yeah girl scouts sing along wednesday december twentieth two thirty pm to three thirty pm follow a la la la feel like an old fashioned sing along you're invited to join to belle my girl scout troops for carolyn in our lobby songs will be led by third grade butler brownie girl scouts and sixth grade generally junior girl scouts there will be christmas carols as well as songs of the season please come and join us for this festive of that and the cost is free i know that as the holiday falls on a weekend th town offices are closing on december twenty eighth noon on december twenty second two thousand and seventeen by voting for dislike and save the date talk of the town presented by the visual twenty one implementation committee this was great last year talk of the town with notable belmont residents sharing their passions tuesday march twentieth two thousand and eighteen at seven o'clock at the jerry middle school presented by the vision twenty one implementation committee this is basically  one million eighty six eight hundred twenty one dollars for the mary lee burbank elementary school modular classroom building construction project and gerry boyle has joined us but you still have to done by yourself no it says here that we're here to discuss marijuana licensing and regulations discussion for now we had you scheduled for twenty five minutes we don't have twenty five minutes so in order to just run me through a little bit of grammar ok i'm not tiny sequencing so that you can think about this and discuss this again gene and the key thing is gentlemen and the reason that we're here tonight is we do need to get you folks moving forward on some decision making there is a as you can see today is an amendment to stay because the final draft was put to a vote with the c c c and this is now going to move on to the secretary of state the point of the story is that these dates are set in stone we are going to be moving forward and so we at the health department in the town itself needs to know where you folks are going not tonight but you certainly need to be discussing it and the biggest question that we need to put forward is are you planning i'm looking to ask the citizens for a special election to opt out of taking licensure again it is the only way that belmont can not have license facilities in town so yes adult use we no longer use recreational ok so let's read this schedule twelve eighteen nine pages of government is relentless draft is sent to the secretary of state oh good so in february fifth of two thousand and eighteen and there's a public hearing where is the public hearing it that's at the application for state licenses are accepted retail manufacturing and cultivating and again that's at the state level so if someone wants to retail manufacture a cultivate marijuana they medical dispensary they get first bite at the apple in then convert to a google to add too we'll those get precedence over any wreck adult well they're the first ones to get the licenses are already timetable is very simple that if again you folks want to bring it to the votes of the town to opt out then you know we need to have this in place before april first opt out we need to ban the facilities just correct and so the not the not the medical right just not the mail this is a purely adult use again that you and because of that it's kind of unique and again you can speak to this better than i can this unique situation is this is not something brought the time meaning you gentlemen have the authority to call this special election so it's really a new york and now belmont needs to do this because belmont has a town voted in favor of question for so we cannot unilaterally opt out unless we go back to the  town that's opted out basically that notices given to the cannabis control commission and when an applicant seeks an application from the the c c c they check to see if a town is opted out are not so it's of that date of application this from discussions that i've heard at the c c c in the mass association of health boards these folks are obviously looking for well to do communities i mean we're talking about a very high price item announce of marijuana these facilities sells for three to four hundred dollars and this is a cash business one hundred percent carries a bit of business as a very lucrative no checks no credit cards no debit cards so they're going to look for something towns that can afford this type of thing now it's true that we have cambridge next door which is probably going to have one in every corner and like the factory meynell in somerville to the right but the fact remains is that i am less optimistic that we're going to be ignored and i think that is why i feel a little more urgen treasurer cambridge is broad and across and i've said that question is really whether the time period is relatively short between when we have our municipal election april third fourth whenever it is and then the special our right and so there is some ability of the town to sure regulate the dispensary that's correct as long as it doesn't have the effect of private ing all together just to cap which twenty percent of our retail is how many could be so however many licenses are with i mean is it mr hall's office because you know because of the uniqueness of the board of health we can make these regulations without the town meeting and they simply put into an open hearing and then passing them in the same way that we've altered tobacco regulations over the course and other so we're ready to do this once we know which way the town is going to have a recommendation to every well not from the health department just you know it's a very fair question and the answer is as an individual citizen i am always believe the majority rules and some majority voted in favor and favor of it from a board of health standpoint i really can have no opinion on it except for the fact that we really want to make sure that we control it properly one of the points that was not memo when it speaks about the three percent excise tax for instance this money can only be used for anti drug education which is something that would be managed by the health department and the police departments he's exactly earmarked accordingly for basically drug prevention issues now it could mean an extra policemen because of the location put it in you know human issues we absolutely put it on so i'm going to have if we can we can put it to surveys in the high school well i mean you know and this again would come underneath regulation one of the things that i'm looking at on the state level is can you and me and i spoke about this a few minutes ago can we raise the minimum age in the same way that we did tobacco so marijuana is going to come out of twenty one now belmont was the you know well this is not the place to discuss it but the point of the story is these are the things that need to be discussed but it all comes back to you gentlemen of whether or not your you would consider bringing it to the people to opt out and it comes to the planning board to starting to move forward in order to choices we either move quickly to a special elections special town meeting to see if people want to ban it too would be to just hold do the votes on the usual election town election town meeting and hope nobody applies in the meantime or three is to do this that this needs to be taken care of so why don't we submit our questions to fill us in the those can get answers as the questions come in and just send