i'd like to call the special town meeting of february twenty two two thousand and sixteen for the town of belmont to order let's begin as we always do by standing for the pledge of allegiance  thank you how a few preliminaries the town meeting members should be in these two sections the main center and my right and these are for staff and town administrator now an accountant and department heads down council george hall warrant committee capital budget committee permanent building committee the superintendent of schools and school committee the board of health and kevin mahoney who was e assistant superintendent of finance for the minuteman school are there any other requests for admission to the floor and i haven't mentioned seeing none we'll move on at this point i would like you to check your devices and see to make sure they're working so just press either yes or no we're not voting on anything but we want to just make sure that they're all working and if somebody has a problem please raise your hand and we'll that's posed to light up at this point it's just to have your name appear here that you've signed in so to speak bill one more time to do it one more time right oh slow down ok let me review a few of the rules just highlight first the limits on speaking is five minutes though we have and if the point has been made previously they can obviously just add their voice to that point without necessarily elaborating so please try to do that any case limit to five minutes michael pursuant to the warrant for the special town meeting to be held february eight thousand and sixteen i l n o'brian cushman found clerk who here by certified that i gave notice of said meeting by posting in  tested copy of the warrant on the town courts official bulletin board in the town hall and at least five other places fourteen days before the date of this meeting in accordance with chapter thirty nine section ten of the general laws and section thirty one one zero eight of the general bylaws of the town of belmont furthermore i do hereby certify that i gave notice of the special town meeting of february eighth two thousand and sixteen by causing a copy of the warrant to be sent to all town meeting members at least fourteen days before the date of this meeting and by causing copies of the warrant to be made available at the public library and to the town clerk's office all in accordance with section three zero dash one one zero b of the general bylaws noun at belmont and the representative noun meeting acts of one nine hundred twenty six is amended further i ellen o'brien cushman town clerk who here by certify that i gave notice of the recess of the special town meeting session of february eighth two thousand and sixteen due to a snow event and the continuation to february two thousand and two two thousand and sixteen as declared by the moderator in accordance with the general laws chapters thirty nine section and a by posting in attested copy of the notice on the town clerk's official bulletin board in the town hall and at least five other places in town giving notice that the special town meeting had not been recessed due to the snow event and had been continued to meet again monday february twenty eighth two thousand and sixteen at the cherry middle school auditorium at seven pm briefly stating the business to be acted upon all in accordance with the representative town meeting acts of one nine hundred twenty it is with great sadness that i announce the passing of richard dick betts who died on january thirty two thousand and sixteen at the age of eighty eight years i just want to highlight a few facts about dick on april eight nineteen forty three when he was employed at the belmont municipal like department enlisted in the us navy after graduating from belmont high school in one nine hundred forty five in april of  forty six dick returned to serve belmont he was hired as a student engineer in the town engineering department in one nine hundred seventy three dick was promoted to the position of town engineer he served the town faithfully in that position until his retirement on february twenty's february twenty nine hundred eighty seven but retirement did not and dick service to the town dick was elected as a town meeting member for precinct seven serving for twenty six years until two thousand and thirteen dick also served on the cable access committee the metropolitan state hospital taskforce the fire station consolidation committee division twenty one committee and the belmont sesquicentennial celebration committee he was a long time member of the belmont historical society and was named town historian in all dick served for about seventy of his eighty eight years and he was a world war two veteran he had previously received two proclamations at town meeting in  thank you thank you mr baghdadi dick was a belmont icon and we look forward to the annual town meeting and the presentation of the proclamation to his family will now turn to a more pleasant task mr baghdadi ok thank you mr moderator and now a a happier event  performed an outstanding feat of physical and mental and durrance to illustrate what i mean i'm going to highlight if you facts about becca's accomplishment and becca stan is sitting right here why don't you stand so everyone can stare please hold your applause ok just just to highlight a few facts about that because accomplishment ok becker ran seven marathons in seven consecutive days that is more than one hundred eighty miles in just seven days the marathons were in seven different continents imagine the effects of sleeping each night on an airplane changes in time zones and jet lag each marathon was run in a dramatically different and challenging environment for example it was hot and humid in sydney where it is the summer season sydney australia but the ant arctic marathon was run in freezing winter conditions at temperatures approaching ten degrees below zero fahrenheit the miami marathon was at sea level but the chilly marathon was run at a level of fourteen thousand six hundred eighty two feet above sea level it becomes much more difficult to breathe and for the body to absorb oxygen at that at at that altitude just to run a marathon and finish under such grueling conditions is remarkable but beca finished first in the women's division in all seven races and third overall backa you are a truly outstanding athlete and an inspiration we in your hometown of belmont are so proud of you it is my  belmont community as a resident graduate of the local schools and a manager of local businesses where as between january twenty third two thousand and sixteen and january thirty two thousand and sixteen becca successfully completed the world marathon challenge a grueling challenge that includes seven marathons on seven different continents over a period of just seven days where as becca is the first woman from the united states of america to successfully complete the world marathon challenge she did so in record time and placed first among all the women competing with a total time of twenty seven hours twenty six minutes and fifteen seconds whereas this accomplishment has been a source of pride for the town of belmont its residents and other members of our community many of whom have known and supported baca for years and where as that because accomplishments took her to antartica chile florida spain morocco to buy and australia and many in the belmont community had to cheer back and watch her from afar and where as many in the belmont community have not yet had the chance to personally congratulate back on her outstanding accomplishment as a result there is a welcoming home ceremony or there was a welcoming home ceremony on thursday february fourth two thousand and sixteen now therefore be it resolved that the board of selectmen of the town of belmont joins with the town in paying tribute to this outstanding achievement and here by proclaims thursday february fourth two thousand and sixteen as backup easy day you have a day after you becca you have demonstrated a high standard of commitment and dedication which may serve as an inspiration to the residents of the town of thank you so much just it's an honor to be here and the support and encouragement from the tannenbaum has just been amazing so i'm so fortunate in so grateful for your help and everything that you've done for me and i just absolutely could not have done this without your h thank you very much this from on we had a problem with one person's device they're just going to reload the list if anybody else had any problem expected to hear from you but now would be your time raise your hand if you had a problem mario you having a problem ok you need to calm down because we need to so let's remember our current procedure is if you have a problem with your device you need to raise your hand call your attention to it immediately and mike will stop on down you have to come down because the fastest way for us to do it is to replace it reload the list of participants so it only takes about sixty seconds once you go to the right place if you sit in your seat your device will not replace we do test these devices three times before each town meetings of the scene there always are one or two issues thank you mr moderator sammy baghdad chairman of the board of selectmen move that the town meeting here the motions in the following order one three and to turn the reports of the select men and other town officers departments and committees the accepted all those in favor please say i was opposed no but doctored unanimously now want to turn under article one we have one report from the glorious lap chair of the school committee in john fail in the superintendent of schools so he joined us into