today was day one of the statewide early voting program and belmont was open from eight till five during that period of time which is amongst our shortest hours have our next two week period we actually did three hundred eighty eight early voters arrived and voted so they all seem pretty happy to have gotten through the process pretty smoothly we didn't have a clog or a backup at all and as you can see if you went to a town hall i'm sure you all saw all of the signs everywhere directing them it's a to be here tomorrow tuesday wednesday thursday this week from eight to eight friday eight to five and saturday night four and then we will return next week from on monday eight to five tuesday wednesday thursday eight to eight able over any five ballots voting has already begun for the presidential election yes so this is massachusetts first effort into it i'm and the secretary of state's office is expecting or has asked us to expect twenty five to thirty percent  voting in belmont his body two hundred thousand voters so that's a lot of people and in addition to that nine hundred absentee ballots have already issued for people who will not be in on election day and cannot do early voting so i do want to say thanks for everybody's support took a lot of effort and coordination from all of the town departments to make sure that they were we know they were inconvenienced and our employees are inconvenienced but voters are so happy that they have places to park right and that we can you know not have conflicts awarded a gold medal by the massachusetts election modder modernization coalition and  you know the coalition launched a voting challenge which challenge communities to go beyond the floor set by the law to encourage early voting and you know belmont so i can recall they were working through preparing for the peachtree to center me i think that's the west route that's done one center to waltham and so that's at seven p m on the twenty sixth there's a conflict on the discussion and coming up with alternate and different options in terms of how you address the options different ways of just up i think a really workable and i want to let in the other bag here but very coverage especially in the west wing it seems like it's within reach so i think we're getting there a lot more input to to be had of course there's a health and sport day that's nice i could use a health day at the beach center on tomorrow from one thirty to three thirty flu and pneumonia vaccines blood pressure screens here in screens excedrin so that's tomorrow from one thirty three thirty and then on halloween which we're not meaning right at least the lobby for that we're not meeting on holloway in trick or treat from three to five p m and the christians are sponsored by the christian square merchants association so i would imagine david that's within christian square and then there's a breakfast next on the second note remember at nine thirty three american legion post four forty new i think we've been invited to that right the reason why you are invited to that is our veteran services director is being honored at that but our one school district and i think this is great work by the school administration of superintendent system superintendent and teachers and of course the school committee as well so i think it's just wonderful it's a scrape news a place to go to school and the years there's an update to the towns live below the and then there are several scenarios of how to handle that going forward so it's something that should be of interest to everyone because that liability is one of about the thing he's here but it's coming along ok we've got to learn to live with it and maybe thing is the town has got to pay for it and i think that's what makes it what we've got it protected and the chief everybody groans about the poor bridge and the chief is super herb and he said people have to learn to be polite it's a simple as that accurate remember in the in the fifty's there was an exodus from cambridge by kid with a cub scouts with one of the mothers she said well the first thing we got to do was get rid of that town hall and i said oh really are you going to have to go through me i'm going to be chained to it so that's why i feel like they're all doing a great job thank you so much ok the one seventy eight march treat application for a road to be named sleepy hollow road let me just read the letter that we received from thomas  sleepy hollow road and there was one or two waivers for that and what's the reason what's with the background on this one there is an environmental review that is required there was a misunderstanding with the engineer who is leading the project he was under the impression that any environmental review would be the last step in the process apparently there are communities that ask that environmental be the last up our border survey was in regulations make it very clear that the environmental must be done before the board of survey will continue will consider an application so when i asked the engineer early on if it was any issues environmental his response was no none because even though he knew that there was some environmental that would be required for review he was under the impression that it would happen after border survey took action so once i kind of figured out where he was coming from and we discovered that and then it became a question of what level of review was necessary is it a conservation commission review or is it a review that can be handled internally with the office of community development mary trudeau our conservation agent has put an inquiry in with the e p and we're still waiting on a response from b p to determine just exactly exactly where comment and that is that as you know we received a lot of letters to the horde on this yes and so i think it's important to be clear as as their letter says and also as we know as a board that this withdrawal is without prejudice that it has it's not a decision on variances concerning one seventy eight marcia what we were doing was the past three meetings i believe we we had to keep extending the board of