good evening please take your seats i'm informed that we have a quorum so i'd like to call to order the two thousand and seventeen annual meeting for the town of belmont we have a few  let me just describe briefly what shortly will introduce reverend cheryl minor of all saints church for the invitation invocation then we'll have a flag ceremony pledge of allegiance with the boy scouts and girl anthem so we'll go through that and i would ask you to stand now and remain standing through those activities thank you and i would introduce reverend minor of all saints church for the invocation thank you reverend minor oh god our help in ages past and our hope for years to come we give you thanks and praise for putting into the hearts and minds of our forbearers to establish this great town of belmont we thank you for the long law of presidents and leaders who have served over the years we thank you for the members of this town meeting who have gathered here tonight to take counsel for the life of this town we pray that you would give this body wisdom to collectively make good decisions for our common life may the words that each member speaks be respectful of the dignity and worth of every member of this body and this town give each member of vision of the whole and what would be best for us all while not neglecting to take account of those in the town whose voices may not be loud or articulate give them patience with one another and allow each member to be open to different perspective and thoughtful persuasion while making up their own minds oh god we knowledge your presence with us and pause this night to give you glory as you are the great lover of souls you know and love each of us perfectly we lift up to you our fears hopes and dreams as we start our work knowing that you are able to do greater things in our lives than we can ask or imagine  indivisible with liberty and so we're going to now there are many new town meeting members but also it's been a while since we met let's test the electronic devices and you can press either one or two and make sure the green light goes on and will end show up here your name and if there's any problems the green light doesn't go on please come up to dan here we tested these and retested but there may be never know sit in front of the aisle back there any guests or others are in sit behind the aisle amid many to the floor and this i hope will cover most of all of the subsequent sessions except for a special town meeting phyllis marshall glen castro the town accountant and department heads and staff town council george hall warren committee capital budget committee permanent building committee superintendent of schools school committee and staff planning board historic district commission community preservation committee and sponsors the bylaws review committee the board of health the board of assessors recreation commit commission board of library trustees contributory retirement board human rights commission came slack any other requests for admission to the do it well i will continue on the rules and then we will administer the oath of office to the new town meeting members to let me review briefly will follow our normal rule with respect to the advance filing of proposed substantive amendments for the annual meeting to segment a venue meeting no such amendments have been filed they have been for the special town meeting which will take place wednesday the moderator has the sol discretion to allow motions that are easy to understand but please remember a town meeting member who wishes to make such a motion from the floor must make the motion before speaking to it and not at the conclusion of the speech in terms of votes will do voice votes for the traditional articles but i will ask for the electronic votes for all of the substantive articles and  amendments our mind a speaker when speaking for the first time has reached the five minute mark that he or she should wind up the speech town meeting members who have previously spoken on a matter should not have to be record night until all others  wish to speak have had a chance to speak except to answer a question or correct a previous statement all speakers must address the moderator and questions which are limited to two questions may be asked only through the moderator all discussion must be relevant to a motion before the town meeting and i'll come back to that a little later and now the town purpose here so i would ask the newly and reelected town meeting members to please rise so the town clerk and the minister the oath of office please raise your right hand do you solemnly affirm that you will uphold the constitution of the united states the constitution and the bar and the laws of the commonwealth of massachusetts and the bylaws of the town of belmont and that you will impartially perform the duties as a town meeting member a position to which you have been duly elected keeping uppermost in your mind what's best for belmont and its inhabitants if you affirm say i will thank you we have a large number of new town meeting members held a briefing before a league night and had a very good turnout so i want to thank all of the new town meeting members who ran and won i will now with the ask with a unanimous consent of town meeting members as the town clerk to read only the return of the warrant without reading the text of each part of article hearing no objection the town clerk will proceed pursuant to the warrant of the annual town meeting to be held today may one two thousand and seventeen i l n o brian cushman town clerk do hereby certify that i gave notice of said meeting by posting and attested copy of the warrant on the town clerk's official bulletin board at the town hall and at least five other places in town seven days before the date of this meeting in accordance with chapter thirty nine section ten of the general laws and section thirty dash one a of the general bylaws of the town of belmont furthermore i do hereby certify that i gave notice of the annual town meeting of may one two thousand and seventeen by causing a copy of the warrant to be sent to the town meeting members at least seven days before the date of this meeting and by causing copies of the warrant to be made available at the public library and the town clerk's office all in accordance with section thirty dash one one zero b of the general by laws of the town of belmont and the representative town meeting acts of  twenty six as amended thank you on we have started a tradition of recognizing long serving town meeting members who have retired and so we will do that next tonight and here to night and then go to the next slide jennifer page thirty years jennifer and then marian couldn't be here tonight but marian fifty years don wanted to have a brief comments to town meeting so i recognize him mark and take the microphone thank you and thank you for your service hello all my name is mark d'andrea i am a past time meeting member for precinct three i have a shot two minute message to give you good evening to everyone who is listening and watching at this time i would like to leave town meeting with a charge which i believe is their duty and their responsibility as town meeting members  charge pertains to speaking on the town meeting floor when you get up to speak speak into the microphone listen to your voice as it is projected over the speakers is your voice loud enough for people to hear you if not adjust the microphone and  when you determine that your voice is loud enough to speak clearly and speak slowly it's speak clearly and slowly enough for people to hear you and hopefully to understand what you are saying keep in mind that when you speak you are speaking for the benefit of the listeners here in on the phone here on the floor of the town meeting if of those watching on t we all want to hear what you have to say if people cannot hear you you are providing a disservice to yourself and to those wanting to hear what you have to say now this is the end of my charge to you in conclusion i wish to say that i have enjoyed my associations with tom leading members and town officials and present over the past forty four years make god bless you and keep you well thank you mark and thank you jennifer prayer terrific service at this point i want to read a brief