the microphone and  mr moderator laurie slab chair of the school committee the superintendent and i would like to give a brief report this evening and the work underway by the school department and the school committee to address the space challenges that confront the district as you can see in  behind me or soon to be behind me in roma continues its rise this slide shows the enroll meant k twelve and is similar to the one included in the school's budget presentation last spring as you may remember we use october one numbers since these are the data that are submitted to the state each year and we want to keep everything consistent apples to apples if you will we've added the october one two thousand and fifteen enroll meant a four thousand three hundred three students to this chart which is an increase of eighty one students over october first two thousand and fourteen and as you can see the two thousand one thousand projection of four thousand seven hundred five students still looks reasonable especially considering it will also include students coming from the new developments in the graph we also included the number four thousand three hundred eighty seven which is a snapshot of the enrollment number as a feb first two thousand and sixteen as a superintendent can attest these numbers seem to move up and down mostly up i should say weekly and sometimes daily the next slide will illustrate how even though the most dramatic increases have occurred over recent years the upward trend dates back to about one thousand nine hundred ninety and this slide shows the number of students in grade one in grade eight and in grade twelve and i'd like to thank the space taskforce for compiling these data the school department and school committee have been confronting this challenge for many years and a few highlights are scheduled are listed on the slide behind me in two thousand and thirteen superintendent kingston as we like to call him our favorite semipermanent interim superintendent formed a class size group to examine how rising in ro impacted class sizes across the district the following year superintendent kingston commissioned eight modeling groups to explore pressures on the district and the enrollment modeling group as one of these this bottling group report spread to rec lee into the work of the financial task force and ultimately led to the of successful override vote well these efforts primarily address the pressures on the operating budget we also have to tackle pressures and physical space thus far we've been able to create additional space to accommodate new classrooms but no they were approaching the limits of our existing buildings this fall superintendent feel informed a space task force to come up with recommendations to us dress the space challenges in coming years superintendent f talk a little bit more about the work done before the start of the current school year to create new space as well as the space taskforce recommendation affects the belmont public schools when we worked with a group last year to bring up the short term challenges in the long term challenges of enrollment we decided for the year that we are in it we were able to create more space within the footprint of several of our buildings but also needed to push out behind the high school so as you can see in the slide behind me but the year that we're in right now we are now operating in three modular classrooms behind the high school we also took over part of the library here t move in a computer lab and create a classroom for grade five students in that computer lab and we also made a classroom at the butler school to receive the new grade one court class that was brought into the district to share this brought us five additional classroom spaces to the district as we formed the space taskforce this year we looked at long term long term and short term goals but task force was made up of a group of principals principal richards of the high school ellen schreiber a community member and two school committee members tonka put on susan burgess cox when we looked at the short term needs of the district we looked internally in the footprint and also extremely to see if we could find more space the result in the recommendation of the task force was to seek additional space in the modular classrooms behind the high school that are already existing look to procure modular space outside the general and increase the footprint of the burbank school into the library and utilize space there as well so we would like to come back to town meeting in may and we're giving you a preview tonight with more detail around the cost and the data around the needs of the belmont public schools as  relates to space thank you thank you thank you mr failing are going to have to slap will read the motion and then we'll have a brief presentation and the votes from the various bodies and then we will turn to this cali's amendment and discuss the amendment and then come back to the main motion a slap share of the school committee mood that the town vote to establish in belmont high school building committee for the purpose of renovation and or new construction of the high school and to authorize the moderator to appoint a high school building committee to oversee the feasibility is his ability study design instruction and perform other required activities of said project in accordance with the massachusetts school building authority m s p a process let me get the votes as a school committee have a vote miss la recommends favorable action thank you miss lab as you all know at the end of january the m s p a board voted to approve belmont's statement of interest to renovate the high school and voted to move belmont into the first phase of the m a building process or absolutely thrilled about this development this slide behind me shows the steps included in the m s p a building process we wanted to share with you tonight to point out the belmont is at the very start of a very long process we are now in the eligibility period which is the blue box over to my left and they will be several points along the way where the m s b a bust vote to move the project forward to make sure the belmont follows the proper steps in the proper order within proper time frames and of course there are also be votes of the belmont town meeting and all belmont residents required for the project to proceed the next slide shows the steps involved in this first eligibility period and their due date as you'll see the school building committee must be in place by april nineteenth two thousand and sixteen so it's very convenient that we have the special town meeting tonight the next step that that will involve town meeting is the local vote funding authorization also underlined closer to the bottom and that will be part of the spring town meeting in a few months all that i wanted to say we hope that you will vote for this or that this project and finally get moving tha tammy member from precinct to move to amend the maine motion by adding the word following after the word process including a new evaluation of psych indecisions cars prior use of property as a dump site guidance in this project this is a view of the whole high school complex thanks to the library they provide this i came to belmont in  connor of school and go out and played on the high school play feels the town develop the playfields in the one nine hundred forty s when they built the gym in the cafeteria to the old school which was on school street and orchard street there was a road next to the feel that went to the dump where they deposited the trees s pets a few years ago and he confirmed the remainder of the land east of the field house was the landfill when they closed it in the one nine hundred sixty s it was kept with clay incinerator was built and in the has stroke room of the belmont library where newspapers nine hundred sixty eight refer to the town dump as an eyesore but over the years some of my friends who worked in the school had health issues toxic waste was not in our vocabulary in the early seventy's so when the school committee began talks about rebuilding or building the school i thought i should raise the question i've learned a lot in my findings that many environmental safeguards now when a structure is built by the way there was no manner of a dump in one moment is to fail i'm going to go before you and david alpert come let me take at this point the votes of the various bodies and that i will recognize each of you mr baghdadi or the selectmen the board of selectmen union unanimously recommends unfavorable action on this amendment but let me clarify we are recommending unfavorable action only because of its form it does not we don't believe it belongs in this motion however the board of selectmen is committed to doing the proper environmental testing to make sure that that site is safe for our children i'd like george  town attorney to comment further on that mr hall a is the vehicle by which state aid is provided to school building projects and it's a very prescribe process and it's on a very tight schedule normally when you town wouldn't create a building committee until the point where it was actually funding the project but the m s p is requiring the project team be in place before the big game will town meeting is going to be held so that's why we're voting it now i believe some of the these abilities study will require some a valuation of the soil conditions and suitability of the site but to the extent that this is adding a mandate to this new school building committee that isn't consistent with the m is guidelines or the feasibility study you may be charging them with something they then don't have the time or the resources to carry