groups one study for the size of the selectmen and the other one is a marijuana informational meeting sponsored by the league at this point i'd like to introduce the person who's working there  it's an opportunity for town meeting members to ask questions about the articles let me take just a second to review the format there are people from various town offices here to answer questions you might have if the answer if we don't know the answer to a question we will get an answer to you as soon as we can afterwards the format is come to the microphone introduce yourself as a town meeting  member and you can ask the two questions within two minutes and i will enforce that because we have to move right along if you have more questions you can come back after everybody else has asked a question and then we can go around again  you can only pose questions directed to the interpretation or understanding of a warren article there or i will not indulge any speeches or arguments or any kind of advocacy that's something you should say for time media itself this is purely an informational kind of format mary and just mention that there are a couple of other briefings i don't know what's wrong with the screen the looks great on the computer but there are two other briefings at least this week on some of the warrant articles that maybe they want to go to i expect we're going to be pressed for time so i will in my discretion stop discussion of one article and move on to the next if we have to and of the articles that are scheduled we're only going to discuss articles for the part a town meeting which is the one that starts next  week i understand that articles one and two are actually i would say formalities there's no need to discuss them really six eleven and thirteen i understand are either going to be dismissed or withdrawn so there's really no reason to discuss those either in terms of what's left i've ordered them in the following way roughly in order of what i think would be their complexity and i'm starting with the marijuana articles unfortunately george whole town council is here who is the person best placed to explain what's going on the various marijuana articles and then the other ones zoning size of b o s plastic bags c p a and so forth we all get to i hope ok so each slide is going to be a very thumbnail description of what the article is and then the floor  open for questions i'd like to proceed in the order that i have here so if you have a question about a particular article wait until that article comes along yes you know i don't know what's what the  i don't know what's going on with that let me let me try it this way all right let me take one more  through the end of this year during that time period the town will work on zoning that would apply to marijuana establishment this is all come about because in two thousand and sixteen there was a ballot question for which received a majority both statewide and in belmont which allowed the creation of our want to establishment which basically means pot is legalized and each town theoretically could have up to one marijuana retailer exactly what that retailer would sell besides pot i don't know but it would be legal pot and it would be available  according to article eight so you might ask where in town under what circumstances what will the retailer actually sell the limitations on it those are all good questions i don't know the answers to any of them and if you're not ready for a question now let me just cycle through to the next the money will come back but i'm happy to entertain any question on article eight the no questions an article eight i'm surprised but we can move on let me go then to the special town meeting which will also take place in the session that's the so called marijuana opt out that is the result of a citizen petition to have a special town meeting to prohibit marijuana stylish marijuana  question permitted marijuana establishment is but the law so provides for towns to have their own individual elections to opt out and not allow a marijuana establishment in the town  just to be clear if this special town meeting article is approved then there would be another local town wide election to vote marijuana establishment up or down the article is not approved then we're done the terms of ballot question for will be in place and a marijuana establishment could apply to open in the town of belmont weiss precinct one roy can i just ask you about the if approved because precinct one had and seven had a caucus and the way it was presented there was if it was approved it's a recommendation to the board of selectmen as to whether or not to hold a special election that the voter approval or that the town meeting approval doesn't put it on the ballot it only puts it in from the selectmen to decide whether to put it on the please it's more than a recommendation because it has to be approved as a by a loss of town meeting action is required on it like any other by a law the problem with is that under the statute as it was amended by the legislature last summer in towns where a majority of the voters voted yes on question four and belmont is one of those towns an opt out by a law cannot take effect unless the voters have approved it at the ballot so the way the statute is worded many of us sort of assume that the ballot question had to come first and then you would go to town meeting and approve the bylaw the attorney general has has agreed that it can go in the reverse order which in a lot of ways makes a lot of sense because the voters have to approve the exact language and so by going to town meeting first they'll be a debate there maybe some amendments whatever emerges from town meeting can then be the george i think my question is is if town meeting votes yes does that automatically put it on the ballot or it immediately it just puts it in front of the selectmen to make a decision to put it on the ballot selectman have the discretion and the complete authority to decide whether or not it goes on the ballot vote no it because if there is subsequently an election and it passes at the ballot then it is that it then the vote of the town meeting to adopt the by a law becomes effective or in a scene on the ballot twice once through their representatives at a town meeting and once at the ballot neither one is advisory to the other they're both required independently but they both have to happen it's a both and require that i that i thought i knew that the new plug the selectmen and the situation where when sorry the selectmen decide what to put on a town election ballot and whether to call a special election the decision whether to call an election and what is specified on the town meeting ballot is that is a duty and a power that's granted to the board of selectmen