recognition of service to the town of belmont by ruth kaplan and i thank amery mahoney for composing this earth kaplan who moved to belmont with her husband in one nine hundred fifty eight passed away on february sixteenth at the age of ninety six ruth was known for her decades of generous service to the town but she was also a trailblazer for women and science in one nine hundred forty two she graduated from barnard college five bed a kappa with a degree in physics she was recruited to work on the manhattan project at columbia as part of the war effort where she met her beloved husband bruce service to belmont was extensive warrant committee for fifteen years town meeting member from precinct six for sixteen years league of women voters president and fifty year member active p t a and library volunteer she was just as committed to sticking encoding labels on library books or working at the high school as doing complicated financial analysis colleagues friends and neighbors remember ruth with fondness and admiration she cared about the town she served as well as the people who volunteered along with  one warrant committee member recalls her unusual ability to research and sort through potential solutions to dilemmas bringing insight and knowledge to bear on difficult problems others mention her wit her measured responses and her ability to see the big picture we recognize the contribution to the town of life a mother of three grandmother of four and great grandmother three we treasure the gift of her talent and personality and we will miss or thoughtful advice thank you ruth on behalf of the t the business of the meeting let me make a few overall comments before we get started first in terms of the schedule this is segment days you well know the town meeting segment be the financial will be on june fifth and seventh segment a will take us at least three nights possibly fo but obviously depends upon you but based on the feedback and commentary throughout the town i think it certainly will take three and we'll see if we can complete it in three but it may take next wednesday the tenth as well are meeting monday and wednesday this week monday and possibly wednesday next week i've been moderator for some time of course and preparing for this town meeting i've been struck by the combination of confusion around some of the articles and strong passions around others  that's fine but i would ask the town meeting members in all their comments to be civil and respectful and understand that our role as town meeting members and our deliberations are to be carried out in a positive spirit even if we violently disagree we have worked hard helen phyllis gle and others to organize this and present the motions as clearly as possible it's taken many many hours but we've tried to do that so that we can engender and create the most helpful debate on these articles and to minimize the number of survivors may minimize a number of questions and confusion to final comments there's been some confusion about the difference between articles and motions under town meeting time in our by and our practice and in the practice of all almost all town meetings the articles which come out first set the parameters for discussion of that particular article that particular area then we'd the town leaders and if it's the citizens petition in concert with them put together to gather a specific motion that falls within the parameters and scope of the article some motions and mirroring the article almost exactly other motions still falling within the scope seam and read quite differently and we have some examples of the latter here article seven a little bit article eight article ten and that's created a lot of questions i've handled a number of e mails of people who wondered whether these were within the scope they are within the scope and i think that the confusion often stems from the misunderstanding that some people have that the article is a general framework and the motion is the motion and it's the motion that we always debate a town meeting finally the matter of scope  there are several articles which it and so we will discuss how town meeting in which there will be we will test scope and i will cover them one by one as they are presented but i just wanted to give a heads up on some of them tonight so for example at the special town meeting on the liquor licenses we will have a discussion presentation about how we got to this point but it will be beyond the scope of town meeting to get into the fine points of what happened on the vote by the board of selectmen around the letter around on the  loading dock in terms of article nine there's been some significant confusion about that that is the article that basically  asks town meeting to pass judgment on the continued vitality if you will or implication of the one nine hundred ninety override in the context of changes since and pays you throw that will not be discussion of pages you throw up that will be beyond the scope of the article article ten which obviously isn't gendered probably the most question the article in that case i will not allow discussions or go beyond the scope of that particular motion which focuses on belmont we will answer questions about finances in terms of how much money we spend now or receive from the federal government but i will not allow a discussion or conjecture about what will happen in the future from the trump  ministration or congress or anybody else this will be a discussion of belmont not a discussion of president prompts and his policies so i lay that out an advance so that people understand it when we get to each of those articles i will talk a little at a little more detail about what is within scope and what isn't but i think it will be a much more productive town meeting if we were if we are able individually and collectively to keep the discussion within the scope of the motion and the article so i ask very much for your for your cooperation in doing that with that we're ready to begin with the motions on the order of articles mr williams you will lead mr moderator is out on it's on but it's not working can you hear me now yes ok good marks gone through you mr moderator moved that first of all good evening and welcome ladies and gentleman through you mr moderator move that the town meeting here the motions in the following order one two three four five six seven eight nine ten now i have to read them fifteen twelve fourteen twenty three twenty four twenty five eleven seventeen sixteen eighteen twenty nineteen twenty one twenty two twenty five and thirteen twenty six and thirteen excuse me twenty six and thirteen so any discussion all those in mr williams through you mr moderator that article one motion be laid on the table and i just question all those in favor please say i was opposed adopt article to mr williams through you mr moderator moved that the board of selectmen here by is authorized to bring and defend actions for and against the town to submit any such claims to arbitration and to enter into settlement on account of the same in behalf of the town as and when they deem it for the best interest of the town to do so said power shall be vested solely in the board was opposed now adopted unanimously all right now the business begins article three mr dash selectman adam dash to town meeting member a large and no one article three moved but the town except the provisions of chapter ninety section seventeen c of the massachusetts general laws mr clancy will make a presentation on this article when clancy mr moderator glen clancy director of community development with this is likely my one opportunity to influence whether a three night affair or for a night affair i think everyone at least on my side of the microphone will be pleased to know that i've drafted a script for myself to follow and we're going to find out yourself ective that is right now glen this is this is a quote that comes from a p c their materials on the matter speed limit bill proposes to lower speed limits statewide as a strategy to reduce crashes and make roads safer for all users that is the primary reason why we're here this evening under the recently passed massachusetts modernization act municipalities are able to lower the speed limit within thickly settled areas and business districts