out so my recommendation to the administration is if  funding is going to be required do something more than would be done in the normal course that's something that really ought to be taken up and when the town votes to fund the project and it may be something you assigned to this committee or it may be i think the perspective of those saying yes was that it was a largely innocuous amendment that it was that the work would be done anyway to look into this and for those that i think were abstaining or saying no they felt as though there were some process concerns that recommended unfavorable action on this amendment by the following vote five members recommending unfavorable action one member recommending favorable action and one member abstaining our thought process and the school committee voted with unfavorable action to abstentions for many of the exact same reasons have been voiced here i'd like to say that the school committee is fully in support of the spirit of the skellies amendment and we certainly view the health and safety of the students and staff as a top priority and we deem proper testing essential to the process thank you now we'll turn to mr failon and mr alberto i don't know who would like to go first mr moderator david alpert tommy member precinct six and chair of the belmont board of health board of health actually didn't take a vote or a position on this for the simple fact that your board of health is an oversight regulatory and enforcement agency we're actually not the ones that would instigate looking at the land that's what facilities department school department would be doing we do review the reports if something is found agree just we are the ones that ensures that it's taken care of appropriately but it would not be the board of health that would instigate this we did meet with miss scally and she was very appropriate as far as bringing her concerns and we commend her as a board for bringing the attention to this but we also do believe that because it's required to do these feasibility studies before any work can be done that we do feel it's redundant aside from what mr hall said as far as possibly slowing up the process so again we would be overseeing the results but we are not the good evening as a superintendent i would echo the words of chairman slap that we are first and foremost making sure that this process ensures a safe school environment for our staff and our children in our community i did meet with  business partners arm in our architects on in the fall of next year so i to support and spirit misc alys hope that we are recognizing the health and safety issues here as we move forward with this process thank you is there discussion on a scale as amendment with connection of some building project i don't know whether any testing was done maybe that the issue became moot because whatever one was under consideration not  her than with but it may be that the unity development has some records on what was considered what was known at that time i asked do you know whether the community development  senior center site committee that was formed back then with mr monaghan was chair of the select and i believe and we were looking at the possibility of putting it up the softball fields what we actually did look at was not the land but the water in the and the water was determined to be a situation but you definitely don't want to eat the fish we still stand by that but there was nothing reaching into the ground but what the testing that the health department did and again we are reactionary is that we ordered this testing without this amendment this study is going to be done it's perfectly clear so this is an unnecessary and minute but i'm going to vote for it and i have a body else had a vote because often times perception of a sound bites is more important than the truth and i don't want to read a headline that says belmont town meeting about to refuse to study health concerns for a new side of the high school although that might help the enrollment problem that we've heard about no results into the middle of it doesn't seem the right way to go back it's amazing to me that we're having this discussion and no one has walked about the what the project documents could find in a documentation and are you confident that you were able to find it in the complete dock existing documentation of the project that if there's not some part of it might be in the library or someplace in the town clerk's office or between going clancy and gerry boyle we've looked at all the places where in the schools looked at all the places we suspect the records would have been kept and we are doing some further department of environment environmental protection you can actually download every bite that is reported to them and that they investigate i don't know in what year that started but i know that there are records there going back two decades for example the former hockey oil site where the old well banker is now there are there are records of  drilling and soil sampling and water sampling on that but i think this is another potential source of information or any environmental work it's been done in the high school campus but to be investigated before we message will not get lost in you know the possibility of an oversight we don't need any mistakes of oversight i could list be here for an hour and less back with things that i've lived through that people would  chair of the board of selectmen i have had two boys graduate from that school i graduated i have a daughter who will be there next year and i have a seven year old son  be at the new school i more than anyone want to make sure that that site is safe for staff and for children the problem is that m s p a has requested an article that establishes belmont high school building committee and our concern is that when you start tinkering with the language and adding other conditions it might somehow confuse the m s b a process i will tell you that the time to have a proposal for some and you know and flush out more details is when we come to you in the spring in the spring and request an appropriation for the belmont high school building committee that is being formed now and at that time you know i will tell you the board of selectmen voted that they are fully committed to making sure that that site is safe and when we come to you for an appropriation for funding to fund the activities of the my question i have a couple of questions one is what is known if anything about the nature of the waste that was used in that landfill what was what was disposed there what kinds of contaminants if if any are no and we're talking about my second question is i'm hoping someone can briefly describe it i know these are complicated issues it's actually close to my own personal professional area of expertise what is the usual set of procedures that is undertaken for a say to evaluate valuation with records refrigerators stalls conditions things like that were buried it was a pit and they kept filling it up and that was waste disposal was trash and what they did you get remove it was burn it and there were at least two fires a week and if the wind blew the right way it was going over to present one and if it went the other way it went to present day but to answer the second question we asked jerry so when we begin this process with the m s p a part of the analysis is to take a look at alternatives whether it should be the renovation of the entire building should it be renovation plus a new build it to be a new build all together so that is part of the process that we will go through the end with the m s p a clearly once we get into that conversation about the alternatives there will be a phase one initial site investigation that the project will take place and basically that will be done by a licensed site professional and then pending the results of that phase one investigation basically the further evaluation and more detail the evaluation may take place so clearly the process will yield alternatives it will require testing and then to pay paul what our national testing reveals it may require more comprehensive testing or any more specific will be a phase one study which may require more in depth study after the results come back i presume there's some information online somewhere i can look at more details it's not here tonight miscarried did you want to showed a variance of between fifty and ninety two feet through wet clay to reach the bottom but the buildings will be over an average depth of sixty five feet as dick and it was covered with clay and which leads to another question how are you going to differentiate between some of the toxic waste from cambridge plating because that's been an ongoing issue for many years and then the next question is why has it taken so long look into this when there have been a lot of ansar clusters in the area and many residents for many years fought very hard to look into this and pretty much got shut down and eventually got tired the other questions or somebody could answer any of the other questions this point are we going to work with cambridge or how are you going to decide though again based upon what the results of that phase one testing yield to what other that stain if needed is required but again we're prohibited to only do testing on our property right while he was playing it was out of that building i sent it into the newspaper it made it to the front page that was the only thing i saw of it so i'm sure our own property i'm sure there is stuff coming from i'm a close and waste products landing on that softball field if it's coming out it's green smoke or other kinds of eminent as well as the neighborhoods nearby have  recently when we were