited number of months up to the thousand dollars that that they are allowed so i would say they're invaluable and there's opportunities for i know that that we could increase the program and make it available for other departments like you were suggesting so there's there's that opportunity well the value is tremendous for the council on aging but i think there's potential for offering more volunteer service to other departments as well and i think it's also point to point out there are income limits on it so a single person can't be making more than fifty seven thousand dollars a year america can't be more he more than eighty six thousand dollars a year so to be benefiting those that really could use it so it's not like someone could reduce their tax bill if they are we're going to have the means to pay the bill you know this would be helping those that would be probably a great benefit to them if they could do this right i think it would be a real shot in the arm for these people and might help draw more people out like you said if it provides a service it could very well be revenue neutral it can be difficult to ever know that but it certainly sounds like the providing critical services at least the council needs and expanding that i bet you most departments could use some help from some seasoned veteran yeah and there are all kinds of projects i mean i know ellen the town clerks she's used volunteers for the census you know some of the high school students were down there are working on something oh that's true too but if it is it's expanded them that could be them seniors can also be part of that that effort and many others so we were hoping because the fifty seven thousand dollars was income eligibility rate many many years ago we're hoping to raise that amount to seventy by fifteen thousand dollars to you know basically translate to our current situation and and make it more available is that something that we have the ability to do or is it something we need state by in the this basically what we're using now is the circuit breaker amounts the state allows and again we've always been reluctant to just pick a number without having some kind of statutory regulation that we c know the support among this body for for this which we've always been supportive of is just more of the mechanism because we've gone to town meeting just to make sure that reps i hear you i mean that was more of the it's comeau tradition than anything else at any time we've had a monitor that the b always so let's bring it up and i understand the rationale behind like i said more than in my mind the timing of it and i'm sort of in some of these other issues that the other issues i raised are larger ones that probably you know for instance like the residential exemption something that's going to be a longer that has different implications right and we and every year we come to the for a tax classification hearing we do discuss the residential exemption at that point and because belmont to so homogeneous  the housing stock and all the residential exemption doesn't raise any more money for the town it simply shifts it within the residential class and the vast majority we estimate about a seventy percent of the homeowners would almost see less than  dollars change in value either paying one hundred dollars less or hundred dollars more in taxes and the lower end homes would actually benefit dramatically in the higher end homes would be making up the difference on that so it works in other communities there's only eleven communities that have residential exemptions and those are communities that have a large residential base that's not like apartment buildings and the like which we don't have in belmont so it kind of makes it all less a try i definitely understand that but i know this came out of a discussion with somebody over the w committee who brought it up and was in you know looking to see someone who actually owns investment property and said it would hurt them but that it seemed like the right thing to do and would be willing to support something like this even though i understand spreading it out over the whole town everyone gets fifty one hundred still fifty hundred dollars i mean you only get seven hundred fifty now for doing the work government it's not a it's a decent percentage and over time maybe the number changes as the taxes change or via killing so that the other problem too is it's a tremendous amount of work to put this in place i think different and a cost it would cost probably adequate one of a full time employee to be doing that you know because every year you have to validate the people living in the houses the mailing in the work and also and because it's revenue neutral i assumption that people with means live in high value properties in peace with the don't have the means live in the low value properties and of the book the millionaire next door that's not always the case and some of the people of the livery in the larger homes would make it look less affordable to stay here because they won't are probably for many years but they value is increased and they become house rich so you know it it doesn't take in consideration the person of the income of the individual to taste the value of the asset that they own so it may we may be hurting some people being able to stay because of the well like i say the residential exemption isn't we're not going to vote on that no no it's just something larger discussion but i wanted to leave while you were here put it on the radar it sounds like you have it on your radar we have noted they've had this discussion over the toa times in the last say what your thoughts were about the property tax deferral program that we that we currently have but that the interest rate is i've talked to some seniors about