from the more than two hundred tom meeting members are already checked in and therefore i declare a quorum is present the limits of the hall as you recall are the same as traditionally those area forward of the satirize across the back of the hall is reserved for town meeting members visitors please sit in the back there may be some non time meeting members who will be admitted to the floor and we will come to that in a minute the tellers for this evening will be on the right side my left sandra candle and robin fay with ask all the newly elected and reelected town meeting members to please rise of the town clerk and administer the oath of office and now i would ask any committee chairman who would like town meeting member members of their committees or others to be admitted to the floor to step up first board of health any others call ok can we can we wait until the issue comes up ari and then please introduce any others if not with your unanimous consent those people would and its great responsibility in the family of nations more especially we pray this night for all those who share in the ordering of this town of belmont inspired them with the vision of that place of beauty safety and peace where girls and boys may play their homes be filled with love the aged respected and give n care where there is a true desire for the public good and the unity of purpose understanding and judgment we pray for all our teachers and students those who practice the art of healing those who work in our offices whose duties lie in our homes who serve in our shops and markets who clean our streets and ten grant to us in this community a great spirit a love of moral beauty and character holds some dignity and an increase of tolerance and goodwill as we begin this nine hundred ninety two annual town meeting i'd like to take the opportunity to review briefly the traditional rules and practices that we followed for the conduct of the town meeting so i'm sure many of you have heard a similar recitation many times before i was think it's helpful for newly elected town meeting members and also to refresh the memories of some of us who disappeared for many years in these meetings the conduct of the belmont town meeting is governed by a representative town meeting statute by chapter thirty nine of the general laws by article two of the general bylaws and equally important by certain customs and practices we followed over the past many years article two of the bylaws covers a number of procedural and parliamentary matters relating to the conduct of the meeting and provides that as to matters not included in article guided by the rules and customs by which we've been guided over the years there will be no formal seconding required in maine motions and articles in the warrant but seconding will be required for all other motions except for motions involving the expenditure of funds or by law that means the moderator will first recognize the maker or sponsor of the motion if he or she wishes to speak to the motion with respect to motions evolving the expenditure of money will first hear a report from the warrant committee the motion involves an appropriation for public improvement or major equipment need will also have a report from the capital budget committee private discussion if an article proposes an amendment to the general review committee will be called on for its recommendation zoning matters will call in the planning board the maker of the main motion will be recognized immediately after any required report if he or she wishes to commence the discussion  and remain in motion town meeting members who wish to speak should first request recognition then wait to be recognized it's often difficult for me to see raised hands at the rear of the room please stand up you wish to be recognized go to a microphone and please before you begin here remarks give your name and precinct number we need this for the stenographic record  the number of people are on the floor by invitation these people are not town meeting members and may not follow only town meetings members are entitled to vote residents of the town who are not town meeting members do have the right to speak at town meetings and non town meeting member wishing to speak should first arrange for recognition either directly with the moderator or preferably with the town meeting member to introduce him or her we've had a number of requests already with respect to this town meeting and i have asked the town meeting members who have spoken to me to introduce these with respect to motions to amend a motion to amend calling for an expenditure of money must be in writing and unless any other motion to a band is very brief and simple i will require also that it be in writing and i'm sure all of the town meeting members understand that all discussions must be relevant to the motion before the town meeting all speakers will be required to address the moderator questions may be asked only through the moderator if you wish to make a motion and to speak to it please make the motion first and after it seconded if necessary i'll recognize you as the maker of the motion to speak first i will not accept a motion made at the conclusion of the speech the motion should precede the speech and that speech by definition this includes a motion that would terminate debate like a motion for the previous question section two point seven point six of the general bylaws provides that unless this section also contains a procedure for a must be requested by a town meeting member before a standing vote is taken and that request must then be concurred in by thirty five or more additional town meeting members and the request may be made only the moderator will try to recognize town meeting members in the order that they seek recognition i will also try to give precedence to persons who have not spoken on the article into consideration at the commencement of debate on any article the moderator may recognize who are included in lists provided to and provide prior prior to the article being called i have had such requests both from the proponents and opponents of one of the articles that will be before us this evening section two point seven point five of the general bylaws contains two limitations but i want to call your attention unless the meeting consents no person shall speak more than twice upon any question except to correct an error or to make an explanation no person should speak for more than five minutes when speaking for the second time and then only after others would not spoken upon the question should have had the opportunity to speak a number of people have asked me time meeting members as well as not town meeting members to have the opportunity to speak they of course will have that opportunity i'm going to leave to them the timing timing and to certainly recognize you if you have not had an opportunity to speak your note i bylaws do not set any time limit for time meeting members when speaking for the first time never the last call i ask that you try to keep your concise and to the point we have as i say a number of people already have asked me or inform me that they plan to speak and we want to give everybody an opportunity to do so i think that experience has shown over the years that minds are rarely changed after the first ten minutes or so of presentation please try to avoid repetition of the same point maybe it's a good idea for emphasis but i think you start to lose people the fifth time someone says the same thing i would also call your attention to section two point seven point four which was added to the general bylaws nine hundred eighty six this provision requires that if a town meeting member wants to speak on an issue in which he or she or a member of his or her family has a direct financial interest or in which he or she well and done excellent job as town clerk i submit that just because we've done things in the past doesn't necessarily mean we should continue to do them that way in the future and i would just suggest official we have a number of resolutions before we begin the town meeting and i would first call on  and a long time town meeting member and whereas benjamin have a back was educated at rensselaer polytechnic institute and the massachusetts institute of technology and whereas bija might have a back rose to a position of esteem as a member of the faculty at the massachusetts institute of technology and whereas benjamin have a back distinguished himself as an international consultant to industry in the field of material science  engineering and whereas they have a back serve his party as chairman of the republican committee and whereas he continued to serve his community as a respected member of the town water committee those in favor of the motion please say i suppose now voters unanimous frank french here eleven taylor also served as assistant town council register of voters in a various town committees he was elected to the board of water commission as in april nine hundred eighty three as a water commissioner he helped guide water the packman into compliance with the safe drinking water act in all the regulations of the commonwealth of massachusetts during his terms as chairman of the board of water commissioners he brought you novation insight into the operations of the water department a lever taylor's extensive professional experience as an attorney and former president of the new england school of law provided a valuable asset to the administration of the water the pattern his primary objective was to provide the citizens of belmont with safe drinking water a level tailor served as a water commissioner until may ninth may sixteenth one thousand anyone when the town learned of his death the board of water commissioners extension sympathy to the taylor family we express our heartfelt appreciation for a lever taylor's dedication to the water the potman and the citizens of belmont those in favor of the resolution say i post the resolutions unanimously adopted  serving the town of belmont and where is daniel needham was educated at harvard university and harvard law school and where is daniel need of junior became a respected