or leaving the precincts out for ten seconds each per your request  right glen please display the total order not in favor one fifty three opposed all right let's now now that the amendment has been dispensed with who we return to the main motion so the discussion is open on the main motion has passed thank you i'm sue bass from precinct three and i don't know if i should say i live two blocks a block maybe from belmont center and so maybe that counts as a conflict of interest it certainly means that i have a very serious interest in this in this project and overall i am supportive of it i think we do there are some improvements that we really badly need to make belmont center more pedestrian friendly i walk there all the time and what again conflict of interest i want it for me but of course i want it for everybody else too and i do think it will be good for business now unfortunately i was not able to attend the recent detail meetings and so i want to pick my needs with land right  now if you will in tell telerate that i wanted to say that the process walk that he's talking about on the north side of the bridge and maybe people could but the slide up it's the intersection of leonard anyhow it's on the side of the  and i will try to get the slide up i think you got this going clancy director of community development glenn is going to find those are just take one second ok fine thank you well what i wanted to say is that i you know because i live so close i cross there all the time i crossed right in front of the bridge on the north side and now i agree with the people who say that the proposed crossing on the south side is a little dangerous but i find there's no cross walk i find that people are going slowly at that point and it is therefore safe it is not safe on the other side of the bridge those people are going fast but this side of the bridge they're going really slowly and i would like to urge you to keep that them thank you the other thing i wanted to ask i was thinking about hell brot who is used to be a town member meeting member from precinct three before he moved out of town and used an astronomer and he came to all kinds of meetings where there were light poles showing and he said are those full cut off lights and i think you said some are and some aren't but i'd like to have that clarified and yeah they all are i mean the the  illumination of the lumination from each fixture will differ but by and large you won't see a light source above the level of the fixture the shorter one that i pointed out that i said is going to sort have a dual role of illuminating the the sidewalk as well as the store facades that light source may get up maybe ten feet or so above the sidewalk but the cut off would be at that point so anything above that would be dark and that was that was a conscious decision that completely going to be aligned with the dark skies initiatives we do not want excess spill like going upward and also on a more practical level individual life fixtures will be evaluated whether they need a house shield or not depending on where they're located to prevent spill light from affecting neighbors if that's a possibility so each life fixture not only will it comply with skies initiatives which you know is about and in life going up it's going to practically you know hopefully prevent spill light from affecting neighbors thank you very much thank you yes man you're n not supporting it i recognize the significant time and effort of many professionals on the town staff and numerous committee volunteers and in fact kind of bums me out that all of this time and effort has been put into this and i'm just not happy about the funding and i can't support it i the initial encouragement from town meeting to pursue this design was predicated as was previously stated on possible funding for a mass works grant chapter ninety funding that didn't come through and the sales of two town properties that have not yet materialized given that reality i'm troubled to say the least by the decision of the selectmen to move ahead with this proposal using free cash as the bulk of the funding and as i mentioned well i won't go into what i said before but i know that the streets and sidewalks need to be repaired and  repaved and i would support that project but based on my daily observations in our town center this is not exactly a blighted neighborhood that is desperately in need of cosmetic fixes i understand that some of the pedestrian improvements would be helpful and but you know as it is now things seem to be working i mean it's crazy but this isn't addressing the traffic problem in any significant way and because of that i don't see that it's really going to address the pedestrian issues except for the curb cuts which are great but we're all watching out for people darting into the road with strollers now anyway you know when i drive through belmont center parking spots or fall the foot traffic is plentiful new businesses continue to move in if we can solve the problem with paving at this point and not be taking money from free cash to be funding ornamental you know street lamps and street scaping we need street scaping all over town it's not just in belmont center i don't see that belmont center right now is really at a significant disadvantage because of those shortcomings so i'm not sure exactly again emergency the problem that we're solving i don't feel it's fiscally responsible and i do feel that we have much more pressing  financial needs i also am very concerned about the relationship between boma tax payers and our town government thankfully there's there's been an erosion over time with projects becoming bigger and perceived to be fancier than they need to be and people are losing confidence in town meeting in our town government to do right sized projects and it comes up time and again when i speak to my neighbors about things like you know school budgets or street override so i'm urging my fellow town meeting voters vote against this project and i do regret standing in opposition to this proposal thank you thank you on my left duck upload town meeting member precinct six but a question on the point of design clarification here that the final view of the project showed bike lanes coming under the bridge there  and right now going under the bridge is