it and they feel like the interest rate is is high for them to get involved in that the age limit was high in that they didn't think it was something they wanted to get involved in but if those parameters change they might but then again if everyone opted into it then you would end up with could end up with a cash flow issue of everyone put their taxes off what collect them but you know if we if a whole chunk of people in town or seniors put off their tax payment for twenty years even if we get it plus interest what we do in the meantime for money so i understand how that all plays out in this is some of the border says brought the town meeting we try to lower the tax rate the rate of interest rate years ago we could soundly defeated saying that we shouldn't be subsidizing people by differ in their taxes and again tom meeting was adamant they did not want to lower the interest rate they did want to make it more favorable at the time maybe things  changed but we did when it first came we were allowed to do it we thought that would be you know helpful especially in current the current interest rate environment what we've gone through the last eight years i mean eight percent was almost usury compared to what they were doing and we were actually forcing people into reverse mortgages which we didn't want to do and you know and i think the generation now that are coming in understand it older generations when you said you had to put a lien on the property it really became no no lino my property where you don't do it again it was only there to protect the tower when it was there but now i think people would be more if you can it may be the time to go back and say let's make it so that why shouldn't a town do it again there are limits on the amount but it again would but it's not a very widely used program because people can't have mortgages and a lot of them may want to do a reverse mortgage so i don't want to be doing it and we just had a situation where someone paid it off would get a reverse mortgage had paid off and they were expecting to have to pay it off because of that some people in their life situation they just can't utilize their program but for some people this is the difference between them staying or at all modern art and i certainly don't want to do anything build buildings and such and force people out that's not planned and we've had this discussion with them a lot of taxpayers are committed with welcome the other two have another tool that to be able to use to help people to be able to say ok you can defer your taxes or you can do it i mean this is something we've discussed and be very you know again like i said the a percentage is great now although it is simple interest you know it's still a lot higher than some say which i go get a mortgage or what have you nice as you say as far as going to town meeting this is the one of something i specially in light of the history of it i would feel more comfortable if this went to town meeting something like this this actually board could come up with some sort of a proposal that doesn't have to be for the special town meeting in november i mean that may be too soon maybe for a new town meeting if you had a proposal i think we would certainly like speaking for myself i'm going to go about a town meeting for it if it were something reasonable that would be useful to people right and i think to be honest i think we felt that way it sure is a lower now that it may be more acceptable to say just you know before eight percent seem like you know didn't seem that bad right now if you know so we could do it go down to a four percent or something like that or something that made sense for people and because it was right now we're in a good situation week with the exemptions that came in the deferrals as we're granting them we're almost getting enough to pay it off because we get people into selling a transfer in their property so so it's not the other thing is you said you were trying to quantify what they could be people who can't pay their taxes now if they could defer them you know it would actually be paying they may have to practically would be getting interest on it you know rather than having to pay twelve percent interest on their you know if they couldn't pay their taxes and people have this also is good too because they can do for a part of their taxes all the tech whatever they feel you know if they can only afford three dollars a month they could keep budgeting to pay that off and just defer the rest yeah and unlike you know the the work off amount or something we w get this money with interest which that's not the question the question is when not if you have it so it's it really no risk to the town because we'll have a lien on the property i think it's a great program and i would love to see it is make it more available or make it more appealing to seniors ok fine it's not in effect my quality of life as much as yeah i can still do it so that would be something that i guess my feeling in the three issue is just for me it would be to tonight vote the seven fifty to the fifteen hundred work off yet put continued discussion on the residential exemptions that sounds like more of math needs to be done on this and then have the ask the board of assessors kindly to look into a proposal for the changes to the property tax deferral program to bring to maybe in your town meeting have something for that november time meeting when the time lines tight i don't know how much work you've already done i think based on you know for today i think you know we certainly could put something together to get on the tommy march i mean you could you if you get it for the special in town meeting we could vote the war and put it on there and if you're not ready we just pulled the article but i mean