attorney with the firm of sherman powers and needham and where tim serve the town of belmont as a library trustee for seven years and where is he served as a belmont selectman for nine years and was elected town moderator in one nine hundred seventy eight and served in that capacity through nine ably represented the board of selectmen in the delicate negotiations with the town employees to establish a new health plan to the benefit of all and whereas as the first woman so elected this accomplishment should be duly noted and whereas and during her six years as selectman and nine years on the school committee has compiled a distinguished record of service to the town of belmont therefore feodor solved that the hundred ninety two town meeting acknowledge with gratitude the many contributions and m paulson has made to the town  mr moderator anita hill precinct seven resolution whereas donald j jenkins served as a town meeting member from nine hundred eighty until he resigned in nine hundred ninety one due to failing health and passed away on september fifth nine hundred ninety one whereas he served as a member of the belmont youth commission whereas he served his community and church as the head i'm sure if this where is donald jenkins service to the town of belmar can be measured by the end waldman he had with the generation of all the past twenty years serving as their friend mentor and confidante in times of joy and accomplishment as well and in times of sorrow in need he was always there for them he was affectionately known as his dedication an example as a role model putting his own needs aside and putting the needs of others state appreciation to donald for his devotion and service to the youth of belmont and extended sympathy to his family those in favor of the resolution to say i four twenty two through twenty five twenty seven thirty three twenty eight or thirty two and thirty fo we do have some reports as the moderator and i would like to make a very brief comment i'm not going to be very long and present you with a lot of data because you will be hearing that and the speakers will follow me but i do want to make a comment let me begin by saying that the budget decisions made by the board of selectmen in the want committee this year have been very very difficult ones to make the budget would cut which comes under the purview other jurisdiction of the board of selectmen has been cut by approximately seven hundred thousand dollars those cuts are listed and it won't committee report limitations imposed by proposition two and a half a couple which decreases in local aid decreases and interest and on investments continued to pressure each and every budget decision the outlook for next year is not good in fact it is highly probable that we will be back here in the fall in order to deal with additional losses of revenue from state a i don't mention that to start the meeting off on a bleak note but only to remind you that that is the kind of situation that we're in and i would and i know the board would appreciate if you would keep those thoughts in mind as you go through the town meeting it has been difficult for us the budget that we're taking up this year is extremely tight and i think we're getting to the point at which some of the savings that were made were making are in the long run counterproductive in the sense that there we run the risk of having to bear additional costs as a result of economies that we're undertaking in order to meet the specific dollar constraints with which we have to live  where we have been concerned over the years continue to be concerned at a increasing pace at the postponement in capital projects and in the prospects for very difficult problems for the schools and the operating budget in the following year this year is very bad next year is going to be worse if the world continues the direction  right now we are on the weren't committee feel that the town has done very well in handling those parts of the budget which it can control let's say the operating budgets of the individual departments in the non personnel or areas and personal areas too for that matter but the things that have gotten have caused pressure on the town addition to limitations on additional revenues are uncontrollable and we have prepared and from the school community school administration as part of  tradition of shooting the messenger so i'm going to be brief over the last few years we've all been agonizing over the town budget each year it seems to get more difficult to balance it to get the things done we want to do and each year as we have this year we hear that it's going to be even harder next year this presentation is really our attempt to our committees attempt to show you as graphically as we can what has been happening what are the major trends in the major forces that have been affecting us over the last couple of years and what are some of the hurdles that we're still going to have to face ahead  now this ok this chart is showing selected programs couple of points i'd like to make on this first of all you'll notice on the left hand side the black line on the far left is our benchmark that's nine hundred eighty two where we were pretty much before proposition two and a half the other points that i want to make  about this particular chart is that likely to notice health insurance the cost of health insurance and how that compares with our two major services not counting schools police and fire and solid waste but i'd also like you to notice that the health insurance costs are increasing much more rapidly than the other expenses the other departments solid waste has also had a major increase for us in the past ten years this chart by the way includes salaries this chart takes out those salaries it also combines in the operating departments there it combines police fire highway and library so what you're really looking at here are the operating expenses of major departments in town and the increase in the operating expenses for well the expenses for health insurance solid waste and schools no salaries involved here again it's the trends that are important here you can see we've done the town has done a remarkably good job of keeping operating expenses at a very low rate of growth we've had very little luck with health insurance  if we look at the school so side of things for a minute again it's the trend that's important here two things i want to point out here one is on the pupil side here  the thirty line up here is the equivalent of three thousand students on the staff side we're dealing in tens not hundreds so the thirty line means three hundred staff i didn't want you to think we had a one to one ratio going there the point here again as i said is the trend as the number of students is has been slowly increasing the last couple of years the number of staff has been coming down another way to look at this one is the impact the impact that this is having on our classroom size that again has been is starting to creep up words and the impact that it's having on our which numbers you need those charts tell us a little bit about some of the things that are happening in town the trends some the pressures we are feeling financially in the light of that it would be interesting to think for a minute about what are some of the things that are not happening in town given our financial situation maintenance of public facilities is not being kept up at the level we have been traditionally accustomed to in town schools buildings town hall buildings aren't being painted the kinds of things that you do around your home all the time general upkeep is really being slashed replacement program of equipment this is particularly true in the fire department few years ago some of you probably recall we had a program where we were trying to replace program on a regular basis we're just not doing that and we're going to start feeling that pinch more and more maintenance of the infrastructure the obvious ones here that see are the roads and the sidewalks how many times have you tripped over sidewalks lately ok let's take a look at the future now that's what's going on and what's not going on what are we facing what are we likely to have to deal with in the future well  doesn't quite fit on there but i think you can figure it out health insurance costs will probably continue to rise no reason to expect they won't and it's not predictable this year for example we had an unexpected almost last minute two hundred fifty thousand dollar increase for f y ninety three it's had a major impact on the budget that's going to be before you uncontrollable unpredictable in ninety four incremental school costs expected school cost increases really projected to be over a million dollars we anticipate just in the area of contractual personnel cost and reinstating some of the maintenance that needs desperately to be done around the school buildings there in very easy without even working hard at it is about a million dollars increasing costs of mandated solid waste programs the state this year has mandated for example a new charge for yard waste disposal th particular piece of it is really only about one hundred thousand dollars the forty thousand dollars here i believe includes a change in line items but that's something that we have to do we haven't really talked about salary increases we have not been giving significant increases the last few years for each one percent salary increase on the town side that adds one hundred thousand dollars to our budget and each one percent increase on the school side adds another one percent one hundred thousand dollars to the budget we're going to have to have to face those in the coming years time to negotiate renegotiate some contracts and last but not least some of the major capital budget needs that the town is facing we need a central communication system for fire and police there's five hundred thousand dollars our roads really need work to the tune of about a million dollars a year we've got to deal with the issue of a new cemetery we're going to have to bite that bullet at some point estimates are unknown on that one but we're probably looking