a huge point of this whole area you barely get the lanes of each traffic way but you do get two lanes of traffic well i just wanted to confirm that under the redesign it will still have two lanes of car traffic in each direction able to pass under the answer clancy yes you will still have two lanes in either direction thank you over to my right the  if we consider getting any co financing from them all we always the turn and return from that area you are going to be because they are tax value will go up bigger sort of strategic projects for the town this project source bence alone could not not all like so i like to think of things more globally to from my point of view if you have a town in which you have an operating budget that sustains level my point of view i can only vision that town that probably values increased in that kind of a community that's a subjective point of view wasn't any kind of analysis that was performed but i look at a community that is that type of community and i think it only enhance wales through questions where so that project is on moving forward in closing i think we should we should do return on investment kind of considerations even if they are somewhat high level because it allows you to compare different projects and shows the leonard street chaney and concord avenue intersection right thank you i'm very interested in having a community path through belmont connecting with other  paths and the community path advisory committee found real mirrored in routing bike path along the railroad that and i would like to see how it is that a bike path could be integrated into this particular design because i'm concerned that if we approve a design that for one reason or another is precludes the possibility of routing the bike path that way then i couldn't be supportive of the design mr clancy i'd like let's see director of community development it's actually more helpful if i look at this light the original on sept plan that the traffic advisory committee approved and sense of the board of selectmen included work to be done in this area here this entire area here art of the proposal was to anticipate a rail trail that would come over the bridge and give a person the ability to jump off the trail follow a path onto the sidewalk here on concrete avenue in then be able to get into belmont center we drop to this piece because frankly the prospect of what it would take to deal with the m b t in the commuter rail for permanent approvals was just was going to be time consuming the little bit of expense attached to it and at the end of the day hearing concerns about the potential someday for using this area for parking  recognizing that the community path conversations haven't reached a point where you know what we were doing was going to be what people wanted made sense to draw i can tell you that conceptually what we are moving forward would not stand in the way of a conversation that would reintroduce an ability to get from the rail at this point off and on to concord ave in fact we have the concepts that that shows that it's very easily done arming yeah because when i saw the crowd i went down that street and it went down congo death and that concerns me the second thing is if you talk to the belmont savings bank you look at the way you go into that garage horrible to begin with and you've got to be packing spaces as people go in the garage i can foresee accident upon accident because backing out trying to come in and out oh that's my second area here you can actually fit two vehicles side by side we don't see that there's going to be much of a conflict if any with a car backing out i mean obviously you're going to be cautious when you're making that maneuver but but all in all i think we feel it's ok in the conversations we had with the bank in losing the six parking spaces here you know that we taining these three spaces in this location was important to the bank but it's important that everyone understand that you know the six spaces that are here are not the amount savings bank parking spaces any more than parking spaces that are located in front of c v s orcus alley or any other business in belmont center belongs to those individual businesses we spoke to the bank out of courtesy to explain the rationale behind this desire to increase green space ultimately they supported this idea they liked the idea of having additional green space in front of their building as far as the comment about the road being used to sort of avoid i guess what was happening here i mean yes you're absolutely right we didn't cordon this off i guess we don't know how many vehicles would be trying to bypass this but at the end of the day if you're doing this is this year ending up in the same place ultimately if somebody wants to avoid what's happening here they stay on pleasant street and they come down concord avenue and do this and honestly i think we saw a lot of vehicles eventually understand that if they wanted to grab common street there was really no point in them waiting in the queue coming down leonard street when they could take pleasant concord avenue and grab that right hand lane coming out from concord avenue so i think people began to figure out what the barrels best way for them to get the better i think once the project is complete people will also figure out the best way for them to do that and as i said earlier the ebb and flow of traffic in volume through the center on any given day i think is going to dictate a lot of the behavior and  i can even go further and say what's happening out on route to what's happening on l wife rock and in fresh pond and all of those are factors in what we're experiencing in belmont center because people are on route to they read what's happening in front of them and decide whether to jump off or stay on and that eventually is what is impacting belmont center as well as brighton street scally did you have a follow up question well really i meant ok i will say i have to agree with you ch s can hear your last lives allison town meeting member basing the vice chair of the planning board but my remarks are solely my remarks as a town meeting member informed by my time on the planning board where at every meeting developers come before us to do residential development in belmont and they come before us to do