hello ok i've been here since says six o'clock me talking to me and patrice and with the elena brian cushman the town clerk and getting a tour of things and i hope you've got a somewhat of a better understanding of how things work around here welcome so first off community announcements winter scam awareness conversation with middlesex district attorney mary and ryan is tuesday january eighth that is tomorrow night tomorrow night tomorrow afternoon at one fifteen pm don't get scammed this winter season victim of scams happen all too often they want to make sure you're protected middlesex district attorney marian ryan will be at the beach street center to sixty six speak street tomorrow at one fifteen pm to talk about scam related topics you can sign up at the front desk and there  no cost there's a hazard mitigation meat plan public meeting natural hazards going to serious impacts on the town of watertown residents businesses and belmont as well and the town of watertown is having a hazard mitigation plan preparation to help their town reduce the vulnerability of natural hazards of events such as floods hurricanes and winter storms and they have invited us as well to attend if those of you want to attend that is also tomorrow january eighth at seven pm at the richard council chamber watertown a ministration building one forty nine main street in watertown and the doctor dr martin luther king jr community breakfast the annual breakfast on monday january twenty first which is martin luther king day eight forty five am at the belmont high school cafeteria tickets are five dollars per person ten dollars for a family at the door or online the keynote speaker is dr emmett price speaking on reimagining we the people is a professor of worship church and culture dean of the chapel and founding executive director of the institute the study of black christian experience at the gordon conwell theological seminary that's a great vent they do every year the bombing it's racism runs and we are sponsoring it this year in addition to many many other belmont organizations music by the general middle school students by lady kept it's a it's a good time and a really good way to spend martin luther king day morning and lastly is an announcement from a community blood drives sponsored by the beach street center at the beach anyone else have any announcements that i don't share excellent so we will now plough into our business event item number one discussion of the we are still in commitment of the town of belmont presented by beaumont to lechter department of secrets roy the want anything anyone wants to say or any comments they want to make this like none before that's not on a matter we're going to talk about later feels very seen that i will close that portion of tonight's meeting and we will move on as scheduled we are still in mr roy even thanks for having me chris do you think you do great things or so i'm chris roy the general manager for belmont light and so i'm here to speak to that we are still in  movement if you will or petition so i figured i'd start by summarizing a little bit of you know the background of the organization for folks that might not be familiar and then how it applies to belmont and so then basically kind summarizing the about section for the website back in june of seventeen there was a group of folks namely mayors governors and business leaders that wanted to form an organization that would indicate to world leaders that we're not retreating from the global pacts to reduce emissions and stem the causes of climate change and so i hope there are others out there and so this is one of those movements that essentially are indicating as as a nation indicating that we still are doing everything we can to help mitigate the impacts of climate change and so they this this group has had quite a bit of success in that regard where currently they have a over thirty five hundred representatives from all fifty states and to give you an idea of who's participating they span large and small businesses mayors and governors university presidents faith leaders tribal leaders and cultural institutions and so when when you tally all the folks that those leaders represent were you know more than half of all americans so how does that now come closer to home many so to be as part of this orders in order to participate in this organization there's a list of commitments that folks can pledge to eat that they've either completed or they intend to complete and so so perhaps i think they may have been in your packets but there are i mean there's depending on what group you are as as i mentioned there are businesses there are universities so there's a whole plethora of commitments that can be made and so for the purposes of this meeting we provided a handout that sorts the commitments by city and so i thought that might be a place to start with the scotian in the consideration of how these commitments might belmont what we've already done as a community and and perhaps you know it opens the door to discussion about what we might want to do in the future for commitments that we perhaps may not have already made so i climate change i like to consider doing things more broadly within our tim to sort of advertise that message and so travis frank from the energy committee and that's exactly why we discussed this in the energy committee and it kind of came up as an energy committee idea that we've been discussing is really how to communicate and package the climate action plan and the climate action roadmap and the work that chris is doing now with with purchasing more renewable energy and  the we're still in a campaign is really this this body that was trying to pick up and signal to a broader world about all the actions that are happening at all different scales since we haven't had a lot of action and d c basically but  fact i have attended functions and they have large booths and things at the international climate conference that when i you know visited and there's been speakers and presentations and and that kind of thing so this is actual you know real bona fide initiative to sign up for and there's activities and they attend and represent the united states and united states communities and businesses on behalf of the people who are concerned which again as chris noted was is over half of americans represented by these elected officials etc so but this is one reason the energy committee was interested in this notion is not just because in my sense of things and i'm sure beck and chris will verify this it doesn't really obligate the town to significant commitments except  helps package in brand and signal to the broader community so this is actually part of what think what you're talking about which is how can we build the story and how can we continue to signal and how can we support other communities to take the right action that we as a town feel are important and so that's exactly what we're interested in doing and so yes i think that that's a great question and we hope that this continues to build out our message if you think this measures then with the climate action plan and the road that we already everything that i have read it does and again everything in the minor standing of things is that it also doesn't necessarily it allows us to grow as a sort of a framework and that you can kind of make some commitments now and then if we choose to make additional commitments we can actually go back and basically say we're doing additional things and what this does and i think at some point that question should get posed to that go or chris but  t this does is it helps all these nonfederal actors were still at one of things they do is try to actually kind of add up what all the companies and all the sounds and cities are doing so by us making a pledge we say that you know ten are ten thousand homes  doing something and then they make sure that that's sort of accounted for in a reasonable manner and then when we pledge to do more they can now say there's even more for it in the united states so how do you feel this meshes with the climate action plan the purchase good so basically i think the most concise way to answer that is broadly speaking the climate action plan certainly sets us on the right path for that many of these commitments are that next step which us this question a couple months so we certainly have made progress in that respect but i think with the with the roadmap and the resolution that really puts us in you know well within the mix of these pledges and so i think to travis's point we can we could small certainly sign on to to show our support and then there's the mechanism to say this is what we've done today this is what we pledged to do tomorrow and then as we check the boxes they just move to new the new category pledge becomes completed and maybe we think of something new that goes into pledged and so it's a living that's a good livings a good way and the other thing i'll just quickly say the biggest picture kind of pledge or statement is that you know we as a community i believe in the paris climbing agreement which is name that that is one of the principles is and and will choose the spirit and take actions in line with under all of these buckets but just the time we spent on it there's a lot of examples that help show that we're making progress on some of the larger ones and we need to work on some of the other areas so i think it's a great exercise to simulate conversation and to think about things that have been in the past for instance things like the stretch code which happened in two thousand and eleven maybe that's not documented anywhere along with its other environmental activities that can all be put in these categories so it's been a good exercise so far and i was thinking maybe our role could be similar to what we did with the green communities where we kind of tree osh things dump them into the report and need to talk to other departments and other committees and work in conjunction with people from different sectors there's no way us from the white department can come up with everything that the town has worked all right i mean the whole you don't have the entire town in your belly would go exactly and there's so much out there we just spent a little time brainstorming and there are so many examples so i'm sure i'm missing some