at an easy million dollars soon fairly soon sidewalks hundred fifty thousand dollars we could spend easily on sidewalks the underwood pool there's been some estimates on that that that would be a round one million dollars we currently have a committee that is going to be making an effort to raise the funds independently hopefully that will succeed but still that's a million dollars that the town ought to be dealing with a lot to be facing skating in tennis rink needs a hundred thousand dollars worth of work on it estimated deferred major maintenance in the schools eight hundred thousand dollars that hasn't been done there that needs doing it's estimated and the middle school renovation that we've talked about for years current estimates on that eleven million dollars doesn't sound like fun does it really all we're trying to do with this presentation is to give you some of the highlights there's a lot more detail to be had in the report from the capital budget committee and from the war committee that you have printed and you're going to be hearing more now from jim haim and from karen press aide i would just like to close by urging you to carefully read those written reports and to try and understand what's going on and begin to think about what are we going to do about it thank you topics i would like to speak briefly on first is watch in this year's capital budget the second is what is not it should be and the looming future financial problems  cruisers the second is a few thousand dollars which we have to appropriate as seed money in order to get the chapter ninety eight highway money from the state now to do what we feel should we have to buy major equipment for either the highway department or the fire department just give you some idea of the size and some of the things that may come up if public costs two hundred thousand and a lot of there we always pay attention to the pool apartments major maintenance budget because we feel that money spent on maintenance ultimately saves money on capital repairs we've always encouraged to school department to appropriate two hundred thousand a year for major renovations this year they're only able to come up with fifty thousand finally this is what's looming in the future there's a problem fourteen million dollars to get them back in the condition they were in early ninety eight we've done nothing about it except spend what money the state will give us the chapter ninety program that's never even got up to half a million a year five a lot of i would mention the underwood pool like out of the recreation committee has given up hope on the town funding its repairs and is going to some other method which they were describ  holland superintendent of schools i want to thank the moderator the site been in the warrant committee for the opportunity to address town meeting members on the development of the f y nine hundred ninety three budget for the belmont public schools at that time a maintenance of effort budget eight school committee meetings have focused on the f one nine hundred ninety three budget including a session on january twenty first at the wellington school to seek input from parents and other interested community members the person says that meeting on march third the school committee hosted an input session here at the high school in the little theater with special emphasis on instituting user fees for transportation in f l attics i think there is proximately about eighty at that meeting as well the school committee voted the f y nine hundred ninety three budget on march thirty first like to show you some of the the information contained in this budget and the total number of dollars as opposed to nine hundred seventy six thousand dollars if we add to that what came about as a result of collective bargaining with the additional pay for kindergarten teachers one gemini and other units approximately seventy seven thousand dollars the total difference that we have in this year's budget i'm sorry it over this year's budget for f y nine hundred ninety three is one million fifty three thousand dollars the the additional amount of money available to  the belmont public schools for f y nine hundred ninety three in the operational budget alone is two hundred one thousand dollars that is exclusive of four hundred thirty thousand dollars for health insurance costs which we'll talk about later so what is needed to close th staffing one hundred seventy two thousand dollars actually this is one hundred seventy two thousand dollars below our preliminary budget proposal that budget proposal calls for a reduction of two point two positions here at the high school and increase of three at the elementary schools because our and we've cut one hundred twelve out so there's fifty thousand dollars in the budget for this year for next year i should say in the current year we have nothing in the budget far maintenance of buildings if we budgeted one percent of our total assessment our appraisal of our buildings would be eight hundred thousand dollars in this category in terms of instructional equipment the amount cut from the budget for f y nine hundred ninety three is one hundred twelve thousand dollars for new and replacement instructional quitman this year it's funded zero that includes areas like the science equipment and replacement of science equipment replacement of music equipment which is one of our stellar programs in the system audio visual computer technology all of those areas for dexter we have forty six thousand dollars of new equipment in the system in total budget of over seventeen million dollars the next item is minor maintenance of buildings and ground utilities approximate ten thousand dollars cut in that area special education tuitions transportation we have reduced the number of out of district placements in special education that number is gone down therefore we have some savings in the area of transportation intuition other revenue sources including attrition hundred seventy six thousand dollars in the area of attrition  classroom supplies twenty one and other nine thousand dollars the total for this is eight fifty two that brings you up to date in terms of the reductions made from the budget which was first presented to the school committee on december while this is less than a maintenance of effort budget that we now have it does preside at one percent rather a one point two percent increase in the operational budget for a projected three percent increase in the number of students as well as  increasing support for the escalating costs of health insurance i want to be clear on this point we can absorb the impact of these cuts in the f one thousand nine hundred ninety to ninety thousand nine hundred ninety three school year but we are at the absolute bottom line in terms of our funding as bruce davidson has pointed out in the warrant committee report the increase in salary costs for f one thousand nine hundred ninety four are an order of magnitude above what we are facing this year and i quote from that report contracted pay increases couple with the regular step column increases for staff why add nearly eight hundred fifty thousand dollars identified health care cost increases add another ninety three thousand dollars restoration of the normal major maintenance spending would add one hundred  twenty thousand dollars these figures alone total one million sixty three thousand dollars which is far above the the n your growth at annual revenue growth of seven hundred thousand dollars and these figures take no account of the fact that the administration projects a further one the slide that i presented at that time is the slide before you here it shows figures from one nine hundred seventy in one nine hundred seventy five population students in terms of students in the belmont public schools was approximately five thousand the population decline and started in earnest from seventy five to eighty and so in one nine hundred eighty you can see the reduction around four thousand students to you come up to a low point around one thousand nine hundred ninety one the figures from ninety two out  into the year two thousand and one you can see are generally increasing let me provide a little bit more information on that this is the diagram that are presented in november or october town media over one thousand nine hundred one if we take a look at there are two ways we could do this both of these are based on five year experiences we call it the cold hard survival ratio what essentially is our experience for felt over five years for how many students are retained or are continue to go from one great to the next like slightly over five hundred students i i submit that this is the low end of the anticipated increase and wrong with that we would be having at the high end we would take the same kind of data but what we would look at instead of taking live births we would use the data that we have on four year olds and i think this is more applicable to our situation because we have a number of families who move into town after they have had children and then look far  educational programs in the town and that's when the reason is that they move based on the data of four year olds and based on the five year survival ratios we would get a figure of almost forty two hundred students in the year two thousand and one that would be an increase of about  almost twelve hundred students so probably somewhere between five hundred twenty five and twelve hundred seven hundred fifty or so might be what we would expect over the next decade in terms of our roman increase so clearly we were out of we are we are completed with the number of years that we have had any role meant to combine and we are looking forward to looking ahead to i should say some steady increase in terms of our rome and at this point i would like to turn the podium over to karen  summarize my remarks and categorize them as the good the bad and the ugly and the good side we have a strong innovative academic program from the we have instituted a number of initiatives to try and do the things we do even better we managed to settle our contract after a protracted negotiation