residential development in belmont because we have cost effective step toward creating an infrastructure that business friendly in our count center which is where we have said we want the validation and from the point of view of funding all other priorities in town business businesses are very attractive they do not add to school enrollment they pick up their own trash and if they call the fire department over and over when there is really no need be fined them i think this can make a significant elements ability to attract best meant to the town centers and i hope it passes really strongly thank you as what my gene widmer bracing five i rise to support this this but i do feel that that belmont center is one of the last centers in our boston area that that has that is that will be beautif just improved you go to winchester back in the eighty's we were talking about getting winchesters ideas for improving our center reading  lexington arlington all of them are improving their centers where the last it feels like sometimes with the last and it's like pulling teeth a police station is a shambles our high school is long overdue this is really a modest plan and it will help our businesses are finally getting businesses in the center that we've only dreamed of people are coming here to use our restaurants and they sit out in the summer time it's wonderful it's wonderful to see but i have a business in the center and a center is shabby it's plenty and we need to improve it and i urge you all to vote and support this plan the microphone bob could you put the motion on the screen yeah the main motion main motion yes still bonds to be issued where authorizing some money to issued but it says appropriated for he belmont then our reconstruction project and my only question is what is the find to be the belmont that are reconstruction project is it the pictures we've seen tonight i did somewhere because already tonight we've heard some  things on the green so well water what is the project and could someone explain that are where's it where can we find a project because i know those people are discussing the project but we don't have a reference to the project mr clancy glenn clancy director of community development couple of things first off this group the drawings that we've shared with you this evening in the past few meetings were that we've met there the concept drawings that were developed and they are the basis for the design drawings that are being generated if you go on the town's website there's a belmont center section in the community development on the  development website we have construction drawings up there that are of oh probably ninety percent complete i would tell you that the belmont center reconstruction project is you know it is ultimately will be the set of construction drawings that w represent this project i don't know how to answer it better than that barnet for a project and we don't have a design project and you say you have one ninety s percent complete somewhere in a package we don't have a here so we're not voting on what you have voting on unfortunately on what we have seen here picture tells a thousand words to follow that we did this with the pool the pool we voted we got the money got the funds we got everything and they designed the pool afterwards well who want to handle that we want to analyze make a couple of comments before it is to kill jumps and first of all as you're aware we have twice pursued mass works grant money for this project so on both occasions  both in the summer slash fall of two thousand and thirteen and the summers last fall of two thousand and fourteen we had to generate an estimate for construction to submit as part of that bid request so taking the concept plans that we shared with you this evening developing design drawings that can be used by a contractor for construction the details on those plans are used to develop a cost estimate we did that on two occasions last year and this year to pursue that mass works grant so you know knowing you know when i say ninety percent i mean what's missing from the drawings by and large are our notations explaining you know certain certain materials are certain elements that have to be added if you if you look at the cost estimate for the project you know that most of the details there so we are able to generate an accurate cost estimate based on what we know already the estimate for the project has a construction contingency built into it which is pretty standard for any kind of a project that you're putting an estimated cost on in addition in a recognition of the bidding activity that occurred with the pool we are also adding a bidding contingency to the estimated cost as well there's a hundred fifty thousand dollar big contingency over and above the project costs we know that but embedded in the project costs are already instruction can so we have buffered this precisely to try to prevent the same kind of bid scenario that we encountered at the pool that's why there is that big contingency in addition to the construction can we feel like we're covered we don't you know you should i you should i disclose that i have a financial interest and this was not appropriate or is it just assumed that's appropriate ok i am a financial interest in this my taxes ok thank you you know i think everybody in the room should declare that before they speak if that's your choice no i do not like the choice but i'm having why why why don't we take this concept we have here tonight have this great conversation not someone of an expense which oh by the way should be added to the cost of belmont sunnah cause that's all we're talking about tonight and come back to town meeting in april with a legitimate plan with a legitimate cost interesting and then let us vote on it then it's not that far away and all these other steps could take place at that time you could have a good faith vote here but not to commit a we're committing almost three million dollars basically to this project and we don't have a design you would not accept those prints if i came to your office and asked you to approve that plan for my property you wouldn't do it you'd want a better detail plan and i have only to make sure it would co aligned in the schedule are the thing that we were talking about is if you do put