ok i'd like to call the monday nov ninth two thousand and fifteen meeting of the board of selectmen to order our agenda is primarily dealing with two items one continued committee appointments and then after that we will adjourn as a board of selectmen and or actually then reconvene as a board of selectmen so that we have a hearing on our  i will start with yes i will start with any questions from town residents on items not otherwise covered on the agenda ok i will add will also need to have an executive session at the end so that i will shoot for at about seven if if if that is possible so with that let's begin with committee appointments we had made most of the committee appointments over the summer you know back in august and there were a few committees that we had wanted some more information we requested from the chairs for example before we made appointments and and since that time we have also gotten resumes from new residents that also want to participate in the committee appointment process so with that ok i think we i think we have a summary sheet that bobby riordan had put together for us and i'm just to go you know committee by committee and when you go under that they are on the appointment sheet so first is a cable television advisory committee and this is basically the committee that advises us on our cable agreements with comcast and horizon they were active in helping us renegotiate a ten year license agreement with comcast that we signed earlier in the spring and now we are opening up our negotiations with horizon and that's the committee that will work with that we we currently the committee has jonathan green i believe and mark carthy and there was one opening because myron cusser did not want to be reappointed we have one applicant at this point and that's chet messer who's been very involved with belmont media center has served on their board and i think maybe even be their current treasurer so this is actually a good thing to have somebody who's so involved with the media center also involved on the cable television advisory committee at least at least i think so  from be appointed to the cable television advisory committee for three years as proposed second all in favor of ok ok next we have conservation commission ok that is one that we held up making appointments on last time because you know we actually have five people who have applied so that's a good thing we have to openings and i had at the time reported that there were a couple of the applicants who had been attending conservation commission hearings for months and sitting in the audience and participating where they can which is actually a good thing because they're they're pretty up to date and involved with the business of the commission so we did reach out to  e you know mary tradeoff there their staff person and the chair and they recommended their recommendation was we appoint christopher morris who is a registered professional engineer environmental engineer and the and the other recommendation was julie heller who is a lawyer and i think when we were talking over the summer we did say that the previous well you're on the board who was shako i hope i got that right had resigned and moved on to the zoning board so i think there was a feeling that it was that it would be good to have a lawyer on the other teams waiters expressed that should members david on this committee know ok so my suggestion is i would encourage daniel nolan to attend conservation commission hearings and learn about their business and get involved and he would be a natural for our next round of appointments so what i'm trying to say is you don't have to have an official i think title to attend hearings and get involved in the business chairman how do you feel about the fact that there by statute that the conservation commission can have nine members instead of so statute the commission is allowed to have nine members if we haven't confirmed that perhaps we can then ok if if so then you know the probably need to talk to mary about the idea that having nine members council ok what has happened with the cultural console one member and levy has resigned so we we do have an opening rebecca  served on the cultural council until her term expired and was one of those who did not send in a letter of interest to be reappointed has requested reappointment recently  there's also another person who has expressed interest arlene roffman who i think is also recommended by the chair maybe of the cultural council that we appoint rebecca richards to a member of the concert of the cultural council for three years and that we appoint roffman as a member of the cultural council for three years second all in favor and you know i mean i think cultural council is the kind of committee that can benefit by having more people who can partake in the activities and you know share share ideas unlike some of the statutory type committees where you need to have strict voting requirements and what have you a d a c economic development advisory committee what had happened was we had we had appointed five members and two of the existing members whose expired had not sent in letters requesting reappointment when we met in august since that time they have requested to be reappointed to the board and i know the chair is who is this a committee that requires a quorum well again it's an advisory committee to us versus a statutory committee like the planning board you know which kind of works independently  development meaning that don't worry as much about concerns about pleaded boards on the board it feels issues it was really try to understand what type of beacon of development we should consider as a community and i think we did that in the beginning we kind of want some moment had a heart as a town meeting member from precinct four you know they were my neighbors nice people supporter you know and i mean high school student absolutely i think in tenth grade i was looking to j yeah but you know i mean you're talking recreation i mean matt is a long time belmont resident who's used many of our recreational facilities but i'd like to actually hear brothers resume she's involved with dolphins ok that brings us to traffic advisory committee and let me just start with some initial comments because because we have quite a few members requesting appointment if you look at our org chart it shows one vacancy ok and you know correctly