looking to some might remember we were looking at the substation project that is now at twenty feet and just rode we were looking we were in negotiations on that particular site and we knew and understood at that point in time that we need to do borings and remediation now is there any plan at this point in time to require came explaining it was an implant in front of us but is it something that this board should consider perhaps as we move forward with this building project i think it absolutely is something we would sooner because we have an opportunity ladies and gentleman at this point in time as we're we doing this forty five year old high school to see if there's any possibility that we can consider acquire early in this contiguous to it i think until that point in time were to occur if in fact we were to decide to move for we can't do anything about it but here the resident concerns i've talked to some of the residents can concerns that in that neighborhood i think they'd love to see is take it out other than perhaps better skate which is a great spot to bring my dog there but i think it's something that we're aware of and you know perhaps as we move through this process of the next few years up to consider as to whether or not we want to expand our footprint there as as you can see from the roman presentation we're time meeting member precinct three i may have missed something first time but in order to avoid this entire discussion being out of order i second the motion man just remember and member of the capital budget committee i think i will iterate what's already been sad is that the purpose of this town meeting purpose of this article is lucidly to a point building i agree in principle and  however i don't think that this is the time or the place to build in committee what they need to do these things will happen they will occur adding this amendment everybody else's and other people have  input on that how does that work yes thank you kevin let me give a brief overview of the formation of building committees here the appointment power has always been with the moderator but i think previous moderators certainly myself in the process of doing this consult widely we've already had i have already had two meetings with the air the board  the town administrator chair of the school committee the superintendent of schools the chair of the permanent building committee so i'm getting input from the major entities that are involved in this  in terms of the question of the kind of people the m s b as a as a grid and they make suggestions about who should be on the committee  they talk to them they say these are suggestions and outline but same time every town has considerable flexibility they recommend that the chair of the board of selectmen be a member or his or her design on construction traditionally the permanent building committee which in many communities is the building committee for projects the traditionally here in belmont the permanent building committee has had three members of the building committee for school committee of scrutiny for school buildings so i intend to follow that and then obviously we want instruction experience educators  people who have some and then parents may be parents of a parent of students in the high school today and then those who are maybe in the elementary school and will be the users this is this committee i mean they'll be various degrees of intensity this committee will be working for ten years this is a ten year project and so clearly what i'm looking for and we're all looking for in  t is people who really can put in that work because when you have a whatever the number is one hundred million dollar investment the largest project in the history of this town we want to do it right  so we need people who and really contribute to it and have some degree of expertise also one other slot if you will that we've traditionally had is a neighbor of the in this case perhaps the underwood trowbridge area of the town a lawyer financial person so we have a expertise combine with the leaders in the town as well so it's a diverse group basically leave it up to us so that's the nature of the of the process presuming i was going to do this after we approved it but i will since you asked a question kevin sa now i would entertain a number of people have already reached out to me and i would entertain other individuals themselves or people who have ideas of other individuals they don't want to do the work permit building committee do this within the next three weeks so i would ask anybody who was in arrest and selzer as any ideas to please send me the expression of interest by the end of this week and i've already begun that process and talking to people who have put their names in the hopper but i view this as yes i'm the appointing authority but i view this as a my responsibility is to try to put together with the town leaders and others the best possible committee on behalf of the town but thank you for asking that other elements provisions of section seven of the existing agreement with respect to the establishment of a technical vocational regional school district but the minuteman regional vocational school district to accept the amendments to set agreement which had been initiated and approved by a vote of the regional school a selectman university recommends favorable action and the warrant committee the work many recommends favorable action by a vote of eleven to three and the capital budget committee capital budget committee recommends and david kill for working with me and together with me collab really over the past several months if not years i think i started to work on minuteman back when i first got on the board or perhaps even before then it was a minute mean high school working group that isn't that correct and so we've been dealing with these issues for quite some time to a lady and gentleman some of you may remember some of the issues others may be new to town meeting but i want to thank those core group of individuals that have guided me and counseled me as i've been meeting with other members of boards of selectmen from advance if we don't explain as clearly as we should so you can make an informed decision as to how we move forward i strongly support this revised regional agreement i've been working on for quite some time with other member boards of s members from the other fifteen communities that are part of this district so i think it's the way forward it's a positive way forward it changes this district in a positive way change the governance and i'll go through all of that as we i think a lot of what we'll present make our presentation but my sense is that some of the nuanced issues some of the complexity about what we're talking about tonight hopefully will come out in questions that all of you will ask of us so i do begin in just a brief history of the minutemen regional vocational school district some of you may know this it was formed in one thousand nine hundred seventy and it was formed in order to provide vocational education to our kids before that i think we had shop at the high school and i remember being in high school and having i mean had shot those of the sixteen towns that are part of the district during this time the high school was located in lexington looking election was constructed so right about the same time a new high school was in construction as well we've signed this region agreement henry hall for moderator i did sign on behalf of this community at the point time that the school district was formed it was close to twelve hundred students that were enrolled from the member towns incredible to think about that at that point in time so clearly in the facility that is constructed for twelve hundred students hundred students that in fact occupy i have no information as to whether in fact at the time the district turned away students but it was clearly full record you as a group but the democratic critics have changed lady and gentleman in they've changed dramatically since that point in time that we formed this district so that today we presently have six hundred thirty five students are unrolled and the number from our district member towns is approximately three hundred eighty four students so that is the debatable point here no longer serves the district in the sense that only three hundred eighty four students undergraduate students attend from the member towns and the rest of the students are from the nonmember times and that has been the issue all along you've heard me discuss here at time meaning that both up that operation the capital perspective the schools too big to serve the current district we only send six three hundred eighty four students and that's been the rub is as well because the nonmember towns as we'll start to explain here on the next slide  the nonmember town students have historically only paid in operating fee and the operating fee that they pay is less than we as a member town pay and it's determined by the partment of elementary and secondary education  dessie someone asked us to clearly define that was a point that was made i think a question was asked by jennifer paige at the precinct means that jennifer we get that right out of the box as department of elementary incest the canary object nation they're the ones that are intimately involved in this and they're the ones that have to approve this agreement once it's if in fact it is approved by all sixteen member towns as a roman changed over the years the original agreement structure in provisions no one that made sense or the member towns i think it's clear to in this way but here's how it works today to reach an agreement as a as it is today the voting rights one town one vote