survey to keep the application open now because of the developments that you describe it doesn't make sense to keep doing that so they withdrew without prejudice which which means nothing has happened in there's more work that they need to do and then if it comes back to us it comes back to us correct but so the board has made no formal decision has not taken any formal action on the application right so it's withdrawn without prejudice we as jim indicate we have we've had a lot of a committee that's my fault which one for their task which implementation committee didn't quite get off the ground we did have some expressed interest and it's been delayed so we probably need to we post that david does that make structure of the q no floor that's right just to this is that reflected in our in our view is that reflected here if you look at the bottom of the page you have fun you see here you look where it says outstanding appointments based on advice george so i guess i would ask him that question perhaps what is the question well as we read too in the change in charge of the belmont energy committee roger had suggested as a current chair that when there is there should be lite employee and who is designated by the like or so that to me either charge man when i see so i'm happy to say that suggest show me that in fact that's the representative if we appoint him business representative so that clearly who would that be looking at we appoint roger on september twenty sixth in the barnes tony board twenty one security so we have one opening but what david is saying is that not only that we have to consider as indicated below there the additional stadium point which would be a bummer like representative a town business representative a bum an environmental group representative in the school department present of those other three are not our choice no missile light board advisory committee he could be the belmont like representative from serve that purpose given his interest in the energy committee you know sure that makes sense you know let's do it and so that would take care of that and then we need to get recommendations think that takes both slots and this roger disagrees with you and then on the others will get a recommendation of the school department i just don't know environmental group what that could mean  recommendations tom business representative unclear so hard to figure out what that is so yeah david i can do this right roger perhaps someone in the office can reach out to him and get his thoughts on  mentioned that it sounds like we're going to appoint travis is a member of the vironment the group would that be marty yeah and marty satisfies that criteria yeah now that is the environmental group the conservation commission for example is that environmental rules have or you know that's a heavy load on that i mean i'm just trying to understand yeah i mean it is but if with his town business representative on with it have to be a resident or is it a business and we appointed none present of business individuals to these committees and i'd be happy to do that that's what he was thinking about i think he's commission meetings and you know charles attends and you know he certainly wants to be reappointed and if someone has you know put time into work on a committee and and have some of  you know michael chesson was of interest to me but i think he's also applying for historic district commission and and that there is recommendation as well so maybe better to get us here so better to  take michael up under h d see i'd recommend kate weinstein an attorney environmental and real estate property real property attorney i i know her she works an environmental and property attorney which really has resignation the commission is current without an attorney on the commission remember david webb sort of always told me that they really needed legal representation on this committee kate has an undergraduate degree in environmental science with a focus on graphic analysis and earth sciences pose well her ability to read a clear and understand place of what was constant so i'd be happy with kate jim what are your thoughts ok so they have a motion to appoint one question yes or two of the appointments are for three years and one is for two years right ok any preference which order do you mean  you're one appointments when we start to meet with your tribe even more a little bit more timely next year but you know i have to say that i don't think that this was any of these delays for purely logistics because i think i think several of the committees the charge has been change that's right there's been an extensive discussion with the current chairman so you know sometimes it's best  to not to delay things but it's best to work on them before we take action completed region thank you for that no appreciate at committee appointments are important yes ok so we're not going to recreation commission we have one opening it you know either way either we can go and get thoughts from the chair of the committee or don't do that or the one that jumped out on me was anthony morrow so ok you know over one hundred hours volunteering with v have two alternate member positions open and we would very much like to fill those we find that we barely make our quorum now since we have a seven  person requirement we have a four person quorum so even with a full membership and the alternate you know we sort of squeak through with four more member and no less than seven members no they vote if a member has thing like yes so they've helped us with fill our quorum and they in all in reality there you know viable important members of the committee mike smith for example who's the former co chair is now an alternate member and of course he and lydia are institutional history so they were very very valid they're very valid or sally about members ok so your thoughts are very valuable for this committee so we're very interested in having her join and then you know we had heard that michael chesson had expressed interest i don't know him personally but i do understand that he has  ok appreciate your