so the by law says the committee can have up to eleven members traditionally the membership has you know it's had nine members and two county staff and member of the police department right bend mail what you're doing and when clancy and you know i'm wondering if if previous and wiser boards of selectmen have said well that's the eleven you know residence and two staff persons now i'm not sure the staff person's vote ok you know i certainly don't think it makes sense to have an eight person you know a president committee because if they're the only ones voting you could have a stalemate you know not a quorum requirement so i think they would be the same for eight or nine people solve boy i would certainly recommend at least appointing one person recommendation i'm happy to hear yours and jim's on it would you know i think soup you would be a good dad i respect that opinion and would support that as well however i'd like to remind favor ok and the last committee we have here is a financial taskforce implementation committee which you know really this the snipping out of your advice i apologize and you know that way just to make appointments and they other than myself some legacy knowledge other than david  say that his committee appointments next item on our agenda is vision for twenty one implementation committee so please the chair and whoever else you're all welcome to come here all members of the we've talked about and practice i want to start as chair of the board of selectmen is either at each one of our meetings or you know every other i do want a town committee to come before us and tell us about what they're doing and we get to meet the members we've appointed and get ideas from them and they can tell us how we can support them and you know it's a way we we exchange and it's a way for belmont to see what you're doing because you know your meetings are televised like ours are and so this is your chance to to communicate and for the town to know about about your good work so congratulations you're the first such committee you know to be doing that very much so what i'd like to do is if we can start by introducing ourselves ok if you would all introduce yourself to the audience there is a camera pointing at you from that direction so no frowning ok and  then what you know what we'd love to hear is what you've been working on you know certainly your most visible event is meet belmont and that's been a wild success you know a great opportunity for new people who move into belmont and meet people who are involved in the town so so george as the chair why don't you start by introducing yourself and let your members do it and i let you take it from here absolutely fantastic event jennifer page has been instrumental in keeping that going you know it's a great way for rezzes to get out especially newcomers who come to town to really get the flavor belmont and learn what what  was really to facilitate enable and assist the town and achieving working vision which was also created two thousand and one by the residents of belmont and unanimously adopted a town meeting so in keeping with that charge i don't believe that and it's an assessment of how we were doing having conducted that and so over the winter and spring of two thousand and fourteen we said let's do this we put together the survey distribut helpful for us tom clark from a public library senior center and especially the one thousand one hundred eighteen individuals who took the time to take the survey of one thousand one hundred eight so what we what we found in the survey was that we got four point five percent of the muscle population responded pretty decent turnout we got wealth of comments from folks and i know having read the report you saw that it looks like it's two hundred fifty pages long or so that's because of all the comments and we have organized those comments so that folks can go and look by category to find the most relevant section to them you know so maybe it's recreation maybe it's economic development maybe it's streets and traffic you can quickly turn to the end of the report and get all the comments that are most for the the highest segment of the more and also some of the younger residents but with the results certainly validated i think throughout through the responses received some of the some of the important takeaway is that we got was more that the  vision is certainly still relevant eight out of the nine goals of the vision which you can read the entire vision on the on the child website the nine goals were deemed as very important to folks who took it which we think is a good system as a cornerstone of the community as we would expect number two was maintaining our libraries public buildings infrastructure and recreational facilities that has investments in our future and number three was managing traffic through and around town to at and we saw that folks want to maintain our focus on welcoming newcomers and value diversity and promoting involvement of all residents in the life and affairs of the commune so i think this kind of this the survey like to work with the town to get the report on the on the website and also distributed to committees and departments because we think there's a lot of great feedback in there and ideas that folks could look at  a get a sense of how they're doing it and you know what how to further engage with the community ok and you're looking for direction well most well we yeah let me tell you my thoughts my thoughts are ok we do have a vision ok i think your report is very helpful useful i think you've done a lot of good work and that shows and and i think understanding comments from residents it's something we've built our career here you  but you know let me tell you my thought i mean i'm reading here your recommendations ok the vick plans to distribute this report as you requested to the board of selectmen and town committees and recommends that these members of town government review the survey results and take them into account when determining areas of prioritization and how to best accomplish the work they are task tasked on behalf of the town i think the report's very helpful and i think it should be posted on the website and i think as an informational resource i think it's great but i don't think it's proper for us as a board to send a message to all our committees that this is what you base your decision making on and i do have