support of the belmont service day which is coming up on columbus day on october the twelfth you've done it for us in the past and we hope that you will continue to support us so that october o columbus day this is this is a annual event that that we approve and you go out and you provide service to the community  and i thank you for that and i commend you thank you so any any comments you know i think it's a great day and a good idea and i think we should go ahead and prove that yes they agree as well number of projects the biggest project is a food drive for the food pantry down there i think last year we collected two thousand bags of groceries and then we do a number of projects with conservation land  we usually do one connected versus the belmont public works we've done some with the school system also there's a cleanup of play pit ponds there's frequently gardening around some of the town buildings that's terrific so let me just briefly that you and i organization or something to that nature because it's such a wonderful day and it's so credibly wonderful to participate in it you know the village council supports this concept that maybe we can some point figure out a framework where it's not just one day a year and i know that there's a lot of community service that takes place and you know the religious council does other things in the town sure but to marshal the energy that we do in that one day for other days of the year i think would be terrific scrape i do thank you thank you good luck in realizing what many people were here to review we revisit questions from town residents oh sure one moment sure if i if i make sure questions from town residents that are on matters not otherwise on the agenda yes yes so i'm i'm here to take one minute of your it's entitled a working vision for belmont's future priorities and progress yes and i have read it and i've reviewed it and i know a lot of work went into that document and we are planning to have you come in in the near future and make a favor thank you thank you for both catching that next the highlight of the evening or one of the highlights of the evening and bta update on waverly square station and if you can please feel free to take the mike and introduce yourself and you can even remove the mike if you want to it's up to you i'll probably stand here that way i'm not blocking the strang and i would just like to say that with us also tonight our senator brown's burger and representative dave rogers thank you for attending tonight long enough when we have to comes thank you mr chairman members of the board of select engineer also laura bros for the director of us assistant general manager for system wide accessibility and chris had also from a system wide accessibility office in a numerous other and bta and consultant support personnel in the audience thank you for giving us the opportunity to address you here tonight concerning the two commuter rail stations in belmont but primarily tonight we had a talk about waverly a quick overview of the existing waverley station as you know coming off of the street it's in a depressed section or a boat section as we like to call it and it serves this neighborhood a belmont in it accesses the fitchburg commuter has a good shot of the platform in the track itself you can see it's a relatively deep cut accessible from by steam is from the street level next eric he can see someone actively boarding the train as you can see it's a low level platform the only way to board the train is through pedestrian it is not accessible to folks with disabilities next one average daily ridership is about one hundred seventeen people per day  there's probably there's more people using the buses that connect to it up at the streets or fists so here's the issue a few years ago as part of the stimulus program our we got some funds to do some maintenance work along the commuter rail system and our forces actually working on a contract commuter rail operator went out to waverly and did some upgrades of the platform they put in a new what we call a tactile edge which is an edge that gives you an indication that you're close to the edge of the track and secondly they did some research to sing repaving of the platform itself what this did is it triggered our need to be in compliance with the architectural access requirements of a t a i and this law does the cover letter we got an a letter ordering us from the architectural access board of the state of massachusetts to bring the state up to full accessible requirements include full length high level ramps and have level boarding into the train and would also be accessible from street grade by anyone with disabilities which would probably necessitate a fairly extensive ramp structure  another alternative that we're not sure would be approved by eighty a would be to leave the existing low platforms and build what we call a mini high which is a short section of high level boarding but that only gives you boarding ability at one set of door was and you still need the ramps to access even the low platforms so you can see arranged on these a study estimates these aren't full design drawings but we're talking somewhere in the order of to sixteen million to over thirty million dollars capital investment to make waverley accessible here is a one concept of the ramps that it would take to get down to the grade and i think the next one is a more extensive one and here's a more extensive one i think this would tie you up to the proposed many high platforms that you see there to the left only one single location they don't have access to the full length of the train where a full high platform that is shown here would give people equal access to the entire length of the train well an alternative to the know ok very good so the next alternative would be to do the same thing but instead of the extensive ramp structure is to install elevators i stand and when we have elevators we have redone and elevate is so if one is out for  maintenance of service it is always access to the platform level i think the next alternative and here is just a rendering of what an elevated tower would look like we have built these at commuter rail stations before recently  and just in case already we have we have elevators installed it limited commuter rail stations including yaki south acton and framingham one of the issues we have with elevated is in suburban towns if there is a problem with the elevator our response time to respond to that is somewhat longer especially during high traffic times in fact in the town of south acton we've reached an agreement with the town of will respond if there is someone stuck in an elevator the elevator becomes disabled until after forces can get there another rendering of what this validate or axis could be could look like at street level and then another alternative showing alternative locations of the elevate a towers but in general the idea would be the same it would be a fairly extensive structure with a high level platform so one of the reasons why we wanted to come to the community tonight is before we go much further than the these preliminary engineering studies and start developing a more detailed design and going through the capital planning process would like t gate engage the community in a discussion as to whether or not this is the most appropriate solution to this issue i'm sure a thirty million dollar project in the in the center of belmont oil in the town of belmont  would be a significant size capital project and whether or not this is the best investment of those funny funds or whether or not this is the best location for that kind of investment is a discussion would like to engage the community and would like to involve us selves with the community some kind of in some kind of form that at the pleasure of the board of selectmen put to get your input before we drive forward to initiate large capital projects in the past have been criticized for going to five down a road before we reach out to communities to see if this is the best plan or how we should move forward and we thought we could take the opportunity to reach out to the community and engage in that discussion before we initiate our capital planning project process which will begin early next year so that's sort of their ass tonight and eric if you could keep moving forward the other reason why we're looking at this is because we also realize that the station right here near city hall the town hall belmont center is not much different in condition of then waverly as far as access the opposite is belmont lat form is elevated not depressed but in both cases they make access much more difficult next one i think here's a shot showing people walking up the stairs to the existing platform at the belmont central station i think the next one is reaction shots and here we show people getting on the train and again you can see it again and limits access to those people who are who have challenges this fire is access and disability so knowing that we have waverly and knowing that we have belmont center we feel that before we start a large capital projects we really have to think about what's the best solution going forward for access to the commuter rail in the town so again we're here to engage the community in discussion would like to come forward and provide at least a station in the community that's accessible to all the citizens that will provide better service to you  could provide better infrastructure and possibly open up some areas that are currently constrained by the existing road infrastructure for other uses so with that i think i'm going to end the  and representative rogers a couple of weeks ago and identifying to us that you were facing this problem and i appreciate your efforts now to fully engage with the community explore all the options i think we've highlighted for you and there's certainly been a community discussion about the political challenges that you would be creating for this board really you know ultimately it to two if the choice were to try to close both stations and construct a third station those close to both stations i would be unhappy with that and actually those close to the new station where you'd be crazy would not be happy they would actually be unhappy for the most part so the plan is one that has creates a lot of problems or the proposal even the thought of closing both stations and creating a new station in between which is the implicit thought here is a difficult one for the town so but we're very respectful of the fact that you are trying to manage multiple bottom lines you have a constrained bottom line that you spend most of your time fighting about and trying to defend and make work and you also have an obligation to provide efficient regional service and so there are multiple bottom lines to be discussed here and i want to thank you for coming out here and opening up the conversation this way and i just want to thank everybody in the town has taken an interest in this issue and i know there's a lot of people who are interested and i'm sure will remain engaged thank you very much you know will senator brownsburg or you know and knowing that this is about compliance with the americans with disabilities act access and you know people are concerned about that but at the same time people are of course extraordinarily concerned about planning the town is investing a lot of money right now to redo belmont center the notion that somehow this station could one day be moved would be almost unfathomable to most residents of the town so it's a delicate situation and like senator brown supporter said we appreciate you engaging the town in a dialogue about this and we look forward to working with you to come up with a good a good solution ok thank you representative rogers for your comments as well and i do agree it's very important to engage the community and this is number one one of much interest to the community as as as you can see and number two it can have considerable impact on long term planning you know for waverley square and for belmont center so am i hearing then flexibility on this notion that both stations would be closed and there would be one central station possibly unpleasant story well the short answer that is yes what would like to talk about is with the best investment that has the best return not only a but for the town of belmont the representative brought up a good point belmont center station if you would mind going back to that plan that shows that the overall plan this is belmont station belmont central station for those in the room that maybe are not all that up on the restraints of commuter rail if we would have build a new station at belmont center where constrained because it's on a curve so to build a platform at the train floor level and have it a curve is provides presents technical challenges because in between the door points you have a big gap that someone could fall down between the train and the platform so when we're building these high level train platforms almost like the subway system you want to have that platform straight and up against the whole length of the train so if we would have build a more modern high level platform at belmont that would almost preclude us from building a more high level modern station at belmont center is because of the geometry of the track so that's why we looked at potential where along the track we have what we call a tangent or a straight section a track and we the a does have some right away outside the actual track structure itself that we could use for platform construction but we have not made any decisions we have not spent any significant money developing any designs we're just looking at the challenge we have a waverly realizing that belmont is probably not two five down the road with the same challenge and we're trying to make sure that we move forward in conjunction with any planning  concepts that the community has so that we're not working at cross purposes and or