comments on them is yes the yes you say her name so i'm happy to consider her gentlemen you they were that i'm fine a motion to approve to appoint the so moved feedback and even suggested it was a terrible idea on my part so i didn't want to be a policy so i never defined it as such i defined it as a criteria that we could take into consideration and the reason for that was we had so many applications as you can see at all these committees were having a room full of talent of individuals in our community they're applying shop bless them and a lot of younger families are moving to town like we all moved you know many decades ago  and we want to give them an opportunity to serve and i just thought that the this board plus future board should consider as a criteria service on number of committees and number of terms yeah someone pointed out one of the chairs point we can do that anyway yet we're really don't need the guidelines as sort of it's fox us and you know i'm going to suggest to my colleagues that perhaps i just dropped my idea down you know on a sore somewhere think yeah although institutional knowledge like mr smith's and obese is important critical with some of these committees we get it i got i got it got the feedback there were things i never thought of what i thought as it would be used as a criterion of course as michael there was going to describe it but i would suggest with colleagues that we just perhaps just step away from that thought and try to do our very best to appoint newer members to committees specially younger families that are coming to town be and i think samuel i appreciate this i was most worried about what i think are the four committees who have a review and approval authority over projects yes right you know planning  conservation and h d c and we're all volunteers and you know that it's a big learning curve to understand rules and regs and all that so that's what you know there's a potential for you know  condemn the idea to the sewer of ideas is a bit strong yeah because because we do have we have sixty six committees with you in town you know we need to have new people in i don't deal with but you know other boards can can reverse the policy that's not a problem but i i do think that you know not not moving in that direction is ok but we still need to be mindful of more participation by more people you know because necessarily need any kind of guideline a policy to do that ok just the chair yes i know that you are in need jenna scheduled next to the local advisory committee up there is but myron has graciously agreed to  senator state senator we'll brownsburg it right he had some pressure just going to listen to what he sent us you know in a log he said something we're not aware of what he may have sent you i sent you a number a document yeah that was go through them we'll send yeah ok great so the town pointed representative to the logan community advisory committee and the massport community advisory committee so i'm pleased to say that finally after three years i get to come before you with some good news and i did send you an update memo so i won't go through all of the the details but to give you some highlights as you know we've been battling this  on the town of elmont and other surrounding communities from some changes that the f a a made back in two thousand and thirteen we've sent a lot of letters we've taken as many actions as we possibly could and  i think that they're now starting to feel some results so the summer representative hacked in in conjunction with representative rogers center brownsburg are pulled together a meeting at the state house and we had i think over twelve representatives from different communities including bedford somerville arlington cambridge and watertown that were all impacted by this  change that the f a a made back back in two thousand and thirteen we presented again the kind of a summary of that situation sent a letter to the f a a on behalf of a working group that we formed and  recently received a response from that from the f a a that they are willing to meet with the working group and we've scheduled that meeting for november eighth in parallel we've been advocating for a re examination of this procedure and massport has been working with the f a a and made an announcement last week that is pretty significant which is that they have actually formed a signed  is one of those procedures that's going to be re evaluated so i was at a massport cac meeting executive committee meeting this morning we got a briefing from head of aviation operations for massport and basically the way the process is going to work is that they formed a technical committee with the f a a some input from mit and some external technical experts we've asked that we participate directly as the affected communities in that process but they're going to look at thirty three l both potential changes in altitude to get the planes higher faster and then also for concentration and see if they can go back to something that was more similar to the dispersion that we had before they made this change realistically it's probably a six month process and then it's going to have to be  re tested against environmental for environmental considerations but in general very very good news the other procedure that they're going to take a look at is a procedure that beneficial or or are useful for us the logan community advisory committee and i won't go into explaining the differences between the various community divisor committees but the logan community advisory committee it continues to work on something called the runway use plan which unlike this study that f a a and massport are going to do on thirty three l and on for which looks at procedures the runway use plan basically looks at how frequently a particular runway or particular runway configuration is used and that's ongoing scheduled to wrap up by the end of this year hopefully something will come out of that that will potentially grease repetitive use of a runway so i think we've talked about this before so if a runway is used in the morning and or in in the evening