a copy of the whole report around here i think it's more proper for and tell me if you disagree i mean i think it's proper for us to say that you know a vision implementation committee has has solicited comments and these are the comments they've received and you know certainly take them and absorb them for informational purposes but we can't adopt those comments policy but i don't think you're saying that are you certainly helped at all right now i think i think you know when the when the vision was adopted it was it was put in place to be the guiding yeah you can read and so we're looking at this report as as feedback on how our performances so far on achieving that vision and so yes we would like this report to be an informational guide to our committees in departments as they make their decisions we're not saying that th should be set policy it's a far more information is better i wholeheartedly you know feel that you know it's a formal plan a board member and now as a member of the board of selectmen i'm fine with that i mean i thought it was really good work right if you take them out and you've got a higher percentage of them you know like i understand the point that jennifer made but so i do you know the point is really well written and put together and i think we should you know utilize in some way a lot of work y mean that's certainly paris yeah jan i participated in the survey thank you very much you didn't take that long i thought it was thoughtful and remember doing it i think this report is required reading there's no question in my mind of its value i am curious about the the recommendations going forward so one recommendation is to put it on the website invite public access and the second one is to publish or to encourage the committees in the departments to consider its results now what about a more active role or kind of a check and balance so for example in the override discussion we realized that the school budget was when you compare to the average of the surrounding communities we were seven hundred dollars per pupil under the average how do you see the role of the vision twenty one committee in something like that before you answer on november sixteenth we have a meeting about the two train stations and the possible alternatives are you are you actively engaged in any of those kind of questions do you update the  report do you wish to opinions what how how how are you thinking about those things so we haven't been actively engaged in those specific issues really with a report this was this was just to put out our failures to the town to get a to give you an example the next initiative that we're looking at you know which is derived from feedback from this report is to establish better communication with the tower look at it it's actually creating a centralized counter which we can pull all the organizations together heard over and over in the survey was they'd like to see more talent events more events different areas than what we realize we've been looking into this issue is there are lots and lots of events it's just not so easy going to your house or out where they are when they're participate and the other question i had was there was a report done in two thousand and ten the comprehensive report planning report did you seen that that's the comprehensive plan which was done by the planning it and i think that's something i've heard that the planning board maybe you know a comprehensive plan should be looked at every eight to ten years and updated and that's an exercise i think the planning board may question you know because it's important this is a point in time so we get in twenty fourteen and i know what's gone into that it's a lot of effort trying to get i get it and reports a lot of effort but just thinking about it have you know decided tonight but how can we continue we have precinct means we get feedback and you have a tendency and that's fine how many members and people show up you know a lot of times that's why the act was a thought which is important to hear that we continue to get draw or feedback from the entire community you know new folks in town that don't participate and have feedback you know which encourage and provide feedback me was are vehicles that we can use vic to do that i mean do we do any more surveys do we have a website that we set up where people to looking for a place where people just don't complain you know because it's important for members of this board myself just one of the residents really want you know sometimes you don't get that he would appreciate means you know and he fights about that i think it's something that th what i do it's like folks you know i can think about even some close friends of mine relatives that just don't know on his activities that have busy lives and that's fine i think it's important here from them as well you know what is their vision for this town they're slow start but even having something on the town website that says you know enter your e mail address here and information about yourself if you'd like to be a dad that's how we do that the cat communication i know you can sign up to get  the last minute and things like that but that may be a little to touch and go we have a really pretty good that's really good i know that way we gather because we don't have all the time i think we have most of the email addresses of tommy members of well i guess but but that's a that's the problem we want to go beyond that you know because they're poor and they're the most out of individuals in our community in governance and feedback but you know that's two hundred and whatever is eternity numbers i think it's helpful when we said we were here to sort of serve the entire town and sometimes you don't get as much input and feedback as  and there was a lot of appreciation for the opportunity to share it because you know you look and you going to get the trash was picked up on time i mean you got to get those fred ok very good i think that was great and you know i like this idea that we have committees come in periodic lee and give us updates and and it's a practice we will continue meeting with the belmont center business association just for folks for an update basically this week we will be pretty much finalizing the work that we are able to cheve in this construction season belmont center generally think all the sidewalks will be poor except for the work that second