question also whether you know the town in the light department the school department you guys have the capacity to do whatever reporting requirements are but yes so i guess  minimal effort on our part based in order to get the process started the one of the requirements if you want on the website now you'd see in order to sign on as a checkbox that says you're either the on fill in the relevant information to start checking off what we've completed and what we pledged to do and that can be done based on becker's research of existing policies and activities tom i think i did not directly answer a question either you said where have we made progress or like where we actually completed the actions so i only thought of four or five areas and so travis that maybe we'll touch base later and see if we align on that but some examples examples are for e v a s we've done so mark there adopt all cs to reduce carbon footprint of new and or existing buildings there's progress made there that's a category think we can comfortably say that we've done a lot of work on some other increased energy efficiency i think that is an area where green community and spy virtue of committing to about we've done a lot of that work there we already have an overarching goal of twenty percent reductions believe the below twenty thirteen or twenty fourteen baseline that works with and then that was what i felt pretty strongly about and then work with energy utilities to commit to renewables somewhere working on the i won't go i don't mean to go into specifics we can always work on the list but i think overall the nice thing is we can is we can say we've done some things already and we say we're going to do some other things and you know i think you mentioned twelve categories i didn't count them but if there are twelve there are so then you don't have to do them all and there's no obligations you can basically say we are active we're working on these we've done these three work on these four additional ones and recognize who might be interested in such things and wants to make any public comment on this matter on the we are still and before we start talking and maybe vote  work plan and some of the specific action steps that we the energy committee went to pursuing that we would like the board of selectmen to to provide input on it and to give a nod of approval for so there is another get to get together another night genda here we will be speaking to you about some very very specific action items we look forward to  is there something that we need to do i understand they're working on things we need to do more work in other areas but i think as a community we just need to commit ourselves to be still in this year all still in all still so you need a vote that you know the we want to pass a test to join in and we can just simply say that we want to join in there's more that we can do this things that we've done this more that we're going to do to leadership of the moment like apartment in the energy committee and so we we want we want to communicate to not only the residents of this community but more broadly that belmont is still ahead if we could that we would the motion be like to commit to sign on to the commitment to join the we are still in or some vague notion like that thinking in beyond today is that i know we have a resolution to tell me but i think we need to more broadly communicate to the to our community you know what we're doing in some kind of a campaign this is we are still in there as a town because i think most residents just go about their daily business or a trusted most i believe in climate action you know issues that we sort of broadly advertise out to the town that this is what we're doing this is where you can do i think that be helpful as well  comment is that we are going to come to you in a few weeks to talk about the outreach and all of our activities including an outreach campaign and a new website and everything so great and i think that's fantastic we look forward to that conversation and i think the role of the energy committee is partly public relations thing is actually in your charge to say to take these things that we do in make sure people know about it in good job has been done on things like the bomber drives electric about might go solar with the banners and and certainly the proof is in the putting w of response to both of those programs so i have all faith in your marketing efforts to get this one out as well thank you thanks like i think so much richard thank you so the next item is one that is high on everybody's about the new trash system that we started last summer keep in mind early about six months in six or seven months into the new trash program special we've heard people talking about more recent having more recycling fits into their recycling cart and the lines in my capacity when they go to the cardboard drop off of vents we have heard this and it's it's good to know it to be honest it's good to know the belmont recycles so much that we actually have it too much recycling then we can actually get a handle that's actually a good problem to have i don't like to have any problem but if i had recycling pretty much only update so about two years ago we identified that we are having increased calls for cardboard and  cardboard too much cardboard for them the bundle and you know put in the three foot by three foot like we did in the old system so we identified that that was a increasing demand and we started our first cardboard only  drop off three years ago actually two years ago we did two events that year and they're around christmastime and they were very successful last year we did three cardboard only events that was the end of our old contracts with russell in the new contract that we have now we purposely negotiated five cardboard only events and that's also including our to recycle days in that one spring on the fall and we would visit the home and we would you know identify and see the need was there for recycling we anticipated that the role the vents were going to be enough for cardboard cardboard only so there was no actual plan i should say for overflow over cycling that's the way i can say it the reason being is because industry standard in our neighbors and around us with the ninety six gallon container every other week seem to suffice and this is also based on our d s m on it that the majority of the town would be sufficiently there was a sufficient capacity  n the ninety six to try to write trash a sixty four gallon right and that's every week this is every other week so we had anticipated this particular cardboard event this past saturday to be heavy weeper so the five that we negotiate was for forty two yard container to be loaded we asked for an additional one so what you see there is two hundred seventy six cars and and that would fill another forty two yarder so we we have patrice myself and my staff have been working on waste management we are having another cardboard only of event th shopping cardboard being you know being the number one kind of like a bulk product we have been talking with waste management on having a more permanent solution to this and the best one that we can work on we're just trying to work on the details and how this is going to work time wise and monitoring is that we are going to have a compact or for cardboard only the the what you see there would basically all three of the four yards that we just filled we could put in one compact and he would be more efficient the better cost and in it would give us more time to have on a regular basis but we're still trying to work on the details of the how this is going to work with staffing and hours and what would work best and it would also allow us to have the saturday events with not having to worry about that  i do want to apologize to everybody that was out there this past saturday for the kind of i guess towards the end the traffic was a little heavy people waiting over a half hour at some point  and i want to give a shout out to my assistant director mike santoro who immediately got the call and rectify the situation and traffic was flowing we didn't reject anybody we took everybody that came in even after the fact i think it was like twelve ten when they stopped taking cars so that being said we are working on a permanent solution right now we have an event this saturday we're going to have two containers again and it's for like i said we're we're exploring what would be best is to lease or or purchase we did get money for the barrels that we just one hundred ten thousand i believe as a rebate for the barrel going  it's it's definitely a trend that is it's going up it's not going to level or down it's increasingly going up which is a valuable recycling it actually works well in our favor because if we give them a clean cardboard product we actually get money for this is one of the few recyclables they actually won so but but the cardboard in in our normal single stream is not we don't we actually have to pay for the processing but cardboard straight cardboard we do get money but if you look at the cost for the hall and the the yeah the container it's not even a break here and we actually lose money if you have the piece of it too is if we keep having drop offs on saturdays it's you know we need to take the residents that live over there into consideration and if we have something that's a little bit more regular it's more spaced out and won't feel like there's a disk descending on that neighborhood every saturday right let's go to the clarify your thinking you lease or acquire the compact or and then there are hours during the week standard where people can just bring cardboard it like i said or details it might even be a like monday monday evening you know when everyone gets home from work and they want to bring their you know car but we would have somebody  you i do want to get one more shout out too that the xmas tree or the christmas tree collection this is the first day of the first week next week we'll be doing the same thing if you have a christmas tree please do not put  but at least next two weeks and they can put them out it will be most just put them out now if you're going to put them out any members of the public who want to speak on trash or recycling shop incident comments we've been receiving asked one question did we explore