and towns so then if the if the tone the matter how the timing votes the select when you can decide well if the if the town meeting rejected it they could actually still pull it put it on the ballot but there would be less of a reason to if they didn't get an approval town  meeting it's a both and requirement has to be approved in the same form both by the voters and by the town meeting doesn't matter which order but what's put it before the meeting vote is a citizen's petition calling the special town meeting if that passes the decision then passes to the selectmen to decide whether to call a special  do we identify ourselves ellen schreiber precinct eight we had a precinct meeting yesterday and one of the things that was mentioned is that yes the selectmen have the authority to decide whether to call a special election that there was another process to do that and if the selectmen didn't call it that there could be a citizens petition to call a special election to make this decision is that true or not for an opt out by a law that's not true there is  there's another provision having to do with with social consumption and on premises consumption where there is a citizens petition process but that has nothing to do with what's in front of the town meeting and may second eleanor brian cushman our town clerk is an authority on that question the question is what's the cost of a special election seventeen thousand dollars every eleanor brian cashman and to be clear we do in our budget the town sorry it feels odd to be looking in the other direction while you're over here  we do budget for a special election to be held in the just in case always as well as special town meetings is that raises the question could this doesn't have to be a separate election it could be bundled with the november election could it not does it have to be a special election the guy back is going to answer that one i don't know the answer the question there is a process for the november election is a state election and the ballot is approved by the secretary of state there is a process for getting a local question on the state ballot but i don't owe it surely never mind i do know the answer the answer is no the statute does not the statute says it has to be at a t eager precinct eight what about a referendum is that any different from citizens that has to collect five hundred signatures a referendum for what purpose or calling an election question you know it sounds like this opt out of the subject of special conditions but maybe george can clarify right so the question is actually been posed if if it passes town meeting and then someone invokes the referendum process under this belmont's town meeting act two which can take any question approved by town meeting to the voters  would that be the same or have the same effect as the calling of a special election by the selectmen and that's an interesting question without a certain answer but i think the answer is probably yes  it would put the proponents of the article in the strange position which is not what the town meeting at usually anticipates of seeking a referendum to overturn supposedly the decision to approve the byelaw that they wanted the town meeting to take but i think if that same question is put put to the voters there's a very very strong argument that that's sufficient to meet the ballot question requirements of the marijuana they just round numbers do you know what the result was in the initial the belmont what percentage went the percentage in belmont was very similar to the statewide res it was roughly fifty three forty seven and then i don't remember the wording was that more just ok for the state but it didn't say anything about your own town is that correct correct on that first well it whether this statute should be adopted in the in the statute had the provisions on local control that included the ability of of towns to opt out unlike the end of alcohol prohibition in the thirty's where all towns were dry towns until they opted in this was set up as all towns were in unless they opt out  instant two more quick questions maybe for mr hall is there any statute of limitations could the town take this up at the april two thousand and nineteen town election and save the cost and trouble and make the vote the vote of a very probably a very tall a tiny number of people who would you know be able to show up to the course meaning could if the town voted yes now could the selectmen wait until another solution it would seem would be to have a concurrent town and state election in november where you have to walk through twice and pick up a different balance let ellen respond to the merits of that regulations and if they're in effect could they could go into effect in july one in well the statute is in effect what the july one date was a mandate to the to the state licensing authority the cannabis control commission that it had to start issuing licenses as of july wanted in fact that it had to start accepting applications as of april one what the statute says is that that if a town opts out the way i read the statute is the town needs to have opt out opted out before the date of the application of other words when an applicant files if there isn't an opt out statute in effect as of the date of the application it may not apply to them or it doesn't apply to them now there is as far as i know nobody has filed an application there's been priority given under the statute to medical marijuana dispensary as there isn't one in belmont so none of us know whether there will be interest in siting in marijuana facility in belmont and if so when we'll have a little advance notice of that because marijuana stablish mints must have a host community agreement so the first thing they do is they approach the selections office and asked to start negotiating a host community agreement there also required to have community meetings so we are going to be surprised that an application suddenly gets filed but it could happen over the next months or weeks and if there isn't an opt out by a line place it may not apply to any entity that has its application filed because i mean it was knowledgeable at the time of the election that communities that bought in would have to go through a bigger process i mean it was considered an ok of the town you know and that's just you know i mean that's been the argument that's not how i read it when i voted precinct one you mentioned that if the special town meeting articles approved a town meeting at the end of the selectmen have the selectmen discuss this in open meeting and do they have an official position on whether it would go on the ballot adam bash is here yes we've talked about this our open meeting probably three times i'd say two or three times at the time