if we're not voting the warrant on monday october fifteenth you're going to you know you've got to probably write it and it may be something that we asked should put on to warn items that maybe one it's a little aggressive on the interest rate and one is less aggressive something so that you know if i could i'd rather not see it go down or you know just kind of let people think about her maybe you know do we tell to what seniors in particular be fully informed before they vote on these things what the lay of the land is that while this is happening there's also relief was being given over here here and here if you choose to take advantage of it i think that the that when they can go to the polls knowing that they may still oppose it but at least they know that we're true at the town we're all trying to do something to help because we're not there ideas not to build a high school and throw seniors out of town that's not what we're trying to do we're trying to lift everybody and it's possible speak precinct three again i just went on the website while you guys were talking about the numbers so maybe the website isn't up to date but it says exemption tax relief programs from belmont and so i was just wondering about how many seniors are out there that can fit into the guidelines that we currently have because it says here maximum income is thirty six thousand and maximum assets are fifty five thousand so maybe this is totally out of date or maybe we need to consider assets also because that doesn't include the house but there are people that find the tax burden to be significant who might have more than fifty five thousand in their stocks and everything so you that effort is applauded but it just may be that there's more that needs to filed legislation over the years to increase those but again it is difficult to to do it in those limits a set on a statewide basis so it's been we've we're aware of that and again some don't qualify for it so right and i guess i was looking for the circuit breaker if you will because those numbers are so low trying to win it for which people to do this my have a come was just about the other great idea that you have about this warrant i think senior citizens need to feel fiscally confident that it's the right choice to make so maybe with the beets trade center we could work on some education series so that they're choosing to take the tax relief instead of the reverse mortgage and the educated i don't know if that's part of our goal but we can be providing services by educating them on what the current landscape is financing and i think that's why i think it's time suggested the special town meeting to actually put our money where our mouth is we've talked about some of these things for some time but actually do them i think would give people some solace that that actually move is being taken which is why i was thinking  seven fifty to fifteen hundred that is a small thing but it is only we can do now yet prior to any of these elections that are coming up bang bang bang to show that we're serious about it and that we're going to be undertaking these other items well  the one thing we would ask is like i said that we had that discussion at the special town meeting after the election just to make sure that you know people are people that are there to elect a town meeting members can spread the word also especially if you have the other article on the property tax deferral on the warrant then anyone else want to say in the matter sounds like this is a plan you're ok if we go to seven fifty to fifteen hundred salute carol intertainment move to increase the limit from seven hundred fifty to fifteen hundred dollars for the senior work off tax exemption program second ever great well thank you thank you everybody for coming tonight and sort of forward to see your work for you have you come up with something obviously send it to patrice we can get it on our agenda if you want to come back and discuss it if you get committee appointments and smart clothes not here i don't want only it's fair to vote on some of the things that are that are more centrist or substantive or controversial i think but with there are a bunch of things that are neither and that i think we can knock off we are having a special meeting just for those of you watching were the the business study committee the cable t v advisory committee side we shade tree committee disability access committee housing trust registrar voters and water advisory board and the reason why i'm putting on the housing trust the registrar of voters is both of those have reverends arrow who is economic applicant for them and he's the pastor marks church and he was probably going after accuse myself anyway so i don't think he's reverend zero was a democrat or republican or not and that republican beaumont republican committee had submitted as their choice stanley deserves esky as to renew and so we weren't sure whether we were the reference there was even you know eligible for the register of voters also we have a bunch of elections coming up i don't think we can continue to put this one off because we've got some puncture elections coming up bang bang bang that we need to have a full registrar of voters board so i would i would suggest that we put read thank you the registrar of voters second on favor and this plays right into the housing trust which we have in here we have to reappointed we only have one of their applicant for two slots which is reverend joseph zero zero i was thinking that that we put reverend zero on and madeline frazier kooker knew her and then we still need to hunt down one more person for the housing trust but reverend sero you know has been very involved in the belmont interfaith council yes he was instrumental in negotiating the trash deal with