from the current thirty miles per hour to twenty five miles per hour  i'm going to take a moment to discuss three key terms that are relevant to the presentation the first term is thickly settled thickly settled is defined as an area where dwellings are located at an average distance of less than two hundred feet for at least a quarter of a mile the second term is statutory speed limit state statutes recognize rates of speed considered to be reasonable and proper with regard to the use of a road in public safety the statute goes on to identify specific roadway uses and defines the appropriate speed limit for school zones that speed is twenty miles per hour the board of selectmen identify where his school zone exists the state statute assigns the speed limit for that zone and the current statutory speed limit for a thickly settled area or business district is thirty miles per hour for roadways that are least settled and are undivided meaning there was no physical separation between the travel lanes coming in going in either direction the statutory speed limit is forty miles per hour so there are several statutory speed limits article three is aimed at lowering the speed limit only in thickly settled areas and business districts the final term is special speed regulations the state recognizes that although statutory speed limits can satisfy many common conditions that exist across communities statewide cities and towns are likely to have community specific traffic conditions special speed regulations are adopted a community with approval from mass d o t these regulations allow a municipality the opportunity to tailor speed limits based on specific community needs in belmont over the years we have adopted special speed regulations on twelve roads and they're listed on the slide behind me i'll run them down quickly clifton street prospect street school street the bomb on housing authority neighborhood that includes sheen road weber road pearson road gordon terr bradley road royal road lexan st leonard st and golden st those are all areas that belmont has approved special speed regulations in some cases like clifton street prospect street lexington street and go in the street the statutory speed limit of thirty mph transitions to a lower speed limit of twenty five or even twenty mph in other cases the entire roadway was lowered to twenty five or twenty m adoption of article three this evening will not change the special speed regulations in place on these roads listed behind me they are specifically exempt from the action that you would take this evening there are three segments of road in in the town that do not meet the thickly settled or business district definition therefore these three segments will not have speed limits set at twenty five miles per hour if aa tacl three passes two of them are shown on the slide behind m definition the lower purple road is conquered avenue from robin wood road out to the town of lexington line that also does not meet and the final segment is millstreet this is from the mclean hospital driveway to repel road thank you mr clancy discussion of the motion under article three thank you joel samuels precinct six i have concerns about the possible insurance surcharges that would be levied if someone is guilty of a min traffic violation and thereby gets two points an experienced driver i talked to my insurance agent today there are five areas of your insurance policy that could be surcharged for six years bodily injury to others personal injury protection damage to someone else's property and optional bodily injury to others and collision and that would be for an experienced driver and a minor traffic violation and that's for a person who's been licensed for over six years under six years a person could have their insurance increased by up to eighty five percent for six years so my question is if i'm coming up common street and i live near a common street i'm going thirty miles an hour which now is the legal limit and there's radar there and the speed limit is twenty five is it reasonable for me to get a ticket and pay a surcharge of over two hundred dollars for six years that's twelve hundred dollars for going five miles me make a general statement which is you know currently the thickly settled to be live in belmont to thirty miles per hour which we all know when when myself in the police department and we looked at this opportunity and we discussed what it meant to go from thirty to twenty five in the context of in forstmann and what the belmont police department is able to do for enforcement today i would general feeling is that if you have a motorist that is right now exhibiting a behavior where they're driving anywhere from thirty to thirty five miles per hour in a thirty mile when i was on because they recognize the speed limit to be thirty if we lower the speed limit to twenty five and we can recondition drivers to drive twenty five to thirty even though they're technically exceeding the limit as they were before we've effectively knocked the speed limit on that road down five miles per hour and with our understanding of what the data says about slower speeds in the increase in safety to pedestrians motorists by private property we felt that that was a reasonable ask one thing that offices have a tool that we use is discretion and writing mr my guys again just raised the microphone slightly thank you we use a great deal of discretion and we encourage our offices to use it a great deal of discretion when they have for us moving violations in town in the area yet yes you could get a speeding ticket if you are going five miles an hour over the speed limit however if we would have stott sending people down to the cambridge courthouse for going five miles over the speed limit we might hear from the courthouse that says this is in very good use of the enforcement as glenn said there's an overall safety issue in this when you think about when when we do accident  reconstruction we think in terms of feet per second a comoving at thirty five miles an hour is moving eight more feet per second than a comoving twenty five miles per hour and when you factor in reaction time and things like that  it it does increase safety in terms of stopping ability and whatnot and it's it is also a geographical component to this is a dog adopted at boston cambridge lexington and so we're hoping that through voluntary compliance that there's going to be sort of a shift in the way people drive and that the speed limits will be lowered speaking for myself as an officer getting back to a ticket situation when i have four speed i would generally look at cars going thirty seven and above depending on what roadway i was on if that person was going to get pulled over and then through my discretion i had the option of getting a verbal warning a  written warning or a citation now we hope that through this lowering the speed limit that thirty seven now we come in in the area of thirty five in between thirty and thirty five were offices we'll folk will feel comfortable pulling somebody over and exercising one of those options too to an operator thank you mr moderator ramey i ask one more question yes are there any belmont's the to sticks for  accidents at various speed levels such as twenty five or thirty over the last year or several years you surprised we have a lot of data pertaining to accidents unfortunately that would require a little bit of time on our part to actually examine the accidents we invented loon when we bring out our reconstructionist to determine speed that's usually only in the case of a serious personal injury accident so while our offices might you know somebody you know it's not uncommon for us to show up on a scene after a crash and somebody says that car was flying and the other person so was he well you know we don't really determine the speed in that crash we determine fault based on the volley say i would be delighted to go twenty five miles an hour to get coming down from the hill and going through the santa that said joel just took my funda that government is best which governs least into stand up here and say we have no statistics and other than saying well we must know it must be safer to drive slower not necessarily self and unless you can show some statistics that this five miles an hour makes