although not since the last election to be fair however the majority of the board of selectmen decided that we were not going to put it on the ballot because we felt as though we'd had an election would create eighty percent turnout and it was whatever fifty whatever forty whatever thank you and so therefore we felt like and since the state legislature seemed to be i understand the wording of it however it seems as though the state legislature is treating towns that voted in favor of the ballot question differently from towns have voted against it that if you voted against it you didn't have to put it on the ballot opt out but if you voted for it like we did you did it seem like they were drawing that distinction that voting for it was sort of being forward in your town even though perhaps the wording wasn't terribly clear in that regard so i guess we're interested to see how the special town meeting turns out but you know we have we have discussed it we've decided not to do anything up next two questions deal with zoning in the general residence district article four is pretty straightforward it's deleting a sunset provision i put article four and five together because owning questions tend to be somewhat technical and i am not an authority on the zoning on the planning board and procedures regarding the zoning provisions but article fo is addressing a requirement for special permits four buildings single into family dwellings in the general residence zoning district which is basically the area largely the area around waverly street and i believe also towards the cambridge line and those provisions were introduced i believe in two thousand and fourteen and they were set to expire article four is the leaving that sunset provisions so those changes to the zoning would become permanent that's what article fo sunset provision it's not the substance of the existing zoning provision  we can come back to that if we need to article five is a little bit technical again it's the procedures by which special permits are granted for  building or altering structures in the general residence district in particular non conforming structures that means structures which are essentially grandfathered that don't meet current it is possible to take them down and replace them or add to them or what not but all has to be done to special permit and design to stand this article it's allocating responsibility for the relevan board i julie crockett tell me member precinct five my question is as far as i understand this it will reduce the work on the planning board because more things will go over to the zoning board of appeals and it will reduce the headaches of some of the homeowners in trying to make adjustments and this also touches on article four i believe a lot of the reason we put the general residence zoning in place was to prevent the  building up in the general residence istic so my question for somebody from the planning board is as we look at the general residence where you can tear down one family and put it to family and that's where all the growth in town is and then you look at the single residence where you tear down a single family and put up a single family how is that discrepancy or that that concern addressed  back to the prior article the prior article for which is the sunset clause does not have to do with the substance of any of the zoning regulations with the dimensional regulations in the general residen district it has to do with the specific part of the general residence changes that we made which made any new single family or two family house in the general residence district allowed only by a special permit what that allowed was the planning board to have oversight of the construction of those houses and what that basically did is that open that up to the neighbors and for a public process for approval of those that part of it that's the only part of the general residence that's sunsetting so that's what we want to continue we think that's been successful in terms of that and the neighbors have responded and we go to town meeting you'll see the presentation of the buildings that were constructed before in the buildings that were constructed afterwards that went through this process in terms of article five article five is simply an allocation at this point any special permit in the general residence district has to go through the planning board there are some very small things such as the warmers that are going through the planning board as well and so we look through everything that we had done and we decided that there were certain smaller dormers in additions under three hundred square feet that would still require a special permit if they required that but that would go through the zoning board of appeals not the planning board larger than three hundred feet and larger would continue to go through the planning board there were two reasons for this one was that some of the smaller zoning  things that need a special permit are simply zoning regulations set that in those kind of things which can easily be done by the zoning board of appeal and don't need the full impact of the playing  board and also part of that was for frankly we thought that those things were more usefully done by them and we could use our time to do more planning which we've been asked to do so does the answers on th thank you for that any further questions articles four and five ok article seven plastic bags the idea bag to take your shopping or b go to c b s and get a plastic bag that will and there will not be any more distribution of so called single use plastic bags and if this article was adopted in the future these stores would have to use either paper bags recyclable paper bags or so called reusable bags which could be made out of paper or cotton or some natural peat material or some synthetic material that meet certain standards were basically you can reuse it a lot and wash it necessary and the idea is to just reduce the amount of plastic bags that end up in the waste stream or just blowing around town under section sixty dash one one one zero regulated conduct under a in this article it says retail establishment in the town of the much shell provide th film single use plastic check up bags to customers and so i just wanted to make that known and ask if it's going to be corrected because clearly that can't be the intent of the  article i've actually noticed quite a few typos also in the in the articles themselves my assumption is that they will all be proof read once again and cleaned up in time for town meeting but certainly this is a subs article i'm not aware of any reaction without a maybe know something about it long to get to belmont because so many of our surrounding towns have this there are some who are more impacted than