[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:02] Good evening. Good evening. Welcome to this meeting of the Belmont Select Board. I am Chair Taylor Yates, and I am joined by my colleague's Vice-Chair Carol Berberian. Good evening. Member Matt Taylor. Hello, Belmont.
[0:12] Tad Administrator Patrice Garmin. Good evening. And Assistant Tad Administrator Matt Haskell. Good evening. We will begin our meeting with agenda items, requiring the presence of town staff as their work day ends at 7pm. At 7pm, we will allow 15 minutes of public comment.
[0:27] Each commenter will be given up to three minutes to make their comments and I will give them a 30-second courtesy warning.
[0:33] At the end of public comment, I will allow members of the board and tan administration to make comments of their hub.
[0:39] You can also email us at selectboard at felmont-ma.gov with questions and comments.
[0:48] First up, we have community announcements.
[0:51] Thank you.
[0:52] We
[0:56] have the 25th anniversary 9-11 Memorial Ceremony honoring the victims and remembering their lives on Friday, September 11th at 10.30 a.m.
[1:06] This will be held at the Select Board Meeting Room at Town Hall.
[1:11] And we also have Portwrest coming up Saturday, August 15th. This will feature live music, supporting local businesses, neighborhood porches, and encouraging community connections.
[1:23] We have 40 bands and artists, 25 porches, cafes and churches and we are really looking
[1:30] forward to this event this coming weekend.
[1:33] We also have the Pays and Park Music Festival continuing this week with the Boston Soul
[1:39] Review on Wednesday and the Sherry Harris Jones Children's Concert Series continuing on Thursday
[1:46] with Wayne Patash.
[1:49] Oh, sorry.
[1:49] Nope.
[1:49] That one actually is already gone.
[1:51] So just the Wednesday. And that's really all that's for the other you want to do the we're
[1:59] also still looking for forward and committee volunteers and become a volunteer by visiting
[2:04] bellmont-ma.gov backslash volunteer form and the process is made much easier for people to see what
[2:12] positions are available and learn more about them. Yep, I also told the cheer of the library trustees
[2:17] These, they have a vacancy right now, and similar to the lightboard, this vacancy will
[2:23] be appointed, and so they are looking for applicants.
[2:31] Next up, we have the town administrator's report.
[2:34] Thank you.
[2:35] Just a couple updates for you this evening.
[2:37] I wanted to give a quick update on the Belmont Sports Complex.
[2:40] I think the good news is, we are open, the dehumidifying issue that we were experiencing has
[2:45] gotten a lot better.
[2:46] we haven't had to use the temporary unit, although we do have it on site in case we need it.
[2:51] So we are actively working with the building committee to make sure that that is
[2:56] fixed permanently, and we'll go from there. Again, we did lose some revenue from the closing of
[3:03] the rank, which we will not be able to recapture, but moving forward, we will hopefully just have a
[3:09] functioning rank again. I just wanted to lift the public now that if it goes down again, we will make
[3:14] make sure that we announce it.
[3:16] If I could just add to that, Chris,
[3:18] I appreciate the work that the building committee did
[3:20] to work with town staff to get the DMITR bar back online.
[3:25] And we did meet to have our initial transition meeting
[3:28] with the Chair of the Building Committee
[3:30] to build on that collaboration.
[3:35] I had some staffing updates.
[3:36] I wanted to get the board as well.
[3:39] I recently received a resignation from our HR director,
[3:42] Kelly King, Kelly has accepted employment
[3:45] and other organizations that have definitely lost in terms of the talent as we move to GIC
[3:55] as we are at the table with several unions. Things are going to get a little tight, I know,
[4:00] for our office. I am looking to bring somebody in temporarily, so I've been reaching out to a few people
[4:05] that can come in in the interim just to get us through the GIC. From my perspective,
[4:09] from the office's perspective, GIC is the most important thing on the table right now.
[4:14] There is an open enrollment, we did sit through a kickoff with the state, and we have open
[4:23] enrollment, so we'll be getting information out to all of the employees and retirees
[4:27] to give them all the information that they need, we're going to have learning sessions,
[4:31] education sessions, really just to ramp up to open enrollment as the employees then go
[4:36] and sign up for different plans.