advancing something that later down the road the town could say that's not what we want we want something different ok thank you to make waverly station accessible right right so that's correct appear to stay where they respond you know what's the timeframe on that yeah we are late in reacting to the letter reacting to the order we have been board we told them that we're still looking at alternatives and developing alternatives and i think as long as we're genuinely doing that they will give us extensions ok at one point if we just stop  should because we're not immediately but i think if we were to just ignore the order and not advent some plan right we may be in danger of having to close the station seems to me that as well because government center is an accessible even though we  think when i saw the numbers i just really surprise sound but not seen the pictures now we have a better understanding that it is extensive and so my question to you is you gave us a range of two alternatives a new high platform or existing low platform anywhere from sixteen to three million and so has a disability access board signed off and eat any one of these either one of these they have not we have not gone to them what those alternatives yet i mean we know that the thirty million alternative meets all their basic requirements and i don't see any challenge with them signing off it's a lower cost a little one we would have to get some variances from not only them but also from federal transit authority personnel because they also have approval authority of these things so we could apply for the waive his and possibly get him that would be the best case scenario but in the event that they don't grant the waive regular basis that we as we've been developing our thought processes so they're aware of the two options we've let them know we haven't decided which path we like them to go down if either of those t about the other one whether or not that addresses all our concerns i don't know i don't know the point on that ok and in terms of well turns out there are option that you have in your presentation here of a new station what's the cost estimate have you run the numbers and what's a cost estimate for a new station would it be more than what's being presented here this evening fifteen or thirty so south acton probably our most compatible comparative station that we're we have construction right now is on the order of twenty million dollars not including any any land taking or any land acquisition fees the challenge with waverly is the fact that it's in such a deep cut in such a densely developed area the amount of work necessary in order to put in the infrastructure adjacent to the existing platform that exists there right now is very costly to keep the roads act acting the way they do and to put in the retaining walls to increase the size of the platforms in order to afford the positioning of platforms and ramping structures or elevators it is quite extensive quite expensive i'm surprised so your new station you're suggesting it would be less than in any in a new location where we have a alaska grade separation like we have a long pleasant street would be significantly less expensive with less earthwork and less retained structure s stations had a couple of background questions i wanted to ask to play may one is does the m b t have the right to close both stations if you want to there is a process to go through and laura browse for from our system when accessibility station would would help us with the coordination with f d a and with maybe and other entities yeah i think that pretty much sums it up but again we're under the order to make waverly accessible as i said before if we would have banned an effort to make it accessible we feel would be what had to close it you know it seems like kind of a kafka esque solution to me you know if you if you somehow refused to make an handicapped accessible one then the outcome is that you closed dozens of purpose to begin with but just just holding that so in effect you don't really have the right to close either station  because of that reason and without some kind of public process but we're not sure in the end we would have much choice left once you know that was the m b t they own the waverley station yes said it's within our right away that we have within the right away that the m t a own says the station itself do you own the belmont station yes ok i don't think you do i think the lawyers club owns the station wasn't picked up by the mike is the platforms themselves on m b t property because of the platforms or on the m b t a property but the station itself is not possibly not would have to look at the survey plots of the right away acquired all the railroad rights of way when we acquired the railroad so within the the property limits we own whatever structure is within those property limits ok i guess where i was leading mark was that it you know to create appropriate handicapped access to the belmont station may involve the station house some way you know could and it's not owned by the m p s for going to relocate i don't i'm curious to know how many towns west of waverl have the access that if you go to the end of the line which is fitchburg is at the end of the line yeah fitchburg the end now the only stations that i'm aware of that have accessible platforms are a little tin which is a new platform that was recently built as part of our project to do upgrades on the fitchburg line and as eric said before where near the finish of a new station in south acton again that when finished that will be fully accessible it and the new there's a new extension off the fitchburg line moving out to the town of westminster which we call it what use it station that also will be accessible so that maybe three out of ten something like yes yes and then the only thing that triggered this presentation is the fact that some repairs were done on waverly and in that triggered the right to the old the older platform was in was in deteriorated condition we sent our maintenance work force out there to refurbish it but there is a threshold if you invest more than thirty percent of the value of a structure into the structure then by code just posed to bring it up to full full compliance with the six months so i would never pretend to speak for the community having learned what i've learned over the last six months but i will i will say that i think if you did a survey of belmont residents that they would be very pleased to have both stations handicapped accessible and you know so then it kind of goes back to the spirit of of the idea and whether public transportation should be accessible or not and one of the issues that we have locally is you know we're looking at improving a part on one side of town and then there's a suggestion that we should look at the whole plan to see where we want to spend money and how we can best do it is it is it reasonable to think that the m b t might want to look at ten stations and then go back to the the disability association and say this is how it makes sense if you look at the ten stations rather than doing it piece by piece or you know whenever a platform is repaired talking in other communities yes in other words you know frank is sitting in a position where he he doesn't have just one or two stations that aren't handicapped accessible you have an actual a an overarching project that will begin to address these kinds of things we have an overall program we call it the program for accessibility paddy is short is what we refer to it as and what we're looking to do is we're looking at our facilities around the system trying to identify those locations where making inaccessible access is both feasible and reasonable i want to go back to your comment on belmont sent to just for a moment i tried to explain before there's an engineering technical challenge in and to be able to build a fully accessible full high platform at belmont town center would be nearly impossible because of the curvature of the track we couldn't build a safe platform so the idea of having to fully accessible stations one of waverly and well one of belmont town center would probably not be able to happen because of its physical constraints of that site so if  we were we would need to either close if we built waverly as accessible we were probably the need to close the belmont center at some point in the future or build a nother station at some other location where building the physical suv the curve actually i guess i don't want to get into that level because i've seen other other solutions i really believe in handicapped access and i've seen other solutions where the platform is not adjusted but the vehicles are just and have you have you considered that on the train you know what i mean we have bridge plates on some of our vehicles but in general because the the train itself is rectangular and if the platform is curved you have to almost perfectly line up the door was with that point to have it within the reasonable range of being able to get access to the door location very difficult move to do when you have a multi  you have you know the engineer in the front and conduct is in the cars so we really don't do that because of not having a consistent gap because if the gap is too lot too wide anybody can get that either their their foot or something down between the train in the platform so we try to have a consistent gap but we're very particular about that so we don't like to use those on the communal rail in particular but basically on the fitchburg line there's only two stations described at all of the facilities within the n b a to help us prioritize those different projects but back to the curve it's it's not enough to just create a curved profile to the platform itself that the if if that were to be the case then when the train would go through it would actually hit the platform at the midpoint of the of the access of the train cars doors on the train cars are at the ends of the coaches by the way they manufactured so there's an eighty five foot straight line between those two doors that needs to be able to get navigate around the platform in order for the platform to be positioned there created to not hit the train at this location that gap or opening i think we've estimated at over ten inches at the dorian threshold well i think we'll agree that we don't want the train to hit the platform so i'm going to stop now but i do have one other plug i want to make of me and that is that we wrote a letter about perhaps less than six months ago about the alexander  avenue access to the tracks are you familiar with that and that's by the high school or ok and the access is not secure and we ask that that someone would take a look and see what you all could do about this side of the access not not not everybody agrees that it should be secure so i'm not speaking again for the whole community but just for your information what happens is that students across the tracks go down the other side and then walk to the back of the school as a matter of convenience and we believe that it's well that's why we wrote the letter we think it's a tremendous risk for all of us to undertake by not doing something so and yet the access road as it is on your property and we can't fence it so we're wondering i'm wondering specifically because i haven't talked to mark or sammy about this comment but i'm wondering would you please give that some attention and let us know what you think about securing that access yes certainly our project manager for this project gentleman's name is john doherty he's in the back in the gray suit with the blue shirt john he is he's also the project manager on another project along the fitchburg line and i believe he was talking with our operator keyless who does maintenance on about putting a fence line up there we'll go back and we'll check into why that hasn't been done already you know we'd like to hear some sort seems to me that you know at a minimum we need at least one station that's handicapped accessible at a minimum we'd like all understanding the constraints that that you're under and you know certainly that's waverley right now because you're under order so you know my thought is we should focus on waverley i think you you know you've heard at least and initial reaction from the selectmen that we'd like to keep that station and make it handicapped you know accessible and you know that doesn't mean that you necessarily have to close belmont center in the short term future because there's nothing triggering the head of capital that's ability to issue as we speak here tonight so maybe that falls under the paddock program and it becomes something that we can have more dialogue over in the future at least at least that's my initial agreements to i'm thinking look there's another subject i  precinct three which includes i live near belmont center but precinct three includes waverly square and it also includes that whole stretch of south pleasant street where you have a vision for the new station and let me mention the vision also includes nobody said this so far but it includes a parking garage probably a big parking garage and that's interesting and important because belmont has been providing commuter parking there is no question that one of the things that not just this board but boards going way back have failed to do is where you know if about computer parking and i think that's the reason that  we don't that the ridership statistics are not higher because most people who get on that train walk there now fissions you folks it's well known i'm afraid you folks have a vision of a much faster train going out to fish birds and one of the ways that you want to have that much faster train going out to fitchburg is with fewer stops and so this threat that you're going to knock off a station in belmont is not a new threat but it's just something that kind of was below the surface for quite a while and people were not thinking about it now as many people