tinu in front of the old macy's site and in the springtime move complete the roadway improvements as you know as the new lighting has been installed looks great to have it so i think we're making progress we met with the business center and basically clearly they've asked  board to consider a couple request some of them are ministry of a nature that we're working with our department heads to do one of the things that they did ask is to in terms of helping at this point for the season complete with the construction sort of welcoming back some maybe customers by offering a two hour free parking program not only for belmont center but for the other town wide parking lots  for november twenty seventh through december twenty seventh so again that is has a revenue component to it in terms of revenue that we may not collect but basically that was something that they asked for asked the boards can see aeration to approve in terms of providing to our parking at the clapham st lot and we would extend that to the other lots from november twenty seventh through december twenty seventh and again i were in the process of putting out a little reminder to residents to support belmont businesses town wide so willow that on the web page there is some initiative to maybe provide some incentives the late afternoon in order to prevent or to encourage greater turn over the spots till six o'clock so that they're not taken up with folks who are going to be there for the rest of the evening  we have done some of that already but will we're trying to find a way to formalize that and again there was a request that i think we need more time to digest about trying to provide some free parking permits to employees of the business that i think that will be a little harder to implement so i think we're trying to work with the business associations in general but i think the big thing is to support my recommendation is to support their request for november through december twenty seventh to village you know it's a tough environment for businesses but i just almost satirises also for now this would be for belmont center for waverley the waverly square parking lot next next to the train that we will have to enforce it yes that was going to be my next question but it relates more to leonard street and what you're saying after three p m how do you force you mark the tires what do you do the handhelds are have the ability to well free to our parking from november twenty seventh two thousand and fifteen through december twenty seventh two thousand and fifteen do i hear such a motion to move all in favor  work i think i think we're just was a request and i think again will we are in the process of providing additional ones i think the business will help us because believe it or not when you put out more t up and we do it on saturday so he does it during the week we're actually working out some mechanisms to maybe increase the frequency of trash pickup in the centers but at if you have recycle bins told that increases for those won't be implement back before you will have as much information as possible so we're trying to do our if you will information gathering and some due diligence phillis is going to the cable t v advisory committee mean it's meeting at six thirty gathering is basically he's asking the school community to provide them access agreement to basically do some testing of the site in terms of the soils and some boring and do some other evaluation just so that we don't get too far down the road where we get into some more concrete ideas and find out that the site itself may be not as a comedy as we thought so the superintendent will be sharing that with the school committee tomorrow evening but i just decide that you for testing this will be the site that's being proposed which is in the corner of the mobil station anderson ok so you we need to make sure that the soil composition  two right one two that was one of the two options but seemed to be the option that folks seem to think was the most that is necessary preclude no does not it does not and then what i will do is pass out  you a copy of a report that was been published by the legislature on the foundation budget review i don't expect you to read it tonight but i think what i will just in in what i will just inform you that i think that is you as we go through the budget process i think that you will see that some of the themes that are contained in that report apply to belmont with regard to special education requirements and a need to fill those i think the superintendent school committee will be referencing that report going forward during the budget cycle is the commission completed its working with this that what the report right and you can you say a word about what the foundation budget review commission is yeah basically the legislature appointed a commission to basically take a look at again foundation budget is basically based budget that's the core of what we need to spend on our education and basically what are some of the drivers against calculating a foundation budget in clay what are things that are pressing against school districts in terms of resources that need to be met in terms of requirements that a school their true district is required to a process and again while more conversations about that but basically to just give you a sense of some of the short term deadlines that we're trying to work with our department heads to do and obviously the chair will be scheduling additional meetings to talk about that but basically gives you a framework of the process continuing and then what i have is in your package is a first quarter report of our financials that will be sharing with the war committee but again you've asked to see that information prior going to the war committee generally the first quarter is a sort of a difficult quarter not necessarily in the complexity of kalka the numbers but basically a situation where you're in the first quarter and basically the fiscal year is just started and you haven't got into snow season and you haven't got into energy heating season so generally the budget overall is what we expected to be as is is on target and if you give me twenty seconds because off to test my memory if i can find my spreadsheet generally the revenues at this point are trending the way we would expect them to trend and and just i'll do a couple highlights you know motor vehicle excise tax