others you'll note in here that there are two different deadlines there's a deadline for stores over thirty thousand square feet star market that is sooner and then there are the deadline for smaller stores which is much later to give them time to work through their inventory of bags we also discussed how to be a marketing opportunity for them and that while they can give up paper bags they can still do that but they can also encourage reusable cloth bags and they can actually sell or give those out and put logos on them or promote belmont center because i have a trunk full of them from businesses all over the place that i keep forever and you know i'm walking around with someone's logo on it all the time that there seem to be some thought that this might be a decent thing star market seem to be relatively nonplussed because they do this in a number of other communities it's not a big deal for them i should note this is a this article is taking effect and not the citizens petition because the board of selectmen put this article on the warrant and the difference between the two men the biggest difference between the two is that these citizen petition at the enforcing authority being the health department and health department came to us and said they really didn't have the capacity or desire to enforce this and it was felt that it was better if the recycling coordinator might be the more appropriate place as the enforcement authority being the nature of the item so we put it on with the recycling coordinator as the enforcement authority so therefore that's the article we're going forward with i should also note there are exceptions in here if you look for things like dry cleaning bags newspaper bags things for which there's no real supplement no real replacement i'm sorry except for plastic so it's not exceptionally draconian and you know in plastic bags are not really you can't put them out with your recycling how and you have to take them back to like star market or c v s which to be honest not many people do this is a way to however you can take the paper bags and put them out of your recycling so there's a thought this would be more recycling but we really like to encourage people to not take a bag of the store at all and bring a bag like you do in a lot of other communities and i'm sure this will grow with time to more and more and word will be the norm ok anything else an article seven six this question came up at the regarding the net floor area which i know is amended since it was first presented to exclude some of these unoccupied areas and here it's got quarter stairways  runs in closets i was sorry ringing what are you referring to on the net floor area that is allowed on page eight of one thousand there's a net floor area when calculating the size of the establishment assume this is standard language adopted from other i don't know i know that the language was was amended to clarify this so i don't know what they're not the authors how that was determined or someone can speak to that and well is it specific enough because jeans question was about refrigerated it's a pretty specific about the from the building code so yes i would assume a mechanical room as could be a refrigerated space but this is really not my area  price again at the risk of speaking out of out of my depth if this is taken from the state building code i'm sure there's a body amateur taishan for these things that we will get to the bottom of by mark carthy in the plastic bag group just ten seconds explanation so we really chose this number to only catch star market so the number was chosen to be big enough to let everyone else in town through so we don't have to go and check refrigeration in any of these small places it's just our market and it ably catches storm storm market thank you all right next up is the articles from the relevant to the community preservation act there's actually many parts to this article the first one is a general appropriation not just to be clear on how the c p a works there is a certain amount of money in total raised each year from the c p a that reflects a one and a half percent surcharge on the property tax and to which is added a state match which in the last year was about seventeen percent in total that was something like one point two million dollars  as the amount raised the c p a legislation says of the amount that you raised from the tax you are required to either spend or earmark percentages certain percentages for certain purposes so you have to mandate at least ten percent for what's called open space less recreation at least ten percent for historic preservation at least ten percent for community housing and whatever is not allocated out of those ten percent targets goes into a reserve that could be used for any of those three purposes so the idea is to make sure that each of the three areas gets at least ten percent and then you could dedicate more toward one area or another and you're also allowed to set aside up to fifty five thousand dollars for administrative expenses so i'm just actually looking at the numbers here i assume that the total amount in question is one point three million dollars and the ten percent gives you the hundred thirty thousand dollars for the three categories this year so that is that's really kind of a routine article just to administer the c p a generally then what happens in practice each year is that projects get proposed by sponsors who have projects that fall within one of those three areas open space recreation historic preservation or community housing they submit fairly detailed proposals to the community preservation committee in town which could accept or reject or suggest modifications to a project and then they move from there to the warrant where a town meeting then  votes on them so i've arranged the articles here in order of the the dollars request and the first one is five thousand dollars to develop architectural drawings for a proposed  performance stage to be built in place and park to be used for the patient park music festival and what i have here is a photograph from the sponsor tommy olsen indicating the current area it's in the corner of the park that's a little bit down elm street it's a concrete pad and the idea is to design a stage that fits there  cost of the architects time is estimated to be five thousand dollars for any questions about that  right and the next one involves the veterans memorial by clay pit pond you may not know that there's a veteran's memorial down there but there is it's was installed around one nine hundred forty it's a little bit the tyria rated so the idea here is one hundred thirty one hundred three thousand dollars is the estimate for resourcing this monument and doing some repairs the total project involving the