have said another important position is total handicapped access and if handicapped access is necessary for anything any part of our lives it's certainly necessary for public transportation that makes sense that if we're going to not keep handicapped people locked in their houses they have to be able to get places and public transportation is the ideal way but i as a representative of this entire strip really from balance centered way really square and the pleasant south pleasant street in between i don't want and i don't think belmont wants two close stations a new super station with a big parking garage a parking garage it's a traffic magnet and traffic is already a disaster pleasant street so we have to figure this out we have to figure out how we're going to handle this a little bit better i have a different fish in and my vision for many years has been that been since belmont is blessed with two commuter rail stations one day we'll have much much much better and much more frequent commuter rail service and it will almost be like you know halfway to a subway station belmont is a town that was actually built on public transportation it was a farming village really until the the tracks that the streetcar tracks went out to waverly and really the  town exploded the population of the town exploded with with with the growth of public transit and and that was the street cars but it was also commuter rail and so i would like to see a time when for example i can take you know the commuter rail into boston for a meeting and then not be stranded because there's no station there's no train that's going to stop to bring me home before four thirty in the afternoon i would like to see lots of improvements and i think we can figure out ways to do it but let me really say this is not where the the vision that you've outlined and that you're not even mentioning this this presumably giant parking garage i mean my friend has his property i know i know they want it and i like them but but i don't think we want this this parking garage there  we can figure out something better we can to better with commuter parking near the stations so that we can get more people than just those who walk we can do that we can figure out ways to get these stations truly accessible now i understand there are constraints but for example at the belmont center platform you know you show people climbing up the stairs in the lion's club you were a minute ago there actually if the community path goes through there there will be a it's presumed i presume there will be a ramp from leading from next to the like the old white building that it will be completely accessible from the street now that still solves there's still technical problems i know there are techniques and if i can interrupt yeah we've got limited time yeah i'll shut up no  i don't mean that but there's a lot of people i think they exactly exactly invited limited to the three minute rule ok i'm sorry well that's really that's really all i have to say but i think we can do better and i and i think that we should keep ourselves hoping for a vision of a really good future of rapid transit thank you and that is why we're here to to try and think about what the right solution is stanton belmont resident thank you mr taylor for coming to belmont with your team and engaging in this dialogue are you open to ideas from people who live here there are a lot of so i don't think a proper process would be to cut us out of a little and then just communicate directly it's got to be a more organized effort ok ok so just a couple quick points if we looked at a census map of where belmont residents live we would perhaps choose something like the two existing stations we certainly wouldn't choose a place in the middle of south pleasant street on the north side of that land is conservation land very steeply pitched no one lives there and the south is the town yard and again not are not a huge part so and if we alternatively looked at a map of where businesses are located and where people need to commute to get to work in belmont coming from from elsewhere again we would pick the two current locations we wouldn't pick a location in the middle which would create a long walk for people who work in the waverly center business district or the balance center business district i guess a third set of data they would be interesting and that doesn't exist would be to poll the people who board the train at those stations now ask them where they're coming from how far takes them to get there and so forth but it seems that kind of analysis should be part of a decision about where the stations are located should be walking distance to people or you know i'm also i'm a on a committee appointed by the selectmen called the community path implementation advisory committee that  as the name suggests is helping to design a commuter path through belmont there are actually several dozen slide presentations on the web regarding the green line extension and the integration of a community path with the green line think it's possible that a community path that went through one or both of those stations could be part of a upgrade i'm talking about ramps not elevators and one thing that might be improvement program or so called tip dollars and so to the extent that that a community path went through the station in a way that created a accessibility and that was funded by a non and  bta capital budget that could even partially that could help solve a problem for you as well as integrating the arc our rail stations with with other forms of available otherwise we can certainly get those posted yes that would be you know they would be very helpful for anyone who would want to make a suggestion to at least understand what the design that you have in mind is that would give some idea of any objection if we post it on our website  not at all yet so just one factual point about the belmont center station as the previous speaker pointed out the platform on the north side is actually perfectly level with the concord avenue sidewalk just east of the belmont municipal light department building more or less directly across the street from us so you showed the picture from the south side which is a problem it's actually you can go into the station and site down the tracks on the very end the very east end of the belmont center station the tracks do straighten out they are straight perfectly straight over the railroad bridge on the north side of the tracks of course there used to be the central massachusetts railway right of way so there you see the belmont center bridge was designed for four tracks there currently to the two fitchburg line tracks so factors forty nine feet north of the north most fitchburg rail to the end of the bridge quite a bit of space to shift the station platform east anough to be partially on that straight part so i don't think it reflects a thorough examination of all the possibilities to say we need to close belmont center station because we could never make it a day complied i don't accept that an again the the thrust of this presentation was primarily waverley we reference belmont because we where we are fairly certain that in a few years big as we need to do repair and maintenance work at belmont center we will be faced with the same challenge that we face today waverly so we haven't done the engineering survey of belmont center as we have waverly we're just based on our past experience at its current  identify some of the difficulties we face ok so i'll end there thank you very much and i think if you really engage the community you might find that there are new i gree one hundred percent and that's why we're here that's why we're approaching the board of selectmen you to try to start that discussion and man time remember pretty just briefly would it be discriminatory it's good would be discriminating to have a station that's strictly for handicapped people on pleasant street with nothing but handicapped parking where you could stop only if someone was there and push the signal so that the driver would know could we do something like that and that way in between both stations it would be accessible from pleasant street and when you give a number of twenty thousand dollars for a new station that out i mean twenty million s was that seems better than the thirty five if we were for it bill the station the word accessible means it's accessible to all so we wouldn't build a station for any one particular subgroup or you can't know so whatever station we built would have to be built to access the entire train so the the twenty million dollar option is the fully accessible station accessible to all people maybe we could encourage that it only be used by people that need it ok thanks all strong support i want to say that like my colleagues that you heard from sue bass and vince stanton i too am an elected town meeting member of precinct three waverly square is partially in precinct three south pleasant street the clark street bridge all precinct three i want to bring up something i haven't heard discussed the south pleasant street corridor is the only commercially zoned area in belmont all of that commercial property is privately owned and fully least in fact several of the property owners are here tonight just want to make sure are here tonight belmont receives property taxes from these commercial property owners as it is belmont has precious little commercial property if the state and bta takes or buy that land and you would add that to your estimate of twenty million what it cost to buy land in belmont it would be removed from our tax base is that right it would be removed ok so i'm asking our board of selectmen could you tell us and tell the people watching at home how much revenue would we lose annually and maybe over five years ten years et can we if we can't have those figures tonight could we have them by the next mating thank you and i have and one other last point there was an online story that many of us read which includes quotes from thank you from senator brownsburg er and that reporter is here in the audience tonight quote a pedestrian overpass would be needed to allow residents and commuters to access the station from across the tracks within easy walking distance of many belmont neighborhoods some kind of  would be needed continue the quote of the reporter an overpass would bring more foot traffic and probably drop off ia cols to the areas off waverly street between the town field and the town yard neighborhoods who already feel pressured by traffic from the town yard that neighborhood is on neighborhood in precinct three and it's already the most densely populated neighborhood in belmont it's our treasure our streets are quiet we choose to live in the school in these quiet pocket neighborhoods but we respectfully urge you our board of selected board of selectmen to join us to stop any proposal to add commuter parking in access some through our quiet neighborhoods we will fiercely fight this intrusion and thank you for this opportunity the other comments this is just my name is sue dam i live on the east road when you're talking about the ramping system for waverley it looks like the ramps would be very long and be very useful for people in wheelchairs but i think elderly people as belmont ages who want to get down would probably prefer an elevator to taking some long ramp with their walker or whatever the the views that you saw in our presentation were to show that the breadth of of preliminary evaluation that we did for us in coordination us being design and construction we build the infrastructure that that's my department in coordination with the system what accessibility department of the n p t a our preference is actually elevators for access to to these stations because of the building facility that surrounds them and the amount of the icing salts and other deterioration that ramps go through throughout their life cycle we find that they actually are fairly cost neutral when compared with elevators elevators may have a little a little upfront system might be but certainly the life cycle cost of elevators pushes us to the point where we prefer that alternative as well hi i'm julie hocket i'm a ten meaning  member i'm also a parent at the butler school which is it just a stone's throw away from the waverly station and so i just like to bring up a couple points first is that the demographic that the waverley station serves is quite different than the demographic that the belmont center station cers it is very walkable it is in an area where many people do not own cars my husband dropped their kids off at school walks right over either gets on the commuter rail if it's there or if the timing works right or gets on the bus great thing about the commuter rail is it touches both the red line and the green line so it's a great great way in  i'm wondering how stringent this charge that we've been given by the access ability architectural board is for instance because we are so close in to boston both belmont center and waverly square have buses that go in that are handicapped accessible whereas if you're further out of that line when we're  stations those stations don't have the options of busses so is there some you know discussion that could be had with the board here is there were there flexibility is separate i mean i know i'm trying to come up with for laura or or the general manager but we have fairly well exhausted all of our opportunities for evaluation we talked about the patty program as a way to invest those funds that we would spend on waverley into a station throughout the system that has a different or a higher ridership and higher need you know for  accessible writers based on the output of the evaluation of all of our infrastructure and all of our passengers and it has been returned to us on every account that we really must be made accessible just like to kind of reiterate the point that waverley station and belmont and while they both fall within the