then ideally you wouldn't use that same runway configuration the next morning and figuring out how to do that equitably and and to have air traffic control be able to manage that is a challenge but it's still it's still progressing and then i think the last thing that i wanted to bring up was saturday session that not only includes local experts from harvard school of public health mit and tuffs but some very well known international experts on aviation impacts so not only noise but pollution and this is an event that's open to the public it's free and you know i'll be attending i know that a lot of the cac reps will be attending i think i mention this at the meeting of the boston morning and that i would ask that again it's there's no official sponsorship or anything that we would need to do but i think it would be valuable for our residents who are being impacted by these to go learn from some experts and so i was hoping that  that the board would allow us or me or the town to become a supporter of this of this symposium i'm fine with that mary too i just posted on a basically allows planes to go up to five thousand feet and then there's a few thousand foot layer of safety layer and then there's flights that are coming in over the top above seven thousand feet and what they're trying to figure out is whether either that ceiling can be raised or whether there's alternative ways to get the airplanes or the airlines and the pilots would prefer to be cleared fourteen thousand feet right from the end of the runway expand it's more fur so logan typically operates with a two runway configuration so typically when thirty three is being used twenty seven is being used when four is being used nine is being used and it has to do with the timing between the two runways that are being used the separation between those two runways probably not something that who cac in too well in general the it's going to be a study that's going to look at specifically thirty three alan and and four are in the interesting thing is that i think i've told you in the past the we're not unique this problem has happened all over the country and logan has been selected as the only test site where the f a a and the airport are working together and our procedure was selected as one of the two that they're looking at so you know i think all of our efforts up until now have been worthwhile in order to illustrate what we've been experiencing to the point where but you have you have a policy that if someone complains that they should call a number is that correct yes the logan has a complaint what is that number can you say that again for the public i don't have don't have it here so going website we can put that on the website began i mean it is on the website yeah there's a there's a page for logan community advisory committee who's one of my neighbors is very interested and she's asked everyone you know if you it's kind of like if you see something say something if you hear something you know make the phone call so yeah just for the general public the the if you're upset about this making frequent complaints is ok but it's almost better to go into your neighborhood and get more addresses to complain because the numbers that they look at are not only the number of complaints but the number of of people filing complaints and it's you know it's better i mean there was a situation in chicago where you know two people filed thirty two thousand complaints in a month so it kind of skews the numbers so so i'd rather see thirty two thousand people separate yeah he's filing one complaint are you are you organize by precincts have you asked someone someone in each precinct to take that up or you know there's a separate citizens group called the boston was first guys group adriana pool and david are waiting a few was there a precinct and present to other people so that's really more of an activity that i would see being done from them as a as a citizens could i also ask you what is the story and helicopters helicopters fall into kind of a gr own of of regulatory some massport does not have purview over the over that or over helicopter operations even though they may take off and land at hanscom or add at at logan and it's really a an f a a issue i know that we've had several situations where we've had low flying helicopters over town we're not talking about you know five thousand feet we're talking about now thousand feet and and oh yeah absolutely and the explanation after the fact that we received was that it was a film crew actually filming the  really managed are the traffic helicopters you know if there is a you know an accident on the pike or someplace i know that you know when there was tragedy on was it friday in boston with the  that but i think it's the bigger issue is these you know if it's filming i know that there was one we did get notice was the last year they were doing surveying and they sent us they sent communities on notice but i do think it's it's incumbent upon the f a a to give us as much notice as possible so people are upset yeah i think that not only is it the noise but it's the idea that people are concerned about you know any one community complaining is you know right it can be discounted more easily than when you've got you know a whole region that's basically saying wait a second this is this this is the problem so you can thank you  the summer there were the wind pattern was actually a lot different than it usually is and so we had fewer northwest wind days so fewer flights but now that we're getting into winter i mean our you continuous sponsorship of this terrific a band with community events this is for many years and they were my children so the fire trucks the bring santa claus in from alexander avenue at six twenty p m in the tree lighting will take place at six thirty p m and this has been going on for the past twenty six years as a celebration within our town so they have a motion to approve this request in the balance in a business prices on road salt this year we're recommending that morton salt of chicago is the lowest bidder at fifty five dollars and forty cents