so if you're a town like american that sends one third of the students there you only get one vote ret like belmont were we've been around the third or fourth highest submitter anywhere from twenty five to thirty five students historically at least in the current years we still get one vote though over bless them gets one vote they sent two kids so perhaps there's some inequity as relates to that it's absolutely virtually impossible to withdraw from the district you need a unanimous consent of all member towns some has referred to this as hotel california it absolutely is you cannot get out absolutely because it's impossible to get unanimity in terms of us we're drawing and here is for me has always been a point of contention a member towns of subsidizing nonmember a town in rome and so the water tons of the world are gracious neighbor all thin metroid in their other number town send their students there and we're subsidizing them we're subsidizing them from an operating perspective and we're clearly subsidizing them from a cap of perspective because they do not pay any capital fee ok overall minimum in a roman as i've described is declining so where it where that lead us i mean this is somewhat intertwined because as we've been discussing for a number of years and all talk about the initial term to revise the agreement no different than our high school high school the minimum high school clearly needs to be renovated it really needs to be renovated it doesn't accommodate some of the programs that are in place there and if you've ever taken a site visit there and i have been there a number of times it's in need of repair it's the same age over high school and our high school is in need of repair so for years we've been talking about a new building project contention along with that tangentially along with that the regional agreement we've been looking to revise it because as i mentioned it served its purpose in one nine hundred seventy i believe it doesn't serve its purpose today it's dysfunctional so in two thousand and ten when i first got on the board of selectmen task force was comprised of non school committee representatives there were some members of finance committees from arlington and other communities were on a regional agreement the first one to revise regional agreement taskforce to come up with a regional agreement that we could all agree to now understand as well that norm not only do you need unanimity to withdraw you need unanimity to amend so think about trying to get metastasis was just an academic exercise although i think it led to a second attempt to form a regional agreement taskforce in two thousand and thirteen  mclaughlin was a member of this so called ad hoc working group and also a member of the work committee was our representative to that that taskforce and again i think the region that we've been talking about a revised regional agreement is because we have this building project somewhat looming although it would be nice to have revised regional greenman as a to point out to improve the governance and other matters that we think proportional voting things of that nature that we think are not equitable today is that perhaps they might have been in  fourteen term means you may recall that we did bring it to this body ten towns that approve it one town rejected it and five towns including belmont passed over it and the reason i think at the time we passed over it is that we were still concerned about if we passed over it if we approved it then we might have a smaller district and that we would be on the hook if you will for eight hundred students school at that point time that's now been revised to six hundred twenty eight and so we were recommended time to pass over that a revised regional agreement so in fact as a state it since it had to be unanimous it failed it failed when that one town rejected it i think our vote passover was after the rejection so it was really going to be an academic's exercise ladies and gentlemen as long as one one town votes no it's done it's the same point as well i'm not sure we'll go with this in the debt but on on a building project in the current agreement to move forward to committee began to discuss a plan to approach member towns to approve issue debt for new building projects under the current agreement i think it's fair to say lesion jomon that we're still we were still against it at that point in time simply because we felt the school building was too large all the while this administration of minutemen had been approaching watertown waltham m f and other nonmember towns to doing to district why would they join you're not going to join a district under a new revise under agreed regional agreement that if you were to join you can't get out so none of them really wanted to join whether and perhaps they can move forward under this revised agreement i think there's a higher likelihood that they would i don't know in terms of percentage what that higher likelihood is but clearly under the old agreement and never will and i think there's a higher percentage and a likelihood that they could move forward on the revised agreement the school committee rep and selectman from boxborough insisted that a debt issuance vote was d representative in jack weiss expressing the months point of view to the school committee there in our concerns members of boards of selectmen whom all of the member town started to get together and i attended several meetings  and several meetings in weston and we started to talk about again the regional agreement that's where the focus became put the building project aside for the moment and we started to talk about  belmont stands and tries to solve problems rather than turning our back on them besides the fact that we do have twenty five to thirty students that attend every year how else can we educate them on the chap to seventy four currently we do not have any mechanism today ladies and gentlemen to educate them so and so i would suggest that we need to stay within the district and continue to support minimum in high school and it's programs which are absolutely terrific at actually want  so we worked out a revised region agreement i would say that governments provision which jack will go over which i insisted upon that's in this current agreement let me just step back for a moment are only ten would never have voted for a building project unless they have revised regional commit they feel very strong about proportional voting we benefit incrementally from proportion of those meeting jack will describe how that mechanism how that all works our provision and just think about this for a moment ladies and gentlemen since you need unanimity to approve each of the member town board members of the boards and they were sixteen represented at a point in time expressed their point of view in terms of what they needed within the revised region agreement in order for us as a member of the board of select tons to be assessed not only the operating fee which they are today a capital fee because today they can send their students to minuteman high school in a make high school under the old agreement could in fact move forward maybe get a positive vote on debt issuance that would require all sixteen member towns and the number of towns to continue to send their students to the district without paying the freight on capital i think that is an equitable for us it's like building a house and having people move in don't share and paying the mortgage i absolutely disagree it's a wrap for me and that was a provision that we at it will talk about that momentarily so that is in the agreement there is a mechanism to boat operating capital to join the district and have a vote i believe that's the case and that's why i strongly support moving forward this regional agreement so what you're being asked for tonight lesion jomon and the reason that this is a close call because you can't make this decision in a vacuum you have to understand that what's new mean and will likely come in front of this body sometime in may june is this building project i haven't made my mind up in terms of where i stand i think that the minutemen high school needs to be renovated i think of the number towns were in fact be compelled to pay their fair share of of a capit fee i'll be at a small one a lot lower one that we would pay i would support a new building that is the right thing to do for a kids i think it's the right thing to do for the district but we're asking all of you to consider tonight is this revised regional agreement i think is the right agreement for belmont it creates a functional governance structure within minute me and will stand tall together with perhaps eight or nine or ten towns that will remain in the district some have a wet district they decided to move on to other passions i suppose so i look at this is a reconstitution of the district which is what i think we need a reconstitution with new governance in a way to move forward in a positive  weiss minuteman school committee rep for belmont and a member of town meeting from precinct one thank you for that introduction mark and setting the table a couple of comments and if it wasn't clear from mar presentation want to be really clear that this regional agreement and the history around it as it's probably there for march presentation is in eggs or oblique tied to the building project and the proposed proposed building project but we are not taking a vote tonight on the building project so there will be an opportunity for that we're focusing on the regional agreement what i'm going to try to do in my remarks is really present some of the key changes in this current regional agreement it's not all of the changes but i think it's