them to all three of us we won't talk about it amongst ourselves because it's against the law and and then i'm going to do everything i can to make sure that i'm informed on january eighth in adam and mark will do the same thing and then we'll put it on the agenda and we'll we'll decide what to do and i'll inform the planning board of your schedule ok and then no speaking to the public if the public has an opinion on this i always prefer that it come to the select means mailbox do you agree with that absolutely and the reason i prefer that is then it's in writing it comes to all three of us right automatically and that way we can keep up to date so if you have a strong opinion or if you support stuff right absolutely but i don't drive in boston and here representing the applicant stone our pizza also encourage i'm a resident belmont and with me is frankenstein you know who's president of the corporation major the mark has worked at the restaurant since it opened in two thousand and five starting as a cook and working up to his way up so that now he manages the restaurant and after a successful run of twelve years the current owner decided to move on and sell the restaurant and a group of belmont residents and business owners joined together with mark and agreed to purchase the restaurant and continue the operations under the stonehearth pizza brand at this time there are no plans to change the floor plan the hours of operation or the menu and it should be a fairly seamless transition for the customer and if you have a question so we'll be happy to just i will question  up inspection be completed by the fire prevention bureau in stoneheart also must apply for and be issued a new food permit by help before they can begin any service to the public yes oh in favor john and thank you want to do this role i'd like to make an opening remark to just say what the committee has done and how it implemented the warrant and then introduce kathy who can explain things ok my name is ralph johnson precinct to town meeting mem also the chair of the committee set up the study opened it was created back in two thousand and fifteen in response to a citizens warrant article my citizen  in cash for retiree health benefits and so we went to the town that answer that question and found out that the town did not segregate retiree benefits from all that its and therefore we didn't know what the retiree benefits actually were many also called a lot of other sounds of found this was very common but one town weyland had actually broken out their retiree benefits and looked at those separately and then had their done again with that new data and found that they reduced their liability by i think about thirty percent of that was what they said to us so we thought we would like to try this idea out of town met in and they have been doing excellent work with us and have prepared for your review the c evening the actuarial valuation of all padmini accordance with gaz be seventy four for the period ending june thirtieth two thousand and seventeen i ask kathy is going to explain because she's much better knowing all of the details of this many factors affecting the finalist these included use of our actual data on on what our retirees actually receive in terms of health egg whip and i never know what the letters of that acronym stand for it wavers thank you for that turned out to have saved us over ten million dollars so it's a good thing taken all together these changes  basically saved the town or should say that it reduced the town's balance sheet liability for hope ed by about ninety million dollars the actual estimated liability according to the s because there are many work of our committee and now that worry if we've got this part done we are now going to go to the next two tasks first we want to continue to look at any changes that might remain in health plan designed that might help reduce liabilities as you know the state controls what we can and can't do on that basis but part of our segal contract is to get the services of siegel consulting and the many parts of siegel consulting who might be able to advise us are there any things left that somebody has been able to do that we hadn't thought about and the second part of our mandate is to also look at methods of financing this liability over time so i want to thank the members of the committee sickly jeff lumia who's here now with me you so i think you have our evaluation report we do what i thought i would put together this powerpoint presentation instead of walking through the report page by page i think we'll work through the powerpoint and then you can ask questions as we go along and the way i set up the power point was kind of started off as a just a short primer on how we do an open valuation because i think as we went through some of the key things that we look at what we still do the valuation is start with collecting data etc it explains a lot of the differences from the current from the private you wish to the current valuation so first of all what's in this report we've provided you with the disclosure information that you need for the fiscal year that ended in two thousand and seventeen in accordance with the new accounting standards gadsby statement number seventy four will use the same valuation will roll it forward using standard actuarial techniques to bring those liabilities to two thousand and eighteen so you can use the same valuation for your two thousand and eighteen financial statements but when you get to fiscal eighteen you're going to have to comply with not just gas the statement number of seventy four but also statement number seventy five so seventy four is just disclosure and you put in the footnotes of your financial statements that you have a plan in the unfunded medical benefits for that purpose we use long term funding assumptions and not necessarily not exactly the same assumptions we used for the accounting requirements and we do point out that funding is not required by the accounting standards or by federal or state statute here for your information although funding is important because funding allows you to accumulate assets which then lowers the discount rate i'm sorry it increases the discount rate that you can use for financial reporting purposes and it also secures the benefits and saves you right so although funding isn't required the rating agencies regencies are beginning to look at what action municipalities and states are taking with respect to dealing with their retiree health benefits and those obligations so the first thing you do we look at both the retirees who are currently receiving pension benefits and coverage for medical benefits and we also look at the active employees who will hope of have the potential for retire to retire in the future and be eligible for medical benefits  employees and the number of put it in the valuation report was eight hundred fourteen active employees as of a year ago we requested information on only active employees who are covered for medical benefits you would expect there to be a difference in those two numbers now the prior actuary took the eight hundred fourteen active participants and assume that ninety percent of those employees would collect benefits at retirement so that could be people who don't most likely or something or some people who now who don't have coverage as active employees most likely because they have a spouse who has a better plan of benefits but retiree health benefits are rare