town of belmont waverley station really is three or possible through funding really really is the challenge is that the station should be disability access even without any construction that may have taken place to trigger a da requirements ok but what don't we take one more comment and area we're talking about so i have a question and a comment one question is if we make belmont center accessible do we still have to make waverly accessible yes so it's about making waverly accessible readily not about belmont  all ok all right so i just want to clarify that so what are the other located are there other locations in waverly square that have been considered for the elevator or access in other words is it waverl square the proposal that you showed us or another station elsewhere in other words why is it waverly square existing modifications or pleasant street why  not have you given thought to another station in waverly square or some other i mean there are other locations in waverly square that could be considered it doesn't have to be unpleasant street which is not in the center of you know a community it's not to a square where there's already commuter you know traffic bus intersections or pleasant street is you know really nowhere in terms of commuters and then my other my final comment is to road and we have new crosswalks and we have four way stops where we didn't have those a couple years ago and it's just you know it's great to see families out there walking to school and i can't see commuter train traffic coming in to access pleasant street stations that's really problematic i think for our community that location so that's my thank you thank you would you like to say if you were so mr chairman if we could just think together for a what is the time line upon which you actually need to make a decision i mean we're going to we're going to discuss with the orchestra a the board that you are working and they're going to be satisfied that you're working because we're genuinely  how long does that timeline go before you've got to say a option a or option b or option c what we'd like to do is work with the community to come up with what's the best option to address the waverley issue whether it's at waverley slightly to the east slightly to the west whatever is the best option working with the community with that option will go into i will notify the active to access board that we're advancing a project and we'll go into the capital planning process to of course try to get funding appropriated to advance the the project into design that would be the next step our capital process begins in january that's when the draft capital plan goes out i would like to have a if possible sort of a consensus location by then if it's not possible by then we can work on it during the year and get into the capital process for the next fiscal year planning product  and i'm dressing this both to the board and to the m b to kind of a what kind of process are we create to structure input on this well what would what i'd propose we do is that we have a more informal meeting t currently has under his care and control and we start looking at feasible locations either at the existing or as as was just suggested somewhere along that route that could be done see if we can build a consensus within the community again the community knows what it has for its master plan or planning process looking for would what is the zoning what is the plan for expanding residential commercial retail interests corridor how could a commuter rail facility best fit that vision for the community we come up with that we come up with a plan that everybody's comfortable with and then we move it forward into the next face so the next step in your mind would be sort of a design charette meeting where you sort of put a lot of ideas on the table have a bigger amount of time more graphics people walking around big around that kind of thing correct that seem like a mix if i can make a comment i think just to streamline the process a little bit ok i think the consensus that you're hearing tonight is we would like the station to remain in its current  location and we would like to work with you on that process we would prefer a design that would make it completely had a cap excess of all and maybe that's where we should focus the discussion rather than obviously wasting time looking at  other locations throughout town i think that's just going to create more frustration just just to just to say i mean i think you i think you still need something like a desire to answer the question about what is waverley look like because i think it's a bunch of different variables there and i don't think it's all desirable in other words you want to elevator tower in the middle of this or a middle  it so i think you have a you agree one hundred percent commitment if i may i mean i think i'm sorry yes so one of the things that we've been very successful have is precinct meetings and i know we have a lot of folks here this evening and i still would like to you know i think you understand where a process where thoughts and recommendations and comments or beer is well known in facilitates sort of that open that communication went to the well i agree one hundred percent but i'm saying if they're going to focus their efforts look and certainly i mean to the extent we can come up with some but ideas to help this patty type program at rest belmont center as well i mean you know i've heard some excellent comments here tonight yes and certainly you know it's a dialogue we would we would welcome so we appreciate you coming here tonight let us we can we can put a little bit more flesh on the bones of those concepts of waverley have them available at a meeting at some time schedule say a month that sure was jostling for any community needs us and then we can sit down and go through that was some detail we'll probably still bring up pleasant street idea anyways for people to look at and and reaction cross out  whatever they want to do and then we'll take it from there the boys like him and we can facilitate any number of public and we've done that in the past this is something that seems to be really important for a town so why don't we go ahead and do that and  work more directly with some of the brownsburg or the p sort of understand how that would all sort of come together ok mr chairman following up on mark's idea would it make sense also to use the committee structure because we have certain committees we have a disability access committee we have the committee path implementation committee but the planning board i think it makes sense to jim to use those those structures under your leadership to you know bring representatives from those groups in let's do that and so we can we can decide which committees are relevant in and bring them into the important decision for the town that will be here long after we're no longer sit right at the station is going to be i also would like to say if i may that i think we should target the january date yes that they're talking about because to push it out to next year there always seems to be this idea that there's some kind of prudence  associated with the way in and i would i would like to see it go ahead and able them to meet their deadline because i i don't think that this was something that we can't address over the next three months and get an answer to them no i  mean this is an issue that you know what high on our list now so we do want to resolution by january and we're encouraged that you're here you're open minded and you're willing to work with the community i think our legislators ok i i'd like to call the meeting back to order ok thank you we are going to continue with our agenda and talk about you know discussion and vote on belmont center green space delta enhancement you know you may recall the board of selectmen in the spring made some land revisions to the delta in front of belmont savings bank that resulted in a special town meeting and the loud message that came out of the special town meeting was trying the object of creating a more attractive and safer place for pedestrians to congregate what we have done is we have asked andy rojas who is a landscape designer and who had designed the previous plan to take a look at the at the concept that we had adopted and see if there's a way to design it to make it look like it's one larger integrated green that's more attractive that's larger that draws the community and that attracts pedestrians and that safer and this is the design that andy has come up with i'm going to let andy describe it and make his presentation in a minute but i do also want to recognize you know other people who contributed to this design including ralph jones who i think is is sitting here thank you ralph and bonnie friedman who i think is here as well and you know i know i was part of the process they  part of the process and the other two selectman you know have have also been age and this so with that andy but let's be careful and there wasn't a committee i mean it was just i think an informal working on this for a while and thought about a way to maintain the access and the parking that people so wanted in front of do and the garage while still making creating a pedestrian friendly space that did two things as well make the green space much larger which it is this compared to even the previous scheme the plan b screen scheme increases the green space by of almost eight hundred feet and one of the ways it does it is if you look over here these numbers really tell the story that the seventeen feet total seven feet for parking and ten foot travel way by reducing that to seven hundred feet and all of which we went through the whole vetting through engineering to make sure work for traffic and turning radio and emergency vehicles and so on by reducing that the seventeen feet we captured a tremendous amount more green space it the original delta outlined you could see it here very lightly it goes like this if you look at how much more green space has been captured even compared to plan a the one the original one that had the circles base in the middle this is a more contiguous and larger green space than the others what it does do is it creates a  is really looks like a plaza but allows field goals through at certain times of the day the beauty of it is that it can be restricted to vehicular traffic here which is really the only place that would need to be restricted  vehicular traffic and that allows full pedestrian use obviously for days like town day and you know the holiday tree lighting ceremony and like that but also just on weekends some weekends some afternoons after rush hour you one could envision this being activated as a pedestrian space you could think of it in the way it's designed with the brick and the sidewalk using the same materials that are now used everywhere else in belmont center you can see the brick strip going in now on leonard street is it's going to look much more like a pedestrian space than a vehicular space it's going to be inviting to people because the benches there benches in between the trees and also over here and over here and over here and the benches are backless benches so that they can face in either direction they're not directional they don't make you look at the sidewalk and they don't make you look at the green space i think that that will invite flexibility which was important here and i think it's really an operational and management issue now as to how the town would restrict  access in general i think it makes the entire triangle look more like a single unit it connects it better through materials and walkways to the rest of the center  it will provide a larger green space and i think that we're going to have much nicer trees and everything in it so from those criteria we think that we took plan b to a better level and that it's much more pedestrian friendly there's less pavement and much more green space with that ok thank you andy i might say and he volunteered his time to design this and he put many hours and i do want to resolution of one way or another and i say that i guess somewhat in a selfish way because the construction in beaumont center is progressing and you know that the contractor has been very good about finding other areas to work in belmont center and we're running out of places to direct him and so you know i would like to come out of this meeting with some good news who i can to give that contractor some direction for the next four to six weeks of the construction season ok thank you i think i could go on just said i think that we're at a point in the project where we're getting deep into this construction season and basically if the  board makes a decision tonight on this revised design it still has to go to the designer it has to be drawn given to the contractor who then has to do his planning and his goal and said basically we're trying to have him get to the point where by the end of this construction season substantial completion has been done in the belmont center project but this is basically glenn's done a good job of trying to coordinate the contractor last several weeks to try to get around this piece of the puzzle but the piece of the puzzle is sort of coming to the end of the day so we need to really move on making a final design because we can't tell the contractor you can't work on this part of the project he's looking to work on this piece of the project during this construction season ok  i'm just going to you know make one comment you know and i thank you for your work i i really think it fits in well with the rest of the design of belmont center now and you know what is currently took all the decorative features that you had in the original plaid that were in the center and really prop them out to make the drive be a part of the green rather than just another paved area so so i'm you know i  with david to go through it and i think we're in a much better place actually even even though we went through