the highlights if people have questions about other ones we can certainly address those i'm also going to try to share what i think are the benefits and some of the risks of associated with voting yes for the amended agreement embedded in that is my own kind of personal thoughts but i'm going to try to avoid until a later my own personal opinion and try to as best i can lay out for you the universe of arguments i think one could use to support this or not so with that let me start with the changes the first one to the apportionment of operating costs this is a little bit of a simplification but right now operating costs for each year are allocated based on each community's share of in wilmet the prior first so later this spring we're going to bring a fiscal seventeen budget to town meeting or people to vote on our share of the costs associated with that budget are going to be based on what was our in rome and on october first two thousand and fifteen and that's it again a little bit of a simplification the new agreement will base that assessment on a four year rolling average basically what that does is it just smoothes the year to year variation marc mentioned you know that we've historically sent somewhere between twenty five thirty five students while a swing of five students is a very big percentage and it has dramatic impacts on the assessment that's really true for communities who send five kids in total cell for one of the big changes a smoothing out or using a four year average for operating costs the second big change in this was the thing that hung the task force on the rocks back in two thousand and ten was coming up with a formula to apportion capital costs the impact of this is really in the future but right now the regional agreement requires that those capital costs be allocated the exact same way as operating costs are each year you're reassessed based on what your enrollment was the prior year from the get go a big component of the initiative to revise the agreement has been around the issue of changing that capital cost allocation formula a big portion of it if you drop down to the second little bullet or sub bill it will still be enrollment based fifty percent of the assessment will be based on what your four year average in roman r is but there are two new components that were added and i think there was  most member towns not necessarily about the weighting but that these are fair components to include the first is what i would call the cost of membership every community regardless of how many students that community sends has one percent of the total cost now in a district of sixteen towns so sixteen percent of your costs are covered there the other new component is what i would call an ability to pay component it's it takes the wealth in the community measured by both household income and property values and it applies that based on the utilization factor what percentage of your community students use minuteman so it's sort of then and it's a wealth weighted utilization or enrollment if you will so that's the new agreement has a three part formula for allocating capital costs school committee voting as mark said right one town one vote if you're arlington and you send one hundred thirty kids your vote counts the same as if you're a community that sends two or three in my view what that tends to happen is those communities who send two or three students to me there are two factors one is the members of those communities who are willing to invest the time to serve on the school committee tend to be people who are advocates for the school they had a kid who went there or they have some vested interest in promoting minuteman and secondly decisions that are made by minuteman that have a financial impact of almost no impact on their town's overall budget so they tend to just say sure what the heck and consequently towns that have a disproportionate share of the  are of the enrollment bear the brunt of many of those decisions it's not equally weighted the original proposal talked about weighting one hundred percent of the vote based on that four year in and the smaller sending communities which tend to be also the more affluent communities objected vigorously they said hey wait a second we're getting hit on the capital side because now we have this cost of membership and now we have this ability to pay component and at the same time you're absolutely a vis orating our vote on the school committee so the compromise was similar to the compromise that was our united states legislation half of the vote is equal or town so every community is equally weighted half of the vote of each town is weighted by your four year in ro assessment of capital costs mark touched on this right now the regional agreement is absolutely silent as to the ability for a minute man to assess apple cost a nonmember communities that said minuteman really pushed the use that acronym for the department of education really pushed s c to allow it to be able to assess nonmember communities  capital fifty minute man now has that power it's not in the regional agreement but the power requires an affirmative vote by the school committee the school committee has to take action were really wanted it doesn't get us all the way there but it puts in what i would call a rebuttable presumption the presumption is nonmember communities will pay at least what the average of the member towns are paying unless two thirds of the weighted faute vote to say no even under sixteen member school in arlington and belmont probably come pretty close to a third of the way to vote  immunities who really bear the financial print are the ones who are going to now say yea or nay on waiving that fee as opposed to a small member towns who don't have a stake voting to impose it or not assessment for capital costs that the we just talked about under the new agreement under the existing agreement if you join the district day depends on the weighted vote of the school committee but it may be an incentive for non member communities who otherwise might be inclined to not to join the perhaps join have to see how that plays out in time i personally don't think it's a huge incentive but it's an incentive and i think it's a fair incurring debt for staring into the teeth of this new building project right now the process for incurring debt begins with a majority vote of the school committee  weighted right now the regional agreement does not specify how that debt approval happens under state law there are two ways it can happen one is to come each town to come before town meeting like this and have town meeting vote or the debt to be approved a majority of every town meeting us do vote yes or the debt is not approved a second method which i think  was probably put into state law and that's pure conjecture on my part as a failsafe and it's a mechanism that has been used in some regional districts when a large number of communities voted yes and a small number of it is voted no the second district the second option is for the district to have a public election of the voters registered voters in the community and the outcome of that election decides whether or not that debt is approved in that circumstance every town becomes the equivalent of a precinct if you will doesn't matter which town votes yes or no which just an aggregation of the total vote under the revised agreement minuteman is two material changes first it requires a two thirds vote of the school committee before going forward to ask towns for revolt or debt so the bar gets higher within the school committee secondly minuteman is obligated to seek approval for the town meeting process first with all due respect to our democratic voting system i think i has well as many people think that this body has elected representatives will spend time and have an hour's long debate and discussion about issues as opposed to a kind of a slogan or a bumper sticker kind of general election so i think most people think that the best was very clear about the ability for minuteman to cram down towns and towns sovereignty when it comes to debt issuance under the revised agreement if minuteman goes to the public vote and a particular community says no they are residents vote against it if the vote still passes that immunity as an escape clause if they say we are so allergic really opposed to that approval of debt that we would just assume leave the district they can get out of if they take a vote and say they'll leave the district they and their prove they're out if they are some reason because they can't get the approval of the other towns or if they can't get approval from the department of education to leave the district they would be absolved from having to pay that service they don't know in real life how likely that event is but it is a an ability if you really  a particular community as opposed to dead it is a fail safe force an escape clause to prevent your from being crammed down on that  all from the district as mark mentioned right now all sixteen towns have to say yes a withdrawal is considered an amendment to the regional agreement and an amendment requires the affirmative vote of all sixteen communities under the new amended to regional agreement there's two components first as march mark touched on there's seven communities with the exception of sudbury they tend to be smaller to senate communities who have the ability if or are granted the ability if this amended regional agreement is passed to immediately leave the district those towns are taking two votes tonight the first vote is to approve the regional agreement the second vote is to say nay on remaining in the district so that's an immediate provision if we vote yes for this regional