in the private sector so there's a presumption here that some of those people will come back on the worlds when they  make it to retirement age and cover both themselves and very possibly a spouse if you just multiply the ninety percent by eight hundred fourteen you get seven hundred thirty three employees kind of running through the valuation but of course you then apply the probability said they'll even make it to retirement so we're not saying seven hundred thirty three this is really for comparison purposes and how that assumption is applied now we started off with employees who are covered for with medical benefits on the basis that some of them will come back to take medical coverage some of the employees there that don't have coverage now will average every time and we wanted to inflate the covered population and we used a hundred twenty five percent inflation rate the goal here really was to get back to roughly the same number as used in the prior evaluation as we do a couple evaluations in a row and we see how those are trending we may just that one hundred twenty five percent feels a little bit high to me but not not totally out of out of range you them were reported as active and how many were we'd expect twenty five percent more retirees than based on the current population if we get more or less than that we'll adjust one hundred twenty five percent so that's what we have on this page on the net page by page for the presentation i want to talk a little bit about how we estimate retiree benefits so as you probably know when you do a valuation you really want to project a stream of payments to be paid out over you know the working the working all the working life times and retired lives of the current population then you discount them back to the present day using an interest rate to discount them but also applying probabilities the payments will be made so the first thing we have to do is develop that benefit stream and to develop their benefits stream we calculate what we refer to as per capita claims cost average us per retiree and then we apply a trend assumption to a marriage and you know a stream of benefits and it's increasing over time because you're applying that  valuation the per capita claims cost were based on working weights in the current valuation we base the per capita claims cost for the soft hundred funded plans on the claims experience for the prior two years and that's what ralph was referring to earlier you split them out so whether you start with working weights and multiply them both by the number of covered lives to get the claims or you use the actual claims plus a small component of the working rate calculation you should theoretically get to that to the same number for working w may be smoothed out they may be averaged over a couple of years they may include a margin for adverse experience or a margin to build build up your reserves so that's one of the reasons for self insured for fully self insured plans excuse me it's brits preferred to use the claims experience and that's why our health department has a lot of the underwriting analysis to smooth out the volatility from year to year so they'll do things like move large claims if there are any trend them forward from the experience experience piri the valuation date and if the data is incredible they will apply manual rates based on your plan of benefits to sort of stabilize that claimed experience so what's also going on here with per capita claims cost is we're taking into account what the accounting standards refer to as the implicit rate subsidy and the accounting standards require us to take into account the implicit rate subsidy so you have in your and your known medicare both active employees and retirees who are medicare eligible those who are under the age of sixty five and your working weights are the same for those employees whether they are retirees or whether they are active employees and their car sharing is based on those working r that you know the married sixty five sixty four year old retiree pays the same amount as the married twenty five year old employee but we know that people use more medical benefits as they age and they often varies a little bit by age and sex but the trend is increasing over somebody as lifetime so when we take those average claims and come up with per capita claims costs are or claims per each per year we want to take into account that implicit and the real pattern of utilization of benefits what we show here is the development of the per capita claims cost in the prior valuation report and then the ones that we just one of the couple of differences we showed just the male rates they were made they were rates for both males and females in both reports but this is really just an illustration we're not trying to capture the whole curve here we've just picked a couple of select ages the prior actuary banded that the numbers when used one  our valuation you see that the bend is so again just select a just but you know the benefits from sixty to sixty four higher than the benefits fifty to fifty four or sixty and fifty if you look at the at the bottom and then they drop when people become medicare eligible so you see the drop at sixty five and then after sixty five they increase again so if you were to see the whole array of curves you know it would increase to sixty four drop at sixty five and increase again and it's a significant drop at sixty five and medicare kicks in for those who are medicare eligible there's a separate set of curves in both our valuation and the prior ballyhoo ation for the people who aren't medicare eligible and it's that age sixty four number that keeps growing and that's there's a medical and prescription together we split it out so we have medical and i rx separately it just provides you a little bit more information and then they're combined and one of the reasons is for that one of the reasons we had to split it out is because you changed the  assumption was eight percent in the first year so that age fifty to fifty four figure up there of just under nine thousand dollars if you're trying to foad be at nine point seven nine hundred nine thousand seven hundred dollars compared to the eleven thousand seven hundred so that does close the gap a little bit but our age fifty rate is twenty percent higher than the prior actuaries age fifty eight once you adjust for trend ok keep that twenty percent mind if you look at the next number well the prior actuaries number forward with trend compared to the number that we're showing you now are only two percent higher if you go to the age sixty five rates we are seven percent lower and if you go to the age eighty weights we're twenty three percent lower the shape of the curve is different ok so you know i did this thing before well our numbers are flatter than the prior actuaries numbers and that has that's just a different approach in different methodology used to calculating these numbers is not to say that one is right and one is wrong and of course there's other things going on in here too that a quick numbers could be a little bit different here so that's you know throwing it off a little bit but the shape of the curve is different that's the point that i just find or that that egg web begins in january but it's calculate yes for the actual analysis even though it's doesn't go into effect until january first yes in the next page once you get those per capita costs when you project them forward we have to apply trend