a very difficult process it was somewhat divisive pen time we had a special time meeting i was very dismayed by all of that we actually ended up in a better spot  as a community and i think this is a really good answer it's a want to call it a compromise or enhanced from what we had before i mean this is much nicer and so even the all the challenges we faced we came out better in the end i think that's just great and i want to you know again thank the folks plan b plan a proponent's whatever that that work collaboratively with with yourself and david to come up with this design and i think it looks terrific chairman i would mimic or mirror your comments and in mark's comments i do have a question for glen and glen that is that as you know we've spoken about storm water management which is t as i understand it there's a catch basin involved in the design and that you're investigating other another possibility first storm water management can use a word about that sure ok so by design there is a catch basin structure in this location the purpose of that catch basin this a grab the runoff from the driveway area i think some people's their minds may go towards a surface that would allow the water to permeate through i thought about that a little bit and my fear was you know all of these hard work here coming up with these surfaces that blend so well and match so well the other concepts with environment center i'm not sure you could replicate this surface and have a permeable surface and so talk to the design consultant we're kicking around some ideas one day and we thought you know if we just had this catch basin if instead of having this catch basin connect directly into the storm drain system what if we had a separate pipe that came out into an infiltration system underneath the green space it would serve some purposes in terms of capturing that first flush infiltrating the water back into the groundwater it would be designed so that if there was a significant enough rain event there would be an overflow pipe in the catch basin structure that would allow that flow to eventually go back into the storm drain system if we had to do that and so that is the thinking that we're pursuing at this e just about to say i'm glad this is all over and i think this is how very workable solution for it all and a bit of a lot of blood sweat and this community which has been asleep for a long time thank you of plan a i would like to see plan a b the plan that the town went with and that's my position here politics is the art of compromise my only suggestion would be you know i was walking here from my house they still got the sidewalks on the c b s side of the road to do do we have a week that we could have this open for comment feedback to be from the community because obviously not everybody in the town is here in the room and allow the community to weigh in and then make our vote at least with the feedback via email or her phone calls or over here it that would be my only suggestion i do appreciate the work you guys did to reach a compromise and the work tha bonnie and ralph and andy did to come up with this plan thank you two i've actually not said bow on this publicly that's a first for me so i couldn't resist i want to thank you all the selectmen glahn andy ralph bonnie and anyone else because i was a strong advocate of b and i like what i see i think it takes care of everything and the best thing was once a basket up a town meeting and said kids who are totally opposite we're still friends so let's let's still  good evening joel samuels precinct six i also on behalf of the council on aging support this compromise it retains some parking spaces for disabled and elderly people in front of the bank  continues the pass through street that can act as an emergency way to get through when there are rush hour it also helps more street as far as to potential  backups and it helps the merchants by allowing some parking spaces there to allow foot traffic in belmont center my only question would be what is the definition of peak hours and off peak hours it seems that's a critical part of this plan when there would be no access to vehicles are we talking about when the belmont center belmont savings bank is open or are we talking about rush hours we're talking about both otherwise i support this on behalf of the council on aging and just would encourage perhaps ask whether there are any trash bins that are going to be added to this green  area because currently under the in the delta there were two trash bins i don't see anything in the plan for trash bins and we certainly want this area to be green and to be kept clean so i would strongly encourage us to vote on this tonight in favor and let's get the belmont moving thank you meeting member precinct one again appreciate the compromise everybody wins with some kind of compromise but i am a little i'm hoping that fine tuning can be done with the benches and trees it says i thought it said on the plan for new trees in fact three of the trees are still living one needs to be replaced so we need to save our money from replacing trees that don't need replacing add also i would like to see perhaps a better use of the benches if you look at the benches be sweet beside the trees in front of the bank of garage basically your view is either going to be a brick wall or a parked car and i would suggest those be moved down to the perimeter of the green space so that then you can look at the pedestrian mall area or you can be looking at the green space similarly the two lonely little benches on each corner don't make much sense bring them in so there is a cluster of bridge benches perhaps in  the enter doesn't need to be a patio or paved just so it's a little more gathering social looking and i have a question if would be possible and also by the bus stop because certainly we need a bench or two there i think that's a great location for the bus stop would it be possible to have some kind of handicapped ramp access to that mall because if you've got a stroller or if you're in a wheelchair or fear just need a ramp instead of steps it would be handy to have something caroline well along the garage there are he could be anywhere along there just somewhere so you don't have to go over a curb because this morning is this evening when i was walking for the first time on our new sidewalk which is very handsome with the brick and all there's a strange ramp on this side of leonard just briefly that the wall along the front here is the height of that wall is conducive for sitting it's twenty four inches plus or minus eleven we have all that right on the wall that's correct fantastic it's very difficult to talk about accessibility from any point along the sidewalk because of the grading of the green space area the path system that would be required to allow a wheelchair access up in would really take quite a bite out of the green space itself we have already discussed in detail in the area of these bench this bench here this bench over here is making these points accessible for either wheelchair or someone with a baby carriage you'll have easy access from the sidewalk into the site we have to be careful about what we do in the actual green space itself because if we offer a formal area for a congregation then we have to make that accessible and i'm not suggesting that we wouldn't do that it's just we are so budget conscious at this point that you'll notice it in terms of amenities in the green space itself it's pretty sparse because there are funding concerns frankly and you know we're picking our spots on where the improvements are made at this point and you know what the potential to improve the space in the out years is always there excellent thank you and makes perfect sense naaman precinct one town meeting member i have two questions one for glenn one for the board for glenn i'm curious about snow plowing in the winter salting and making it pedestrian friendly when it's icy and snowy i believe that the way we treat our roads is different than the way we treat our sidewalks and will the aesthetically pleasing surface is stand up to the way we plow for roads and my second question is i find the whole concept of this shared space access to vehicular traffic at times not accessible to vehicular traffic to be very confusing and apparently as a driver and as a pedestrian and i want to know from the emergency response perspective what are the guidelines for the police and the fire department or rather what are the guidelines they will impose on the town if the bank is being rob and my kids are playing on that space and there's a barrier in front of the going to plow through it in the name of emergency response to put out a fire or requires all commercial properties to clear the snow to a certain with in front of their businesses and that would continue the areas that are created that are considered public sidewalk the department of public works would inherit those areas to be responsible for claims phone calls emergency vehicle access i can't speak for the police department in the scenario that you describe be and i frankly don't know what you know how they would respond to that i do know that in conversations with the fire chief whether it's the existing condition that's there today or whether it is was proposed in this drawing the fire department really discounts this area in terms of them responding to an incident environment savings bank it would be more street it would be called that avenue with the two locations where they would address that problem i think that they feel like getting this close to an incident is not the best way for them to to manage it but in terms of using it as a shortcut to zoom up concord avenue for example they wouldn't vehicles the police department i can't and what i'd really hesitate to speak for the police department but i can't believe that they would want to risk blasting through here with the potential for conflict with pedestrians when they could stay on the road for another maybe ten seconds plan a was acceptable and plan i didn't have to drive exactly so this is not going to be any less acceptable this actually provides more than plan i provided in terms of access so if plan a was acceptable for the police and fire i honestly do believe i can or were glad that they don't want to be on this alleyway to fight a fire at belmont savings they'll do it from concord avenue or from or street is when so i'm a forty two year resident in belmont and this is the first time i have spoken at a meeting like this i appreciate th a lot of time and effort has gone into this design and i my concern and i would like to bring attention to the two new proposed crosswalk in both the a and b plants and also in this plan to be installed in the busy intersection where concord ave leonard street and channing road meet in belmont center as we all know this is a very challenging intersection for drivers to navigate especially at rush hours it works more like a traffic circle because drivers are not expected to stop and i understand that there are good reasons for why traffic signals cannot be installed here drivers approaching this intersection need to concentrate to enter the traffic flow and make their turn so they're too busy to look around so they will be able to dedicate enough attention to people and families who may be trying to cross it any time because there will be no cross lights at these new cross walk he's chad proposed a new crosswalks i believe are potentially life threatening the where pedestrians who will see the lines on the pavement and think they will be safe crossing their responsibility for their safety will rest principally upon drivers who may not see them and who will not to be able to stop for them in time in every case in addition moving up a stop to right at this intersection will bring more pedestrians from every direction a congregation of walkers coinciding with a lot of fast moving vehicles which are not required to stop and his drivers are busy watching for other traffic is a surprising design the whole idea that it is desirable for pedestrians to more easily be in this uncontrolled fast moving intersection i believe is wishful thinking without for a cite and i wonder if it is a risk to the town of belmont to implement and unsafe situation for a protest or guns at this intersection and balance center thank you obviously we don't believe that it's unsafe or we never would have moved forward with the design this way many of you will recall that there was a proposal to have an additional crosswalk in this location here as well as on the other side of the bridge i might add we dropped both of those out not because there was an issue with the engineering design percey it was just a perception in the community that people wouldn't be comfortable crossing in those locations and so it made sense to drop them out of the cross walk system here across concord haven't you this one here cross legged street is a parallel one across the road you know we feel strongly that that those crossing locations are safe frankly that was one of the you know the four or five major concepts that the traffic advisory committee embraced when you can see on this plane in both of these locations is a refuge point you know at both crossings where if for some reason you couldn't make it entirely across you do have a safe place between lanes that you could stop i frankly don't think that's going to be necessary to often the fact that we're carrying a single lane of traffic down leonard street and so you reach the intersection here i believe these cross walk safer and certainly the crosswalk that exist in front of a side today which is this location right here on you no longer have the risk of a vehicle stopping for you here and somebody coming up behind them and trying to get around them on the right which is a frequent occurrence the curb extension here in the cross walk will imitate that possibility i think i just think they're safe i space which i think it's