process and the healing process has begun in the school system just to let you know about some of the major provisions of the contract the first year of the contract to september ninety one ninety two that's this year there was a zero percent increase the second year of the contract september ninety two ninety three there's a split settlement of two point to be implemented in september and the other two point five percent will be implemented and the third year of the contract ninety three ninety four there is a two and a half percent increase to be implemented in september and a three and a half percent increase to be implemented in february or a total cost of about nine point five percent over the three year life  contract that's the good news the bad news is that the school budget will be asked for three point seven three percent higher than last year the fringe benefits in the school budget now exceed a million dollars this year's four hundred thirty thousand dollar increase was covered by town funds and did not require additional cuts in the school budget and for that we're extremely grateful but when you analyze only the operating fund excluding fringe benefits you find that we as a community are actually spending less on education than we did in the one thousand nine hundred ninety one budget project that we will be educating about two hundred seven more children in the considered a maintenance of effort budget two and a half percent in total one of them used revenues for the town simply does not cover the total needs of this community without an infusion of state it revenues from two and a half  seven hundred thousand dollars expenditures and fringe benefits in the school department exceed that number steady erosion has occurred in the school system over the last few years particularly in areas of maintenance and equipment purchases but this year we are cutting into crucial areas of staffing of support for libraries and the controversial and divisive issue of busing fees which leads me to the and that of course is the cherry middle school the building is in very poor condition the advisory committee appointed by the superintendent has recommended as following up on a number of other committees that have made the same recommendation to completely renovate or start all over what the general middle school a professional study funded out of this year's budget will begin soon it may involve a look at great restructuring because of the  increases at the elementary level in particular and will be coming back to the town meeting for approval to proceed to the next step  hundred thousand dollars maintenance item that the town has tried to incorporate in budgets with varying degrees of unsuccess over the course of the last four or five years longer perhaps with a target initially of two hundred thousand dollars and it was incorporated in the budget as late as two weeks ago when news of the insurance problem came to the fore and so it was deleted i think wisely under the circumstances and in the short term but it means that the program which the town had designed to try to smooth the impact of the kinds of increases that jim himes has sketched for you has had to be set aside and so instead of having what was in effect a bank account that a household would have in order to buy or for generator stove or these conventional things that we all face the town may very well have to go to market and borrow to fund some of these things so rather than setting money aside in crewing some interest on what we have been able to build up to meet these things instead we're going we face the possibility of paying additional money beyond what we have not say that's to say we're in the long run in danger of paying for the item plus the interest that will have to pay on the indebtedness and that to me is the prototypical example of the kinds of choices that are being thrust on the town in this atmosphere is going to need to be repaired or replaced and the bath house needs major renovations recreation committee has initiated a fund raising program which will kick off at call any of the recreation committee members a colorado creation office for a nine to four five we have a very light sum of money to collect and we're going to need a lot of help we have a very very program we think a lot of different events to try and raise money to save the taxpayers from have to pay for the pool so we can use everybody's hel such claims to arbitration and to enter into settlements on account of the same in behalf of the town as in when it deems it for the best interest of the town so to do said power should be vested soley in the board of select said opposite the name of each as follows moderator two hundred dollars select men chairman five thousand dollars two members each at forty five hundred dollars for a total of nine thousand dollars making the total for the selectmen fourteen thousand dollars town clerk fifty thousand six hundred fifty seven dollars town treasurer fifty five thousand eight hundred twenty one dollars assessors chairman two thousand seven hundred fifty dollars one member two thousand four hundred twenty dollars one member two thousand two hundred dollars for a total of seven thousand three hundred seventy dollars water commission is three members each a one thousand dollars for a total of three thousand dollars making the cumulative total one hundred thirty one thousand forty eight dollars and some of the one hundred thirty one thousand and forty eight dollars he raised as follows one hundred twenty eight thousand and forty eight dollars by general tax and three thousand dollars from water to provide nine contribute to our pensions for eligible a ploy of any and all of the time to patents as provided in the applicable sections of chapter thirty two of the general laws as may be determined from time to mr moderator jonathan watson precinct one article seven moved that there be and here by is appropriated the sum of two million seventy four thousand seven hundred ninety eight dollars to provide contributory pensions and expenses in connection there with in accordance with applicable provisions of chapter thirty two of the general laws mr moderator mary power to article eight moves that the town treasure with the approval of the selectmen b and hereby is authorized to borrow money from time to time in test in and to supply of the revenue of the financial year beginning july first one thousand nine hundred two in accordance with the provisions of general laws chapter forty four section four and to issue a note or notes therefore payable within one year and to renew any note or notes as may be given for a period of less than one year in accordance with general laws chapter forty four section seventeen one committee moderators work committee recommends favorable action we have the sum of five thousand three hundred and thirty dollars to eradicate mosquitoes in any area in the town infested there by and for purposes incidental there to the soon to be raised by general tax and expended the moderator of girl article ten moved that there be in here by is appropriated the amount set forth below the expenses of municipal officers and employees of any particular department of the town incurred outside the commonwealth and securing information upon matters in which the town the central state or which may tend to improve the service and such department is provided by here by is authorized to complete such sale in each case into signed sealed execute and deliver on the same in the name in behalf of the inhabitants of belmont the conveyance of each pass also sold to the purchaser in such  you of these tax title seizures and sales could take place in the past and how do you advertise them in that little tiny type that you can't read or are they advertise in some way so that in fact the citizens of belmont taxes that are due the town with the town has never to the best of my knowledge done had any foreclosure on any property i tell the people that come into my office that because we have right now we have better than forty of them who are making partial payments as long as you are living in the house don't worry we will not sell your house it's the ones who we have i have three that i'm working through the land court and that takes i understand takes about three years or so before we would get into a foreclosure and sell the property and those properties are our commercial properties because that help you ok management service family civil defense and town as authorized by chapter six thirty nine of the acts of nineteen fifty and any acts in amendment thereof off in addition to in line with both federal civil defense agencies now federal emergency management agency and state civil defense agency now mass and religion c h c the name changes have been made with the thought in min duties and responsibilities that emergency management has such as hurricanes floods hazardous material accidents serious fires civil disorders and the like members of the belmont emergency management are the same members of the emergency management plans which were instituted nineteen eighty nine members chief james b murphy who is the director department officer kenneth convoy electric light manager now i want to elaborate that we run this to have been for seven thousand dollars which is very small but we utilize all these department head everything how we do it so reasonable of highways within the town of which some five thousand six hundred dollars shall be raised by general tax the balance of four hundred twelve two hundred sixty six thousand dollars to be offset by reimbursement from the commonwealth as provided by approach to the use of the chapter nineteen money because of a change in state law we will use some of it for what he does engineering and design work on pleasant street pleasant street will be the next street to be done but there will be a lot of study and plenty got through the use of some of this money and then there will be discussion for the discussion about pleasant street and how it will be done if further if not all those favors the motion please say i post motions unanimously adopted article fourteen