out a bid where the funding is not secure big goes out as a contingent upon appropriation or a future date what we believe will happen is  number one we may not get the number of interested contractors that we would normally get for a project that's been funded and ready to go so we may not get quality contractors may not get a number of contractors that will give us the price that we want or if they do give  a price it will be contingent upon funding which may mean they want to cover their costs in tying up their apple in terms of a project so we believe by having a project ready to go that's funded it will allow us to get a significant number of the project while fide bidders to bid the project and be able to invest the time that's required to get this project bid out in a way that expands our energies initially so that is the plan and also we want to get this done by october ten to twelve in europe in your presentation from the bank side coming across with me driving down concord album you talk in this location here is one up this one here yes that's a fruit cross walk with no median right correct ok you know what that and questioningly at legality i think you can come to glenn after this town meeting raise your point it will be looked into and if it's valid it will be incorporated the purpose of this town meeting and the police chief briefly answer mr white's question briefly and then let's move on about now we done a new survey on the cross walk on the south side of of under the bridge you put barrels up another spot can we paint not tomorrow and do a survey between now and you a bit date that one right there one glenn clancy director of community development first of all once we put paint in the road without the accessible ramps on either end to receive pedestrians  technically wouldn't be illegal crossing that's one to sort of difficult for me to stand here in an open public meeting in suggest that we're going to put a cross walk that people don't feel comfortable crossing in god forbid if there should be an incident in that cross walk i feel like i would be culpable as the town engineer and so the short answer would be no i don't think an experiment like that would be warranted in knitting back with as polite as i can be and mutually that's the cross walk i had in mind if somebody comes around common street but take us through right he's got through right he's gotta yes and it's a challenge some time somebody steps off the cross walk on the bridge side he's done it's a stop light for him yes  crossing concord avenue could seek shelter and that the term you use on the island sanctuary thank you is the pedestrian could seek sanctuary in that island but if that pedestrian chose to continue moving on into the next piece of that you have an obligation of it as a motorist to stop your vehicle mr white does that complain i had explanation but i don't have an obligation to stop a freeze on the other side all right thank you for ok i've made my point i've got your complete the questions that's done for now let's go to another one you know this is getting that i think we're where we're running at the ten minute time frame i'm in and we need to move this along you have one last question mr mr white i guess some of these are and cross walks again on their own pedestrian all right i'll give you a break thank you very much yes on my left helen brakemen precinct four also chair of the belmont housing trust i i'm not really sure how i'm going to end up voting i believe that the center does need improvements as mr clancy said we have applied for mass works grants and were turned down and we were turned down by the state because we did not meet one of its top priorities which was to include housing in proposal many other towns like belmont encourage encourage commercial and residential buildings in their town center belmont has up until now either prohibited or discouraged this kind of mixed use in the town center and it has had financial consequences as we are seeing tonight so as we look ahead to more planning in the center i would in encourage  all groups involved to please give due consideration to the use of mixed use in our town center for both economic as well as environmental know scally precinct be very shot i'm in favor of this of this contraction with one exception i can't see why you make it more difficult to get to the bank that's where the money is and i usually i usually come down more street and go through the drive top and then you're go down and go a little further and go look up go through pool i don't see why you hear her telling people from going and packing next to the bank i would appreciate something done with that i'm in favor of the whole project but that exception director of community development i just can say preferred pli going joy i can just briefly state that in the public hearings the traffic advisory committee held you know there were constituencies that were obviously in favor of parking in favor of better mobility there was also  you know we spoke about these three spaces remaining but there are also will be parking now on concord avenue that will be available in close proximity to the entrance well if you're coming through if you're coming through the drive in tala you're coming out right  now you're really trying to find out whether there's traffic coming up the street so you can safely go out if you start packing because right next to the act the exit of that drive in teller you're going to have an accident waiting to happen i'd like to keep the thing is i was i was i was employed by the agricultural department taking traffic patterns and you know usually barry precinct one i have no problem with a town center project but i am going to oppose it on the theory that if we didn't spend a two point seven million dollars on this we could spend it on something else earlier this year as on the and roman modeling group for the school system and i think everyone hopefully appreciates this the enrollment numbers really are scary not going to get into all those numbers like most of you understand the trends and what we're facing there right now we're diverting six million dollars out of our operating budget with  seven percent annual kicker that will increase that six million dollars diversion to eleven million dollars by two thousand