the option of a system similar to trash where you could pay for an extra bag for recycling in cases where it wasn't as i think cardboard is one of the biggest culprits but i also know there are some families that are simply just struggling to make that ninety six work per hour contracts if we were to so every stop is considered a it's part of part of their set fee so every additional container that is that the developing we will get charged by always made one hundred fifty dollars the cost of the container and then the cost of the processing or after the fact that's kind of a moot point have baby bottles and stuff like that that just beside the cardboard that's still filling it up so to answer your question we have had fifty one people approach us about an extra container we asked them to works there and try to get through the system and see how if those cardboard only drop off works out and if they absolutely cannot live without it then marybeth will work with them but to this day we have not given out a second container i would also stress again this is we were only six months into the trash contract and i think the feeling was there would be a big change in how we deal with trash recycling there would be some pick ups and were addressing them and hope this over is the one household to me it seems like it's working from a majority of folks in town correct then the question would be whether or not you want to hold a form for people on this again another trash form or something like that or whether we want to give a raise idea tried i think the idea of the cardboard you know  ago now it's just crone so much that is a solution we should pursue and if it's still an issue then we think about something else but i mean again i'm glad that we're discussing on how we can other particular reason i do six there is a national we had one hundred five five  so thrilled to see their cycling on saturday as you said i was there in line and there were long lines which is great is there a way to make that process slightly more efficient because i can see this saturday doing it again and people waiting thirty forty minutes to get through we make that a more efficient process so my staff and i talked about it and what you see right there just imagine that being in two hundred seventy six cars and how stuffed those cars were so every car that stops it was it took time to off have a police officer do that right leading us to a more regular sense yet but we did i think mark once you have experienced it i think once you turn on the c street you're ok as long as that's moving fast enough right i think the challenge was it was moving so slow that people were backing up on so since we've launched region wide there's been about one hundred sixty three thousand rides in belmont there's going to approximately twenty eight hundred were averaging about twenty rides per day about twenty two bikes in town for a want allows a maximum of thirty four bikes aligned with and really good about maintaining the fleet below what's required below the maximum compared to other communities belmont does have the least amount of bikes next would be bedford which has eighty and then melrose which has one hundred and if you compare belmont ridership to melrose melrose launched a couple months after we did and they've already surpassed us for the writer show so there seems to be of bit of a correlation between number of bikes deployed in town and ridership as i mentioned we were you know we're six months into deployment and about a year into the conversation doing bike share and lines contract with them a p c is coming up in may and and some sort of structure but up until now it's been they've been operating at no cost of the town and we've not been charging a fee to operate here how does that usually work a more mature you know line b yeah that's not bad i mean thirty four bicycles are not going to accept a yes sure i'm scum on i'm director of expansion for lyme for the north east arlington resident and i took a screw over here tonight so if anybody wants to check it out it's downstairs and i did like it's got some green on it yeah white white black and green yeah you know i mean this is it's important to step back and think about context this is unprecedented what belmont is participating in this is a fifteen municipality block that was brought together by the metropolitan area planning council this is unprecedented in the united states ok so everybody sort of watching this what does a regionally coordinated network look like the reason that's important is when we answer the r p more than a year ago now there were  multiple companies out there there was the green bikes and then the orange bikes and the yellow bikes all different colors and what i mean didn't want was for there to be one different company in each municipality and all of a sudden bikes are are sort of everywhere and no no really unified  approach to this this is transit these are bicycles but this is a transit network and that's why it's so thrilling so thirty four bicycles twenty eight hundred trips that is huge i will say that thirty four is not a lot and i think as spencer just just demonstrated with that anecdote about belmont excuse me melrose launching much further much later in the season but already surpassing that twenty eight hundred mark the only city in this network that hit the numbers that we projected was malden and that's because they launched in april when we projected everything would launch and that didn't happen and we only got twelve out of fifteen of the cities actually to launch this year but it proves that the demand is there people will ride these  and it's been incredibly popular so we're thrilled we had a quarter million trips we projected eight hundred thousand but hey we'll get there next year so well that's that's pretty amazing yeah do you think there's a function of that we would meet more of the targets if we had more bikes it really is a function of the number of bicycles so what we've been talking to spencer about specifically in other municipalities is sort of a dynamic cap right not just a willy nilly number of like it's got to be three hundred it's really based on actual ridership so trips per vehicle per day surpassing a certain threshold that we should be able to add more bicycles if they go beneath that threshold we would retract bicycles as we've done for the winter you know i think seasonally but i mean there's got to be a way you must have some camera and some people from arlington ride them into belmont so there's a natural yeah in the belmont statement of work allows for this natural ebb and flow and it allows for it to in a given time could increase up to seventy five but they can't be parked here so if you know during the day that number doubles as seventy five they're still in compliance but they need to rebalance it back to thirty four before by the end of the day to manage that that natural ebb and flow bikes but you know on average we're seeing about twenty two  transportation one no this is what i mean is that yeah it was we've said before me alleviating the traffic problems and bottom of there is no one answer to the question it's a multi pronged approach of which this is one and it's been a popular one if you see them at the high school me something when clearly kids are taking them and going to riker's have an account we don't collect demographic data you can sign up with a facebook account which means we could go in and get some information that way we typically do it by user survey and we're working on any p c to do a distributed surveyed all fifteen them and it kind of tapered off over time but i guess people get used to the program and i think also there's lime to be fair limas sort of fix some of the problems because some there were some issues of people bikes being left in the wrong place that doesn't seem to happen and there was a bit of a learning curve like you said at the beginning of launch it sort of people are learning how to utilize the system and people are getting used to seeing the bikes and we launched at the school wasn't in session and so things were got a little f one then when school came in such and then the kids were riding and they hadn't done it yet and it's right it's all sort of i think sort of self out right with increased ridership they're moving around more so they're not sitting in one location as if they were exactly exactly ok i pressed two questions as i was looking at the data and i love the fact that they're rolling computers and you can get this this data total ride total rides there were actually rides occurring in town before we launched because people were riding in from watertown or arlington and leaving bikes there so we actually have data that goes back prior to when belmont launched what i'd wanted to show there was that there's probably two hundred something rides were occurring before we even officially launched so you could expect that if belmont never launched we would still be seeing ridership and bike showing up in town since it's a regional system ok so it's so do we have a sense for or i guess i'm trying to get the sense that on a rolling daily basis in the raw data that line provides we're not able to analyze it that way but they provide us with a dash where you are seeing that there are frequent users that are kind of almost using it as part of their commute absolutely yeah there are some people who've written it more more than ten times i level and i have some information to pass out here in the first got to talk about lines execution but im a p c is we're currently working with boston cambridge  somerville to look at state level legislation currently the state law these types of scooters and with mopeds and other gas powered scooters and so technically they would not be legal under the current legislation as i mentioned maybe she's working with boston cambridge and somerville to write new legislation that would allow these types of scooters to operate in legally and that's the current state of affairs  right now belmont statement of work does not allow its line top rate scooters in town because of that legislation right but it does have the capability of operating a scooter sh approach yeah no i think it's that approach is sort of distracting to again the impact that these vehicles can have if we come in and we surprise you