agreement we are at and parcel of that vote is the possibility that we will be letting seven towns out immediately if they so choose the second change as it relates to withdraw is going forward right now after the town meeting of belmont has to say yes they want to withdraw and then all fifteen other towns have to agree knowing fall word two third of the withdrawing community two thirds of the town meeting as to say yes they want to leave the district if that happens there's a deemed approval or that which raul unless half of the towns in the district are so opposed to that that they call a special town meeting to vote against that community's withdraw it dramatically changes the dynamic in the ability for a community to say it isn't working for us anymore we want out whether or not it's of value to our community i think is a separate question but it's it's an important provision so what are the impact of these changes on belmont focus on two first is the weighted boat quite frankly belmont's largely impacted by the change from the existing system to the new system as an existing if sixteen communities were to remain our one sixteenth of a vote is worth about six and a quarter percent under the weighted formula we'd be worth  we'd have a weight of a little under seven not a material impact if nine communities withdraw at this academic i guess one ninth would be eleven percent of the the vote but that's not a possibility of happening unless the regional agreement is approved so going forward we'd be about ten percent of the vote again not a material driver in my view at least for our community secondly what about the the capital cost assessment but again this is not a discussion about the building project but it's a fair question for people to say well wait a second how can i vote yea or nay on the capital cost allocation changes unless i know something about what the impact is so minute man has put together a set of assumptions it's a very specific set of assumptions about one hundred forty five million dollars school committee a school building project that it's about a third m s p a reimbursement financed on a thirty year bond at roughly three and a quarter percent if sixteen towns were to remain in the district our assessment under the current agreement or that project would be three hundred fifty six thousand under the new agreement it actually goes down  minuscule amount by three thousand dollars to three hundred fifty three thousand if all seven towns deciding that they want to leave you declare that they're going to go and we still build the same school building project our sussman would be three hundred sixty thousand under the current agreement it would go up to three hundred eighty plus thousand a difference of twenty thousand you'll have to make your own assessment about whether that's a big issue in my view a twenty thousand dollars change in an assessment in a town that has a ninety to one hundred million dollar operating budget is in consequential so in my view some of the big changes that were important to other communities are not really that important to us what are the changes that benefit us first i already touched upon that four year average enrollment smooths out year to year changes five student change in enrollment in a thirty year basis a huge impact on the operating this will smooth out that impact secondly i think the weighted voting as it was probably clear when i presented this the waiting voting ensures that communities who have more financial stake have more of a weight in the vote and i think that will encourage more fiscal discipline within the district third incorporating that requirement that nonmembers pay capital increases the chances that we'll collect those fees as opposed to having to get an affirmative vote from half the school committee to charge it and i have it's automatic unless two thirds say let's waive it or reduce it the new withdrawal provisions create an easier path for belmont to leave if we ever wanted to do that in the future and we can take advantage of that escape clause on debt if it ever goes to a general election in our community votes overwhelmingly no in addition to the changes or the impact on belmont and i think it is fair to talk about the other changes that really benefit the district these are things that in least in my view they don't necessarily impact belmont but they were big drivers in why we're changing there are really regional agreement and they are big big factors for some of the other communities so what are some of those issues the capital allocation formula that includes a cost of membership and an ability to pay just seems fair than one that's based on point time in rome and again the weighted voting ensures that communities with more financial stake have more say for the seven smaller towns that really objected to the change in the capital allocation formula this gives them an opportunity to leave the district if they want and potentially creates a stronger district although i will argue maybe later that it might not but and then lowering that threshold for communities to get out might but it should say might it will certainly make it more attractive to a nonmember community consider with joining the district whether or not it's enough of an incentive is a different question but at the margin it certainly is  attractive so what are some of the issues there aren't sorry about that so what are some of the issues or the risks that are associated with this first off there's uncertainty about minute man's ability to be able to really charge that capital but still it is fake i think that uncertainty is of three types first the department of education dessie is not relinquishing their control or authority over the ability to charge the fee so we are subject to dessie is approval se is a political organization they made a decision about three years ago to reduce the t for nonmember communities they can always over there their decision to allow this fee is not matched that thirty year debt so they can decide next year to reduce it or elimina so there is risk in our ability to charge that because it's depended upon dessie we have also heard that some of the larger nonmember communities are going to legally challenge authority to allow that fee to be imposed so there is legal uncertainty as to whether or not we'll be able to charge that going forward lastly when we start to slack an eight thousand dollars per student surcharge on nonmember students to a ten minute man in my view that will be a huge incentive for those communities to say what are the alternatives do we have besides minutemen and so we may have the ability to charge it but we may find a considerably reduced will of towns who are willing to pay it to send their kids to minuteman  all of that said we're no worse off under this agreement up with the revised agreement than we are under there are regular agreement we have all those same three risks under the existing agreement  secondly allowing seven towns to immediately withdraw from the district means that if we continue down the path of the same size school we're potentially have more financial exposure but in my view that's a discussion or when we talk about the building project it's not a discussion for tonight there's no prohibition on member towns withdrawing and then turning around and re and rolling their students as nonmembers if there's one thing that mark and i are really fought hard on it was this provision wayland actually named to the school committee back in july of two thousand and fifteen and asked to withdraw from the district under the existing agreement where they had to get the approval of all fifteen  i made a motion at school committee that said fine feel free to go the next twenty years you can't send your kids back to minuteman that did not carry much weight in the school committee vote not surprisingly but what's more important for tonight is we quickly realized that we were not going to get sixteen communities to vote yes for revised agreement if we insisted on that provision second thing that mark tried to do was say ok that's fine come on back to the district all of those nonmember communities have to pay the same fee as if they were a member community and a lot of small community sending one student there to two or three students objected to that one percent faith we were not going to get a revised regional agreement that had that provision so the best that we did get was at least the agreement that they had to pay the average of what the member communities were facing but the reality is that for some communities who are members now in contemplating leaving their plan is to walk out the door as a member and walk back in the door as a nonmember and i think that's a discussion for us to have when we talk about the building project but that's you know it's a risk of approving this agreement if we want to  leave the district after new debt is approved we're going to have to pay our share i think has a as mark said the one of the third third or fourth largest sending community for a long period of  time but was sent on average about thirty kids a year to minute man personally i'm not sure what the alternatives would be i don't think the alternatives are attractive whether or not we'd actually really want to exercise that option i think is a question  and then lastly this seems like it's going to be a more significant concern is the revised regional agreement is not effective until the department of education approves it an this whole revised debt approval process becomes moot if we can't get dessie to approve the revised regional agreement before minute man comes out the door asking for authority  however we've at least seen some