and twenty seven in order to pay off one hundred eighty million dollars pension liability which i'm all for paying off paying bills but that's a pretty harsh plan i think that most people would  agree that will increasingly squeeze our school police fire public works all townsite services in the years ahead increasingly squeezed is going to be gone from six million to eleven million ultimately i would prefer that we pass an override i think need and it's something like that to deal with  unfunded pension liability instead of making the current generation of school kids and citizens pay the tune pay the piper for a tune they never called but that's not going to happen i don't get any love on that and therefore i think we owe it to our school kids and everyone else who relies on the services funded by our operating budget to do whatever we can to reduce that squeeze as much as possible and i realize this is by many here seen as a drop in the bucket but if we vote down the two point seven million dollars project for a nice to have lovely  i work with a lot of senior citizens and i've discussed this with a number of them also people who are disabled and concerned the major concern that i hear is that people would like those parking spaces next to the bank as has been mentioned by several or speakers who continue because it gives access to the center people who may be disabled or who have some need for assistance now it seems that they will be parking up the hill if they can't find a space in the center and that it is a hill and people are concerned about the loss of that travel lane the other concern that was mentioned to me was the width of the travel lanes in belmont center and the question is do the plans make the lanes now or were and what happens if we get one to two feet of feet bicycle lane would be six feet travel away travel a would be eleven feet but right now there are certainly areas where first of all there's not a dedicated bicycle lane in belmont center so you have a parking lane and you have a travel areas where that travel lane is wider than eleven feet but our proposed cross section would be a consistent eleven foot travel lane six foot bicycle lane seven foot parking lane but if we get one to two feet of snow and people are parking three or four feet out from the curb will there be sufficient space know it in here and in your question is the idea that there will be snow in the gutter that prevents them from getting to the curb when i don't have an answer as to how public works would handle that snow fall i guess is they're going to try to get to that curved line when they plow like they always do but i i i'm going in an area where i really don't have the expertise i'm sorry is there any possibility that the travel lane next to the belmont savings bank can be saved rather than the amount of green space i'm in favor of green space for the most part approve of this but these are the concerns i've heard from a lot of people who  voters briefing so i apologize if this is been addressed but historically this is ben a very dangerous intersection and even when the original intersection was conceived by our forefathers they certainly weren't anticipating giant s u v s with parents of young children blasting through there while checking their facebook status so i would just ask is there a traffic light i mean is this you know it's often been said other should somehow be a light here and i don't know how this is not my area of expertise i don't know how that would work in this now but is there a way to increase the safety with the with the traffic light of some sort is your client's  clancy director of community development when the traffic advisory committee set to hold public meetings to discuss the redesign of belmont center it was important to the committee and myself as the town engineer to let everyone know that everything was on the table  we walked into that room on day one with no preconceived ideas of any of the elements that ultimately became this plan and so signals were discussed the consultant actually ran a modeling scenarios showing what the queuing would do if signals were installed and they just don't work there's too much volume during the peak hour to be able to manage the traffic when you when you consider the amount of volume that is on lenox street on that avenue of common street on the other side of the underpass putting in signals to coordinate those three main approaches but that the queuing that results on one of those approaches as you manage the flow from the other one or two makes it virtually impossible and i will also add that you know there is obviously an added expense to installment signals that the cost of the project would would have been firmly above three million had we gone in that direction but as i said to you the important takeaway from that is that we didn't find a scenario with signals would work been meeting member precinct any of you will remember years ago when there were many pickers on ars that said belmont is my home town has been my home town for many years i have lived in three precincts or placing eight and two and live very close to the center i very much  is not i don't think my imagination when i walk back thirty three four in the afternoon and watch all the various teams who work very hard for us they give us feeling of pride they are part of being belmont hometown people thence the new track has put in i don't think it's my imagination but i see a different version a different braai a different sense of belonging a different sense of pride very important that has been done i think about another revenue source in talking about touched night right across the street from me very unannounced week years ago yesterday giant trucks starting to earth a year later two houses were built they were put up for sale for three point three million dollars but that's going to add x base it's taken a year for one of them to sell it sold for two point three redid the new owners over the weekend and you go up concord avenue out of town on the right there's a great deal more in housing that is up there i spent a good time in the assessor's office and in the building and community development office on friday they were very helpful with giving me a sense oh yes indeed the deal of  i'm meeting member precinct