there's going to be regulations that are punitive that are reactionary and they're trying to stamp out something you don't want rather than us coming into having a conversation about the future and saying let's build a regular regulatory framework that gets us what we do want and it's all about outcomes and not about surprises pre show you've been good to work with i mean i've heard from spencer the line has been crazy to work here and i've been you have been responsive as when i first when people complain about a bike immediately the next day it's gone so i don't know what is was lymes fots about scooters going forward well we are part of the discussion right now obviously as spencer's packet will show you is this in some state level work that needs to happen right there was a lot written about scooters about ten years ago which was the sort of gasoline powered sit down throttle really loud  moped style sit down like a vest but these are light electric scooters you stand on them they go up to fifteen miles per hour we cap that at fifteen and they're made to again be those sort of short connections to transit maybe a quick portion of your commute a lot of people portland oregon did a study recently before month pilot of our scooters and there are a couple of other companies involved as well and portland is like the amsterdam of america right now you think everybody there has a bicycle they found that of the of those that responded to this survey who had taken a scooter trip they had never forty percent of them had never ridden a bike in portland and so you think about that this is unlocking another portion of people who may get out of their car and a full third of the people who  answered that survey said that it was a car trip that was offset by that scooter whether it was a personal vehicle or goober and lift and there's real power there when you think about mitigating the congestion on our streets and that's really what it's all about the more so  may be more inclined to use it it's not necessarily more yad so there's about a third of people in there's been multiple studies done about this is one percent you'll never get off their bikes there's six to seven that are the sort of strong and enthusiastic about it there's thirty three percent that's no way no how right and it's those people that you want to capture and maybe it's because you're in a suit and you don't want to sweat on your way to work and i've ridden a scooter into work and then taken a bike home because i don't mind pedaling at the end of the day but i really don't want to start my day sweaty so there's you know it's about what's the trip not necessarily who's the person taking the trip anybody in public want to talk about make any public comment on scooters or line bikes or bike share in general very well oh yes in practice on our sidewalks and streets in those dense or near neighborhoods where we live we don't have the space to accommodate them the way they're being parked there in the way of the sidewalk access most of the time so i really would hope that you guys would think about how to get these things parked in the denser neighborhoods where they may be or dedicate parking spaces on the street for them you know i've seen in cambridge they have bike racks that take up a whole parking space i think if we're talking about offsetting car trips then we should be thinking about offsetting those parking spaces and where they might be i've also seen them blocking crosswalks so i'm a little bit in the complaint category i want to see it off that car trip so that's my feedback one of the great things about the writers of data is it shows us where the bikes tend to concentrate which will then help us make informed decisions about you know if we want to install more bike racks in town where would be the sensible place to put them we can look at the ridership data to determine what this is going to be the best return on investment placing bike racks in x y and z locations enabling those who ride them to utilize a bike rack instead of you know are the hot spots where my team will actually stage the bikes because we know that's where a trip is likely to generate when they end up in the neighborhoods those are parked organically by our users and so when we do get complaints we are able to track down who the last user was look into that we can proactively outreach to that person and say hey we got a complaint please make sure that you park responsibly next time if we see a pattern of behavior we can restrict access because absolutely park blocking you know views the line bikes several times over the warmer months i haven't used them in probably about two months now just because i'm a wimp and i as somebody who doesn't use a bike enough to warrant the maintenance of it all that i really appreciate having online bikes in town it was a real improvement to me for running certain errands around town to getting over to a wife or even just like one of my friends kids wanted to go on a bike ride because she's getting used to it you know and she has her own bike and i was like oh go on a ride with you so it was just like for pleasure it was really nice and i look forward to if we can get the scooters thing sorted out at the state level trying one of the scooters and i'd say  that speaking as somebody who's never really been as comfortable bike rider i can see why like somebody might be willing to try the scooter when they're not willing to try the bike i'm also kind of short and i think i always have to have the seat set at the absolute lowest setting  so that's always that's kind of a challenge for somebody of my height like just feeling confident with the balance and everything so i can see where he captured a whole other population so i would be really curious and excited to see see the skaters come into towns help we can see that happen soon one other question i have is are there ways for lyme to give you a little nudge is like on your phone about like you know there's a line bike in the neighborhood like thinking about taking a ride have to have an errand to run that kind of thing because i think i actually would probably consider it if i saw that pop up once in a while so i know that people don't always like having annoying notifications on their phone but they can also be really powerful as marketing tools so just as asking for more spam from you and i'm sorry just going to speak into the mike and sort of looking backwards we have course have the capability we haven't turned it on yet a lot of things that we haven't done we're really we're sort of building proving out the model first and building the brand second  be activating a lot of different things like that one thing we have been doing is if a bike sits for twenty four hours it gets flagged by our system and if it's we watch it and say ok well rained yesterday that's why it went out to the neighborhood but probably didn't come back in after thirty six hours it becomes what we call a bonus spike meaning if you open up your app you don't see a line place you see a little money bag and you're going to choose the money bag over the non money bag that's right there because we want that bike to then circulate somewhere else so certain game if occasion things that but you're spot on we're working on all that i just want to add one comment which is just to recognize that this is public domain that we are parking the bikes on and so i am interested in as you guys look a year anniversary what the benefits financial benefits will be for the town because there is a real cost to operate in the business in these locations and i just want to remind you that we do have other bright businesses in town and to be mindful of how these two businesses may be bent in both beneficial to the town and not thinking of the cases of lifting where we're losing our cab because we have these competing businesses so we'll works is a spencer the the money the money that you're talking about the of the payments and when you think that would come to us so were available to the contract allows us are only one year anniversary to begin that conversation with lime to discuss what that that will be launch just you know here is where we don't want the sidewalks blocked either so we need to monitor but the fact that we have you know twenty eight hundred rides that means that hopefully a plane that twenty eight hundred less cars are on the road today both ways yeah that's the idea graduated from the you with my master's public health thank you and i guess while i was interning this past summer i worked on a number of projects with was i helped him conduct inspections dealt with the route problem management series for parents of youth in the community i helped organize that talk with john metal men and then i guess for my capstone project for b u i also worked on a project that focused on preventing the cigarette use in belmont  youth it was more of a hypothetical project and i certainly like release what i created but that's that's what i've been working on in the meantime i'm sorry and so we got the youth coordinator in place now we actually have to recreate the youth commission just for those who don't remember this was a we had to use commission for many years and it got choked of funds over time due to budgetary issues and about two thousand and ten it got defunded entirely and disbanded with the idea that when we had the money it would get brought back  we've now last year we brought it back and we put out the call for people to apply by december thirty first to be on the new youth commission for staggered three year terms we had twelve applicants for and state law or i guess required us to have the number of membership between three and twenty one which is a massive swing but twenty one is way to pick but we have twelve applicants i would say of the twelve applicants five are actually teens who you know we have to discuss  so i guess the starting point would be i guess first of all we would need to get people in staggered three year terms is this some we have some three year slots to your slot so when you're slots i was thinking we had because the number of applicants i would think in like seven like an fine i'm happy to accommodate what your thoughts are as i understood it and you know we met with this is that it's really about members that are actively involved in providing