memorial is actually a bit larger something like three hundred thousand dollars there is a intergenerational walking paths it's going to be built around clay pit pond that was approved as a c p a project a year or two ago so this the additional monies that get you from one hundred thousand dollars to three hundred thousand dollars will be to extend the walkways and retaining walls and so forth so that the this existing memorial is not only fixed up but it's incorporated into the intergenerational walking pa th and just to be clear on where it  for all belmont veterans with pond view and walking around is moving around is the proposed where he actually to be constructed intergenerational walking path which basically follows the existing route around the pond is just going to be a better surface for that from and there is and i have a reason for asking because there was a project i had in mind and a building that was built in one nine hundred twenty nine and i was told that wasn't historic so i'm just wondering where that comes from well that's a good question  who would know the answer to th historic architectural and archaeological assets of the commonwealth so it's in the inventory of the massachusetts historical commission and it is very much what in historic terms we call a cultural or historic landscape the existing feature which is the circular wall flagpole and and the rock which had a plaque on it  was added a little bit later but is a historic feature in the historic park and so the repair of the wall and the replacement of mis paths which are the why pass as well as the walls up at the corner of concord avenue are in a sense historic features and the repair of those elements is consistent resource any other questions about the veterans memorial convinced them that they probably need to get some design documents so we can go out to bid and get a reasonable bid so we've gone from one hundred eighty thousand to twenty five thousand there will be an amendment to  so what they're asking for and i was twenty five thousand to get design and build spec documents but i learned something myself i did not know that so i take it then the vote would just be for twenty five thousand and this project will be later on yeah i wonder if i could ask mr carmine how just on the walking path it's an integral part of the restoration of that arrangement morial is that being postponed the spending of that money to better sequence it with the construction of the new high was last year probably about somewhere around fourteen thousand fourteen thousand dollars so that the fifty five thousand dollars is what's allowed under the law it's a general matter for c p a projects if they come in under budget that money gets returned to the c p a fund i don't think there's any way to help a project if it goes over budget but if a comes in under budget the money goes back ok the next project is the mclean barn destabilisation now you may know that if you go out mill street behind mclean near the town gardens out there you know community gardens off to the left there's a large brick former dairy barn that isn't hasn't been used in a good long time and it is it is not in great condition i hope you can read this here the the request is for one hundred it's now one hundred seventy five thousand dollars to do what's been called stabilisation which includes a scope of work of repairing some of the mortar joints removing some graffiti that's been sprayed on it repairing some of the wood trim replacing other trim there's at least the one beam up on the roof that is going to be replaced there are some slates on the roof the windows are going to be the windows and doorways are going to be boarded up as i understand  stupid question is there any anticipated ultimate future use for this building and if so how many million dollars would it cost to put it in real usable shape second question is is there any legal restriction that requires a spend this money let me take the second part first and ask george hole to offer an opinion on  that i've been asked to just look at the mclean agreements and there was a there's a historic preservation agreement between mclean and the town in which some mutual agreements were made by mclean of the town and from by the town  make to mclean to preserve certain element historic elements of the mclean complex and that in that agreement the town agreed that it would preserve this building the question is what happens if we you know what's what are the legal consequences of not living up to that agreement and the remit really doesn't say the most obvious thing to me from reading the agreement is that it might release mclane from any obligations it made or any commitments it made  and let me go to the first part of bob's question the no use has been identified to my knowledge in fact the bottom of the slide says the funds will not be used to determine a use that the question is not addressed here in the warrant committee we did a very back of the envelope calculation just given the sheer size of the building and using a plausible estimate and renovation costs to make that building usable for something would probably cost on the order of two million dollars today it's a complicated question i may have to go back to george hall for this again the the deed restrictions under which that barn was conveyed to the town severely limit the uses you can make of it so you couldn't put a restaurant there for exam i think you're allowed the language says you can use the building for something immediately connected with the rock meadow area itself which would be something like a nature education center or something like that but you could not put in a normal kind of business which would run of eight the building and do something really commercial with it we permitted use because that is a commercial activity and there's not even a road actually there's no road access to the bar and right now the person putting on answering would you answer those what they would do what they would think i don't i don't think the warehouse itself would be allowed you so it's your right it may not be but it without investigating you don't know what you can do with it building and i think we ought to try to you know at least get enough revenue out of that so you know to take care of itself well i think we do know the answer to that that you can only use sensually something that either has a very very small commercial potential or would have to be a nonprofit so it puts this building in a very difficult position and lambert precinct i know on may eighth there's a rock meadow stakeholder and community workshop that the belmont conservation commission is holding at town hall and i'm curious whether that so i'm hearing that nobody knows the answer to my question and i