eight it's not often that i stand up to oppose a project and sadly i'm doing that today i joined the other member with that we spent a lot of time tonight talking about the chanting road leonard street and concord and intersection but we haven't talked at all about the single lanes that will exist between war and alexander and having lived off of channing road for many years i'm very familiar with the channing road intersection and watch people when i come under the bridge watch people trying to go through people block that intersection if you have two single lanes going through the center and you have trucks that there's only one loading zone on either side you have trucks that are going to stop but the loading zone is occupied that truck driver isn't going to say up i'll come back he's got to do is delivery and they are going to block the center and that will happen is it will back up because people will deliberately block chanting road the fact that nobody can go they're not going to let my car go through channing road i see it every day i would like to read a letter from a constituent increasing date she says how long as it's not long addressing years of just repair of our roads and utility upgrades are long overdue however i'm writing because a major concern about the proposal to create a single travel lane in each direction and leonard street under current conditions auto traffic through belmont center is routinely delayed or halted by cars backing into parking spaces and by commercial trucks making deliveries to starbucks c s business customers etc with so little commercials parking space available these very large vehicles regularly park in the roadway to unload further slowing traffic at times is only effectively a single lane open you see this all the time and northbound traffic must take turns with southbound traffic passing through belmont center he goes on to say the proposed plan may look very orderly and efficient on paper but further narrowing of leonard street will actually cause major traffic disruption and delay and achieve the opposite of traffic calming it will make an already difficult parking situation even worse and create considerable additional hazard for cyclists speaking as both a motorist and a cyclist it's well and good to designate a bike lane but if the roadway is simply too narrow for vehicles and their various activities the cyclist is no safer than before and maybe less so because they now have the illusion of a safe travelling so then when i last this is back to me  the last comment is a couple of years ago we had some pretty significant snow storms and entire the entire parking spaces were filled with snow so people were parking out creating the line of what we're going to see with this so unless the town leadership can promise that every time we have any snow they will do what they used to do years ago which is send out the front end loaders and scoop the snow we are doomed in the winter and we are even doomed whenever delivery trucks someone's trying to back up and unless you can get people to not walk the intersection the entire center gridlocks i'm very sorry to oppose this over on the right this i want to auction people that as soon as we approve a project project can evolve any different ways i live on and i've been following the have to drive as my house is blocked play and i don't know how the town center and even function during construction after construction when all the roads are skinnier as don't mention i think that the better thing to do is to take this council project and line it up all the other capital projects that and some of these are very small projects the medium sized project big enough to require a special town meeting not big enough to require a vote and not small enough to have a sit and look at it with all the other little projects that need to be done they are finishing to infrastructure and billions i'm talking about but sidewalks and the streets that allow me to walk my child to school triple road has been a great thing i am thankful that no children have to walk through center i think that we should put this on hold we should wait on it should talk about it at a meeting when we look at all the other capital budget projects that are more important thank i'm wondering how the traffic is going to function so you drop those gone if those were to come off the table what would be the traffic calming measures or other side of the tunnel on both sides of the tunnel essentially community development walks in and of themselves are considered traffic calming the appear to be i'm glad to hear that they seem to have that function in this plan so i'm concerned what's actually going to induct traffic through this dangerous intersection yet that none of the cross walks in the plan are located situated sited with an aim towards traffic it was strictly to improve pedestrian mobility around the center that was the primary purpose when locating a cross walk what is that going to do for the traffic in this intersection well if people's fears are are accurate and if they were ever realised moving this crosswalk here would actually make this a safer intersection because you're taking pedestrians out of the mix of the decision making process that a motorist has to make as they're going through the e so i would say that it actually would make it safer because there's one less thing the motorist has to be concerned with same thing with one of the other side of the bridge this one here same idea i mean this this cross walk was put here because we're trying to allow pedestrians to be able to walk on that side of the bridge concrete ave to channing and just have that sort of pedestrian flow by removing that now by the time you get to that cross walk the traffic is going to open up to two lanes anyway so with  somewhat questionable how that might function but what studies were done to show that there would be actually a create increased well along with the bicycle lanes we are proposing bicycle racks so people have the ability to have a place to put their bicycle if they come to the center sidewalks of being widened in some places three or four feet in addition to what they are today wider sidewalks will serve a couple of purposes it makes it more comfortable for pedestrians also you talk about the deliveries