[4:39] In regards to the assessor's office, we had our long-term assessor, Fandargan, he resigned.
[4:46] I think I might have told you this in another meeting, but with everything going on, it's
[4:52] really hard to say.
[4:53] I did, we are bringing on a temporary interim assessor, it is a retired assessor.
[4:59] His name is Richard Scanlon.
[5:00] We had offered him some work in the assessor's office.
[5:04] As he is a retired, that's sort of from Belorca.
[5:07] He was the assessor for 30 years.
[5:09] He comes with us with a lot of experience.
[5:12] And given the recent transition
[5:14] and a lot going on in that office,
[5:16] we wanted to kind of have somebody
[5:17] to stabilize the department before we went hired somewhat.
[5:20] The assessor position is not something
[5:22] that's generally easy to fill.
[5:24] It's one of those niche positions within a town
[5:27] that it might take us some time to fill.
[5:30] So I wanted to make sure the tax classification
[5:32] and the technicals went out by the end of the year. So this is really the important position,
[5:37] and we wanted to make sure we have somebody that's very experienced in it. And then finally,
[5:43] our fields manager has begun. He started a couple weeks ago. He's already, I've sent them,
[5:49] I put in your packet an email from him to give an update of the fields and what he's been doing.
[5:54] I think this is the last piece. The first piece was the municipal plan, the three-year maintenance plan
[6:01] that town meeting graciously seated and that we're funding this year through some operating,
[6:06] some revolving funds. So the field manager is the second part of that and now we have a full-time
[6:13] field manager. We really are starting to see improvements in our fields and we hope to only continue
[6:18] that. So this is something that we're very excited about because fields have not been addressed and
[6:23] I think neglected for a very long time. So that is the staffing update. What is it? Do you have any
[6:29] questions.
[6:31] I do not. Well, I guess, actually, my only question is, you said a
[6:34] assessor might take a long time to fill, like, his long time, you know, a few
[6:40] months. It could be a few months. I mean, it depends on the applicant for
[6:44] fans, you know, I think because it's, like I said, a niche field. It's not
[6:49] something that you can just kind of go out and post for and get a lot of
[6:53] experienced applicants. Yeah. Do you have a comment? I just have one follow-up with
[6:59] Eric's message, he did mention that we're continuing to have issues with people using closed
[7:05] fields, and so just want to take a minute to remind people that when the gates are locked,
[7:10] it does not mean that you should hop over the fence to use them anyway. We're really putting
[7:14] in a lot of effort to try to maintain the fields to get the most use out of them.
[7:19] We do continue to see a few issues across town, so please it is for the benefit of the town
[7:25] when they're closed to let them rest,
[7:27] and when you get those messages,
[7:29] please be respectful of that.
[7:31] All right.
[7:33] Thank you, Kelly, for her work.
[7:35] That's the her go.
[7:37] It's the interim assessor appears
[7:39] to also have a lot of experience interim assessing.
[7:43] Yes.
[7:43] You know, you're doing a good find.
[7:47] And that concludes my report.
[7:49] All right, thank you.
[7:51] Next on the agenda,
[7:52] we have a discussion impossible though
[7:54] to accept donation on behalf of the Belmont Police Department.
[8:11] How are you doing?
[8:12] Great.
[8:12] Thank you.
[8:13] Do you mind introducing yourself, name and title?
[8:16] Shane Smith.
[8:18] Chief, please.
[8:19] Thank you.
[8:21] So, yeah, tell us about what you're doing.
[8:23] Sorry.
[8:24] Sorry.
[8:25] I said chief, and I should have said chiefs.
[8:28] I've been working with Paul.
[8:29] I've been working with him.
[8:29] I've been working with him.
[8:30] Oh, right on.
[8:31] Thank you.
[8:33] So, yeah, tell us about what you got for us tonight.
[8:35] So, I was contacted by a local resident. I don't know if they need to be named. I think it's
[8:44] a requirement. Well, I think it's a public record, right?
[8:49] The public record, but generally if they ask us not to announce, we don't.
[8:53] Okay, so they ask us not to announce. They're just not looking
[8:57] for any acknowledgement. But it's contacted by a local resident and they were looking to give a donation
[9:04] to the police department. And one thing that I noticed in speaking to every employee within
[9:11] the police department, a lot of people asked that we bring back the motorcycle unit.