think the answer was no but let's confirm that mark you have to speak of the microphone margaret dealey conservation commission precinct eight so that's a separate project that's to look at the town the conservation commission is actually the manager of rock meadow for the town and so that's a project to look at to come up with a plan on how to better manage rock meadow so it's completely separate from the barn thank you but it seemed like an allowable use had to would be connected with a rock meadow so thank you for the answer the question right eleana bryan cushman in this case the chairman of the land management committee together with the historic district and the office of community development on this particular project again if you read any of the documents were saying right now we're just talking about stabilization so that then we will be in a position to decide how if the town wants to use it and all of those ideas are great please come to the charette when we decide to run it through the land management committee we'd love to hear from you but right now we're talking about stabilizing this barn so it lives long enough so we can make those choices do it more precinct six maybe actually kind of related to that how what was the process for coming up with that was that scope of work it seemed like we had a rubric in mind when it came to stabilization could we not do something much less than that well i can tell you at one point it was more than that and it's i think sensibly come down but whether it could be reduced further i don't know the answer to that  but what's going on here also is that the scope of work itself is on the order of i believe it's about one hundred thousand dollars but you know all these projects you would surprised how much gets added on in terms of design fees and contingencies and profit and suddenly what started out as one hundred or one hundred twenty five thousand quickly becomes one hundred seventy five thousand dollars so if this is approved i hope there's some likelihood that a portion of this money would be returned but we can't say that now loren meyer co chair historic district commission the land management committee the office of community development in the historic district commission worked together through the c p a to do a us a new evaluation of the barn and the town hired a preservation consultant with a structural engineer who prepared a comprehensive analysis of the barn that included repairs needed to arrest deterioration and to prevent further deterioration leaving you know weathered plywood those would be painted to make it look a little bit more as that ik but the sea and the land management committee and the office of community development worked very very carefully with  consultant to pair of the scope down as tight as possible to really hit just those elements that would prevent water infiltration and vandalism really is a two primary thing are some you know removal of vegetative threats and and will be working with the land management committee to implement some of those on the ground but it's a very tight scope of work it's just related to  i'd like to move on to the next question the support if we have time we can come back to this of their more questions and they'll be an opportunity a town meeting itself to discuss this further the next project under the c p a is an application by the belmont housing trust to be granted two hundred fifty thousand dollars to pursue what they've called the fordable housing opportunities and this money would be spent under a housing trust agreement that is not in place yet but as of two weeks ago the housing trust is working with the board of selectmen to develop such an agreement it would be based on a template or a model that's been used in other towns and the idea is to customize it and then have it available have it workable for belmont examples the uses of the housing trust has suggested it would be purchasing land or affordable units working with developers in various ways to expand the stock of affordable housing in belmont and using this seed money to approach state agencies and other entities to try to get matching funds essentially leverage the two hundred fifty thousand dollars into a larger sum to create additional affordable housing units that's the idea of what percentage of the total and introduce yourself on a mercy precinct today what percentage is this of the total c p a finds it more than the ten percent it's certainly more than ten percent this year of the total c p i a reserve fund right now it's i'm not sure the number is proof or probation ten percent and one percent of the annual amount so that's what you saw in a very first flight one hundred thirty thousand dollars ok and so i'm wondering if this is coming ahead of the agreement that they're supposed to come up with to use this let me just let me make this point these monies stay with the community preservation committee they don't get i should say the war committee raised this question of having the agreement in place before the funds are actually dispersed and the board of selectmen have been very prompt in working on that so i think it's the hope was that the agreement would be in place by town meeting i don't know if they're actually on that schedule but that the process is underway and the expectation is that an agreement will be developed very soon  that brings us to the last the c p a project which is a project at grove street park which is to construct a  path around not quite the the entire perimeter of the park but most of it and to make other improvements i hope this picture is legible i'll try to talk you through it quite a lot of excuse me quite a lot of landscaping and there's some great work because there's some great changes in there and the the idea was to make the park fully accessible and to do that required some some earthmoving and this is another instance where the actual construction budget was not seven hundred eighty understand this design is the result of some years of discussion among park users and this is the result of this is what's emerged from a feasibility study that was undertaken a year or two any questions about gro precinct three it looks like the path does not connect to the grove street sidewalk except maybe behind the baseball diamond is that correct i can't tell because there are some arrows that seem to point to the sidewalk but i'm i haven't been able to read the print underneath and i'm not sure what you're referring to i'm trying to understand whether well for one whether you can access the path if you're on the grove street sidewalk well don from the precinct to and i see no one behind me if there's no more questions on the individual items will you take a question generally on c p i sure when we voted