in the trucks you know there's an impact with a vehicle on a road i get that but there's also a further impact of the person making that deliberate walking along the pedestrian sidewalk to get to the businesses within making that delivery so wider sidewalks will make it more comfortable for pedestrians to be able to share that sidewalk with a delivery person or a follow up question what what would be the maintenance cost in terms of maintaining the green or any other additional you know related to this project what kind of regular maintenance are i don't have that cost i mean we've talked to public works and what we're told is that in balance as for example to be made on the roadway would drop out because any pet pothole repairs or anything that's required the road would drop out because of new pavement anything that would be would be supplanted by bowing of grass and things like that i think public works it was pretty much a wash and bear in mind the green space that's in front of the  now is maintained by public works we're talking about increasing in the area of that but crews are still giving that area attention during the spring summer and fall years and this area here belongs to automobiles it doesn't belong to people walking through here this is just too dangerous ok i like the idea of maintaining this crosswalk i think that's fine and this one here is fine these here have to go that has to go and this one here has to go ok as this area belongs to cause i don't know what the statistics are right now for accidents at this intersection be interesting to know that but my prediction is that if we go through with this plan we're going to have a problem with people getting hurt in a crosswalk because a little bit i know about crosswalks is show that people elderly people for the most pat get hurt crossing streets and children and eight do get hit in crosswalk so i think this design asked to go when i walk through the center and i come from waverly street which is up on the street below the slide i cross with the post office is then i walk underneath the bridge and i cross right here across channing and if i want to cross i go up here and i take the cross walk over here and then i take the cross walk over here across more street and i walk down by the bank and then i cross over here i would never ever want to cross in this area right now ok i think it's this is a dangerous situation if you had this layout without these crosswalks i i would probably vote for it but if if voting for this plan is voting for these crosswalks in this area i'm voting no so i'd like to know if these quarks roswitha locks and i've talked about this one that one this one these two and this one here the six cros two three four five if those cross watch are going to be there i'm not voting for this plan mr roberts could i borrow the pointer as well i think we've covered the sidewalks and  but i'd like to propose a belmont center is there for the citizens of belmont include into dog communities as yourself and i'd like to paul roberts town meeting member using date i'd like to propose that we keep all the crosswalks and the bike lane and this crosswalk and the other crosswalk down there people were here before the cars i don't think there's anywhere in belmont center that's a car only zone i don't think anyone here really wants to see that i think that the point of traffic calming people is that you do make it harder for cars and therefore cars find other routes and you make it more pedestrian friendly other towns have done this including wellesley on route one thirty five narrowing it to one lane each way and it has the desired effect people go slower people find alternate routes if they want to drive fast destin's feel more comfortable crossing the street and walking and that's actually what we want for our town center we could blow away all the stores and make it eight orleans across each way and people could go a lot faster but then it wouldn't be belmont center anymore it would be route one twenty eight the other thing i would like to say thank you right the other thing i would just like to ask is a question which is you mentioned the comprehensive parking plan for downtown and i just wanted to first just have you expand on that a little bit more my understanding reading the plans was that included a stations meters stations which would be revenue generating and maybe offset some of the cost of this for the town and i'd also like to know if those if both this plan and the comprehensive parking and plan for downtown are separable so if this plan goes down are we going to go ahead anyway with meters and where those might go and so on waiting to see where this goes clearly doing the parking management imitation with regard to a stations is a simpler process if we are in the process of reconstructing belmont center if this does not happen will evaluate w here we can go with the marquis management recommendations and if they can be implemented finally i'm across street resident i'm very much in favor of this the intersection of cross and channing is both ugly and dangerous  so too with the laugh line and channing and i think that you know we can't let perfect be the enemy of the good if we could all find things in this plan that we would like to change or alter but there have been many public meetings we've had people working as volunteers on behalf of the town to research this and this is the plan that they've come up with and it's not really our job to reengineer it here a town meeting it's our job merely to vote up or down i'm going to vote for it me member and to i am a strong supporter of this plan a plan to vote in support of the motion i just wanted to say in response to some of the comments we've been hearing this evening that really even the the volume of cars that pile through what is it minutely a kind of ugly traffic situation already the last thing we need to do is entice more drivers but i think the proposed pedestrian and bicycle enhanced mints to make it a more walkable center will really have a very tangible and almost immediate impact on the character of the of that downtown area and the kind of quality of life that three i'm also count myself a strong supporter of the vast majority of this plan i like the idea of widening the sidewalks on leonard street narrowing