again we've generally collected the same amount as we've collected in prior years and that makes sense because those typically of folks who are pain either tax bills that excise tax bills that are late or  ra recently received but generally the biggest commitment is the one that occurs in the spring so that's where the bulk of the billing occurs in the spring and that's where where we get the bulk of our money excise for meals tax generally is on fiscal sixteen penalties and interest again we budgeted it to me we've collected about twenty six percent of that total which is about a quarter again to the extent that the treasury is able  collections ambulance services even though the number looks a little bit low weight one hundred forty four thousand that's two months or revenue so basically if you take out a mountain you trend it basically brings us in a little bit above where we  are budgeted but not a lot so but the good news is this will be the third year first two years of the program by adding advanced life support program basically we've made our budget number so i think there was concern going in that that was a challenge but typically sell the passes for the season in june obviously there was some hesitancy of significant season pass program purchases because of the late delay of opening the pool in the season  however we made up for that by doing a significant amount of daily passes sale so and again i suspect that when june comes around our normal if not normal but even normal plus pull pass program for the poor will be based upon  percent of the total budget but again building permits includes building permits but also include plumbing permits gas permits electrical permits so it's all the permits we've had a few big propelling permits of come through for lack of tele properties about thirty eight thousand dollars and we've had actually significant housing permits for large renovations or construction so that hopefully hopefully it was just something trying to get in above david's and looking at fifteen or fifteen is forty three to five our department heads regularly so we basically asked them to focus in on their revenues in expenditures to identify any issues that we should be aware of on the expenditure side as i said it's the first quarter we had i me last week with department heads we were going over potential issues and now the partner heads had any that they could identify again we have some vacancies in departments that will generate some salary savings so i think generally as i said the first quarter yes you've had a major event such as a hurricane or whatever where you've made significant expenditures for public works over time or for tree cutting or something like that generally the first quarter should fall into line where your estimates are and again  coordinator so we basically were using a service to provide the services so we could basically a trial run folks so we basically it was expense at the non salary versus the salary but i think we found the right person so we'll be back to normal trend of pain from salaries but it was a good opportunity for us to basically find something in trial with them as opposed to hiring them i find out we made a unwise decision so we've basically going to do that with regard to the parking good i have a question about parking oh i was in the parking lot behind leonard street seventy six forty five the other day in the evening in the morning in the morning and the only way i could find to get through to leonard street was to go through the sandwich shop the subway  sandwich and so then you have all this traffic on leonard street you know that there are people parking on luggage street as well but the parking lot behind the buildings on leonard street is very empty do we have at i say for years because i was a member of the belmont center planning group you know almost thirty years ago and i mean that's the question we wrestled with it's an inconvenient parking lot because people have to go around we do with member one thing is we budget centrally but then we also have the budget centrally for the top component but then we have school components and buy department components so basically we pay the bill and we get reimbursed to lower down to what this is liaison report jim you had some i had to place one is an idea about remote access for the board of selectmen and i understand that we are permitted to do that  in that we can restricted to just the board of selectmen believe ellen ellen sent out an email with concern that it would greatly complicate the committee situation if if we did it for everybody and i understood that there are sixty six committees operating in town that was not the intent the intent was just for us in case one of us is travelling the two of you are still working and i know we prefer to have three rather than two short and i don't think the expense would be over overwhelming i think we can work with the media center to get something set up just like they had the other day and for the belmont media center remember they had that one of their colleagues coming in from a hotel in washington so that if if one of us did i think generally it would come up if you're offsite geographically and it's the idea is just the plan ahead in case it happens i don't know enough about it ok i mean i think the notion you know it's very convenient i i i don't know if i'm not proposing that you do it for any group but us i know that sounds selfish and i apologize for it but i think from time to time given our schedule and the fact that both of you are working that this could come up and it's  don't need to decide tonight but i think one of the things that it's less of an issue for me because you know i love i'm not working any longer but i think you know if people think of the selectmen position as one where you meet  the first and third monday of every month good luck because we have a like board meeting we have this you know we're going to have a meeting tonight we're going to have a meeting tomorrow night we're going to have a meal right in the sixteenth wanted to ask you to consider asking the retirement board to have siegel run an additional actuarial run that takes that does not  assume discretionary colos in the run to determine what the future liability would be you know well i think you know if you're a student of the actuarial report and i've been reading it for almost two years now