a great compromise solution you know reminds me of one of the off streets of church street in harvard square which is a multi use street so we're really restoring you know what once was you know some fifty years ago but my question is is it raised is there is it just a surface change that's a level with the street or is there a raising said that indicates you're in a kind of differen surface is six inches higher than this pavement surface and this pavement service is six inches lower than the resulting greenspace and the reason for that is for traffic flow because if we made it all the same level which would have made it more pedestrian friendly obviously but there would have been other net and it would have been other issues required here along this surface to prevent cars from just turning into the green space and into the the public sidewalk therefore it was important to keep the curbs to keep the parking spaces clearly you know be marked and also to retain traffic going in the right direction and not jumping into the green space there will be and we're working on that across walk somewhere whether it's raised table here or just you know handicapped access ramps which the working on that it's my second question is one of the thing that's gone away from the original plan is the angles of cross walk that feeds to the bus  stop it was mentioned in town meeting that there's some of been a concern there that you know we're creating a pedestrian trap because people will take the shortest path to their destination which is why we're here  and so here we have this bump out and to get to the bus stop which has been relocated from in front of the ice cream store you know people are going to cut across there and so i'm wondering yes exactly so you know i don't know what why that went away i think it's concerning because the visibility for a pedestrian to look nearly i don't know what is that to seventy behind you to see if someone's coming is rather difficult and then once you're in there you're still doing this reverse look as you're going across that crosswalk to see if there's any on coming traffic to go up that road i thought the angle stormwater you know glenn that you could have the stop line for the cars stay up and move across was that it's just harder still have to stop there but you're still going to want to encourage people heading cars furt for them to make that right turn on to leonard street they really have to come pretty far past the crosswalk to see the on coming cars as well so you know a lot of times people just kind of roll through that but i think  good evening michel banker precinct to town meeting member this is a question that i have raised a number of times might the question that i've raise a number of times is the slope and that we have here basically just about a level area but then from here to here it slopes down and i know that you're planning on just a two foot wall but if the wall were made to be a three foot high wall there would be less of a slope and we're people i just see a lot of people being on an angle is what i'm saying to walking on an angle rather than and make the space more useful just by having this be a three foot high wall from about you know from here to about here that's just another suggestion something to think about it adds a little bit more soil that has to be put in there but you wind up not quite but more so leveling out the land to have more useful chatting area sitting area where do i go i turned it off whatever as a congregating area and like like right now well what was is that there was a flattened area in here that had the the stones in it had two or three benches and people did come and sit there having a sandwich so it was leveled out and then there was the angle down i'm just wondering if we can make this up even when we were for hire that it would enable us to have less of an angled delta s extending the wall up now two feet were already making the slow washout so the slope is more shallow or red ok however but however by going up another foot and it's doable o than cost i mean obviously the higher the wall the more cost but so it's added cost but it is doable to add a foot to that and then add more soil and make it even less severe of a slope yeah however you will lose those existing trees you're just you can't build up that much earth around an existing tree without killing it it would be a very difficult situation i mean it would involve again back the cost would involve tree wells potentially to keep it alive so it's more complicated than just raising there with all due respect to all of you all of us who love trees most of the trees the street were taken down and new trees have been were planted to replace them we could plant new some new trees i know i'm saying something that's like you know saying things i don't like god perhaps but the fact is that we're looking at something in the long term so it's just something to to think everybody jennifer page precinct three i have two questions and they are related to one another so i'll ask them together but they actually will have separate answers i hope  first is through what device will the street be closed off from time to time and then the second question is when will the street part of it be closed off  andy's presentation he mentioned maybe town day in my in my imagination i thought well we could let the people do their banking in the morning is that banking hours  maybe and then close it off at noon when mothers and young children might want to come and have a picnic or play or whatever and leave it closed until whatever rush hour is which probably is getting earlier and earlier these days i don't know but the usefulness of it and the accessibility of it from the point of view of pedestrians i think depends in part on whether it really will be closed off for reasonable periods of time that people can decided yet or for you know getting input from the community it's more than can be more than just the great gentleman in terms of when this thing is fully functioning when is what is excessive or what when do we close it and they get so important here from the community about that before we make a said the operational aspects yeah i think so yeah we keep comments open for that until this thing is is up and running so will there be another gathering to discuss those kinds of things we'd like to see him put you know from the residence through email or whatever i'm in the chair and we had you know jennifer i mean to me operational can be an evolving process and experiment with me to talk to the bank see worms i mean i think certain we'd all agree that once the bank clos and the summer like saturday afternoon till sunday evening we closed you know that would be closed we talked about maybe putting planters you know something decorative that would prevent rolling from coming in so so no those are all options up for discussion absolutely and they're easy to change is what i'm trying to say we can write spectrum and see what works for the community so i hear you saying you will want community input on this subsequently i don't yet know how or when what form it is that you will be asking for if you're looking for it for individuals to write to you or are you looking for some guided discussion comments i would say that the thing we have to be cognizant is to make sure that the bank has access as to its garage during its business hours so that's going to be one variable and then i think in terms of the you know we talked is sammy just said whether we put up  there with a chain across it or we do a some planters i think we need to evolve this clearly it's going to be a challenge in this construction season to get some of this laid out and kind and so i think we've got some time in the spring to figure out but i think the thing we want to be cognizant of is want to make sure it's somewhat consistent because we don't want drivers to sort of have unpredictability in terms of when this is going to be opened so i think it's valving but feel free to some to not i got jennifer graf and we haven't today might not be something you know six months from now it makes sense for the community so i think we'd want i see as asking more formally the community for input and that is it's an interesting tough question it's a question that we need to ensure we address because that's the beauty thinking that maybe it should be done in writing on the other hand i think we all benefit from hearing discussions and sometimes the best creative thinking happens when you're hearing a lot of different ideas and i agree i agree to do not be limited to  thank you again i was here in august and we didn't people didn't believe there be a compromise and it's wonderful to be here now so thank you with the sentiment in the room is just a lot happier than it was a few weeks ago and thanks for your work thank you it's really exciting to see something that people agree now looks better lots of us have concerns about parking in the access and i want to just since you were talking about those particular kind of comments i want to talk about a few of them the cross walk where kate bowen mentioned i had shown this plan as soon as you did release it to a designer whose pressure lies in pedestrian and things like that and his only comment was that that we need access from that quarter where its side is across to the green for when the road is open so people darting to the bus don't have to worry about cross traffic both ways  i had mentioned when andy first showed me this plan that i thought there really needed to be a curb cut to the green from the bank somewhere near the bank entrance or the parking lot entrance and it sounds like you know more about that so that sounds great in terms of benches i was sitting here and people are saying they want more and you guys are running out of money i think that's a great place to get our retailers in town involved or people in town we've managed to fundraise for for playgrounds i think we can fundraise for a few benches and i think we'd be happy to now that things are looking like for you agree i had belmont savings about access to the underground garage and he didn't want to switch them unless his customers agreed i think this plan makes it more important to encourage him to switch the garages so there is far less traffic going through the road and then it would just be employees and it would be much more clear when they would be going through and i think that if the selectmen asked him it be a more favorable response than me individually asking which i've tried i think oh and the last one is the form of closing off the road i had come up with this concept using automatic retractable bollards and andy and i had spoken a little bit about it i've gotten more references that they can handle salt and sand and everything i think the one advantage could be that they could be on a set schedule that there's no employee involved and they could also be operated for emergency vehicles or handicapped access the bank could have access to things like that so it didn't have to be some physical person coming out and moving the chain or planters and i think they're very workable and if you were to go with that i had offered to fundraise for them as well i think that covers all those thank you  potential because if it's closed off to traffic it could be what for me as a part of plan a as a mother of young children where we walk everywhere we walk in belmont center almost almost daily to be able to hang out in the space to have children and and be part of the community and to see people i think see it as a beautiful possibility but the most important thing that makes a green space a public space a civic space functional usable successful is that people feel safe that there is a safety from traffic that there is a sense of safety from traffic a perceived sense of safety from traffic and so if there is cars still going behind you when you're in that space even though it's beautiful even though there's a beautiful brick paving pavement you don't feel that safety and in for me that's why i say it's there's a tremendous potential but i also feel i don't know a lot of skepticism because i feel that at the end of the day it's going to be made going to be know full and then all these cars will be let through and i and my children and you know their parents will kind of look at it and not feel safe and they'll still be kind of like what it is now which is a green space with really no one sitting in it  and they'll be a tremendous waste of money and time that the community put in because i think at the end of the day we want to unite as a community and you can't really do that sitting in cars looking at one another it has to be done in a public space i mean just the fact of us sitting together here you know i think is just one step further in when we can do that in a much more beautiful space outside and so i really urge you to consider the hours that's not just holidays or weekends but it's truly a a daily significant period of time and i know there are a lot of naysayers to that but if people can't say hey let's meet a five and we have you know coffee and maybe get some pizza you know they can't have that sense of dependability it's not going become a functional space thank you ok sure  is that we look at the cross walk issue that we that you said was a good point right that was raised and the accessibility issue and how we are not i think what's unless you know which not yet been solved is when is it just a bill with is it not and how is it not it's just is a balance is it is a planter's so i'm willing to move forward design with those open points you know whether that's with those two of the points you know following mark's comments i think the second point on excess ability for me is kind of a separate decision from design because design attend the festival over the summer with my kids and family and boy i was delighted that all the community members that attend and and all the kids that show up