you know adult supervision o i'm just thinking that the more the merrier you know the more the better you know but perhaps we start up at seven but i mean i mean i could go to nine but i don't i think that put some point you've got unwieldy number of people that's my kind of again but i guess remember when it when this was in place and when i first got on the board you know we funded unfortunately in what they would always say is that it is great to have more folks involved you always expect parents to help but when you have members that have been appointed by this board have actively sought to be appointed that's appoint him and so therefore they can participate in any number of sort of commission that's the that's just my think of the question is really not that as much as it's because i had no issue i guess with the adult apply the question do you want to have a committee of it's almost ha you know high school students i guess it gets to the question of what is the primary objective the committee right is the primary objective that a truly a policy settings or a group or you trying to get as many sort of volunteers and engaged folks that can help drive programming  in vents and well i mean i think the latter i think it's more of the mark saying you know more people it's better if it's more of a policy group and i agree i think it's a policy group if you look at the at the charge that we have here it's establishing and creating programs and executing the implement programs i mean we have some people we have a good spread i would say of people as we have an attorney we've got a couple of psychologists who specialize with children and we have someone from the old youth commit we have someone who is in does youth programming for a job we've got someone who's a started a parent group so i think we have a nice broad based things you know want everybody to be just a youth program or you know whatever and just to be a consumer of you services you don't want to have a whole bunch of seven or nine member commission you're going to majority of high school students who will be gone in a year or two maybe maybe we give them the one or two year slots because they're all that's why you know but you have a point so i mean if you want to point a couple i get everybody nine i mean if you want to go seven that's i'm not trying to exclude people but this isn't i don't envision the u s commission as let's goes let's go see who's going to sell tickets and bake cookies i mean this is that is that i hope some of the events that will be yes that's some of the events that will take place they also see the youth commission doing more than just schedul hear activities within our going in our committee but outside of it i mean have we been talking about this for a long time since i've been on the board i was in vision sort of a youth corps if you will this which is this somewhat this what this is you know we want to engage our youth in their keep their community service opportunities like you said so they can get back to the community as well that's something that i've kind of been looking at researching and interest not just within this community but outside of so much of the need for volunteer yeah  volunteers that are interested i think would be a good so it's fun i mean i you know and i mean you're i mean people being involved i'm glad that we had such a good response as we have been having for most of our committee appointments lately people want to get involved and it's a great thing yes i mean i have no problem with what to be honest you know the names you have well for the adults was gavin farrow suzanne morris robin orange or laura pena's jeffrey speller david alper i mean i thought all of them were  in richmond collaborative as well and as somebody who's been really involved with volunteer groups that have a lot of turnover and also been increasingly impressed with the amount of energy that the young people in this town have for taking part in things that affect them i just wanted to speak to you the energy that you could have by inviting all five of these students on to the board in some way to the commission in some way and also to paying attention to the spread of them in their school years like if they are there's a younger kid who wants to be part that might be really beneficial in the long term because that might be some energy they can carry through may be able to recruit other people as they're there and if you're putting like say a senior on they might be gone next year or so it might not be much of a big thing but i just wanted to suggest that you give some thought to maybe even to the other students who didn't just appoint inviting them to be part of the commission in some way just to increase that energy on the board i think that you know this is going to affect them more than anybody else in town is going to affect them and their peers and having that energy there is irreplaceable i think and i think it gives you an insight into what really matters to these kids in town each one of them is going to have their own perspective so i just wanted to  that we want you know youth on the problem the commission i think historically that's been the case we just appointed two softwares new junior because to be honest if there are senior they're only going to be here for six months or so so i think we've got a spread i mean i think you way i also as speaking as a member of the basic board we were discussing how excited we were to see the youth commission come back and how excited we were to see that you've been appointed and so i would encourage these commission to look for those partnerships in town with organizations like bay sac to spread the word or partner on endeavors and maybe even get some energy from the middle schoolers who are part of the community service programs there so thanks no thanks to us and i think this is all good and i think that we tend to do just that to reach out and we don't want to lose the enthusiasm of people who volunteer it's always tricky when you have more people it's great that more people apply than we really have slots for but on the other hand you don't want to lose them because you can't put them wants not necessarily reflection on them particularly it's just you can't put everybody everywhere but i appreciate that this is a very exciting i've been wanting to see this come back for the last nine years and finally finally so we look committee to make welcoming place for newcomers in residence and to plan events such as community information fair and i next event that we're planning is talk of the town and as you mentioned it's like ted talk where we take the greatest minds in both and we have we have them give presentations that are supposed to resonate with residents in a lot of different fields and also showcase  media lab does a lot of research on how people interact with robots and technology really cool the second prisoner is leo hagar cohen and she's a famous author she has published a number of books fiction nonfiction has a really cool back story to you and the third speaker is amanda fernandez who's the founder and c e o of latinos for education so she's going to give a talk about that and then in addition to those speakers we choose one chinese student and one and a high school student has been chosen already so you know last year was grow i mean that the student was barbara blank and she was awesome last year and good really really interesting really interesting we have some really amazing people who haven't yet it's really cool to hear them say oh yeah it's great that we already have the speakers are confirmed we have a moderator jane john jane clayson johnson is going to be a modern from yeah so it's really cool we've got some co sponsors ready to go so it's pretty much just a matter of you know we just we just need a sponsorship cover the costs of public safety that's needed for the event up to two hundred twelve thousand seven hundred sixty four dollars and i'm sorry million two hundred twelve million seven hundred sixty four thousand nine hundred eleven dollars as voted by the residents on november sixth two thousand and eighteen  building comes at a higher amount then you've got to go back to town meeting in a residence but the residence where it was in a specific amount by that was specific to the project to build the high school right that's  know whether we'd have to go back to the residence perhaps we have to go back to him i mean you think it's i would say it depends on what the final number looks like you know i feel like a man a shot fall of a million dollars that's one thing if you have a shot full of ten million dollars that might be something else this is a this is a four or five year project two hundred ninety five million i would say it's somewhat complex it's going to take a lot of sweat  work with him s b a to get eighty million dollars this isn't anything that just will automatically happen but i can tell you categorically being one of the cash flow team members that was chasing the reimbursements for the wellington school it takes lots and lots of what i was going through bills working with and appreciate that it may just be glad we have you to do that try to think through this for a moment so so come you're on the high school costed by three separate groups during the design so it was cost to buy our product project manager it was cost independently by architect in a cost independently by scan to get the construction so there's a fair bit of confidence that the numbers are there they  high school bond approval it's a large number figured someone might want to say something i think the public spoke pretty loudly at the polls as to town meeting at ten meeting i would i would note just for the public record as this is of a bonding matter in the funding matter i don't really feel that i need to recuse myself from under the decision that we had from the ethics commission that i was related more to design and layout and parking and traffic that wasn't related to finances which is a whole separate thing i have no worry of two thousand and twenty the impact of the hundred million dollars worth of borrowing ok ok and my chip two thousand and twenty there'll be another borrowing let's say it will be in the neighborhood of about eighty five million dollars now to going to know of february of two thousand