the religious institutions you've been very involved looking to get more involved so i was thinking that the housing trust  your more up his alley than the register of voters anyway very supportive that so move that we appoint reverend joseph zero to the belmont housing trust second favor  eleven and we have here one one regular opening and one alternate opening and we have one applicant who is judy walberg who is a nurse with a disabled son who seemed perfect and i don't think there's a whole lot you can say about this because we still need an alternate to come in but least if we get if we appointed judy walberg to the full membership then you'd have a regular all the regular members and so i don't think this is controversial and i am very supportive of that so i will move that we have point judy will burge to a regular member of the disability access commission second on favor ok another one that is going to be controversial is the water advisory board you may recall that we didn't think we had enough people who applied when so you think we had anybody who cried for the water advisory board and as it turned out just a barrel junior whose term is up actually after being contacted does want to be reappointed great and since we had no other applicants i don't think this is a difficult one i this is not controversial  right motion to approve the barrel junior to the water advisory board second on favor ok to the ones that are in them so those are just my add ons because i think the simple we're not  getting so back to the for the book so let's put the cable television advisory this one is also one we weren't we had no apple new new people applying and we weren't sure if chet messer wanted to be put back on right now as it turns out from being contact second on favor a tree committee there are six vacancies on this i think this is kind of a bit of emergent because they don't really have much of a committee at the moment for simmons was to be reappointed and then we have a whole bunch of vacancies and i who i believe applied and did not have a particular choice and was in insurance and risk management and i was thinking maybe as an entry to any caroline her which she applied without any interest a specific committee and this seemed like a way a good entry point and also the way that the trees a phone in people's houses an insurance risk management person might have to be honest a trade riser he committed to it actually is something that's a relevant skill here  certainly i know julie with her work with the belmont compost leading that i think this is perfect for her and i think rachel berger i've certainly tommy remember i'm not familiar with the jennifer parker the urge to leave corbett other than what i've seen here and six month committee that we're going to have do some work on whether or not to come up with a report as to how to become more business friendly and such and we have a whole patrice in her office came up with the charge and the makeup of the committee of which there  be eight members six of which we would appoint the seventh would be patrice or her designee and the eighth would be community development clean clean designee so really we're only appointing six so what we have here in the to we're going to have to fill but i want to get this committee up at least and running as patrice is thinking that she can get some grants for this but we need to create the thing for that so i was thinking wendy at can and who is a resident non susan shiloh who was for the craft beer sellers at belmont center business owner so what that would do is if we put on wendy and katherine suzanne then you've got patrice glen clancy and then we would need a waverl business owner and we would need either since emma thurston could be either a resident and business owner or a non center business owner you could then get in on center business owner or a resident in business owner i talked to somebody who is a resident business owner who might be interested but only if we couldn't find anybody else as far as the others are concerned i would really i think we need to focus in and get some people new people in here i want some people have  things before who can you give us a perspective and i also want to bring in a lot of people who've been complaining about some of these issues because they should be part of the solution yet so this gets us to six out of the eight and we're going to have to drum up the other two but at least the committee will have a quorum and they can get moving and apply for grant money and in the meantime maybe even friday if we can get some people we can reach out to waverly whomever to fill in the two blanks and like i said i'm a thurston could fit one of two roles so that gives us some level of flexibility so we still need someone from waverley we still need a resident and business owner or you could say yeah resident in business owner i would say it's probably the slot that we're really with mark if you know a business be any business people who are watching who are waverly square or if you are a resident and business owner and you would like to serve for six months to help us find ways to make more business friendly and such please and the other thing i guess while we're doing this the community preservation committee and the rojas is up for reappointment and then we need one more person but i think in the meantime concern we're doing it off cycle with them now because we get off cycle application and i talk to patrice about contacting the capital budget committee to see that ok to see if any of them wanted to serve not like it's not like the any one capital but it has to be on the c p c it's a good precedent and it has been very helpful to have in moree in that perspective so if they want to put somebody forward i think