stevens as set forth in a document entitled town of belmont position classification and compensation plans fiscal year in one nine hundred ninety three dated april twenty five one thousand nine hundred to be dispensed with the original having been in the town clerk's office and a copy distributed to each town meeting member to the town amend the position classification and compensation plan previously adopted under the provisions of article levon of the general bylaws of the town moderator julie monaghan precinct date moved that the town purchased three new patrol cars for the use of the police department of the town and that that some forty nine thousand five hundred dollars and hereby is appropriated for said purpose the same to be raised by general tax and expended under the direction of the board of selectmen one committee recommends favorable act and tops warner ten million member at large moved to that article seventeen be dismissed from the right we have discussion  we've heard from the warrant committee we've heard from the board of selectmen we've heard from the superintendent of schools the school committee chairman of the couple budget committee chairman of the recreation all telling us that areas in t what concerns me and what frustrates me is that i've not heard anything about a plan or some kind of a forward looking way of doing something about this i realize  but to my great sadness i've heard nothing from any of the boards who reported to us tonight about possible ways of doing something about this of raising revenues of going to the town percent ing what has been presented here considering the possibility of override i don't know what could i ask you to stick to the point of whether we should dismiss the stabilization fund i guess i would i would wonder whether given the fact that there is no  response in any way to this to the very serious situation that i see our time it is in that i would say in the lack of the other kind of plans i would like to see this article not article eighteen moved that the board of selectmen be is authorized to take such action as may be requested by the northeast solid waste committee to facilitate the refunding  bonds issued to finance the solid waste resource recovery facility preferred to in the service agreement between the town and massachusetts refuse to act including without limitation the substitution of w greater technologies for allied signal inc as the guarantee or performance under the service agreement and the execution and delivery of such amendments to the service agreement and other agreements with the moderator general of the town meeting the name is mel collector and the town's executive secretary of the town of belmont along with twenty two other communities in the northeast section of massachusetts belong to a consortium called network an acronym for northeast solid waste communities we have a a facility that is owned and operated by a private concern and it was funded by the communities of the twenty three communities and make up this work this was a month around ten years ago that these communities with the cooperation of the state floated several hundred million dollars worth of bonds some tax exempt some taxable to finance this facility the bonds the tax exempt bonds were sold that over ten percent and  obviously the market has changed considerably since that time and at this time the communities are looking to refinance those bonds was tactics and bonds this article that is presented to you this evening is to seek your authorization to enable the board of selectmen to enter into the appropriate legal mechanisms to effect such a refinancing this is on the warrant for every twenty three communities or in the case of cities it's on the city council docket and up to this point about half have acted on that and all of them have acted affirmatively so i would ask your approval of this article this evening it's very questions discussion  worth of bonds outstanding it's it's a projected that all twenty three communities will save roughly thirty million dollars over the the length of the the rest of the bonds on you savings to the town but project there's many components of of the solid waste tipping fee as we call it it includes the cost of the solid waste costs the cost of transporting solid waste the town and all of those communities have currently an arbitration case going on with the the operator of the plant there's many variables and it's very difficult to determine what the impact will be on an annual basis but if there's thirty million dollars and i believe the peter maybe for me there's there's probably about fifteen or so years left on that those bonds so i don't have done the math as far as how it would impact kind of belmont but it would be considerable do i understand i'm just trying to understand we on what proportion of that and if it's  ten percent now we're paying ten percent interest and if you lower that tax free might be seven percent it's arcus that the bonsa be sold in the range of six and a half to seven percent so i think that's roughly thirty percent but what would that mean in terms of saving to the town i'm not sure exactly what the savings facility and that equates to you know multiplying that by the number of tonnes that we dispose and if you look at the savings at around thirty percent perhaps that might give you a better indication because you know around fourteen thousand per year fourteen fifteen thousand ton to two sounds like a very good idea to refinance these bourne's and reduce the interest rate i know that the town has ten million dollars worth of bourne's and a six point two five percent interest rate for the for the burbank in the windbreak school might not be a good idea to try and refinance those bonds treasure right now the last four point nine million when it's six point zero six zero three and talking to fleet bank they guesstimate that we would probably do it in about a five and a half rate and the difference of five and a half a percent for the mom of time because these bonds will be paid off in approximately some of going off paid off in ninety eight ninety nine and two thousand for the half a percent clause seventeen which provides for an exemption from real estate tax for real property the amount of two thousand dollars or taxable valuation or the sum of one hundred seventy five dollars whichever what i'm out in the basement of the greater amount of actual taxes due for certain eligible tax payers who are surviving spouses minus whose parents are deceased or are over the age  now twenty one which deals with an elderly to furl taxes either calls twenty and twenty one will be presented to you by the other two members of the board of assessors as a break point of information a provision of proposition twenty requires that when the legislature passes any legislation or changes which affects the community then the city council or the town meeting must accept both provisions i report nineteen which i shall address basically changes to eligible requirements of this cla the present seventeen c requires the applicant to on an occupied their property for ten years the change would be to one occupy the property for five qualify the change in a new clause eliminates any assessed value in calculating the forty thousand dollars or taishan assets they have by allowing the taxpayer an opportunity to qualify for this cause the board of assessors find that if you happen to be an older citizen the surviving spouse or in mind that you are more vulnerable than most of our citizens for the burden of property taxes and these exit these exemptions assist tax payers and meeting their tax obligations especially in these trying economic times therefore the board of a clause thirty seventh day which provides for an exemption from real estate tax for real property of five hundred dollars of the actual tax used to for a certain eligible taxpayers wh it will enable your board of assesses to grant the sum of five hundred dollars instead which is an increase of sixty two dollars and fifty cents over the current rate of four hundred  increases the maximum qualifying gross receipts from twenty thousand dollars to forty thousand dollars for otherwise eligible epic and for real estate tax exemptions who are better at it the tax deferral and recovery recovery agreements forms to the board of assessors for their perusal and it basically allows those of sixty five years of age or older to remain in their homes and belmont that they have worked so hard to obtain and maintain in the board of assess  large i just want to point out to town meeting that that i think i speak for the entire board is like saying that this is a very important article that many people in this room continue to seek ways in which to relieve the older citizens of this town from the increasing tax burden and the board of assessors is to be commended for finding a very wise way in which to do it and i hope that we pass this one unanimously thank you questions lot of articles left in the morning and some that are going to take a bit of time perhaps thirty one thirty two thirty four four three twenty seven and thirty three thank you do we have discussion on this motion if not those who favor the motion please say i suppose motions unanimously adopted in accordance with this vote we have just adopted article twenty three co adding the following new section four point four point one quote four point four point one the selection of chairman of the board of selectmen shall be rotated annually after the annual town election the member has completed the second year of a three year term children become chairman unquote report of the by law review committee approval by this committee signifies that the revisions are correctly correctly formed are consistent with the general by laws in are correctly placed and general bylaws this committee has a store clean not taken a position on the contents or usefulness of proposed revisions an explanation of the content of these two articles the revision side it arose because of a petition as letter to the selectmen requesting a by law requiring rotation of the chairmanship of the board the