and twenty one so we've talked about an average of eight hundred dollars per household it's not going to be all banged out could be all of one's going to spread out two thousand and the second move when the second tranche was two thousand twenty twenty one then they have probably be a year or two of some short term borrowing so we figure out what the final cost is you know if the final cost is to twelve they will borrow the final piece of the puzzle sounds like a plan contract negotiations the nonunion personnel fire chief chief and discussion of possible ratification of fire chiefs contract we're not going to be with tonight we'll be picking those up on january twenty eighth we're not really ready to discuss that tonight and so that puts us development to discuss moving forward on that we're just right now waiting to see where the school committee wants to go at this point in time i know there's been some discussion still about it possibly being on the incinerator site a date for a public meeting and i think public meeting will have an opportunity to get comment from residents about both site locations that are that are under consideration as well as aspects of the public private partnership that we want to take into account the development of the i think there are a number of sort of pros and cons for each of the sites into consideration does provide for a potential rink west of paris feel and while the timing would have to be tightly coordinated and they're absolutely challenges it is conceivable that this construction project conceivable could go inside with the construction that would take place with high school it will be a very challenging construction site if that were to occur but it is not impossible and with the underpass of alexander i don't know you cost all the cells so i'm just trying to think of more you more broadly and whether cost as it is an issue that we should consider or not i think perhaps it should be right so we thought about the incinerator side of the doesn't sound like it may be ideal and perhaps be in support of that maybe i don't know you know we talked about how the ring could potentially help cap that site as well so is there a way to cost this out to some extent do you think we've talked about it i think getting any sort of detail costing at this stage would be challenging ok but i think what we did get from bruce haskell and please comment as well was an indication acknowledgement that the construction of a ice skating rink on top of forty feet of landfill of ash you know will most certainly increase the cost and it would help to cap it as well right it would yes it would it would help gap it as well but certainly will increase the cost and obviously one consideration is anything that we do  during this specification of the r of p we'll have to ensure that the public private partner that participates with us can you know essentially cover the cost of construction and if the construction is onerous it may make it more chill and can they wait the length of time until these and riverside is available for a new to for a lay down for the highs and the correct so just so folks are aware though that may not be familiar with the letter you know the indication was that just kind of have a little bit of it but just so the public is aware we've got this down to five uses from total of i think it was seventeen we need to make a decision at some point the the five remaining just if you don't remember we're leaving as open space the rink an anaerobic digester solar farm either storage or generation and by skatepark of the five remaining options for the site we're not vote on anything tonight just to be clear the big guy just to report that we had langdon our consultant do we're not going to have the results for tonight and that well however we do anticipate to have the results at our january twenty eighth meeting so the feeling is that january twenty eighth we will have those facts and we'll be able to vet that we have the langdon report on the rink which just so we have that and then i think after on the twenty eighth we're going to be down to the and then chris roys pulling in some more information on solar storage farm not solar panels but solar storage i'm not solar storage electrical storage batteries there that's some point then will be nothing really more to look at i mean we'll have run every one of these five pretty much down and we just have to choose one and i am fully aware that each of the five has a constituency and by picking one you will anger four others but some point something has to get done and we have to choose because i think glenn it said that we have to get this kick in by may so there's no reason to put it off once we've done our diligence i think jamie twenty eight we can start that process and whether you whether you want to cut five down to three to two to one of whether you just want to pick one out of the five we can talk about that on the twenty eighth but i don't really have tonight until we get the digester report i don't really think that we can really talk intelligently about it because that's one of those things that's complicated i know we have received a petition against the digesters they use and we will we obviously take that under advisement taken seriously however we need to get the lan environmental study that we've commissioned done on that use to see if it's even feasible or very well maybe langdon comes back and says it's just a total no go in which case that's that so we need to we're not going to go jumping to conclusions one way or the other to again all the facts but january twenty eighth i think we're going to start the serious process of getting this decided but yes villa town meeting member precinct five i have a quick question on the legal definition of municipal use and i know you just mentioned that and information to the private part public partnership for the ring and so i was curious about the legal definition of the police use and then specifically how an interview digester which potentially would be accepting waste from the charles town sorting facility would fit into the legal definition of municipal use well any use that we pick would have to go through the state through the partner of capital asset management and they would have to because they have a restriction we took title from them and they put a deed restriction on there as you describe so whatever use we choose i think before we went and built anything we would run by them and get them to write us a letter saying this qualifies because there's no way we're going to build something and they say no no no well i guess that we have a consultant who's doing a lot of detailed research who will then come back and present to us on the twenty eighth so i i understand people's concerns about i guess i'm not an expert on anaerobic i just as which is why we hired someone who is but  that's i mean i know what a bike skate park is an old and open field is i skated on a rink i get all that i don't not fully get the anaerobic digester pros and cons i understand what they are but i want to hear the detail behind it and i said it may very well be they come back and go can't it doesn't work as we found out with from the solar photovoltaic solar field that is chris roy done the investigation and found out that it's not big enough to really have a viable i'm solar farm that solar storage i'm sorry about an electrical storage farm that might work which is running down and that's actually very intriguing but you know there are we're just not of the point tonight we're going to get that i get the point we received e mails we received petitions i understand i think we all understand we've taken all all of this information in but until we get the actual facts from a disinterested independent third party contractor who tells us what the facts are then we can intelligently have i would imagine anything other than open space we have to get agreement from deakin that is from the us we use only so the other four choices other than open space which is just open space we have to have agreement from deakin that it's it would qualify as we used to use only i'd want to get a anything like that it was it was homework petition it is legislative in nature and so therefore but i think all five of these you know we appreciate the effort you know that we've all put in here we're driving down to a final decision i think i think we have to and i think th public we've we've been through this and we've had multiple public forums at some point this is not there's no more facts to gain every moment it's the langdon report in and we'll just have to make a decision i hope everybody feels regardless what the decisions i hope everyone feels like we've heard everybody and we ve and we're going to have bruce from langdon come in and we're going to actually have a start this process of getting this done ok thank you but tonight we're not i want to put it on the agenda because we had to have this discussion we're having right now is i can't talk to you outside the meeting about it but i mean that's the  we're not going to end up voting on time but certainly for any minute member the public has a comment about the incinerators site after to hear your opinion other than the one that we've  ring i believe a good there's always going to probably be some sort of storage or solar panels and if we did a rink my guess is there would be solar panels on the roof it's not going to be a solar farm that's going to power like a part of the town it might power part of the rink but it wouldn't power part of the town solar's and a storage facility might be a place where belmont light could buy energy at night when it's cheaper put it in the battery and then draw down during the daytime when we need it to save money that kind of thing might work but as far as like a having a large series of these batteries where we could charge other towns and other facilities to put their energy here during the day during the daytime and we could make some money off of it while the environmental positive impact that you probably couldn't do and arrange for instance because you wouldn't have the room but i mean there's always been some feeling that that would go if we put a structure on there even if there's like a sort of skate park will probably be solar panels don't like the street lights that are