per ton we always then select the second vendor which would be eastern minerals of wall as a secondary source just in case morton runs out of salt paper on the conditions of the winter at sixty five ninety so what we would recommend is the board approve this contract and authorize autonomy this traitor signed a contract ok why would more than one out of salt sometimes if the shipment doesn't come in because the pay ten dollars more per ton much tunder we lay typically typically we almost a four thousand times a year to put more on one thousand yeah one more depending upon the conditions of a went to all ok germany questions and it seems like it's business as usual yeah i agree so do i have a motion to see me have a question not a motion to approve chair as you alluded to earlier in the meeting tom meeting did vote to withdraw from the minuteman school district to the town clerk has submitted to the minuteman vocal tech school the results of that  vote what will happen now is the clerk of the minuteman school district will notify all the member districts and then they can choose whether or not they need to call the time meeting to approve or disapprove our exit again was still a member for three years the school superintendent school committee have been discussing options now don't need to consider that for these three years perhaps were upset about the outcome of the vote ok and i just wanted to read in part of it had to do with the special education aspect of the discussion which was ruled out out of scope as you  number and i think you know to kind of avoid the kind of situation that we had of brown belmont the belmont center discussion that you know we should just say a few words i mean i've had motions before town meeting that have been defeated i've had most at the town meeting member i've had motions that were approved and as alan says you know sometimes you you're proven sometimes you're not and so in this case it was a two thirds majority which is hard to get at the end of the day it didn't make sense and there was commentary at the meeting about how the state policies and their in their practices made it uneconomic in our situation to do that because of the the tuition ruling in the capital expense ruling so i'd like to say to the people who voted no that you know we understood their position we respect their their position in and yet a two thirds vote speaks for itself thank you for that you may completely agree with you was not it and i think we took it lightly this four did i did not know that and i think it might both of you did not of change in that and i think for people who are concerned about the special aspect of it that the idea is that the special education program in the belmont school district is equivalent to what is  or better than what's being offered at minimum and you agree with us ok all right so i just wanted to say that in the interest of the public we as a board selected and clearly the school committed school superintendent school administration not only legally put them on hold or let's let's think what you said use them as consideration too i think well no i mean if they met there for their guidelines so i think that i was i had suggested it both of you supported it we clearly get feedback from listing of the sixty six committees anywhere on the web site yes and where is that so that the public can look up and see where they might go in the home page there's a tab that says government i believe in  so that when customers come to belmont center the party will be available while working on several fronts as i have said before were evaluating where in the process as we make changes to basically evaluate them and it's an ongoing evolving process because we're still waiting for the final fit out of the macy's building and what that may or may not bring in terms of other kinds of businesses they will have to respond to but we are in working with the business community to report to at the last meeting part new parking signage will go up in belmont center shortly we've designated a loading dock i'm sorry loading zone with the business community to hopefully try to get the trucks off the middle of the go running for the yellow line on another front we were able to work with the c v s regional manager to basically change the delivery time to late at night or eight after eight p m on thursdays which was a problem with the c deliveries that were coming earlier in the afternoon so i think we've solved that problem in terms of having you know a fairly large truck parked at c v s that had some requirements with regard to type of delivery so i think we've solved that one i think we're going to have the loading zone with an extended period time from one to three of suite for spots that will allow it to park new signage in with regard to again the parking times to coincide with the installation and activation of the metering stations basically ninety minute parking with the first thirty minutes free with a maximum of ninety minutes we also talk to the business community again as a trial about trying to standardize the parking on the inlets to belmont sent dirt namely conquered out from the bridge to pleasant street and from more street to pleasant and from alexander to pleasant and basically make it a standard to our parking limit so it's consistent for both enforcement and to provide additional parking for patrons again i think it's a one hour to hour hodgepodge so we're going to want a trial basis standardize that we've also implemented our plan to take the class in st lot and try to make sure that the with better enforcement are additional p c o to make sure that the three our thirst three rows which is free to our parking lot to make sure that's enforced that people are going i'm sure people are right by the way i think we've we've with our additional piece you have been able to notice and to make sure that those are more available to patrons we also have taken our business permit holders and have now asked them to park in the permit the clapham street lot we've also carved out some spaces behind the fire station so that we can have