petitioner did not offer any specific wording for such a revision thus the committee formulated the approach in the two worn articles article twenty two changes section three point four of the bylaws section three point four now requires all boards and committees of the town to select a chairman the revision in article twenty two eliminates the supreme quire meant for the board of selectmen instead the revision in article twenty three requires that this chairman chairmanship be rotated annually by law review committee normally uses concise wording in the bylaws so as to provide a minimum set of words or gets job done at the war discussion last week was pointed out that an abnormal circumstances services chairman might be required for a year from a person who preferred not to serve the bylaw review committee did not provide language to cover all abnormal circumstances possible instead a selectman not to sorry to serve would elect and his or for her first act as chairman to select or appoint a vice chairman and does it make that person to fill the functions of the chair given while the chairman would be required to retain the title only other of normal circumstances could be hamilton handle simp similarly following action by the by law review barbara miranda precinct one i'm glad to have an opportunity to speak about article twenty three i really believe that it's appropriate for a town meeting to discuss discuss any question about town government or policies that's been a of concern and that's the main purpose of this article i think to generate discussion of the idea of rotation of the chairmanship of the board of selectmen many people feel that a board should always be free to choose its own chairman and i would in theory agree with that our school committee is an example of a board which does indeed choose its own chair but has an internal understanding that the chairmanship or rota with seniority we cardless of the philosophy of the committee member who is next in line many belmont residents of felt that the board of selectmen has not had that same internal understanding and so a person could be reelected by the voters many times over and yet never have the opportunity to be chair each selectman is equally elected by the voters and should have the same opportunities the role of the chairman may need to be discussed in even more detail by the board and then could may be seen that there is no problem with the idea of an understanding about rotation as i said before the school committee doesn't seem to have a problem with this idea and i really think the ideas and energy of new chairs is beneficial to communities and boards i respect the opinion of those who feel that a bylaw change is not the way to address the solution we probably all agree that such a bylaw might prove to be too restrictive and that it appears to actually require someone to service chair maybe some other version or a simple resolution stating that the town meeting supports the idea of giving every selectman the opportunity to service chair might be more agreeable and any of them and i would hope the town meeting members will discuss the merits of this article as an idea apart from the people who actually hold the office in any given year i'm sure it'll be an interesting discussion thank you very much talks one a town meeting member at large to many people surprise i do oppose this article it probably will affect me more than anyone else in this room however i am opposed to the rotation of the chairmanship of the board of select for the following reasons i have served on a on the board in which the chairman was pre determined by the bylaws that person was both the president and the chairman the individual happened to be a terrific president and a lousy chairman we ended up having to revise our byelaws to divide those two functions so that the person who was best at being chairman could actually be the chairman i think that the issue here is more what should a chairman be  what's behind this motion this article is a sense that the chairmanship has been abused over the last six years i make absolutely no judgment that as i stand here tonight i have heard  expressed by many people what i think we need to focus on here is what the function of the chair should be it is a matter of convenience who is chair there are four things i think that are important that the chair does and we have  agreed on them to the three of us when deciding on who are chair should be read publicly in front of the cable television and i hope every one of you in this room will hold us all to these to these ideas first of all each selectman should have equal access to the agenda both in terms of timing and in terms of substance second of all each selectman must be fully consulted on each and every item before the board of selectmen third of all when there is a majority in a minority position on the board both of those positions must be reported in full and any time that the chairman is reporting of reporting the position of the selectmen to any other group and finally the position should not be used for political purposes we've discussed this openly i am delighted that both of my fellows like me agree with this i think they will abide by it and i think that should be that i do want to note one other thing which is i think that next year we should consider a different bylaw amendment as it stands right now the chairman of the board of selectmen is a voting member of the warrant committee this results in a situation where if there is a regular two one split on the board of selectmen that the board will feel that one of those two members should be on the ward committee in order to increase the influence of the board selectman on the ward committee i think that's inappropriate i think the work committee should be a separate body from the board of selectmen it is also inappropriate for me to bring this to do much discussion now because it's not pertinent to this article but you will see me raise this next year to make the chairman of the border selectman a non voting member of the ward committee rather than a voting member i think that's the underlying organizational problem here thank you town meeting member at large this is the most undemocratic article that i have ever seen before the town meeting and i would very much yes that's right and i would remind you we are the ones that run for election we should have the right to select our own chairman the board of assessments of has elected the same person for fifteen years i don't know why they do it but in their judgment they think mr perelli should be the chairman and good luck to them and i think the board of selectmen should have the right to vote who their chairman is and not should be treated any differently are exempted head mrs waters proposal for a non voting member of the work committee i'll be happy to address that at a later date saying not all those in favor of the motion please say those opposed the motion is defeated article fees of the town clerk and the clauses nine twelve thirteen and thirty three a section five excuse me one two as falls clause nine freight train delayed of birth fifteen dollars plus twelve for filing certificate of a person could act in business under any title other than his real name fifteen dollars plus thirteen for filing by a person conducting business under any title other than his real name of state of change of his residence or of any his discontinuance retirement or withdrawal from or of change of location of such as business ten dollars and close their thirty three for correcting errors in a record of marriage fifteen dollars we have a report from the by a lower view committ a report of by law review committee on article twenty four the town clerk submitted the revisions of article twenty four to the selectmen for inclusion in the warrant an explanation let me first point out that section five point twelve contains fifty three clauses giving fees for various services of the town clerk the section was first included in the general bylaws in eighty one and revised in eighty nine by law review committee would have preferred t sort of fifty three fees be included as a schedule of fees published directly by the town clerk outside of the general bylaws town council as i recall reading advice at this particular fee schedule from the town clerk must be included in the general bylaws hence the process of updating fees by two thirds vote of town meetings required the particular fees cited for evasions in article twenty four and listed on page six of your warrant include a fee in clause nine for which there is currently a ten dollar fee this would be revised to fifteen dollars clause twelve currently a ten dollar fee it would be revised fifteen clause thirteen currently a five dollar fee would be revised to ten and clause thirty three currently a ten dollar fee would be revised to fifteen  do we have further questions discussion if not those who favor please say i suppose votes unanimously adopted article twenty five suzanne cro by adding the following new section twenty point two point one no person shall pick up collect or procure any trash curbside within the town except as specifically authorized in the rules and regulations adopted by the chairman by law review committee report of the by law review committee on article twenty five the by law review committee voted to approve the revisions before you an article twenty five as stated earlier a favorable vote by the committee means that the format it fit is correct it does not signify committee approval of the contents or usefulness an explanation let me first remind you that the town meeting approves section twenty six of the general bylaws last year that section contains a recycling by law specifically the wording of section twenty six point six of that by law is nearly identical to that for section twenty point two point one as contained in warren article twenty five here tonight the proposed section twenty point two point one uses the word quote trash unquote in the first word of the second line as printed in your warrant section twenty point twenty six section twenty six point six of the