a difference then i say let's put this on the table and come back to the safety issue thinking of somebody in reconstruction who used to be a crash reconstructionist just to give you an idea so i said a move of a motor vehicle moving at thirty miles per hour is moving forty three point eight feet per second reaction time to when somebody sees something in the daytime and they step on the brake is one and a half seconds that vehicle would have traveled sixty five feet in that time now if the trout car was traveling twenty five miles an hour it travels fifty four feet in that time that eleven feet can be the difference of somebody hitting somebody or when they hit them they're not hitting them with the velocity that they had it when they're breaking at thirty miles per hour  you mr moderator first of all i want to put my place to identify i'm sorry rachel berger precinct two and i want to thank you for using the term crashes rather than accidents in general we know that driving slower makes a difference as to outcomes of motor vehicle crashes but in my very rudimentary google search last night i could not find any study to show that changing the posted speed limit had an effect on drivers travelling rates actually the results seem to be to the quantity to the contrary to quote one study the primary conclusion of this research is that the majority of motorists examined did not decrease or increase their speed as a result of either lowering or raising the posted speed limit four ten or fifteen miles per hour in other words this nationwide study confirms the results of numerous other observational studies which found that the majority of motorists do not alter their speed to conform to speed limits they perceive is unreasonable for prevailing conditions what does seem to matter is in for smith if drivers know roads are patrolled they slow down personally i will not walk my dog on either prospect street or rutledge road during the week cars just comes down the hill it's fine on the weekends it's a really nice walk i've never seen a police patrol car checking for speeders nor have they ever seen a car crash so i suspect that most of those drivers perceive the current speed limit as an reasonable for prevailing conditions and they are probably correct so i don't think that simply posting the change in speed limit will affect behaviors i will support this as you have mentioned as an effort to improve public health and if it passes will do my best to try not to perceive it as a reasonable to the current conditions but i would also like to request some data analysis what has been the crash in interest injury rate in the last year or so since the two pellow road redesign and then let's compare that to the rates going forward with this change if you can show that lowering the posted speed limit lowered serious injury i am sure people will be even more supportive and do their utmost to follow the posted limits and not what they perceive to be safe thank you mr bass sue bass precinct three i'd like to thank this burger for all except one thing when she said that she's going to support this because the whole rest of what she said is there's no enforcement it's not the posted sign but traffic can but other conditions that affect speed and so on i urge you to defeat this i live on a very heavily street but our problem i live in concord avenue at the intersection of wellington lane which happens to be right were conquered ave takes a ninety degree turn and people come down that hero our issue is not about thirty miles an hour actually my intersections twenty but it our issue is about fifty and are there any in force when we don't see it people go fifty forty five even more than fifty coming down that hill and then they crash into my neighbor across the street right into her house and so far no one has been hurt that i know of and i hope that continues but this is not a sensible solution this is exactly the wrong approach the right approach would be first of all they have more signs that tell people what i've been asked at parties what the speed limit in belmont is that's because the settled but there are only a few and more recently and particularly more recently signs that say thickly sped settled thirty miles an hour because people didn't know you know you have to be kind of an inside to know that thickly settled is code for thirty miles an hour and we didn't tell people and they're still not enough signs around town that say what the actual speed limit is i see glenn making unhappy faces and i'm sorry i don't want people to make i'm happy faces but out the issue is in force and if the town has met manages through enforcement as mr berger said and also changes in the road conditions the that doesn't like to call it a speed bump but the but the race crosswalk on concrete avenue by the cemetery and the other race crosswalks around town they really do have an effect on on the speed that people travel which signs really do not but but they have an effect and i'd love to have another one on concrete avenue that's my request but if the town control the speed limit down to thirty five on my street or thirty two were something like that then i would be willing to hear about how twenty five would be safer but in two zero we can get people to stop going fifty fifty on that stretch of concord avenue and other places around town i myself the police department we had a long and many conversations about enforcement in wondering what that conversation would be like in the context of this proposal so we get it there is a question of resources and the allocation of those resources and jamie can speak to that better than i can i just want to point out a couple of things one that's sort of the inside baseball of thirty miles an hour in a thick least settled area as i mentioned in my presentation that is a statutory speed limit  and not to sound flippant but anyone who has a driver's license who is pass their exams should realize that the statutory speed limit at bickley settled area is thirty miles per hour one of the things i find ironic in belmont in the places where we've put up that they can be settled signs is it's really just stating what the obvious is the law is already there and on the books there's nothing special about a thirty mile an hour speed limit in a thickly settled zone we look at this also in the context as jamie said of a regional thing we know that there are surrounding communities that have already acted or are considering taking action what i see is something that is sort of evolves over time as new drivers get licensed and learn the rules of the road as more people drive in this region around the metro boston metropolitan boston area and recognize that communities have lowered their speed limit to twenty five i'm hoping that whatever that period of time is if it's three five or even ten years there is a reconditioning of behavior of motorists this is not just about somebody in a vehicle this is about what we hope is going to be an increase in the use of bicycles and increase in the use of pedestrians using these roadways lowering the speed limit it's beginning that effort to lower the speed limit and recondition motorists ultimately will have an impact on the public safety of all users of the road and that is the primary reason why we are presenting this tonight raised about enforcement but i see a standardization of the speed limits in the towel allowing us to increase signage at a minimal cost to the benefit of slowing down even one driver and that for five seconds that the officer was talking about while it may be a minor infraction to some drivers behind the wheel can mean the difference between life and death for me on a bicycle thanks mr moderator david powell stock town meeting member of precinct four i have a very brief comment and then a question as a point of clarification the comment is just in response to concerns about enforcement issues again i sympathise entirely because on my road two people go occasionally go and speak to far in excess of any speed limit you could possibly imagine for that road however i don't think that kind that that kind of concern actually constitute an argument against the setting of speed limits i believe these are completely different questions you set the speed limit as a matter of law