by the skate park something like that but it's not going to be a solar farm at that point because you've taken too much realistic but there's space for there amaka digester and the storage and solar panels or some storage the storage batteries are about the size of a shipping container so you could probably cram and see where i mean again we don't have langdon here so i guess that's a question maybe for the twenty i'm kind of guessing but from the plans i've seen of the interrupted digesters in the site of the of the incinerator site and the size of those foot space and the beauty of it is that we don't need to if we can't use the site for three or four or five years because of the high school project by then what's the technology going to be so there is a you know that's one of those things that's an emerging technology we'd be getting in on  terms of enrollment both with our own demographer that we hired as well as the state demographer to try to predict growth trends of students in that the current facility the seventy two office earlier we're building has a very high probability of being able to accommodate that in terms of the usefulness of the incinerator site for a school that has we can double check this but my instinct is that has been deemed to be too small a site for the construction of a school that would meet and i've read there are some concerns so can you just generally talk timing i know you got the two sounds like the twenty eighth or the end of the month you'll get the consultants report for review and discussion i would suspect so i mean can we just generally explain the public process and where it goes for you are as you know we've had a very long public process on this and we've had a number of public forums which have been pretty well attended we've heard it we've gotten a lot of emails and petitions and other comments we've reached out we've got in town departments and experts to weigh in the missing piece of the puzzle is really this langdon report on the digester which we commissioned is that's the most complicated one to understand and explain the pros and cons and i think people like you and other neighbors deservedly want to know the details and i think that's only fair if they cut my own i understand if they come in if lending comes in on the twenty eight and says the digester is a no go then that's just off the table and then we'll have four instead of five and we'll pick one if that comes in and it's on the table that may be a larger discussion that may take a little bit longer so that sort of i don't want to sort of set a set timeline because it may be this digest is not even an idea that works we've had some of the other ideas that we kind of li that turned out to be not feasible and came off the table and it may be that we determine that because what we've heard about the rank that that may be one of them we haven't decided that yet but the comments we've heard so far is that that's not the greatest site because of the soil conditions and timing to put a ring but you know we're keeping our minds open and we're just not really ready to vote on it right now the twenty eight will see i mean if we feel like you feel like we have enough information we certainly have meetings in february i would i'd like to wrap it up in all the information there's no more information to get you're not going to get any more information so we just at some point have to decide and use our best judgment was best for the town and we take certainly your comments you know into account i think that people who live by there have  jeremiah live on march street around the corner from john i think a little bit to follow up on what john saying is that and what i'm hearing you say is that just because the digester comes back as being feasible leaves it on the table that doesn't necessarily mean it's one of your best options because you just said that there were other options you like better but they weren't feasible so the fact that it is feasible i don't understand why it would still stay as an option just because now we're down to five and it just happens to be feasible that doesn't mean to me that it's necessarily the best option for belmont or certainly our neighborhood so can you just explain if it's feasible what are the steps that are going to take to decide it either is or isn't an option well i think we'd have to find out what the pros and cons of having it are mean for instance some people have said that it smells i've heard other people say that no it doesn't i would like the consultant to tell us whether it does or doesn't there's this isn't the first i just ever built there's evidence out there it either smells or it doesn't i would before i'm willing to make a decision on it i want to hear at least the facts from someone who is totally disinterested not elected doesn't live there from out of town is just going to say these are the facts and we may face say that's the cons outweigh the pros we may say the pros outweigh the cons it also is a matter of how much money would this bring into the town and if the amount of money is small and the negatives are high that says to me it's maybe not the greatest option if the amount of money is high and the negatives are low i think we have to fear about it doesn't mean we do  it and as i said one of the ones that are the ones that are come off the table before is be not fused i don't think i said we're better than this i said i think there were things that we work that i like but they were in consideration until they just were not feasible and they're not feasible they're not feasible you can't do everything on the si it's limited no other way so along those same lines with the report that you're waiting for the information that you're going to get about the pros and cons will also be new to the public so we as the public don't understand all the pros and cons of this point yet either correct we had a well not in that detail we've had a presentation on it but you're right it wasn't a presentation after the full in depth analysis we have to see what the report looks like if the report is incredibly detailed and people want to have another discussion about it i'm not against having another discussion about it not trying to ram this decision down everybody's throat i think everyone has to sort of be part of the decision making process because this is a big decision but to make the report when we make the report available when we get it on the twenty eighth that there are five choices each of the five people who like them and don't like the others and at some point some was going to get mad and we pick one but we have to pick one it's some point this can't go on forever i don't want to say that i think we're concerned about the safety of a lot of people and just the well being of our property and people who live there that being said it still doesn't seem like it seems like you're still learning about what the pros and cons are so if you're still learning then clearly the public also does not have that information and i would example but you know so you plan to share the information with everybody so that we will you know as the pros and cons and understand that the decision is being made beyond what's just feasible of course there are many there are going to of the five remaining they may all be feasible i mean they turn out that all of them are freezable while should the rink is sounding like i say a little more iffy but it may whatever the remaining ones are maybe the three maybe there are two maybe there are four or five whatever they are the all the feasible just because feasible doesn't mean we're going to do it we can't do all that we clearly can't do all you can't put a bike in skate park into digester into solar farm we can't do all three so we're going to have to make a hard decision you know some point we just have to do it this what we're elected to do but i  take i take your point into consideration we're certainly not playing hide the bomb we take all the comment and education and if you know we need to have another public forum i'm not opposed to that i mean i don't think that rushing to make a bad decision is always the best choice and just because we don't have great choices now doesn't mean we've all you just said things are going to be changing technology changes i mean i think there's a point where if we get to decide that we just we have a lot of bad choices that that should also be into consideration one of the options is to do nothing while we consider other options well that is the open space decision yes yes thank you but nevertheless we do have to cap the site so whatever we end if end capping the site we are short in the amount of money that it takes to cap the site some of these  choices are money generators some of these are private vendors who could possibly pay for part of the capping of the site that we are short on some of them are we're going to be stuck with the entire bill so there's not just feasibility there's also financial  implications to whether or not you know a ring could be built by a private entity not by the town bike skate park would be built by the town and then you'd have to say where does that money come from so that these are all the financial piece of this is very much in play here because this is a there are money generating up revenue generating opportunities from the site and we want to stretch the override as long as possible not to have to do another one there are there is an opportunity here to take it we don't have to take it certainly leaving is open space you're not spending any money really other than the cap and you know generating any money was going to shorten the cap and where does that money come from so all discussions will need to have at some point but we'll start on the twenty eighth when we have all the facts we're not i mean we may not go to the twenty eighth i would probably if  regulations and so we sort of thought it was best to hold off and see how that went and now the state has passed a law allowing taxation of the short term rentals and i was thinking we could get on the get something to tax them on the annual town meeting article four be done but that would require going to the planning board hold hearings and make recommendations and that's why we're having this discussion whether a this is doable or whether you want to take