additional burn business permits there as well as on claflin street in front of the rise in building so i think what we're trying to do is we get ready for foodies in the bookstore and other folks who may require parking either for employees through business permits and the like to try to make the park in the middle  david glenn clan say and our police department have done a wonderful job working with the business community gathering their import and their suggestions and you know implementing  those policies to address the concerns there's been a lot of dialogue a lot of time yeah so when all of this is sort of being taken that this all this information be available and folks in sort of be informed about limitations free our free parking for thirty minutes and then gradually working our press release now we will have a mouth would be helpful so folks can understand what's taking place in the senate ok and then the lot of good ideas yeah the last topic is just housekeeping falls that means two of our bargain units will have a half day on friday december twenty third and i'm recommending that we extend that schedule to our nonunion employees that work for the town in this a word about you know there'll be some people who comment on the christmas aspect about how do we think about that i know the school the school district took some decision with regard to the school vacation and because christmas was was in the winter vacation period you know that you know it wasn't it wasn't an issue but in a union contract is one thing but you you know but but i mean practically speaking it's probably the least productive day of the year and any event you know so you know to give people a half day off we have to improve this levee system and i think that's all along the way i think typically we've had the bargainers have negotiated this and basically the challenge now is to approve it for the nonunion employees but also i think if  when the holiday falls and how the day before falls that will require some scheduling so that's why i'm recommending that you like you did for summer i was authorized the time ministry to make those decisions so that we can  you know behalf of his sister lorraine benoit to recently designed retired as director and manager of the underwood pool our where where she had provided fifty two years of service fifty two years she regard to doing this is my understanding that the pool committee is still in session though glenn you haven't you haven't given the pool committee released yet have you and republican committee the building the in in her case and she's still living it wouldn't be appropriate because it's in the memorial but i don't i think it any time something like this is named should always be in somebody's not you know not as a memorial 're looking at so ok you know the other thing i know about it is that you can get a livery license downstairs as well and that's not as liaison is the november seventh meeting ok about pensions and specifically the unfunded pension schedule ok and i just wanted to mention first i wanted to ask did did we have an input to the schedule that the average whereis can i saw david sent information to us i haven't had any input i mean you know david did did you speak to them about the schedule itself did you give them did you tell them what our thinking was or what did you have a recommendation for them what happened there that we have thinking about it i think we did ok so a couple things so the retirement board is required as commission f annual actuarial study which they completed by siegel the board did review it and basically took some recommendations and asked for additional information with regard to schedules they will consider whether to to provide us with another scenario that they have the information and whether or not that scenario can be completed by november second if i don't know ok well the point i wanted to mention is that this is a particularly important year and now i finally understand why when it goes to town meeting it goes as a fait accompli and that's because as i have allowed in connection with this meeting announcement that the retirement board has to give the answer by the end of november so you know whatever that whatever whatever the board of selectmen agrees to with the retirement board is if it goes to  town meeting as a as a fait accompli and i just want to say with no debate that this one is particularly important because we have the school bond issue come up and if we need an override to meet these you know these escalating payments we do not want to have an override competing with the school bond issue and that is on our desk it's not on anybody else's desk it's on our desk this year because this is happening this year and if we if we can get that scenario through the actuaries and the reid and the retirement board and i think reasonably they have to run the numbers just so that we can see what it looks like what will happen is that the amortization schedule can be fixed where it is now in other words what we've already been paying in if that's the case then we don't have to ask for an override for the you know for increased pension obligations and i also want to say for the public this is not about future pension obligations which i think the three of us and the four of us and the five of us understand it's about past obligations and it's not about any kind of mismanagement or anything like that it's about two thousand and eight it's about the fact that interest rates have been a two percent for eight years and you know if you can if you can have interest rates at six percent for eight years that's forty eight percent return plus right so there's a lot of moving pieces here but we have a chance and we need to take a way to look at it is it's it's it's an it's a problem for the town now it happens to be in my space because i i i'm not as good at numbers but save it is as david does but i'm almost as good in numbers as david confirm tomorrow that i will do that because we need to have that discussion work comes first for me in this is my only job you have it paid for it you know