and you enforce it as a matter of enforcement so i don't really see that i don't really see that in force meant and lowering speed limits are in any way incompatible or dots with one another and then my question which is a very simple one for for purposes of clarification the motion we're voting on declares that the town accepts the provisions of chapter nine hundred seventeen see if i go to the article the first paragraph of it could be maybe get the article up there's a possible yes thank you so in the i take the italics sized paragraph to be a necessarily need the text in in the first paragraph it says reducing it providing uniform speed limit of twenty five miles per hour on those streets determined to be thickly settled and then in the italics sized passage which i take to be a paraphrase of the state law it says within the thickly settled area or business district so i'm just curious as to whether we're voting on just the cli settled or thickly settled and the business mr clancy clancy directive to be development both thickly settled is pertains mostly to drawing units in their proximity business districts business owners are obviously business related that's correct thank you yes robert kennedy precinct three i live in the kennel gardens area off of mill street and represent people there one of the biggest challenges we have in our neighborhood is eat grass ing our neighborhood on to mill street we have four streets that lead out all have limited sight line visibility the posted traffic speed limit on the street there is thirty miles an hour and thirty miles an hour would work for our si lines except the traffic does not go thirty miles an hour we get considerable unfortunate there and i'm sure the police department knows that the average traffic past us is at forty miles an hour which i time all the time when driving monnet just to see what people are doing millstreet also has a literally hundreds of cyclists daily leaving the leaving the bicycle shop area they meet there and fifteen minute intervals and they go out no street on the concord ave so we have lots of cyclists dealing with  traffic especially in the morning so i would welcome a reduction of five miles an hour to twenty five hoping that that would slow the cars to thirty or  possibly thirty five it would be a big help for us i noticed in the presentation by mr clancy that i i it was quick but it looked to me that mill street was excluded from this change in speed limit we are certainly thickly settled are we excluded mr clancy clancy director of community development the segment of mill street that isn't captured by the definition is from the mclean driveway to tupelo road and so the side streets from ken mr candy just addressed the our specific concern which is the military today that we had just today forty five miles easily the that's a speech coming on that street so enforcement is really important but i'd like to ask what other measures besides speed limit reductions have been considered for example more stop signs or more stop lights or blinking lights besides enforcement that may not require you know personnel to address or even just your speed is signs things like that mr clancy clancy director of community development so anytime we take any action related to mitigating speed or addressing any kind of safety issues on roadways there is a document that is a federal document called the manual and uniform traffic control devices it is the document that we are bound to follow myself myself as the town engineer is a registered professional engineer i'm obligated to follow that document  within that document there are all the tools that you know in theory a community would need to be able to do the things you would like to do but there's also very specific guidelines on how you can go about that for example the manual makes it very clear stop signs are not to be used  speed mitigation there is a very specific purpose for a stop sign speed mitigation is not one of them and so if we look at the tools that are available to us we try our best to do what we can within the constraints that we have i can tell you that you know coming up very soon on school street at the burbank school we will be installing signs on either approach to the school that will reduce the speed that if that vehicles traveling to notify people not only about how fast they're going but also to let them know that they're coming into a school zone being asked to do things about speed whether it's recent or sections raised crosswalks different elements like that that the tac the traffic advisory does have standards that they try to meet because obviously it would be very difficult to put a speed limit put a speed bump are raised cross walk on every road in belmont and so there's certain thresholds that we try to meet in doing that it may be a little bit slower of an effort than people like but i can assure you that we're aware of it and we are taking steps to get better  going forty miles an hour has a one in ten chance of survival while a pedestrian hit by a car traveling twenty miles an hour has a nine in ten chance of survival so the argument that speed doesn't matter because there's not enough for cement or we don't have enough stop signs just doesn't hold water because the first step toward safer streets is to lower speed limits and that doesn't mean that people are automatically in magically going to follow them but it is a first step and then it leads to better public education it enables better engineering changes and better enforcement and so it's you know it's a key first step and all of the arguments against them because it's not a perfect stop don't really hold water because it is just a way to get you started toward safer streets and i believe the government deserves to have the same safer streets that we're working towards and all the surrounding towns so i really encourage everybody to vote for to adopt been a huge problem for ever as the traffic because it comes down from watertown and we have the elementary school the butler and we've had things done and going along so i guess my concern is or not concern is when e coming out before the butler at said beach street and that's fine because they'll have to stop there but my concern is because i see it every day where i live is they speed right from the light and they come flying down the street i won't even go near the crosswalk that's all i wave to them when they go that's me so i'm concerned because the kids are still there's crossfire because the kids are walking to school to the peak you they're walking to the bus stops so that's just my concern is where can that be adjusted so it's not just say the four way stop because there's a lot more of this street ok mr played a very brief comment i don't want your car talk about the lazy  director of community development so white she would be one of those locations i think it's logical for us to place the signage for traffic coming into belmont from watertown the sign would say to the other the uniform speed limit in belmont is twenty five miles an hour i like to think of school zones as being almost an overlay a speed zone over what the statutory requirement is on the road and so for if you're on white street you'll still be faced with a sign telling you it's twenty five miles an hour you will get to a point during school hours were assigned will tell you that your speed limit will be this and i do have some questions however about what are some of the other implications which is how this is going to talk closer into the mind at least how is this going to impact road design decisions will you be considering roads in relation to the speed limit as opposed to just relying on the side or the known speed limit when clancy director of community development i don't see an obvious change at the moment to how we would go about changing that the design of roads i mean obviously but that leap with the limits we have on a paper matching program where essentially fixing what is existing we don't have a lot of latitude to make a lot of changes in the design of the road itself i think from a design from a design standpoint thirty to twenty five's probably not going to significantly change but that's not to say that it's not out there i just can't give away that off the top of my head