along so well thank you for providing us with another subcommittee of the playing board with graffitti was with the head of that and they met first six months or so in the head difficulty coming to a consensus about things now it's very useful at this point that the commonwealth has passed this law which provides opportunity for income it also provides an opportunity if you accept this that you can regulate things and there are ordinances that can be put in place would basically it looks to me like there would be zoning regulations in terms of placement and those kinds of things as well as regulations in terms of operating and all of that and one of the interesting kind of to kind of things commodity this that it's interesting from my point of view one is that everybody has to  there has to be a survey and you have to fill out a form to be to participate in this if you're a person that's renting in the households everybody has to do that you can potentially put in or the ordinance inspection things and all of that there is tax revenue that can be generated out of this one things we don't know is how many people read your b and b in the town and how often they rent and if you rent less than fourteen days in a calendar year you're not subject to any taxes or anything so we don't have jeffrey probably knows england more than i do properties actually are belmont and there are ways that are within each of those internet sharing services that enable you to hide the information not into you reach out to the contact do you get with a location so there are we so part of the whole problem of this is you put the laws into effect but there are very easy ways of circumventing the laws  there like east bell you know you're not saying you know twenty two out of road and you know come say in my beautiful house they're saying i have a house for it's you know the belmont slash cambridge slash watertown area room for at that time there was a count of approximate forty five forty five air being b s and gone where how accurate that number is i have no idea but that was an account that was made now part of the the quality of life issue in terms of those folks at the neighbors that you know if you have a rental property you know some would rent like a hotel renting it i mean that's not appropriate either you know right so there's no there's nothing to say that that person that can't make a mortgage payment or needs a little extra money can't rent a room long term then it becomes more of a roommate situation but this is a much more short term i mean that's why it's s t r short term rental it is we're not talking like for a week do you  this is deliberately put into a special permit because of the things you were just talking about the concern about potentially becoming a hotel the concern about the trains instead of coming on a very short term the concern about parking the concern about noise the concern about all of these and that's why is a special permit is so that the the neighbors you just talked about allowing the neighbors for the incinerator site to speak up that's what this process does by having a special permit is allows the neighbors to first up here at the proposal what even talking about what are your hours of operation mean it's not you know three and six or five days a year maybe it's only once a week once a month once a week once once a week for once i'm there for them to whatever it does and it's  not full time in these are really important things for the neighbors to be aware of as well as it does provide an opportunity for this all important bills to print certain conditions perhaps it's about parking maybe there has to be you know the special permit requirement currently is for a bed and breakfast you know it's currently for lodging in boarding ok but but lodging but lodging in boarding as an accessory use this is what this is one of the challenges we have in the enforcement piece right now there's only by law defines lodging in boarding as an excess reuse which means the person who owns the property must be in the property and the renting of the rooms is accessory to the primary use which is the person living there it's very difficult to determine on an air b n b website whether somebody is renting a room or they renting an entire unit or even if they live or even if they live there yes and so we've we've made an effort to try to enforce within the current zoning in the current definitions in table of use allowances it's the follow up is almost impossible so one of the encouraging things i think about what's happened now in the state level is that it would give the town the opportunity to get a better handle on what's happening the extent of what's happening who's responsible for it a point of contact essentially for us on the enforcement and you get a lot of complaints but pretty common amongst the complaints we do receive is the transience nature of the people who are coming in go on these just the unknown of who these people are what their background may be you know there's a lot of concern as people come in they're on vacation they come for a weekend to boston they party and make a ton of noise all night and then they leave a bit and they leave but for the are having some kind of a special permit process an ability to collect tax on it as well would be helpful you know just having some thoughts and sort of rules around you know the nature of this i don't want to not have it but i think we need to you know it's a shared economy that's continued to grow and mike mike mike children use it i mean i think for an aspect of kids that travel or even adults frankly the travel and so we don't want to be restrictive of that but i think we need to craft some kind of regulation  can i call you chuck if you take in high school yeah so the high speed traffic working group we had to come here so i mean i can chat with you about whether you want to hear from us some of things  june june and we did so because the previous owner the guy who who had had living downstairs from us for seven years refused to put any money into the property so the first thing we did when we were able to buy that condo was spent eighteen thousand dollars on a new roof and some insulation which we desperately needed i can actually show you the google map a few of the top of the house where it shows the holes in the roof and we initially thought that we would rent this is short term rental found out it wasn't legal and we know that there's a special permit we can apply for but we have a couple of concerns and one of those is that though there is a special perm apparently available only one of them has ever been given and that was to someone who was operating about in breakfast prior to this to do this only regulation coming down so we're a little nervous to apply for a special permit because we've seen what's happened to people who've applied before second of all we're currently renting on a monthly basis but we're doing it through air b n b and we've found that about sixty percent of the people who want to rent from us are grandparents coming in to visit the grandchildren they want to be here for whatever reason for example we have a grandmother coming in april and may because her daughter has another wellington having twins and she wants to be available for her but they just don't have space in their house to rent to or we're finding this is actually working as a public service that people need to have relatives come into town and they need a place for them to stay but we just have small houses in belmont if we don't have extra space no one has a spare room about twenty people twenty percent of the people we get are business travelers the guy we have in this month is a business traveler from new york and about twenty percent of the people are honestly tourists they're coming and wanting to be here for a while may bring their kids they want to place where they can actually cook so my question is would you be interested in or would you look into the kinds of rules that boston and cambridge both passed where they say if you are an owner of the housing of the building of a one of a two to four unit building and you are an owner occupied building they say that you can rent one of those units on a short term rental basis it needs seems to cover all of the problems that it allows for the short term rentals in the neighborhood that people really do need but it also allows for greater oversight because the owner is right there on the on were on the basis of being the microphone truck we live there no no i appreciate it is a very interesting experience that you have and it makes perfect sense and i understand the contribution that it makes to the town one of the things is when we go in the public hearing process as we begin to develop this which we will do after town meeting so we will be at the beginning of the summer t o the fall we need to hear from you so ok well so why here we need to hear from you and other people who have different experiences and we will learn from that and and we'll make our will have public hearings will we'll talk and we'll begin to formulate what the zoning is at that point and then we'll vote on that and we'll go to town meeting so you've sixteenth community to enroll in the network age friendly communities attached to the letter this program encourages towns to pare for rapid aging of the u s population this focus could be on an issue such as better housing whether you know a table will create well given given the circumstances the next time community is working on putting on a traffic calming policy that involves a risk table will probably have those discussions before i think maybe   transportation committee advisory committee has been appointed i know glen's working on getting in the to have their first meeting so i think it i have to talk to glenn in terms of what the next step would be because some  regular session i had the from its work incredible once again this was a one of the this was the meeting where we had a lot of discussion because this was about the community power right i had received changes the first  last one is on whatever whatever this page is versus the otherwise we could lose out on projects from other communities people should consider the possibility that the choice would be between the north side or no path at all what i'd said was consider