that would in my mind would be the leading candidate and not like people beating down the door to serve in the c p c anyway but because we still need one more person but i think in the meantime while we're waiting i think we should put in support of that so i'll move that we put in the row house it would point to the community preservation committee second favor so that those were the only ones that i had tonight and i will deal with the rest of them on friday returns this is a very complicated thing we may not get through all of it i guess two questions on that one i'm available till about thirty i gotcha on friday and second of all a few of these we had talked about doing sort of interview format perhaps correct couple of days do it will we discuss that on friday and the ones who would like to do that for well i've given you know the chair for instance of the planning board has given some names i gave patrice some names to contact these people to see if they were available friday ok if you have names you want to interview maybe you could tell patrice and see if we can get them here for friday if not the moment to have another time you can do it in our meeting in september if in fact i honestly haven't gone through these i don't think there's any body else i really want to interview except the planning board unless you think the only other one that i thought was a little that i struggled with with the recreation commission just there were a number of folks who expressed interest there and some good candidates do that it's hard to separate just purely partisan a but funny that you should mention that because i have actually been talking to people about this the recreation division the thing is that we've got a lot of good candidates really a lot of good candidates and what i did he because i notice that she had not been at a lot of different meetings lay him and she had said that if we had somebody better she would be happy to step down not to worry about it because she didn't want to take trouble making meetings and she understand the importance of yes and that if other people want to do it don't feel bad so it is that was that was not why i was calling her but i want was more just sort of checking in about the recommendation and i noticed that she had from looking at the minutes that there'd been a lot of meetings where she hadn't been there and she just said she said some work commitments and and and if this so i do have i was very impressed with kimberly haley jackson for instance who was on her and as far as these others i have ideas for a lot of these others and we actually just took care of wendy so i mean i have my my next one is if anyone wants to come is august thirtieth from four till six thirty at the farmers market and valmont center and then i will also be at the farmer's market four to six thirty on september twenty seven and at the farmer's market october twenty fifth from four to six thirty and then it gets too full for the farmer's market i have to take my party in the doors but i will deal with that when it gets later in the fall if you have i have two days as well that i would like to add so  picture of the new gallery signs that will be installed in the municipal complex to alert patrons of where the gallery in the home of building located the argo historic districts commission has approved the signs at their august fifteenth meeting the signs will be installed board's request i am scheduled to be out of town for the labor day week this is an abbreviated week to the holiday on monday when scheduling plans back in january i was not aware that each hour director would also be out of town there from requesting that the bo details in then we would meet again and discuss and see if there's any further cut down of the remaining choices because there may be in feasibility is that cause some of the fall off the worst and then have another public form of the remaining options and then by the end of twenty eight hundred thirty one yeah i will say that's my goal whether it happens and i will say this is working we have in regards to the brink i know there's been a lot of interest in that i have a meeting set up i think next week i'll get a farm and such if you get to the point rethink some of these are just not going to happen yet then i think we can have the meeting and cut some of those off and then we're going to have a remaining chunk of list that will go back to the public at the other thing and we were looking at it from a print this perspective of how you have to cap it and then you she can put on it in terms of recreation so we're kind of merging things together as well so we're trying to make it much to find and the question also is whether the these are the highest and best uses of it whether these uses would be better served in another location in an argument could be one of the back up honestly it's like we don't do that just because there we don't do that just be clear just because we don't do the use the incinerators like doesn't mean we're not doing the correct yeah it seems about now the access road and where that has to be to get lowered their projected rate of return from seven point five to seven point four percent and then they were just in the mortality table that people would live longer therefore they would you know need more money so when you lower the interest rate of the return the liability on pension goes up when you expand the mortality table it goes up yet when you don't extend the date from two thousand and twenty nine it's goes up so that's what they've amine going to this is we don't vote they're just for the public their retirement board has full say so in these things not us and then to overturn board voted it goes to the state and parent has to approve it so they voted to approve that this