one more question place i guess i wanted to share in comment and i know the traffic advisory committee has come about originally as a way to improve accessibility pedestrians there was a lot of speeding going on in the neighborhood by when broke and this is how it came about and i know it has been difficult for you guys and you get a lot of requests to to lower the speed limits on roads because of the speed and this seems like a solution to enable those lower speed loads that people have been requesting for years is that how you see it oh i think that's certainly one point of view i think mr clancy you have covered that in your comments i'm trying to well go ahead if there's something you want to add salt well i just just to say that glenn clancy director of community development i think that that's certainly part of our point of view as i said the presentation you know the speed and speed limits a set by statute and so when less the town is able to do an engineering study that  that determines that a speed limit can be lowered and the data is there to support it and we can convince masti o t we're really stuck with the statutory speed limits that are on the books this is a nice way to blanket the town and go from thirty to twenty five without having to worry about a special speed study to get there one more related data questions since it's come up all right one more so by i too would like to see data in a more easy manner i know i have copies of some of the intersections that are very difficult or high crash and they're just index cards so are you guys going to move forward with getting more current and how you keep data police department utilize complete streets program for this system and that's an ongoing project and it's a discussion probably outside a town meeting but we are doing we are going to improve that we are looking at improving on our ability to do that mr i'm sorry did you want to make a final comment it just seems that sounds a little vague i don't really know what that means this is what we don't have an i t professional at the police department but we have a record management system that records numerous  compiles data from a lot of different places i can give you a lot of information on accidents angles times locations how many cars how many people got hurt but if i wanted to get speed i'd have to read through about four hundred crash reports and see which in the narrative the officer mentions speed and is a mentioned earlier we don't get to see these crashes happen so we don't investigate them we don't send out train crash investigators to determine speed when when somebody isn't seriously injured or there isn't a serious property damage type thing so that we really have we go by witness statements and things like that if they were if they were a speed not always reliable thank you mr roberts thank you paul roberts town meeting member of precinct eight i also stand in support of this article just to and i'll be brief in my comments a couple things just to frame this issue for people because i think many people in town meeting might be saying well why are we doing this now and you know we've had thirty miles an hour for ever and you know i think actually the roads are really changing and i think we're driving on different roads now than we were ten years ago and twenty years ago so there are a couple factors a couple of which glenn has mentioned i think one of them is the increased number of cyclists and pedestrians who are using our roads as they should as they have a legal right to do to get to and from work or recreation cars are now sharing the roads with more people who are not in cars i think the other issue as we all probably know personally is smart phones and mobile devices equipped with g p s i'm across street resident and we have seen a huge increase in cut through traffic people using ways  around traffic jams to and from their work in cambridge and boston and it is just even in the time that i've been there has really increased the road traffic the speed of people are traveling their haste and obviously if they're looking at ways on their cell phone they're distracted  this is i've heard a lot of comments and others saying you know basically this isn't the right approach or this isn't the right solution i totally agree that posted speed limits are not going to fix this problem and in fact on cross street we're working with clan and traffic advisory committee who have been great around some additional speed calming measures arrays crosswalks and so on i think if you have a problem in your neighborhood definitely talk to glenn about it however it's one of those don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good this is one step that we can take to create an environment in town that is safer for pedestrians and safer for other vehicles as well i unfortunately had a woman who was struck and killed in front of my house about seven or eight years ago directly in front of my house early in the morning by a speeding truck the accident report for that would say that speed was not a factor in the accident technically that's true but speed was absolutely a factor in the in the woman being dead  and if the car had been moving five or ten miles an hour she would be alive it was moving thirty to forty miles an hour and she didn't survive so i would really urge you to defer to the experts the people who work with us every day in the belmont p d and  mr clancy and vote in favor of this article thank you person five town meeting member and i also stand in favor of this article and really for two major reasons one is consistency and the other one is uniformity i think glenn mentioned the reason why this is now happening is because the state actually removed the requirement to do a traffic study which was required previously when i first moved into town i always asked around why does school street have a twenty mile an hour speed limit and i think i was told that well it's because and paulson lives there but  but but but we did we had a lot of in can we still continue to have a lot of inconsistency and i think that you know belmont is a cut through town and if every other community arlington just voted to support this cambridge boston somerville watertown i believe i don't know of lexington has voted yet or while fam but if every other community around us is twenty five miles an hour then people are going to hit you know trip l or road on common street and say oh  late for work and i don't have to drive twenty five in belmont so for me it's important to do this on a consistent basis when we start training our argues i have you know teenagers and telling them that the default speed limit is twenty five versus thirty or some other thing i think is also going to be very helpful so i hope the town meeting member town meeting votes to support this they the member precinct one i also stand in favor of this and just to spell out for a reason that i think people have hinted that but have not maybe said directly i'm the parent of small children here who are under the age of ten as a family we like to take advantage of the walkability of belmont the behavior of drivers however makes it difficult at times even at intersections where there are four way stop signs for instance the intersection where washington crosses godin as it turns into oakley right by chen or drivers there are acclimated to go in so much faster than the speed limit that they often go through the stop sign by ten or fifteen feet before they stop so it's actually a challenge to be teaching kids in this town sometimes to be walking safely as pedestrians and i think though this measure in and of itself won't solve everything it's obviously a useful tool in the tool kit towards making this a safer town and just one final point about data which is just that we do know that nationally the amount of in the last couple of years the amount of faith talent on the roads has ticked back up after going down consistently for about three decades and one of the main reasons for that that people think is that there is an increase in distracted driving and that's the case everywhere so i think the timing of this is also good because it would counteract what is a dangerous and worsening national trend as well thank you thank many cases the routing apps google