the street putting tonight and it was for the first time for me that to cross walks that have been on these maps up until the most recent meetings i think are now scheduled to come off or possibly come off it does seem that that design is in flux is something i think that mr white words drawing attention to as well it also seems that the  selectmen recently announced that they're about to move ahead with appointing a successor committee to the community path advisory committee that committee might come up with some specific ideas about how the community connected to this new infrastructure and finally there's the we failed twice there's the possibility that if we delayed this by one year or so i should have said that at the beginning so  i strongly support the project i think this should be done i think it's we want our centers to look beautiful and i think that there there will be an economic and a psychic payback but i'm wondering if there is really a time pressure to do this now or if this plan could be improved and we could see a final version of it by delaying it for one basically one year so that the construction would be in two thousand whole design in flux comment you know as i stated earlier that the traffic advisory committee approved a concept plan that went to the board of selectmen back in two thousand and eleven and the design was based on that concept that design has been in development for the last couple of years you know as this process became more of an open public process it was apparent and i guess even expected that there would be comments about certain design elements of the plan we get that i have concerns because you know we have a budget for design we have a designer who feels that they've done a vast majority of their work at least ninety percent of what we've asked them to do  voters night last week where you know it was sort of a reoccurring theme with a few people and you got my attention and so i don't want anyone to ever feel that if there is that level of concern about something that we're going to turn a deaf ear to that i think it's sort of admirable not not this is really self serving and i apologize for that but you know i i i feel like it's admirable on our part to be open to hearing those comments in making the adjustments that we feel the necessary now that doesn't mean that i want  parade of residents coming through my office and changing every little aspect of this project in and several you know thousands of dollars in design goes out the window and members of the traffic advisory committee that a city here in front of me all their hard work goes out the window certainly appreciate it common i think i think from the board's point of view that we spent months and had dozens if not hundreds of thousands of hours of input from there has committees and residents in this community we have complete faith in clinically and see his ability to to design projects i think he's a pro i think this project is shovel ready and ready to move forward i mean we we all have different points of view in terms of what we would do there if or even two years or even at all there are so many projects that are in front of us there are so many issues that we have to deal with the crease in the room and i hear that our operating infrastructure our capital infrastructure well me just going to move on to the next project going to consider you know our operating infrastructure in the advice of the financial taskforce we're going to focus on the need for a new renovated high school we're going to focus on the need to look at sort of solution for  yeah you know clearly you know in our pavement management plan whether this is under no haven't seen given the priority would be and we have a number of roads that me reconstruction and sidewalk repairs we get that as well we're not spending enough on sidewalks you know at some point  be voting for ok thank you i am i right it madden precinct three it's almost eleven o'clock i would like to move the question question has been moved requires a two thirds majority and debate all those in favor please say i was opposed no it carries so now we are going to vote first by voice vote and then electronic and the this requires a two thirds majority is the main motion all those in favor please say i was opposed no we're going to have electronic vote so tell me when it's open glenn soap and so you may go ahead and vote yes if you approve the motion no if you do not one for yes two for no i mean when you're ready when all right now it's open if you don't see your name up there please call it to my attention before we close brown means no vote has been recorded for you one forty to seventy the motion is pas well somebody you need thirty five because there's a request for a roll call vote that takes thirty five pound meeting members if they've left they've left people can walk out any time they want that's there you know so is there and i heard a request for roll call are there thirty five members who want to stand up for three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven no we're well short of thirty five so no roll  you have a housekeeping article three the last one mr carmen quickly but the town amend in ri approved the action taken on the article fifteen of the two fourteen in the old town meeting community preservation committee budget as follows but the time reserved for appropriation the following amounts from an reserve fund balances of two hundred sixty eight thousand by fourteen as recommended by the community preservation committee one twenty three thousand to eighty eight for acquisition creation of preservation of open space or wrecker in and or recreational use to twenty three thousand to eighty eight but the acquisition preservation rehabilitation and restoration of historic resources three twenty three thousand to eighty eight for the creation preservation and support of the community housing for one hundred ninety eight thousand and six fifty for the budgeted reserve this is a technical correction to the language of article fifteen may fifth two thousand and fourteen town meeting vote recommended by the department of revenue in their annual review  expenses and revenue or in other words a free cash certification is there any discussion seeing non all those in favor please say i was