the trend assumption in the prior valuation was eight percent for the first year decreasing by half a percent until an ultimate level of four and a half percent was reached we applied separate term rates to the different components so we had split out medical and prescription drug we also applied different trend rates to the non medicare and the medicare medical so for the non medicare medical we started at seven percent now if you go back to the prior actuaries numbers eight percent for the first year you'd expect to be at seven and a half percent with the next valuation so starting at seven is a lowering the trend assumptions slightly for the non medicare medical piece ok the medicare medical is four and a half percent all year so that's a big savings on that pace scription drug on the other hand is starting at nine who are as you'd expect to be at seven and a half without ending up at the same place medicare advantage assumption was so you get a lot of moving pieces and how the trend assumption was applied a little bit different not dramatically you know not dramatically different although i think that medicare piece of for an air of percent is where most of the savings on the trend assumption is coming for because most of you retiree's are in medicare and that's while that's a smaller piece of the benefit relative to that precincts the five benefit it's paid off for a lot more years but for now percent i think has a lot of impact in that piece of it the other piece that we've noted and that has it was pretty significant was the plan change effective january one two thousand and eighteen will come to the numbers in just a minute and finally on the next page  discount rate was very different in the prior valuation on the current valuation so the prior valuation the discount was based on the prior accounting standards gadsby statement number forty five which required that the discount rate for you based on the rate of return on the assets dedicated to paying retiree medical benefits for playing the coding purposes of four and a quarter percent rate was used to reflect the partial prefunding the future payments the disc a discount rate used to calculate liabilities on a full funding basis was there it's based on the new accounting standards gadsby seventy four which defines how you with the variables that go into the blended discount rate for this purpose we look at the assets that you have and you open up trust which as of the beginning of the three point one million dollars we looked at your turns funding policy and that funding policy is to contribute two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year in then when the retirement system is fully funded we worked with phyllis  and floyd and chitra to come up with what cash is available to put in for you for your funding policy and we were also told that you plan on redirecting the amount that's going towards the retirement system unfunded liability which is projected to be twelve million dollars going in which is a pretty minor amount but then beginning in twenty thirty twelve million dollars going in that's right there is the real key difference between the well that's the big driver and what's bringing this discount rate up to almost a full funding discount rate is recognizing that twelve million dollars contribution beginning in two thousand and thirty the long term expected rate of return on the open trust assets is six and a half percent so we did lower that fairly significantly that's based on asset allocation would morgan stanley which is a sixty forty sixty percent equities forty percent bond allocation and so it would blend between that expected return on assets of six and a half percent in a bond rate and the bond rate is  in gaspe seventy four it's a twenty year tax exempt general high quality general obligation bond to come up with that rate we look at the bond buyers twenty bond index which was three point five percent of the end of the fiscal year interestingly it was a two point eight five percent at the beginning of the fiscal year so this methodology does introduce some volatility into the numbers because that bond rate will fluctuate until you get to a point where you know blending any more than you just use in your expected return on assets and the blending is based on the sufficiency of projected assets to make projected benefit payments so we take that three point one million dollars we grow it with your contributions and when you and your investment income and you compare it to the projected benefit payments have to pay in each and every year you see that you don't have sufficient assets initially in the first few years of the calculation but once you start putting that twelve million dollars and you do have sufficient assets so you're blending between unfunded benefits in the early years and funded benefits in the latter years you come up with the five point nine percent that is pretty significant increase of the form of what are used in the park for shit so we've talked you've already talked about the changes in the liability i think i've hit on most of them but let me let me go through some how we look at the unfunded liability and how it changes from one valuation to the next prior valuation the unfunded liability was reported at one hundred eighty six point three million dollars and just for your reference there were about two point six contributions for the plane year to expected an increase of eleven point five million dollars which means that there's a pretty really pretty big decrease first we measured in experience gain of six point one million dollars again is typically game due to the change in the covered population one year to the next the gain that we're showing here is a little bit more than that but we tried to do was duplicate the prior actuaries methodology but you know as you saw the per capita claims costs were banded  have seventy eight million dollars to account for and it's primarily if that's all due to changes in assumptions the first change was the perk after claims costs lowering cost five fourteen billion dollars to get a little bit that is that is the methodology  or the shape of our curve is a little flatter and breaking it all out in any you know we as i said we started off trying to duplicate what the prior claims would would give you that's a first use in new data and your old claims and then you plug in your new data and  claims first piece gives you experience again the second piece gives you the impact of changing the per capita claims cost when you train change change the trend assumption in that lower the liabilities by another fifteen point seven million dollars change in the discount rate was twenty four billion dollars that's the four and a quarter to five point nine percent and there were other changes of twenty four point two million dollars the primary when there is a real technical change having to do with allocating costs for the different periods of time so real technical the the required cost allocation method is what's referred to as entry age normal meaning you level out costs over a person's working time from their age at higher to their retirement but you level it out as a percentage of salary prior actuary used to three a salary increase assumption of three and a quarter percent we use the assumptions that we used in the pension valuation which were high pitch in valuation for the both the town and for the teachers which were higher so by assuming higher increases you're basically