maps ways excite her and i think to the extent that those apps use a combination of speed limits and user data to determine ro finding is that the roads coming off a route to coming down through belmont center unconquered brighton school st and the smaller residential streets that connect are getting a lot of congestion and speed when it's not as congested to the extent that we lower the speed limit hopefully it may deter some of those people that are cutting through the town from speeding on our roads because they're hurrying to work and congesting the roads i know myself i walk three small children back and forth to burbank school on school street and i've got to hang on to them really tight because i'm terrified if they get close to the road people are constantly speeding on school but it's not only school street it's all those streets mentioned the ones connecting them so this may help to actually reduce some of that cut through congestion which which would be nice thank you yes or you are next time remember precinct three i'm a cyclist i ride on the roads every day on my way to work from work i support increased signage a support increased traffic calming measures but i rise in opposition to this measure because it is aspirational it's not backed by the data it's not backed by fifty years of of traffic studies the industry standard as you well knows that eighty fifth percentile rules the prevailing speak and study after study has shown that that is the safest  to set and study after study has shown that setting the the speed limit below the sixty fifth percentile makes the words less safe because the fact is b does not kill speed difference kills and when you set the speed artificially low what you do is created by model speed distribution of people trying to obey the law and people trying to obey common sense and what you wind up with is moving vehicles in close proximity of each other travelling at different speeds and i'm going to be on the side of the road when there are swerving to avoid each other so i urge that this measure  if you look at this from a driver's perspective it does seem very micromanaging and i would be concerned about my insurance but i'm coming to you as a pedestrian as a mom of a four year old a seven year old me walk every single day multiple times a day through belmont and we love the b ability to do so but it is scary and when you walk down the street where there are cars driving over thirty miles an hour forty miles an hour it's challenging and you holding on to the hands of the kids definitely i agree that more and foresman is necessary and i would really encourage that to be taking place as well but when you think about five miles an hour and i'm thinking about crossing the street the statistic that you mentioned that eleven feet difference in reaction time why did my try there that they be going at twenty five miles an hour versus thirty miles an hour if you're crossing the street and they happen to be breaking really hard close to us and that's a scientific fact you may not have data right in belmont of rather five miles of five miles an hour is going to make a difference in fender benders but the scientific fact of reaction time and for a pedestrian that is huge and for stand up honestly here and speak against this because it just comes across as you're not sensitive to pedestrian safety driver safety residency but unlike myron my concern about this article is the one size fits all for all roadways i think a twenty five mile an hour speed limit makes a lot of sense for what people might call side streets or feeder roads are not heavily traveled but i think very odd the major arterial thoroughfares in our community people as rachel has said and as way said they're just going to say that that's not a practical speed limit and you're going to have people trying to decide how much above that they're able to go without risking a ticket and you're going to have less uniformity and more problems what i would encourage since we have lived with the current speed limits for decades is i would encourage people to vote no now and have our town officials go back and think about twenty five mile an hour except for an include a number of the major arterial thoroughfares where twenty five mile an hour speed limits if people follow them really will be an their f a q on this issue actually recommends that municipalities adopted town wide or citywide primarily for the reason that you suggest that we shouldn't which is uniformity as a motorist it in the interest of get a consistent message across to a motorist it's a lot easier to put a sign at the end comes to the town saying that every road is twenty five miles an hour instead of having to put signs up cherry picking roads in certain areas so i guess there's a certain expediency to wanting to adopt this town wide and then also for the reasons that we've already spoken about the benefits we feel that there's a benefit there is maybe different benefits on different types of roads but we feel like every road would benefit in some your good evening mr moderator michele banker precinct two lives at the intersection of radcliffe and scott and it's interesting washing cars drive down radclif road my motto has always been oh my house is the last house on scott road and if you make if you don't make the turn you'll go into my dining room that's been for forty odd years my comment though to the police department we have high school in terms who could probably go through those x number of years four hundred or so inciden crashes whatever you want to call them do the bean counting of where the accidents occurred and the season of the year the ice times of high schoolers do work for the town in town hall and they probably could be do a wonderful service for the town if three or four of them over the course of the summer could go through all of those the police law that the town paper  notes when all of these different incidents occurs so the information is there don't have to part you know get an i t person the other thing is i'm to as other people have i'm conflicted there's a part of us which is human nature and the other part is just and what you can get away with i do understand you know how people you know how we are  we're town that's really been the intersection of high road i speed roads and you know smalls so people are going to have to vote as they see  kristol precinct want to move the question has moved the question to terminate debate there is no debate on this all those in favor please say aye requires two thirds of those oppose no the motion carries we will now vote and not this we will do electronically we will now vote on article three if you support the motion vote yes number one if you oppose voting is obviously open to be clear your name changes color when your vote is recorded right voting is closed glenn do you want to we need we need to reach we need to reset so we'll vote in one moment again please let's try and i was doing let's try a voice vote them a delay general by law michael chess and precinct for an alternate member of the stork district commission will read the motions and then loren meyer co chair of the commission will set forth under article four of the warrant for the town meeting thank you now ms meyer for the presentation while she's coming forward i want to remind town meeting members that under our bylaws anyone with a financial interest in any matter how obvious it is for the include homes covered under this i'm by law proposal needs to disclose that publicly thank you it's m may remember the tragic loss of the waverly congregational church built in eight hundred seventy when this important civic building in waverly square was destroyed along with several other historic buildings and belmont residents came together to create a demolition delay by law the original bylaw was co sponsored by the historic district commission and the planning board and these proposed amendments to continue the bylaw we are discussing today have been developed collaboratively with the planning board and the review committee clearly belmont values its community character and town meeting has consistently shown that you support efforts to retain the quality of our built environment some of these initiatives are preservation directly benefits