for it i think the state reimbursement was almost fifty percent what is it now and what percentage tax rate is the c p a surcharge the surcharge is one and a half percent on the property tax bill and the match last november i believe was  seventeen point six percent actually the more complete story on that is this when the c p a was introduced it's funded actually by a  surcharge on real estate transactions so the amount of money in the c p a fund statewide is a function of how many property transactions there are so it's a fixed amount and in the beginning when relatively few towns belong to the a the match rate was one hundred percent because there was a lot of money and very few parties over time more and more towns have signed on and the inevitable result of that was that the match rate declines because the same money has to be spread around more municipalities and it's sort of spread around in proportion to how much you contribute so what's happened is that when belmont signed on the rate it already dropped from one hundred percent to something like fifty or sixty percent and since then it's dropped to seventeen and what's happened and belmont voted this in in two thousand and ten what happened a little while ago was that the cities of boston and springfield also joined c p a and i suspect the result will be the reimbursement rate dropping precipitously there have been efforts at the state level to find additional tax resources to goose up the c p a fund but whether that will be successful without i have no idea i actually wrote that's just the point i was about to make and sue bass from precinct three but i wanted before we move on to article twelve which i care about i want to ask about article nine the sales tax marijuana says we'll get to the intergenerational walking path through very quick yes susan burgess cox precinct two there was a recent decision by the supreme judicial court about changing the use of land was in the fall and i don't know if this falls under that and i don't know if mr hall or somebody can speak to whether or not this would apply that case involved changing a park to a school and determine that it's up to the legislat legislation legislators to determine that not the town and i don't know if having a path would well this is a different could be regarded possibly as a different of the land that's my question is whether or not that was explored the case you're referring to as a west the westerfield case and that's an article ninety seven case dealing with the conversion of park or playground land to other uses i don't think it applies generally to making improvements in parks or playgrounds that are consistent the same purpose of this vietnam prove i'm sorry i'm going to exercise my discretion to move on and we can come back to this if need be article three is to establish a historic district consisting of a single parcel on brighton street and just so you're clear a historic district means that the property would come under the historic district act at the state level which basically says you can't change anything on the outside of the structure without going through a process with the local historic district  and this is the house in question as photographed in the belmont assessor's database it's on brighton street about halfway between the tracks and pleasant more or less the as i understand it the historic their request to make a historic district out of this house either originated with the current owner or is with the agreement of the current owner and so what it what you see here is what you're going to get for the foreseeable future in this  if the historic district is created which is the assessed value i assume when you put the time restriction on that you might reduce the assessed value you know what that is that is a good question whether the whether there be a change in the assessment as a result of the historic district designation i don't know the answer to that i would want to try to assess what the you know it's really a marketing things would be very difficult to do it but i think in general it's probably would reduce the value for how much you have no idea what it's worth i would so for well done you know i will put that question to the assessor and hopefully i'll have an answer for you but next week ok we're almost at the end and article nine is the marijuana sales tax the idea here is that if a so let's walk back for a second ballot question for allowed the establishment of marijuana retailers in towns  in a scenario where belmont and ax a moratorium to the end of the year develops zoning provisions then presumably from january one two thousand  nineteen we might see marijuana a marijuana retailer because i think that only be one open in belmont assuming that there is no opt out and in the event that business opens they pay  taxes to various entities one of them being belmont whether it be a three percent tax on the value of the retail sales and how much money that would actually be i don't think anybody really knows but i would imagine it's particular number it's probably be on the order of five to thirty thousand dollars but that's it's as simple as that it's a sales tax much like we have a restaurant sales tax this would be a marijuana you might ask well what happens if we don't if marijuana establishment are permitted and i can't see why we would not collect the tax i guess if of course of the establishments are not permitted then the tax is moot but if marijuana is on the table i think we should collect as much tax revenue as we can so i put article nine last because it seemed like the easiest one  so so we have eight minutes remaining there any other questions you would have at all about part of a our time meeting in general happy to discuss i missed oh my gosh hold on a minute oh my gosh my and my apologies i put up front because it was that important oh my gosh ok article twelve is to increase the size of the board of selectmen to five members paul just for that the idea here is to increase the size of the board the terms would be staggered so you would have at most two people running in a given year and the intent of this by the proponents is to increase the range a few points in the experience on the board this is from some material they sent me to increase the b o s capacity to deal with fiscal challenges and capital planning and hopefully improve improve town governance that's that's what it is this obviously is a significant change in the way belmont would be run so  vote it's voted by town meeting and it goes to the legislature but it does not go to a town wide election what percentage has to pass at the time i mean for this article majority insentient precinct three but in my view this slide doesn't include the most consequential change which is the