having a steeper accrual of costs and you're sort of pushing more classic to future years and less into what's already been  it does change and for the liability by twenty four million dollars in the last page here and if it any point you want me to jump over to more the detail on that in the actual report let me know your net opeth liability for the town was ninety two point eight million dollars and when you compare your assets to the total liability the town's portion was just under three percent funded we also carved out the like department's liability it was three point nine million so the two add up to the ninety six point seven that we were talking about earlier the like department has slightly more proportionate share of those assets the light department liability is five point eight three percent funded when we looked at the liabilities for purposes of funding where we use the long term expected rate of return to discount of benefits and that's the six and a half percent assumption the liabilities from down a little bit more to ninety million dollars so instead of that ninety six point seven we're looking at ninety million dollars of unfunded liability and based on that funding policy that we described earlier putting in two hundred fifty thousand dollars for roughly the next twelve years and then increasing it to twelve million dollars and that funding policy contribution of two hundred fifty thousand and then twelve million is over and above the benefits that you're paying for your retirees so you still pay pay as you go cos that's through your cash budget and then you fund that two and a half two hundred fifty thousand and twelve million dollars if you do that and here's the big if you're no experience gains or losses no assumption changes or plan changes and that's a big if twenty four years you'll be fully funded into in the year two thousand and forty one which is twenty four years o and that at this point i think i would turn you to the valuation of what page ten of the report shows the funding schedule on a year by year basis this is a july one two thousand and seventeen valuation for fiscal year and did you thirty eighteen so the first years is the first row where starting out with a projected benefit payments for fiscal eighteen of four point two million dollars that's the return for your entire we is net of retiring cost sharing reflecting the implicit rate subsidy so that's after we smooth everything out that's what we project but that should theoretically line up pretty closely to the claims experience just for your retirees plus the working r and for the fully insured benefits and if you look down column on you'll see how that's projected to grow over this twenty five year period so a pretty hefty increase because of that the trend assumption that's being applied here and what is you know factored in here is you know people passing away in new new retirees coming on to the rolls so when you fund a either overhead benefits or or or retirement system there's really two components to the funding two streams of payment you have to think about you have to fund what's referred to as normal cost a normal cost is the cost of benefits that are earned in a given year own retirement system benefits earned or kind of concrete it's the formula used to chapter thirty two formula here it's our estimate of per capita  costs we estimated that the cost of benefit accruals in fiscal eighteen is three point two million dollars and it's projected to grow as you see here in column two and then we have the unfunded liability that really think about is taking care of the future class we a unfunded liability to take care of which are benefits that have already been earned that's the ninety and this page it's the ninety million dollars because it's the funding assumptions in the first year we said well let's put it it at the top here says this is a thirty year funding thirty year close schedule so we treat it like a mortgage the first year if it's a thirty year payment on the unfunded liability the second year it's a twenty nine year payment on the unfunded liability the third year it's a twenty eight year payment on the unfunded liability and because you're not really making you know you're only making a pretty small payment in the early years the the limit is ation payment keeps on increasing in increases by more than just the the payroll assumption but we what you're really going to put it so you can see in the first couple years here are two hundred fifty thousand dollars this kind of a drop in the bucket relative to the funding requirements and also it's pretty drop in the bucket relative to the projected benefit payments but you do over this twelve year period accumulate about eleven million dollars in assets you look at called six call of seven shows you what happens to your liabilities those liabilities which were a little about ninety two million ninety three million dollars at the beginning of the year quote about one hundred fifty fifty four million dollars because remember they grow with accruals grow with normal cost grow with interest less benefits paid and then as you unfunded liability continue to grow over that first period when you're only putting two hundred fifty thousand dollars in once you start putting the twelve million dollars and keep in mind it's twelve million in addition to projected benefit payments so you're not going to see any relief from the funding from the retirement system becoming fully funded additionally then you can see that  for that liability starts to drop and it drops pretty rapidly with i believe twelve payments twelve million dollars and then a small final final payment just about eleven payments or two and at the two hundred fifty thousand so what happens twelve million in funding policy so twenty five million a year later you're paying fourteen million in benefit payments and that final payment into the trust of six million dollars but when you get to twenty forty two all you have to pay is normal cost and know so i have to go over that again so the projected benefit payments or the escalated current cost yes the normal cost is the amount in this thirty year already paying though before right right ok so then well then we're seeking to do fees that ninety ninety four million that that that is our problem is the ninety four million and then if you if and now this policy is determined by the board of selectmen of we're going to take a close look at that yes we have some ideas one is that the enterprise fund pay pay there there of full cost of the other is to change the policy from a free cash calculation to a cost from develop it based on a cost calculation in my understanding is that you'll run some numbers for us if we if we change our funding schedule and and then i think the rest of it is pretty self explanatory  normally i would go to adam and marc and we're going to have to give them some time phyllis what is the story on the on the legal requirement to have the demolition delay largest liability so thank you for respecting that that having been said  i think we expected some reduction but but not a reduction in in in this this amount and so i think ralph's introduction was informative because my concern in two thousand and fifteen was we didn't know and i could see as others you know that the life bill it was was the largest of the town had and so the board at that time which was sammy mark and i in the body who applied to be on the committee could be on the committee