belmont research shows that older buildings appreciate at a faster rate they do construction adjacent properties benefit from proximity to historic buildings and most importantly our town character and local identity is preserved the demolition delay by law provides a tool to protect historically significant buildings that reflect the architectural cultural or social history of the town and was approved by town meeting in tw the twenty thirteen by law had a three year sunset provision and town meeting approved a one year extension to allow the commission to complete a historic research survey for the town we must now renew the byelaw experience over the past three and a half years plus our recently consist completed survey informed of these proposed amendments the office of community development also undertook significant research into the work of other comparable communities in this regard and these also informed our recommendation the bylaw consists of two separate elegance will which we'll discuss separately first about the by law itself a few important aspects are that it only applies to a select list of buildings second it allows for an appeal if an owner believes that his or her property should not be on the list it includes provisions for emergency demolition due to health and safety and the delay period can be shortened or waived by the commission there has been considerable come confusion about what this bylaws does and does not do so let me help clarify that here's a few things the bylaws does not do it does not affect improvement owners may want to break to their historic building it does not have the same restrictions as a local historic district such as put the present street district it does not automatically lead to a local historic district it does not allow properties to be added to the list without the approval  town meeting and it unfortunately ultimately does not prohibit demolition it simply temporarily pass the demolition process to allow for consideration of alternative solution proposed amendments include some that are both substantive and non content related so a few things that are not content related that are in the changes  include standardized formatting that basically copy editing to make sure that the by law is consistent with the other bylaws in town the sunset provision is retained in this case it's extended to five years the definition for the word demolish has been added and the severability clause has been deleted consistent again with other bylaw there are however a few content related changes the first one is an exclusion section this is been added for clarification to really help  fine what substantial demolition really means by specifically excluding renovation activities even if that includes removal of features or architectural elements in other words this is not an architectural review by  similar to the way buildings permits are handled if a property goes through the demolition delay process but no action is taken within a six month period the building remains on the list this prevents a rush of applications as a way of removing buildings from the list even if there are no plans for demolition the length of the delay period is standardized now for all buildings whereas previously the date delay period was either six or twelve months depending on the use and this creates in our view a fairer process the masses storable commission and numerous other communities including many communities that we reached out to have confirmed that a longer delay period is simply more effective furthermore belmont's delay period is a little different than in other communities it starts the day the application is filed not after the building has been determined preferably preserved the twelve month delay period is needed to provide sufficient time for dialogue with the property owner or potential buyer regarding to talk a little bit about the list in belmont demolition delay only applies to us to specific properties rather than broad categories of properties many communities applied demolition delay to all buildings built before a specific period wellesley for example just passed a law twelve months all buildings built before nine hundred fifty but our solution to have a discre says set of lips a list of discreet properties makes it clear and unambiguous about which properties are affected it streamlines the process and helps to ensure that the applies only to properties that represent the most exciting significant examples of historically important building the original list was based on an inventory completed in completed between one nine hundred seventy nine and one thousand nine hundred two in twenty thirteen town meeting approved a new historic resource survey in part to inform demolition delay this survey addressed areas of the town that were previously surveyed as well as under represented well under represented building types and provided data and information on import important historic resources that are in interpol to belmont's identity the survey was completed by the town's preservation consultant lisa ma sofie who has outstanding qualifications over thirty years of experience and has completed numerous town surveys for nearby com including lexington finished we considered over six hundred properties in belmont and ultimately prepared two hundred new inventory forms to follow the massachusetts historical in holes in the inventory some of the old forms that were determined to be adequate were not update the original list that accompanied the twenty thirteen by law had one hundred and forty nine properties of those three were removed from the list due to fire demolition or physical change that triggered demolition to lay once our consultant completed the survey project thirty four percent more properties were removed from the list because of lack of integrity or simply because they weren't as significant as others seventy one new properties were added from the new survey bringing the new total to one hundred eighty two now we've gotten several questions about garages and ancillary structures and i  just answer that question two of the one hundred eighty two properties are for ancillary structures only one barn and a green house there are nine other properties on the list that ha significant barns carriage houses or studios that are individually significant the rest the majority of the small one and two car garages are not individually significant and therefore not subject to demolition the process has not changed from the original bylaw and this chart shows the delay process of up to twelve months following the the filing of a demolition permit once  application is filed the building to division notifies the commission the commission then holds a public hearing to determine if the building is preferably preserved if it is not preferably preserved th in with the hope that the owner or buyer will engage in a discussion about alternatives there is the opportunity as the have the commission did do on one of the two properties that came before us to waive or significantly shorten the delay if the owner has shown due diligence as town meeting members you have the opportunity to play a role in shaping belmont's future with the hope that we can save some of our most important buildings this does not present an und hardship it does not place a financial burden and in fact research by numerous agencies and institutions across the country have documented the financial benefit to a community that values and preserves its history in fact nothing in this by law prevents a property owner from initiating the demolition process in fan in advance of putting a property on the market the supreme court has ruled on this issue confirming a community is right to protect historic resources because it has a demonst public benefit and we understand that property owners invest a labor of love and considerable financial resources in the care of older buildings this bylaw will not affect your ability to do so but it does ask that you consider other options if you want to destroy a piece of film once history then the bylaws review committee mr h content in collaboration with the other bodies we normally take a break at nine it's about almost five of nine so why don't we take a quick break and why we have to reset the