correspondence from dessie minuteman to their credit mediately reached out to dessie when belmont raised that concern and dessie has expressed whether they deliver or not they've expressed an ability that they think they can approve a revised regional agreement within a matter of weeks so i think if they act on that that particular risk is less important still there's a theoretical  risk that i'm going to turn it over to bob mclaughlin who's going to try to summarize a lot of this is it good or is it bad in a very same fashion as from a go off on you could be brief and then we will take a  amended agreement draft which is really the bones of the agreement that you have before you tonight that was then amended when the selectmen got all of it and jack i thank you for that detailed and nuanced and complicated  this review of the two agreements and i'm glad to report there's not going to be a quiz on the changes at the end of that my goal tonight is to try to clear away the fog and the nuances and to try to focus on what we're doing here tonight as it plays off against the elephant in the room which is done hundred forty four point nine million dollars that it's going to be acted upon either a town meeting or maybe it both town meeting and a district wide debt before we get to june of this year that's the freight train coming enough metal metaphors mark has gone through the history  proved david five years we fight the good fight this one hundred fifty million dollars is bad policy but they have succeeded against our opposition including a lobbying a with a seven page single spaced letter of all the reasons why it was a mistake and yet they have the m s a provable for six hundred twenty eight school out there in in that area with these kevin the money was there and others and they put on what ford spalding the chairman of the building committee and they put on the slide show and so for then i think to their surprise after hearing my objections vive years i stood up and said we're in a bad place and when we in life where you have to terrible choices the best thing to do is to pick the least worst choice and that being saw where we were at that time i said i was inclined to say i was going to hold my nose and go in and vote for the one hundred fifty million dollars death why well the reason was you have to consider the worst worst choice the worst worst choices between leave us with out the approval of the debt with the agreement as it was we had no control over we get out voted fifteen to one people who are paying one tenth of the who send three students if we send thirty they're paying one tenth of whatever the proposal is to repay the old building they're spending our money and we don't have a a prop of our own will lock in no way out of it their estimation for repairing the school is a hundred and five million dollars and i think with an i told you so mentality and with the vote of the towns that were in spending much of their money they would have us over a ten year period of time on annual assessments paying for the repair of a building built in one thousand nine hundred seventy for twelve hundred students it was a horrible situation we would have no state aid we couldn't even have the facilities fee which jack just are tonight with the agreement as it's been further amended amended to vote on it now you have heard some from jack and you're going to hear from others that there are many many unknowns you just heard d e s c may size it has to be for the member towns we need those other towns but under the you just don't know whether the other towns are going to send their people there is going to cost them eight thousand dollars a student they made send them to some other regional vocational school there are all kinds of unknowns d s e may not approve the agreement in the first place but there are certain things or at least one thing we know for certain you've got my slide up there i have very simple slides if you look at that slide by june those boxes are going to be filled in and there are one of four things that is going to happen for sure and if you look at it you can complete it with yes yes no no yes amendment no debt or yes debt no amendment one of those four things absolutely is going to happen and the question tonight is when that does happen do you want belmont to have the we're go room in the control and be confronting that situation with the new agreement of the old agreement i think it's that simple don't get lost in the weeds in the details keep that in mind because that's what's coming and look at it gotta go through the four possibilities the first possibility is as i say the worst scenario i've already alluded to it no amended agreement no debt hundred five million dollars or repair we're in on this we're locked in a disagreement with voting power unable to protect ourselves or being dragged into repairing that or building it's a terrible terrible situation if if the the answers of those blacks is a no no now take a look at what would happen if there was an amended agreement but the debt would get voted down well first of all those small towns that are sending two or three people will be other the district will not have a vote of zero hour weighted voting doesn't change much those small towns with those  would be spending our money with their vote are gone now people are going to vote to decide whether you're really going to spend one hundred five million dollars on that are going to be people are going to have to pay proportionally the debt for doing so but more importantly under the new agreement with the towns who are exercising i think some better judgment might take a little look outside the box of what you're going to do with this dysfunctional district and the first thing that we've been talking about i've been talking about for five years on this is will somebody please consider us selling the property there are sixty five acres albeit some of it with weapons but sixty five acres in a building that could be converted into a law office building or something  they haven't even had a parade just with the new agreement with the flexibility without other member towns such as why the town and send sixty six students might want to join might want to build a new school with the proceeds from sell the property someplace else there some possibilities that we can come out of this much better than the bad place that we have been and in addition to that under the new agreement we have baked into the constitution which is the new agreement you come we're going to repair the roof for two million dollars that's a capital expense you are going to pay your share of your nonmember so if you have the situation where the debt is not approved and you have your new agreement you've got some room to protect yourself and control now let's go on to the third alternative the third alternative is no no agreement but you got yes the debt is approved you have the same dysfunctional district  now they have a sharing one hundred forty four million dollar bill will lock the end it least we got fifty million dollars of the state money we may end up with a building that is is half empty because the nonmember towns aren't going to be sending their students there there is no incentive to attract other members we are in a bad maybe a better situation that's a situation i thought was the least worst if we had no new agreement but we did have the debt the fourth alternative of course is the yes yes yes yes at least going forward we get a new building we have a functional form of governance we have a strong language somewhere up in we flip over to the next the next major there we go these are the two major items that are in the new agreement member nonmember towns are going to have to pay their fair share so if you have  we have to fill this building as overbuilt with nonmember time students we have the ability to read insist that they pay their fair share for the hundred forty four million dollars debt so so vast i say to you if you focus on what we're doing tonight it's to focus on what agreement do you want to have when we're faced with the debt and in either case yet approved yet not approved we're better off with the new agreement now you're going to hear tonight from some people i think that as i say the agreement isn't good enough it probably isn't weird it's certainly not perfect it could be a much better agreement it's a product of compromises you will load into the constitution jack to have to live with it is there are those that have said that well if you vote against this agreement there is more likelihood that the debt will be denied and i think  but that is shooting i'm selves in the foot and backing ourselves into that worst position where we're locked into this district with the building that doesn't have the state aid and  hundred million dollar repair bill that we have a very small vote in preventing it's the worst of all worlds there are people who say this district needs to be taught a lesson they have not reached down build a consensus they have tried to ram this down our throat they want us to amend this agreement words vote against it on emotional reasons let's teach them a lesson well that sounds good until you think about who's the them them is us you know don't tell people the boat there we're still the i mean don't make an emotional decision that we want to teach a lesson so let me say i urge you to vote for it let me just make a very brief comment about the debt we're going to have to get to the fifteen million dollars state ajak in the eye and say i don't want it but we'll talk about that the next meeting please vote for this amendment thank you let's take a let's take a five minute break and then we'll come back and and discuss