we were happy to have him and then that committee elected ralph and then they started hammering away and the first thing they found out was that we weren't using our own data right and so that was a challenge then they went to wayland and i mean the contributors are you know to the reduction is is very plain we will we won there i'll post this report on our website under financial reports and it will be added so that people who want to look at it can look at it it's impossible to keep playing to the public and in this meeting but we'll be happy to take questions from anybody the power point is on the website now you know get a copy of that it's on the website on the website but talking about the report and i'm ok mark did you have a question i think i think i asked him during the presentation so i guess the one question they had is the discount rate is that just based on the new gadsby standard that we're using five point nine versus four point five percent that is dramatic impact from its face unfunded amount it primarily it's based on reflected in the above million dollars when you put that twelve million dollars into the retirement system you can see that a gets you fully funded so the the assumption would be that a future board of selectmen will redirect pension contributions to the or get under the liability unless we reduce it by increasing the contributions now which we can do we can number number reflecting in the funding policy in all it depends on what the then the cloud client wants to do whether they how sure they are that it that it will be redirected how sure they are that they'll reach full funding in twenty thirty whether you'll be direct all of it or some of it we've done some where we you know which for funding we've done somewhat we've modeled reaching full funding in a particular year but not reflected in the discount rate for accounting purposes we've done some way elise where they say well the probably going to need some relief at that point in time for other resources so maybe we'll be direct half or seventy percent of their pension money so there's different ways to approach it but more you know certainly more communities are looking at a i think a lot of it depends on how confident you are that you're going to be able to redirect it not have other demands on that money and how far out that is you know if you had as if you were in a twenty thirty five or a twenty forty funding stage well and you're looking at that start those payments and ending in you know twenty years as opposed to twelve years you might have a different perspective on what he had reflected in the funding policy so you know this won't judge me but but that's the key that is really the key driver in what's bringing up that discount rate is say is can make in a commitment to put the twelve million dollars is in the other way of looking at it is that we don't see the unfunded outwardly all accrued accrued liability to increase one does that from now i know it does i'm saying as a funding strategy we could we we can develop a funding strategy that prevents that from increasing by fifty percent of the early years prior to twenty thirty you know exactly what do we do have cash will move that number down  and again i think we have a couple of opportunities to do that because the twelve million which i think we're only paying ten if you remember from the from the pension it's projected to increase to the twelve as  understand that but you remember the deal that we cut when we extended it from twenty twenty seven to twenty twenty nine so instead of increasing seven point seven percent increase four point four it went to twelve and then that was that was the end o twelve for going in prior to that had been fifteen but even at twelve in two thousand and sixteen our real estate taxes were eighty two million and were taken ten of that for you know were taken ten of that  let's say our real estate taxes will be ninety by two thousand and seventeen and at that two thousand and eighteen at that point we're paying ten million to the pension fund which is about ten percent of our cash flow so there's not a whole lot we can do on the pension fund i mean you might remember i wanted to put it out to twenty thirty two which was a flat line to the ten but that ten pretty much has to stay there because the parent can all these other considerations but once you get that number then if you're thinking about the future of residents in the the the people that live in this town you know it it's kind of almost a wealth management question do you really want to increase this liability by fifty percent and i think this will work because it's the three of us that have to decide this and recommend in the budget and we're going to we're willing to take a look at that i assume  hope i hope you're willing as well to take a look at this funding oh say why ok everything but i'm i'm heartened to see that we actually have a plan on the fund pension and opens achievable you know that i that is absolutely because i think under four there was a there was some doubt know well before require we had the fifteen million being paid off at being paid towards overhead but twenty twenty fifteen or twenty twenty seven but it never it never retired the debt in then as an added turns out we now have a model that tires to death but i think our goal should be to minimize the growth in the sun funded actuarial liability which the five of us in the your committee we can talk about that  any schedule we presented so right now i have the ability to run different scenarios and the other thing too and i have to mention this is that the next time we do it we'll see how close you are how well are we tracking how are the assumptions projection are for coming out and then we can tweak it further and we build more confidence in the schedule and the numbers that we have to drive us good to share just one other point on the investment of our assets here especially if they increase over time is that is that just our determination for you to do it that way or and invested by fred along with the pension money and that you know they were there the return assumption that where we had been using about a seven and a half percent return assumption on that part money for pension funding purposes if we're starting out here thank you for you know you have to open them file and make sure that you're right i don't know how much of a literal literary verses you are but one of my favorite novels is moby dick and so you guys did get the right you've got the right but the mind and in my head the reason i like it is that the first words in moby dick are call me ishmael ok so you'll see i wrote a little fling to you in your book and it says call me ralph yeah and jeff years says call me jeff you know because i mean the future of the town has been tremendously served by what you  unbelievable thank you so much for it because we finally know what we're doing and we have a way to analyze the future benefits and and to look again at the funding to decide if we want to fund it this way so i couldn't be more grateful and i think t house at twenty seven or so road and it's really it's if if you know where that is it's really it's like it borders the the the front edge of the service road on route two it's really kind of on the edge of town  bought the home in twenty fourteen and we took a few years ago we were up thirty years old at the time looking for a home for our for our family and being right there on the edge