and you know tommy gets pizza and i run usually we get a volunteer who organizes parents who will then bring their children to run the popsicle stand so it self funded the parents were out by the sickles we sell them at a very reasonable price of fifty cents the kids run the popsicle stand like they would run a lemonade stand and they get they get some you know remuneration it's usually fifteen or twenty dollars or something like that to split if there is you know five kids they have to split but at but it's it's fun the kids really you know enjoy it and then you know as someone was talking about community it's a great place for parents who are so busy today to bring their kids watch them play meet their friends listen to music maybe have massachusetts for selected proclamation recitation park music festival is a belmont based five a one c three organization that is made possible by the generosity and support of many local residents and businesses and whereas the patient park music festival has enriched our community by providing free outdoor entertainment at the base and part playground for people of all ages during the months of june july and august and whereas the organization is so successful in large part due to the tireless work of board members tommy olsen bil mcmanus marco polo and allan chunky which on which frankie you to come to recognize be here and where as in the summer of two thousand and fifteen the patient part music festival reached a significant milestone it completed their twenty fifth season and believable and whereas over the past twenty five years the pace of park music festival has continued to grow in popularity it has expanded to include eleven even concerts and four daytime children's programs in whereas the pace for music festival is already hard at work we're going to is in the twenty sixth season to continue providing free concerts that are enjoyed by many members of the community now therefore be a resolve that the board of selectmen of the town of domme i think graduates they support music festival on the completion of the twenty ok next discussion related to public hearing for that franchise cable license renewal and my understanding is  it we're beginning the process with the cable t v franchise renewal with fries and we recently complex s fully completed our ten year contract with comcast so this is a new process dedicated to the rise in contract so we have scheduled a meeting for monday nov ninth at seven thirty pm in this room to basically receive feedback from the public with regard to the rising cable service basically is this is a public ascertainment hearing similar to the one that was held last year for comcast and again we encourage the public to attend and give us our fifty to board their feedback with regard to  rise in cable services and any suggestions for improvements that we can incorporate into our negotiations with fries and ok so for the public that will be monday nov ninth at seven thirty ok  can we quickly go through town administrator sure could i just say a word about the belmont shore the verizon cable contract one of the things that we talked about with regard to the comcast contract was that they didn't provide for affordable housing and so apparently our affordable housing residents are paying the same rate that that the rest of us pay and it seems that even though it wasn't possible in the comcast that we should try to do that in the price and contract i think that's you know certainly an issue to be looked into it i mean you know one hundred dollars or one hundred fifty dollars out of anybody's income if you're in that situation is a big number ok thank you ok so mr chair the community preservation application process is upon us applications to do at the end of the week we have two applications that we are bringing before the board for their reconciliation and get feedback so that if prove twenty five thousand dollars to do the one book tennis courts as you all know three years in two thousand and eleven this is one of the three courts that were temporarily repaired in order to have them function but basically there is significant structural damage at this tennis court as evidence by the pictures that we've included last year a c p a committee and town meeting approved the  court that we would bring forward for consideration and again if you go to the court basically the temporary repairs are starting to fail as far as predicted by the contractor that the fix was good for three to five  so this is a proposal that we're presenting in addition to that we have a proposal to repair and restore and replace where appropriate the town railings for seventy five thousand dollars basically as you see in the pictures that we include in the application there are hand rails that basically are stork that are unique to the building  that need to be sand blasted and repainted so that we can preserve them if you look at the curved railing that is in front of this building down to the driveway to the straight portion of it has basically rotted through and it's unstable and will have to be remanufactured which is part of the reason why we have a cost estimate that's fairly expensive but again this this work is will have to be done in terms of meeting the historic significance of the railing system and it will have to be fabricated to specifications so that that second project is the refurbishment of the  town hall so those are the two projects that we're bringing forward and family questions will be happy to answer ok so you know my suggestion is you know the one book tennis courts based on our experience with path other tennis courts in town and you know the town hall exterior railings i actually went out this morning and you know particularly the curved  to me why it isn't something that they consider a lot of folks use those boards and get in there are a number of them that are in disrepair i mean i don't even usual use one but you can play on a number of course that are completely not even used and in need of repair what i'm suggesting is that it's not on the only kind of sports that are in need of repair in terms of utilization i mean i would venture to guess that the head of sports at the high school probably utilize more when and i think through the recreation committee they undertaken or they're undertaking a study on how many can tennis court should be in the community but i believe the answer to that is less is skewed because there are ten courts at the high school and in you know probably there needs there's a need for ten courts but mark is right the defense is an embarrassment  the landscaping is an embarrassment also the two courts to the right closer to the loading dock i guess that east our our eyes are there on your support and so it's  really makes a bad impression on on our teams and when people play there so i would support some sort of investigation but it's not going to cost three hundred twenty five thousand dollars because there's ten courts shots and mr chairman if i may i'm i'm aware of one more project in possibly two that would come in by october second and what i'm wondering is do we have to approve the projects before they go to the october second deadline and you know if they're coming from town departments but i don't believe they are of no interest this is only if it's coming from town departments because there's a group of p residents that are interested in making application for new recreation equipment the playground equipment and also to implement some segregation of the dog run right now there isn't a dog run the dogs have the run of the entire park which probably is the right thing to do so that one is possibly coming in and also i've been in touch briefly with the sponsors of the skating rink pointing out to them that if they don't hit this deadline we're talking about fiscal two thousand and seventeen actually i can give you an update thank you so as you know the  hockey folks met with the school committee to advance the high level planning concept with regard to new skating rink we have had a subsequent internal working meeting to basically lay some questions on the table and there what we will be doing is meeting a couple weeks to get some answers and hopefully that will lend allow us to then how follow up meetings with the board and other  groups including the school committee to see where we are but basically we had a meeting after the school committee meeting as i noted to you all to basically lay questions on the table to go through some of the assumptions that were presented to school committee and basically i think one of the things that's part of the funding plan is a million dollars to replace the fields or to create fields in the place of where the skating rink would have been so clearly we have missed that cycle but that makes sense because we really in the beginning stages of the skating rink idea and proposal so i think that would have to be a proposal for next year depending on where we go it's scary right now it's just getting off the ground that we have suggested but that puts them into two thousand and eighteen no i think one of the discussion points we have is but what the phasing is and what the timeline for this is and so clearly i don't think we have enough information to have submitted a proposal for field replacement up and we need to make an exception it possible i believe there's a process that that can happen ok all right thank you closer to projects i wanted to mention but the one that aside from the skating rink the other one is coming from issued an r f p for the strategic master plan for the recreation department which we had a fairly aggressive timeline we all received one better we were advised by the folks who were interested but the did not b that for that kind of project that we need to allow a significant number of months to have that master plan for the record department to be analyzing to be created so we're going back out to bid with a little bit longer time that and then there's also a meeting that's being scheduled with neighboring towns to come up with strategies with regard to petitioning massport to help us petition the f a a to deal with the noise books that will allow the town account to basically create the cash statements will which will be submitted to the department of revenue to allow our free cash amount for as of july i want to be certified that will typically take place  in november and then that also is necessary in terms of us being able to complete our tax recap forms in order to have our tax rate and our recommendation prepared by the board assess assessors to set the f wife sixteen tax rate so again this is a milestone as part of the process to get those two documents into processes completed as you all aware of the budget fifteen budget process began in december of two thousand and thirteen and so basically we're sort of creating a budget that takes a look at where we're going to be eighteen months in advance so that that is one of the challenges that we face every year  and as you also know as i mentioned part of the recap process the partner revenue when they look at the recap want to things they look at is what were your actual f y fifteen non property tax revenues and what you're budgeting for fiscal sixteen and clearly if there are anomalies in those f y sixteen numbers in terms of what you collect in fifteen you have to justify the numbers are using so again i think that's a  process that we have to make sure that where pruden what we budget for nonprofit tax revenues overall it was a good year for the town in terms of revenues and expenditures and last thing what we'll do is  as part of the task force last year as part of one of the recommendations that we have six thirty of from ation it will allow us to go back and update our financial plan as we prepare to begin the f y seventeen budget process  so what i will do is just briefly go through some of the highlights of the revenue the first one is the motor vehicle excise tax basically we had budgeted daal most two point eight million dollars part of the financial plan for the budget we've upped our revenue plan for the sixteen excise tax revenues to three million dollars which is an increase of two hundred seven thousand dollars from our budget amount  fifteen but again as i noted a moment ago we collected three million two hundred fifty nine thousand in fiscal fifteen and we're budgeting story million dollars in fiscal sixteen so again when we go to the d revenues as everyone knows your excise bill in terms of the value of your car is on a depreciation schedule so basically as long as we have people buy new cars in town our revenue should be fairly stable and will be increasing but again penalties and interest and this revenue represents the penalties interest individuals pay when they pay their real estate tax bills late or excise tax bills are late we budgeted  fiscal fifteen two hundred thousand dollars we collected four hundred twenty seven thousand dollars which is a overage of two hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars and we're budgeting two hundred twenty thousand fisc mention to you in a moment the reason why the revenue estimate is higher than what we budget is because the treasurer has again done a great job of basically convincing folks who always property taxes who may be in taxed at or approaching tax title or folks who have deferred their property taxes which means they don't pay their property taxes which is ok and they pay the town an interest rate of eight percent not to pay their property taxes so basically he has again done a good job of collecting outstanding property taxes and basically when you do that basically not only do you pay the tax but you pay the penalties and interest and we can't just a pain that will be at the same level in sixteen that is correct so basically we budget that revenue conservative revenues i just mentioned motor vehicle excise meals tax penalties and interest payment in lieu of taxes in bets about two