two selectman can talk to each other outside of a select means meeting i've heard selectman over the years argue both sides of that if you think if you don't like that the idea of selectmen talking to each other outside of a public meeting and the system we've got it ensur that if you think that however that kind of discussion or even forming a subcommittee could meet and work outside of a selection meeting could lead to better decision making than than precinct one just a question if this fails in this year's town meeting could it be brought up again in the first because i know some people there are people on both sides of this and for some timing is an issue i think people are free to introduce an article of an article is defeated one year we can bring it back the next year three i have a question directed to the town administrator what impact if any would this change if we go from three to five have on the staffing needs the town and then the strangers office patrice much multiplying that you're adding two people obviously that's going to mean more interaction more chasing of selectmen as we like in the office organizing their schedule it's going to take some maybe some additional hours i'm to them from precinct eight and i was the chair of the committee to study the number of selectmen i just have a question about as i understand article eleven is going to be withdrawn an article twelve will be done instead but there's a difference in section one there is a three hundred sixty five days after the effective date of the act but in article twelve it's sixty days after sixty five days after the effect  it's like to hear where did that come from i do not notice anybody know the answer to that is that is  because i guess the question is what's the substantive reason for making that change  there are a few just a couple really minor differences between the two one proposes to amend the zone the byelaws now the other one doesn't and the thinking behind that really is because rather than initiated by a lot memon process it will take some period of time to get through the legislature when the legislature if the legislature approves it it will supersede the biological will come back at some point clean up the by law rather than trying to be submit something to the attorney general which can't be immediately effective i don't recall a difference between three sixty five and i don't think that did come from me the  perhaps the fact of the matter is that the legislature has done this for a number of times for a number of towns that we really just used one of the more recent  accidents affecting the same change in a different town and changed the name of that town to belmont so i don't think we had there was no intentional i just speaking personally i think three hundred sixty five days seems better because that would essentially mean there would be two years until not a lection would take place versus with the sixty five days that would mean it would be next year i think it may be a typo actually though because the idea i think the sixty five may harmonize with the voter registration requirements but the notice to the town clerk you would need at least at least that period of time between knowing that the statute was in effect and knowing that you were going to have an it depends on what your definition of similarly situated is because the governance of a town like belmont why maybe i should say the governance of belmont is a board of selectmen with a town administrator and  warrant committee actually was could not answer the question of the effect of going from three to five without simultaneously taking account of the the duties and responsibilities of the town administrator b s to be the board of selectmen but maybe paul has more information on that as part of our study we studied thirteen other towns with a mix of three vs five members and even  member board of selectmen as well as open town meeting vs a representative town meeting size of town size a budget there's a lot of different variables though in general i could say tons of our size typically have five member boards of selectmen but not  all the mass miscible association has a whole section on its website under under the resources tab devoted to charter reform in the form of local government there's a lot of terrific information there i don't know if there's pacifically on three to five hi yes ellen schreiber piece in date i understand that in the report the observation was made that the towns that had gone from three to five at the same time changed from a town administrator to a town manager form of government that the two always well i would say always but usually came hand in hand and i also understand that the committee didn't look into that because it wasn't part of their charges a committee so i'm just wondering why because i've heard a lot of people discussing you know that we should be making both of those decisions at the same time so i'm wondering why the committee wasn't looking into that i could ask you because the charge of the committee came from the moderator no body have an answer for that the motion that town meeting passed stated that we would make recommendations on the number of selectmen we did there was nothing in the motion that said we would study other aspects of  be increased opens i mean we provide safe in store selectman but i'm curious to know if there isn't an average cost if selectman chooses to opt into our health insurance program if they don't have a second job what mean seabass precinct three and i have been reading the report of this wonderful committee which i heartily recommend to all of you and one of the things they have is how much it has cost for the past say ten years to have discontinue compensation as salary for the selectmen and instead substitute as the report really wonderful report recommends as a possibility is to create a pool to pay select the increasing the selectmen we look into that for anyone who is elected and gets more than one dollar per year they are entitled to insurance and seventeen thousand six hundred dollars know i say so think about that in that we did look at past history it was ten years and it was one hundred sixteen thousand dollars so you're talking about increasing the staff increasing the numbers increasing the money just think about that when you vote for ok bye bye marion good answer but really out of scope for that you know and and on that point mel kleckner who has actual experience with three and five said it took less time to deal with five than with three you know i have a feeling this will be discussed a bit more town meeting so let us end on thursday at seven thirty thank you thursday at seven thirty at the out the board of selectmen meeting room ok thank you very much for coming we