of town made it just having bought the house in one of the things that happened early on was we were in a levee but there was a special assessment which was kind of from our standpoint a let down we didn't know anything about that that was coming  but that but that came early on and didn't didn't really know how to vote didn't we didn't feel informed about it didn't have time to really look into it but that was something that came early on and then and then with the within a couple  years we've been we've had that this has been imposed on us as a sort of a regulatory action which we felt was was really disappointing and and i've laid out the the  reasons here and we think it effects the value of the home being on the edge of town i think the reason we were able to buy the home for pretty affordable price was was because it moved very slowly and it was on the market for  quite a while and and so you know when we bought it that was a helpful thing i think if we were to go to sell it now having a regulatory over overhang would would not be helpful to us and i think if it could be pretty impactful to you know economically to two young family like ours i laid out in here you know in response to kind of the justifications that we were provided i think there were criteria see an f you know which have to do kind of with the fact that it was designed by someone like very very wills and whether he meets sort of the definitions that you've that you've laid out here i felt that was kind of subjective i felt that criteria f as well changes have been made to the house over time just i  think it's just a question of of whether our house has been changed less than other houses also designed by the same architect we're not the only home on the street designed by royal barry wills were not the only home in the broader kind of village hill neighborhood  designed by royal barry wills i'm not asking you to regulate my neighbor's homes but but it felt kind of arbitrary that we were the only ones chosen on our street when we don't live in a historic district sometimes it can and some some people have estimated that there's a benefit to being part of a historic district that in terms of home values etc in this case that's not what we have so my wrecked my neighbor's homes they can do whatever they want to their homes  don't expect them to do anything unattractive to their homes but they could if they wanted i can't do that and and so my home is being regulated to their benefit my home is being regulated to the town's  benefit and that just kind of felt arbitrary especially given that our house kind of meets you know has some of the same characteristics that other homes do in the town and i guess finally it's just a you know as a as a legal point you know it's the sort of thing gets referred to as as regulatory taking you know it's it i think i think it it affects the property value in a in a negative way it it could be the kind of thing where you know instead of you know if you had three prospective buyers for a property that may be whittled down to two or one or maybe if you had one perspective by a buyer gets whittled down to zero could really  it affect the property value and that and that value hits us to the town's benefit so it's a public benefit and as you know except if amendment that says that no person shall be deprived of of property without due process of law nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation we were provided any compensation for this i think you know you could you could probably estimate how how much damage it has done that would probably take six heard economic analysis that doesn't seem to have been done here but it is sort of a question as to why the town would want to do this you know young family buying in the in the in the town trying to find an affordable house being hit with this regulation and and it's and it's fairly controversial it's it's somewhat aggressive it doesn't seem to be constitutional that is the supreme law of  opt out clause the appeal must be based on proof that the property does not meet the historic conditions that make it significant enough to be the demolition delay by a long list of course we support your decision whatever you do decide we did prepare a very detailed response given the number of issues that were raised in the in the letter we did not feel that the decision was arbitrary nor subjective the historic district commission is a consultant hired through the c p a did  look at six hundred fifty two properties and over the course of two years really looked very carefully to whittle down that number to two hundred and five that she sense had the the best quality design and only to bury will's houses made it on to the demolition delay list and that's not an uncommon outcome of groups of historic similar historic build things in town there are clusters five different architects in different parts of town but our goal was to produce the best list that was jim on street of of the best buildings  belmont and that means a diversity of buildings not just the highest big as high as style you know biggest it means representative of eighteenth and nineteenth and twentieth century buildings comes direct from the national park service and the national register definitions of how you define quality in design and historic new england as is in our response maintains  that we had it up by law into two thousand and thirteen there are one hundred forty eight demolition delayed by laws in massachusetts belmont is in many ways far less restrictive than many others arlington for example has a list that is thirty pages long and gives the historic commission full authority to designate properties without any kind  of review so it was approved a town meeting it has been reviewed and approved by the attorney general and so did not feel the need to consult with him counsel on the question  taking so you know it is you know of our opinion that the house is is is noteworthy and worthy of being included on the demolition july bylaw i think the other thing that is sometimes confusing tew homeowners and we're working within the commission to to address this a little bit and perhaps produce a material that it's more explanatory and that is if you're on a demolition delayed by law it's only th by law it doesn't restrict a homeowner from anything else you can't you can renovate your kitchen you can you know you can add it you can subtract you can you could put down   you know if mr staples or a subsequent owner wanted to the page down the house and build a larger house i think the first step would be they'd be a public hearing to assess community support and significant and significance yeah so that's not a it's not a slam dunk that it would get the twelve month delay and those are part of that would be after two series of two hearings one determining yet again if against and the second can i i can't allow an appeal i guess based on the challenge to the authority the demo delay by lotsof i think it's clearly legal it's clearly constitutional it is not a taking it's been through the attorney general numerous towns have these it's not a rare thing or unusual at all and secondly i think i don't would see how one can say we're all very well as not a master architect and when you look through the real estate ads when his house has come up they touted very highly in that he designed it in the ad it's a very big selling point  and it's a good example of his work the the demo delays a week tool we've