would be two years  potential retirement but there is an aspect of the of the unfunded obligations that has to do with the discretionary cola and that is a number that i think everyone needs to know and year including right there it's not exactly clear at least i'm not clear on it and you know i'm not going to recommend for them not to include they only come to us when it's beyond their discretion and when they have the that he was in a position that he would request board i've talked to david about this as i do about most things i do and he recommended that i not pass the retirement board that would be better if we discussed it and we asked them at a meeting here the town treasurer is going to be here members of the retirement board and our consultants including someone from say siegel would be here so we are going to have the opportunity to interact and you know that that meeting is going to be dedicated as we promised to be dedicated to the pension liability issue so my question is i think more information is good i think good to have more information so i think the information is needed what what i don't want to do is go make us look disorganized  know ask for this and next week ask for more information the next week ask for something else so does it make sense too maybe give us two three weeks what other information we actuarial study and so i guess you are right there's a formal role an informal role and i know that they collaborated with us because their recommendation from their actuarial was to basically make up a good chunk of the smoothing component of the zero nine and zero eight loss in the stock market which would have been a huge impact to our operating budget and they basically redid the numbers to get a closer to the number that we could afford in our budget and predicted so i think there is a role and then there's an informal working relationship role so all of which are good and we just need to know what they are for sure they weren't missing the same thing about the ok ok ok thank you asked that and then what i would the two we can keep up have separate them because floyd in in the financial advisor deal with the way the twenty first is pension liability yes that we're talking about i believe at the last meeting the treasure to give information to the board and get receive information from the board about what how first southwest may be of value in terms of gathering information and any any information we need to then i would like to propose that we go into executive session to talk about pushing a village what's going on with cushing village and  just ninety seconds next monday the board will be meeting with the n b a and the public and i'm concerned that the m b t is moving  ahead with purpose and with speed this last letter to the a b suggest that they might be submitting something for the spring two thousand and sixteen budget cycle belmont doesn't have a great deal of say in the matter of what the m b t is going to do with the two stations to the extent that we can influence the process i think it's going to be necessary for the town to have  coordinated and clear message to the m b t about what it would like the n b a to consider and i my concern is that at next meeting on the sixteenth we'll hear a bunch of people talk i know that the committee a committee that i'm serving on has talked about some ideas i know that the economic development activity committee has talked about some other ideas so i'm concerned that on next monday we're to a lot of people say we want to keep the two stations make really accessible and so forth but that it will come up short of a belmont plan that really is an alternative that they need to really consider and so i'm here just basically to ask the board to i've suggested independently to several members that i think an ad hoc committee drawn from members of existing committees might have the necessary knowledge and experience to help figure out what that one or two belmont responses should be on the other hand we just heard there are sixty six committees so i can understand why even another temporary ad hoc committee might be something you don't want to do but i just worry that the selectmen don't have enough time to engage directly with the  this process and that the time to really engage them is going to quickly pass ok and my response to you is your fear is wrong ok ok good that is i think the one issue that most greatly affects this town at this time and i think this board is very engaged on it we need a process we need a process we can set up a committee but will the m b t a say ok i will go by you know what this committee set up by belmont presidents recommend i've tried to keep it into a very transparent and public process so for example m b t a had proposed a ten person share at a ten person show read we turned around and we said no this is this issue is much too big for ten people to decide one afternoon in a shred of ok so it's a process we're trying it's very important to this board we're not going to let it monday november sixteenth and i want to announce it publicly please attend the other thing is our legislators have to hear loud and clear what belmont residents want because this is a state issue and we have representative dave broad years and senator willis brown berger that are part of that framework and their say has big influence on them bta so the way you can help all residents is communicate tend to form a eunuch a to our legislators and make it ok and i don't want you to think that because we have all these other issues this is at the bottom of our totem pole it's at the top ok it's just one that they frankly pale as presentation one of the final slides gave the name of the person that the n bta has designated as the contact  when i asked about that you indicated however that we should not and i have not contacted that person directly that citizen imports should be filtered through the board of selectmen and that the board of selectmen would be we manage the contact we we are the policy board that communicates with them bta but communicate with the legislate with your legislators they are elected your residents and your views should be heard ok i'm happy to continue this with you offline but we have an ascertainment hearing in fifteen minutes and we have an executive committee session thank you for allowing me to say that it's ok do i hear a motion to go into executive session