general bylaws bylaws uses the word quote recyclables unquote instead whether or warren article twenty five has passed tonight it will be illegal to quote collect or procure recyclables at curbside unquote in belmont as provided in twenty six point six article twenty five before you here arose because it sponsors submitted a letter to the town clerk's office which included the wording cited exactly in article twenty five this wording as requested by the sponsor in his letter would allow the police to bring to a halt noisy trash pickup at a normal hours by an authorized persons as is now the practice according to the sponsor of the bylaws review committee included this revision under article twenty public safety of property creating a new section twenty point two point one one the bi lo review committee submitted this approved revision to the selectmen they voted to include in the war without requiring ten voters to sign to request it thank you mr mark do we have any discussion of this article any question jonathan watson precinct one if somebody is making noise that should be stopped but if somebody is picking up trash quietly they're probably doing us all a service i don't think we need to add this to our by further yes five i just would like to add to that earlier this year the neighbor across the street moved out it was the family of women who died they left beds and things that a lot people that some people picked up and were also concerned with the homeless this was i thought a real say a real way that we were in fact contributing rather than throwing it in the landfill these were martin cohen precinct three i think we have a problem with this as to what is the definition of tray one man's trash is another man's good broken hockey sticks for example can be looked upon as fine sees in the you've missed a moderator jim's all the precincts seven as the sponsor of this article i would like to bring to your attention a couple things that i see as i go out jogging anyways between five and six o'clock in the there are certain select few people who go around picking the trash this is clearly a trash picking item and i've seen them every morning in different sections of the town they rip open bags they're looking at things you're looking for coupons that come in the mail for free tickets to the lottery and i think in some instances it's an invasion of people's privacy you're throwing up bills receipts things like that that i think nobody's business even though you are putting them out in the trash they're also unfortunately also going through the recycling bins again these are things you don't see if you're not out in the streets at five or six o'clock in the morning so whatever your pleasure this is my view and that's section twenty point ten of the general bylaws of the town be dispensed with the originals having been filed in the time clerk's office and a copy distributed to each town meeting member also moved to the town of men we are today doctor first let's have a vote on the motion to dispense with the reading of the ok those a favor post thank you number two was the moderator move that the town amend article twenty of the general bylaws of the town and title public safety and property by deleting the present section twenty point ten and substituting their for the proposed new section twenty point ten on file in the town clerk's office motions presented by david be albert precinct sex thank you dr up or by law review committee chairman by law review committee report of vital our review committee an article twenty six by law review committee voted to approve the revisions to article twenty point ten substantially in the form before you an article twenty five an explanation let me summarize the content of the current section twenty point ten it provides for a licensing of dogs only with licensing of dogs only with fees of seven or four required proper disposal of dog feces she allows handicapped dog owners to buy by pass some requirements of section twenty point ten all of these features plus others are included in the revised section twenty point ten offered in worn article twenty six tonight some of the other features include some of these other features include coverage of cats requirements for rabies vaccinations provisions for breeders license restrictions on keeping wild or exotic animals restrictions on feeding of wild animals reporting of animal bites in reporting of auto collisions with dogs or cats the board of health belmont i thank you for allowing me to dispense with the reading of this lengthy article and because of that i will not belabor the points that we're trying to get in front of you but rather try to add a few clarifications hopefully that you read some of in the letter that we enclose with the warrant first and foremost despite people's fears to the contrary there is no leashing controlling of cats or any pooper scooper part for cats in this bylaw that was in the initial draft we have gone through at least five dr since then this was removed part and parcel because of the response from citizens that came out and spoke to us when we had open meetings with the board of elf what we are trying to address here is basically a rabies situation we are not trying to create a rabies panic but rather trying to prevent one and this is we see is one of the roles of the boards of health is to try to get into situations that we may see coming before they actually turn into a situation of panic there are three things that we're dealing with here with respect to cats and that is the rabies vaccination the licensing and the result of somebody violating the bylaws that we hopefully will see you pass this evening as far as the rabies vaccination is concerned we've really received very little opposition to this if you did have a chance to see the write up that we sent to you that graph on the last page is really fairly explicit rabies his coming the fact that it jumped over massachusetts and had a case in new hampshire recently does not mean that they're going to envoy this completely but rather they just were unlucky before we were again this is not something that anyone seems to really be opposed to as far as the licensing is concerned this is the boards of health way of number one making sure that people do this and even though most people sit there and say well of course i'm responsible for the care and well being of my animal many people are not and the simple fact of the matter is is that they need to be and it is seen as our job to try to make people do so licensing is one way of ensuring that people do this i also our way of getting an idea of the animals that are in town and if god forbid that someone is bitten by a cat hopefully finding out whether or not this animal has been inoculated this is not a cat tax and even at the wildest dreams of let's say twenty five hundred cats in town at eight bucks apiece that's twenty thousand dollars not really going to help out the school committee or the police department or anybody very much what this money is going to help us with is in force mint and that is one of the reasons that we're doing this there is no reason that people that don't own animals should be incurring an expense for people that do and if in fact people own animals that causing expense of the town by not apply to me not abiding by the bylaws they should be punished accordingly and we need people to enforce this therefore along with this and this is not something that is part of the bylaw but something that has been discussed with the board of selectmen is that we have proposed the transfer of the animal and force him into office or to the board of health this is something that would be spoken of hopefully after the end of the war and discussion and town meeting by putting the animal in force one officer in our department where hoping to make sure that any bylaws that the town sees fit to enact will be enforced this is not the time to speak  what is going on in the past i hope that this committee and the town in general will view the work of the board of health with other byelaws we've passed i will state categorically that i'm very proud of the small and strong staff that i have as far as they're supporting other laws in this town and i see no reason to believe that the ones that we're trying to enact now will not be supported in the same way but this is expensive you need in the town employee you need to give them benefits so you don't need to talk about them because they've been forced on us to see them and this is where this money is being earmarked for as well as offsetting any costs in mrs wilson's office for keeping track of all this we have also given a staggered fee schedules i hope you've seen and this will be eight dollars for dogs and cats so that dogs are not discriminated against god forbid and sure seniors we have lowered it down to five dollars in recognition of the fact that that's quite often their main part of a senior citizens life and we do not look to have a hardship of the financial hardships we will be addressing again not as part of the  but as part of the actions of the board of health we will be reinstating the rabies clinics in the past we've had them in the past they've been approximately five dollars an animal we frankly stopped them because you people didn't use them and we will be reinstating them again so this should not be a large expense to anyone there as far as that goes as far as the rest of the articles here just really very quickly bird feeders are ok it's all right to hang out little bags of seeds and things like that what we're trying to address is people leaving food on the ground in two ways number one is over by the clay pit where people are throwing bread to the canadian geese that as far as i can tell nobody wants in town anyway the other problem with feeding the geese is what the keystone eat the rats do and we do have a rat problem in town and if you take away their food source it's one more way of fighting it and so this is why we're regulating it there why we've expanded it to the entire town because there are some good samaritans out there that like to leave out plates of food plates of food