talked about this before it doesn't doesn't make the house a stork it doesn't make the district historic unless your demo in the houses zero effect at all and even if you're demo in the house all it means is you have to wait a year if they even impose the delay at all which they may may not when the time comes so it doesn't stop anyone from doing anything so i honestly think it's a non issue as you know my house is on the list i think it's a great thing not turn alice down but i mean town meeting adopted it overwhelmingly in many towns have them it's totally constitutional and there's just as dr c's erode i mean i i so i understand you're saying but i don't think you're fully understanding the process here because there's no basis to take it off the list that i see whatsoever that just there's just nothing here it's clearly a well known architect it's a great example the challenge is mostly based on the law itself which i think has been vetted enough it doesn't need to be vetted any further is any or demolishing your house  is quite a process because for so i don't have credentials i have a ph d in architecture i don't you know this is all you know received response from each he said on european i did not receive that the written response in question right so good that the commission has the benefit of reviewing my appeal i don't have the the the benefit of rick of reviewing and preparing a response to that we go however i grieve we can stop now and you can come back come january like a off the bat i would say that that the fact that the that the attorney general supports it the fact that arlington has a list that none of those things make it count one hundred forty eight so to we're not there scuse me at the as chair i only have two authorities one is to set the agenda on the other is to control the meeting so we're not going to have a debate right now i think your point about not having the response is is a good point and what i'd like to do is to stop the hearing and i do have one question is there a time limit on the appeal i don't think so i think they had to i wasn't there some kind of there was a time limit for filing the appeal here but the applicant mr staples can voluntarily request in the continuance till the next meeting which if you're concerned about i know i'm not i don't know is no he said he's made his appeal and we're continuing the hearing right but i'm saying if he's if but other continue on the fourteen i bought my house and twenty twelve and it's in a historic district but it's not historic and my house has appreciated forty five point i mean it's you know the point is the point is that belmont housing has increased dramatically since to thunder snow so we all have benefited from that sham point should i have not benefited and no i'm not arguing that i'm i didn't say that what i said was we've all benefited from it so the the other point is that when we become selectman we don't represent our base necessarily anymore we have to represent the twenty four thousand people in town so sometimes there are things that disadvantage or perceived to disadvantage you know on one one resident yeah but if it serves the common good and that's really what we're governed by yeah but i would like to i would like to know your response to their response and i think i think we should meet again yeah yeah i just i think whether you should be disadvantaging by young family thirty year old respond in writing that we're all learning you know this is a learning process for us to the a p l so i think what i'm hearing is going forward if the h d c with working with the oft we need to valid meant prepares  yes then the process question the question would not have come up to you you were actually providing the information in a way to make it easier for us to understand your viewpoint but for derek you know he he would be in the same position of as he is now if you chose not to write it down you see what i mean in other words you would have made the same points and you would have heard the same points and then we'd have to finish tonight yes so in a way you know the fact that you wrote it down and didn't give it to him gives you a chance to think more about what's going on in the future would be best for all for anyone who appeals that they be required to write it down yeah i think it's helpful to know what the you know what if you know we understand why you did it we were not w criticizing the fact that even if he did not provided to us the stables would you say it's a fair process point so therefore that we haven't you have a sort of a point of view on the appeal that you were the appeal authority yet providing to the op again as well in advance i mean i think would be helpful yeah so yeah but this is a new license what's at the site before nothing my house it's just a home office it's a home office there'll be no business conducted there except me on the computer   not yet and i'm not so sure that there is it's feasible on a business you know how long have you been doing this for many years and so this license know i can park three cars on right now but a bit more but these are three cars for sale and you could park three cars and put the price tag in the window i mean if you're not moving from say but this up license would allow you to do that so if you're not going to do it maybe just take that part out down time that's all i'm saying call alcohol restaurant license food approve the odd call the restaurant license to el centro already corp robbie islamize sixty six leonard st conditional upon a bill on being come on a being compliant with all requirements of the building department velma gallery a bar to serve one of the opening reception for its upcoming winter two thousand and eighteen are to exhibit scheduled for saturday january thirteenth two thousand eight hundred from six thirty to eight thirty pm in the home or art gal separate agreement which sometimes can be problem attic at two o'clock in the morning or at on weekends and holidays and things like that so we had talked about doing a master agreement with watertown and this is marshall said that you know move that's a good idea let's move forward so we're about six or seven months in the making back and forth their counsel lack now so we may get if they make it as they finally have executed the agreement want to town and we're going to need to get you to execute the agreement on behalf of so it basically sets the foundation way street we list what we're willing to loan them bill list what they're willing to loan us and there's confirmation that we have the appropriate insurance and vice versa that they have the appropriate insurance so that when the ther pros and cons to this is there any downside to doing this but the only no really big deal with the problems is that these this equipment is very complex and so they use computers now and electronics and getting parts readily available like we both have similar make manufactured trucks a lot of our parts have to come out of florida chief so we're waiting for them to get in line and then we'll have we'll be we talk we bounce ideas off of each other and things like that so we're just waiting for them things that we were thinking about is that one of the things we lack years is either recognizing and doing some token employee appreciation of  i just wanted to mention to you i have noticed previously that there are new signs in that claflin street parking lot that are quite extensive and color coded and represent the