hundred thirty eight thousand dollars more than what we budget in fiscal fifteen or seven point four percent our total budget for sixteen and local receipts locos each of this category now i know that what total other taxes what was a budget for sixteen total three million foreman sixty one thousand  came in we came a three point nine we budget sixty three point four and again though there's an anomaly with the penalties and interest that was over by two hundred twenty seven thousand again three point four david was sixteen budget plus was task force  ok thank you for ambulance or states we implemented this program two years ago so this is the second full fiscal year where we've met our revenue projection of eight hundred four thousand we began the fiscal year little on show what was going to happen because watertown was not using us as primary backup to their l s service we had a good strong last quarter of the fiscal year and we finished the fiscal year with actual revenues of eight hundred seventy one thousand dollars which is about sixty six thousand higher than what we budgeted and so again that that's good news in the sense that the program that was adopted implemented two years ago has yielded overall between basic life support and vance life support eight hundred thousand dollars to the and basically that's an increase of three hundred thousand in revenues due to  that's good news in terms of the fees generally the fees have been fairly stable at one hundred forty six thousand dollars which is what we budgeted approximately fiscal sixteen if you if you look at  the fire fees basically we budgeted fifty five thousand dollars in fiscal fifteen we collected one hundred twelve and the reason why that was a higher amount than what we anticipated is that there was a building quickly but could you explain why property taxes was on the six hundred grand lower than again we never collect one hundred percent of your property taxes and where frankly one of the measures that moody's look at looks at is where is your percentage so w that ninety seven to one hundred percent collection write the budget one hundred percent but we collect and it's carried on the books as a receivable so for the past to property tax you know these are fiscal fifteen that we don't we never would expect to collect one hundred percent ok there was a small adjustment that we caught on friday with regard to rentals i think we listed fourteen thousand is actual revenue we actually collected twenty three so we'll make that adjustment to the war committee on wednesday  on recreation programs in fiscal fifteen we budgeted seven hundred thousand dollars the actual amount that we collected was six twenty seven which is about seventy three thousand dollars less than what we had budgeted  the reason for that obviously is that the underwood pool hall was not open till later in the summer so basically the normal traffic we would get for people b pool passes for the summer program in july didn't happen so basically we'll catch that up at the end of this current fiscal year and will basically make our revenue at seven hundred twenty five based upon the overall popularity of the pool that was shown when we opened it for the month of august let's see other highlights i guess the other one i want to spend a moment talking about is if you go down to license and permits for the building related permits that are issued by community development we budgeted a little less than six hundred thousand dollars we collected one million six eighty seven so that's an overage of a million from and awful so let me yeah so let me just say that of the total we collected of one million six eighty seven eight hundred thirty seven thousand was related to about seven building permits that we collected for the biggest of which was the uplands which was four hundred fifty eight thousand dollars the mclean hospital is doing renovation work and some additions to their rather complex and that was about two hundred seventy four thousand dollars of additional building permit fees and then the light department sixty thousand permit fees so so again i guess the story of how much help will know that when i was last year i was last year two years ago so basically the story here is that building permits are variable but we did have a good year with our building permits of a million six all permits including building but the eight hundred thirty seven that was attributed to seven point seven permits that were  pulled if in fact you take a look at the total revenue and you say ok let's take off the eight thirty seven for the large building permits that are not going to always be rare our revenue would have been eight hundred fifty thousand dollars so we budgeted eight hundred for sixteen and the purpose of that is is to have a revenue number that is somewhat predictable and stable so that if there is a downturn that you're not cutting budgets because you don't have the revenue to support  for banks or looking over than doubled the budget from them for i guess on the last page of page four again go back to what i said a moment ago the town does not budget for deferred tax collections or for tax title collections the treasurer was able to realize five hundred one nine hundred thousand dollars in revenue for most two source it then translates into higher than what you went to subpoenaed penalties and interest income and then there's a bond premiums that we basically are not guaranteed to get but in fiscal fifteen when we sold our bond if you take a look at the non property tax revenues nat we yielded a million five and then from non budgeted revenues again from revenues that are not guaranteed to occur year in and year out  generated eight hundred eighty five thousand dollars why that is important is because while that's two point three million dollars on the revenue side mind you that we used four point one million dollars in our free cash last fiscal year and fifteen and that was a combination of using a million nine hundred fifty to balance the budget a million three for belmont center seven forty eight for the shortfall in the snow account and our old have allocation based upon our policy so again we used a significant amount of our free cash last year of four point one million dollars but now we're again assuming d o are certifies these numbers there's least two point one million dollars in excess fairly quickly you know again when you budget your when you create your budget obviously you budget for the full value a physician has you not guaranteed to have a vacan and i think our departments do a good job of managing their budget so basically in some cases they're able to do some planning and basically not fully expand their non salary budgets so a couple things on the general fund budget on page five the war community reserve basically only used to eighty five in fiscal fifteen to basically fund the school department shortfall as you recall there was a  shortfall of in excess of five hundred thousand dollars in the school budget to eighty five came from the war committee reserve and then there was a transfer from the special ed stabilization fund for two fifty the reason why we did that strategy to remind you was is that we were in the closing months of the fiscal year and basically we want to make sure if there was an issue with department or additional issues with the school budget there was a reserve available to be drawn from so again that hundred fifteen thousand dollars is on expended and will basically flow back to free cash basically within the town departments in general government generally speaking  most of the salary accounts were expended in the high ninety percentile in humans to resource budget we had a vacancy for a portion of the year that generated some outage the same for the cessna's department if you turn to the next vacancies for a portion of the fiscal year and that again is offset with the savings in the salaries by increases in overtime costs to do back fills but there was a net savings of two hundred eighty one thousand dollars on expected the salary to account for the vacant positions and the same was true for the fire salaries so again that is a recurrence of trying to fill our raw police and fire vacancies as fast as we can but again once you put somebody in the academy takes several months so there is some generation of outage that occurs say for the community velma department there was some vacancies that occurred towards the end of the fiscal year that generated some salary savings and for public works basically there was some savings in some vacant positions and again there was a little bit less expended in some line items for street lights and cemetery and parks and collection disposal so on the page for the library they have a salary an expanded amount of sixty four that was primarily due to the vacant directors position that was in existence for the majority the fiscal year two they hired a new director let's see the rest of the counts that are listed are pretty much on target in terms of expenditure so basically there was a unexpended balance of a million three sixty two and non in salary non salary savings the basically a turn backs so basically  when you add that to the revenue mile basically we were three point seven we were able to mostly replace the free cash that we use last year but i think when we went to tommy we explained that we thought the million three for belmont center combination of several components this is one of them there's a cruel there is receivables there's grant revenues and expenditures there are other kind of adjustments that made it so i would not want to announce i would say that based upon this snapshot of our revolving funds basically the revolving funds that we have are all in positive category positive positive granges that basically we didn't exceed our expenditure limits and we basically on basically the first snowstorm was declared an emergency by the president we've submitted our forms he usually takes several months before you actually see the real reimbursement from fema and it's my understanding that the government could put some money aside now found with last year snowstorms we have not been notified it's going to but our expenditure number because of the snowstorm was seven fifty eight over and above what we budget and then give we asked for more than them how did that work so basically what we did a town meeting we basically have a budget i think of six hundred two thousand we've based upon the historic snow levels of one hundred and six inches we expended seven hundred fifty more than our budget we went to town meeting basically asked for free cash or preparation i don't remember that but i mean when we go to the feds and we go to the state and ask for money how much do we have basically we get on the first notes so the snowstorms were not fully may because i think it's important you know it's obvious from david's presentation the numbers are under control but we have some things that we haven't addressed in my opinion and they said in the meeting earlier today storm water management is a new issue for me because of what's happening downstream and i don't think we can be comfortable if we're actually polluting downstream we need to do something about it at the water trouble meeting ralph  spoke and he mentioned that we have this project for water this is not storm water or sewage but for water and that we're halfway through replacing all the pipes but we don't have a similar program for the water for storm water and sewage and david and glenn have told me that you know they're waiting for the testing that will come the new testing in the fall which is going to come shortly but we've actually done work cents the e p a report that came out in the boston globe has reported and so one of the one of the projects was two point four million which should eliminate some of what was originally said and then as you both know i'm concerned about open the retirement fund for two thousand and sixteen and i think that's all for tonight but we also said that we were going to have and updating the financial taskforce that we would look at having a steady state projection basically that goes out further than the financial task force protection so now the plan is now that we have six thirty actions we can basically get us fiscal fifteen numbers in line which then will end for we can then have a fifteen actuals posted basically we can you know what i sixteen are now that we have some additional information and we can do revise our projections for seventeen eighteen and nineteen and go out as far as we think we need to know ok all right and then also what's going to happen in for fiscal two thousand and sixteen is that the unfunded portion of the retirement age that's going to go on the balance sheet so that the government balance sheet is probably the liabilities will exceed the assets as of june thirtieth this year or two thousand and sixteen so just so we know that's what it ok thank you ok minutes last approval of minutes i have gone throw the minutes and there are a few that need some revision ok and some of them are rewordings and so can i make a motion to approve those that that i don't have revisions to yes i  have any comments but i'll have it just i didn't make some comments but all of them and been in put to the mill to ok so i'm going to make a motion that we approve the minutes of april twenty first june eighth june twelfth july twenty seven july twenty seventh regular meeting july twenty seventh executive session august fifteen working session august fifteenth executive session might second just make sure i got them right april twenty first yet june eighth yes june twelfth yes july twenty seventh regular july twenty seventh executive yes august fifteen working on august fifteenth executive ok with one suggested revision to all the minutes ok when you open up a meeting were not identified by first name in the first paragraph thereafter i think you can go and call us by our ok