that are e red coons and other wild animals one of the nice things about living in a rural community like belmont is that hopefully we have some balance with nature here and we're not trying to get rid of every animal in town by the same token you don't want recommends that comfortable with human beings especially if they're carrying a disease and if they're used to going to your doorstep every night to eat off your fine china they're not going to be too afraid of stepping into the house one day and this is one of the things we're trying to avoid too if you've read that section as well you see that we are encouraging people to try to give homes to homeless animals and if in fact you're feeding them in the hopes of eventually either capturing them or bringing them into your lives and obviously we're talking about dogs and cats in this case that is fine and we have no problems with that finally hopefully finally what we're trying to propose here is really just to take a little more control of the situations that cage and they do present themselves with pets in the town currently the board of health has no jurisdiction over problems with pets in the house that affect other members of the community except as a public nuisance if you have fifty cats in your house and they're creating a problem we can't do anything about it unless one of your neighbors complains because of an odor by having this type of licensing law and frankly this is one of the reasons we did put this in we're able to either control the number of cats of the person house or at least do something about it if we find an uncontrollable situation with that that's the logic that we have in front of those model thank you do we have discussion questions  differ with mr flew and i think this is a most undemocratic article on the warrant i don't know of the current bylaws to restrict dog owners to no more than three if so i'd be curious where that number came from in my experience i think there are some people for whom one dog is too much and i know you don't want to address past problems but again my experience is just that there are a lot of dogs out there that are unleashed and that are left there to harass those of us who do walk our dogs on leashes i think there are many of us who could appropriately have five or six dogs in our house and would really depend on the type of dog in its long as you have a perversion to take action if neighbors complain about noise or any problems that the number of dogs would create i think that there really shouldn't be any limit in telling a person how many pets they can doctorow number one yes there is currently of a limit to three dogs in the current bylaw and as far again as speaking to the lack of enforcement that this woman and maybe others of you have seen with respect to the leashing in the likes all again i simply will state is that we have asked for this position to be transferred over to our department to be supervised by us and we intend to enforce and this by law as we would any other by law that the board of health is given control over and i really you know it's illegal for a dog to run loose in the town it's a really illegal for a dog to be leaving waste on the sidewalk except trip will be addressing it as to your statement about three dogs or more part of the logic behind this is believe it or not for the dogs dogs take a lot more responsibility dogs take a lot more room dogs take a lot more attention and frankly part of the reason that this was put in was to make sure that the facilities were available for each dog to live a healthy existence there is a provision for having more than three dogs it's called a kennel license it doesn't mean that you have to be running a kennel in the sense that you're selling dogs it simply means you're having more than three dogs but underneath can a law you then have to come under provisions as far as the amount of space and facilities you have for the animals and this is the logic behind it cats don't require the same space it's already been spoken that they don't want us to control them as far as letting them outside so if you have twenty cats and you let them all go outside you don't need much space in your house and people do do that but when it comes to dogs it's a completely different sponsibility and frankly control and i would be hard pressed to believe that somebody could control twenty dogs at once even with a bible waved in front of them it's difficult to tell people the number of pets they could have in their life i mean i've got about fifteen fish i don't know maybe that's too many explanation mr moderator tell me members i'm gonna multisystem director of health these two provisions were put in there because they're historical perhaps the tongue could speak to them because that's where they came from initially when we wrote this we tried to tighten it up bring in some of the state laws the historical things that have been used in the past plus our new provisions so dogs and don't make the assumption that any number of dogs is hard to handle it depends on the type of job the size of south but why only women and cats years ago i had a neighbor who had many cat and frankly the house was to poor this this is a bed but is only directed the dogs i know there is no limitation on cats i now but why is why you just doing this for dives and not addressing cats do you have any plans for cats and on people have a lot of cats and it is and how they do we have a provision for their dogs albright i'd like to live with this dog since the event that deals only with dogs and do we have further questions of discussion if not the question before us is the event but to delete the last heard any discussion about the basics of this article i would wager from what i've worked read from what i've heard that this article could not appear on a warrant one hundred years ago because the idea of anything that limited the freedom of the citizens of the town to long personal property just wouldn't have made it to the water  now we have a situation here and i keep hearing from the proponents of this segment i keep hearing we need to exhibit a little more control control control it's the same kind of a that we had to fight crime give us a little freedom and really eliminate the crime problem give us a little of your freedom and we'll eliminate the drugs give us a little bit of your freedom the people in boston the people in the town this is an article that strikes that your freedom to own property simple is that free people do not need to be controlled free people accept the responsibility of caring for their property in a responsible manner that is the hallmark of free people is that they alluding to animals out there we're not going to be able to prevent the spread of this disease through the wild animal population these animals that we have to contact us she is just not the ig basically this comes down to an infringement of your freedom i suggest to you that it's just one more give away to the government this time it's a local  understand the objective in the aims of this but still think about the basics preamble of the constitution says to ensure the benefits of liberty to us into our posterity will one heck of a long way from that now we will never again enjoy the freedom that the people in this country enjoyed in the early  children will never enjoy the freedom that we enjoy now because we're giving it away but this is about cats ok let's talk about cats produce she's not going to get another one we've got a trade off the dog licensing laws of the dog restrictions we passed last year have already reduced the population of dogs of the town to a substantial degree i'm sure you'll agree with that this is going to reduce this is going to reduce the population of cats in the town everything is a trade off right now board of health we've elected these people because they have professional competence and commitment and they do a marvelous job for us rivera's for some of the problems that exist in the town i suggest that we support d albert his committee they put in a lot of hard work and research for us and that we passed the amendment windows town meeting member precinct six now literally oxer over i'm happy to share with anybody who's here an article from the march twenty seventh entitled rabies epidemic nears western new england there are already been documented cases say after noon before i left work i talked to a neurologist that i work with at the faulkner hospital and i remember when i was a student nurse at yale i had the unfortunate experience of seeing for the only time in my life a fifteen year old girl who died of technics because her parents had an inoculation to her that was twenty some odd years ago i hope i never see it again those parents sat there and watched their daughter seize constantly for the last forty eight hours of her life if you want me to go through what the last ten days of somebody who has rabies is like i'm happy to do it for you i don't think most of you would have the stomach for it if dr pers article is any way jeopardized by a little light hearted commentary that's been going on here i think it's a very very good mature of all of you i hope that this passes in to this precinct one i do agree with most of the provisions of this article i have a problem with the number of dogs you mention that if you want to own more than three dogs should have to give count license and you mentioned something about making sure that the animals had enough room and does that mean then you'd be inspecting the premises of the person and if so what criteria were going to be used i'm a little unclear on on some of the provision let me call on mr malone as not only a lead paint expert but also the animal control officer for some alone we've all been dying to see that's totally out of the context of what we do it also should be noted that treat dogs as a general massachusetts law we're simply bringing it into the bylaws is tightening up measure i think as far as but this is a general law that's a message to say why do we have any further discussion if not i think we'll take the question now those in favor of abortion and twenty six