[9:16] So I got some pricing from Seacoast Harley, who we used previously. And when I initially got
[9:22] the prices, I went back to the donor and I said, you know what? I don't want to be greedy,
[9:29] but I'm going to have to get two bikes. And I said, I'm probably only going to get one and
[9:33] and they gave me more money, they offered to give me more money so that there'd be no cost
[9:37] of the ton of balance.
[9:39] So it would include a three-year lease for two motorcycles, they'd be, have everything
[9:47] included, set calm, which allows them to do hands-free communication with this batch, they
[9:54] would have a laptop or a tablet with a printer in the saddle bag, light package, as well as
[10:01] covered training for officers, helmets, because helmets cost money, I don't deep into this, so it's
[10:08] it's not just like you get these motorcycles in the three-year lease is covered, you have to look
[10:12] into how much training costs decals on the bike to get them properly outfit and so people can go
[10:18] on to their jobs or that tablet and print their, the other fortunate part that we have is the IT
[10:23] person who is assigned to the police department who's a former police officer and he was a motor officer,
[10:27] So he's quite familiar with setting up the laptops and the printer and previously offices
[10:33] told me that that didn't work correctly, he is guaranteeing me that it'll work on the
[10:38] moon.
[10:39] So again, no cost to the community and training paid for here, boots, pants,
[10:55] it's a great
[10:55] benefit of the town and just for my personal pay, I just have to talk about it briefly.
[11:01] I included in my memo everything that it can do, but I think what's coming up all the
[11:05] time is that bike walking path and motor unit could get there very easily.
[11:11] A motor unit can go on grass, can go down that.
[11:14] If there's any issue down there, they can also patrol it.
[11:17] I think it's great for community engagement.
[11:20] They can park right in Belmont Center, sit right at the crosswalk, talk to citizens as
[11:26] they go by, and then if someone rolls through that crosswalk, they can easily help on that
[11:29] motorcycle and, you know, give them some guidance as to what they should be doing.
[11:35] At events, parades, traffic control, Stonewall, just a great benefit to this community.
[11:44] So, it's a background.
[11:45] This was eliminated from the budget a few years ago because of the budgetary constraints.
[11:50] This is a one-time infusion that sounds like a good cover of three years.
[11:54] But after that, you have to be sure.
[11:56] Obviously this is.
[11:58] Got it.
[11:58] Awesome. And it was a,
[12:02] how much was the donation? It's $75,000, no. That's really generous.
[12:09] So, well, we have the balance, like, word. Thank you to the donor, wherever you are.
[12:18] I guess we had to take a vote to, I think we had to take a vote to accept this as that was
[12:22] being asked.
[12:22] That's it for this specific purpose.
[12:24] Okay.
[12:25] So, let me say, yeah, my change is cheap.
[12:32] They're a great resource as David mentions.
[12:35] I mean, we all know sometimes traffic can be challenging here.
[12:39] And motorcycles give you another resource in order to manipulate through the town.
[12:45] But it also gives the chief another tool and his food box.
[12:49] Because you want to keep people interested in doing what they're doing.
[12:52] and this gives the officers another avenue as well.
[12:56] Well, I think it really is a great tool
[12:58] and all the other points that the chief mentioned.
[13:02] But, you know, like I said,
[13:04] we've had them for a while and it's a great,
[13:06] great that this donor is stepping up.
[13:11] And what I think, again, like I can't,
[13:15] I don't see any negatives for a program.
[13:18] So, it's a great,
[13:20] Thank you.
[13:20] Rachel is federal.
[13:22] How can we even be?
[13:23] Absolutely.
[13:25] Any comments from the board?
[13:26] Just a big thank you to Chief Mcawson for being here and Chief Smith for doing all the
[13:31] background work on it to make sure that when these actually rolled into town that we didn't
[13:35] have a lot of additional expenses, so really appreciate the diligence on that and our sincere
[13:40] thanks to the donor.
[13:43] Thank you.
[13:45] Thank you both.
[13:46] So, I would entertain a motion to accept the donation.
[13:50] Move to accept the donation from the anonymous donor for Fairdub Costs
[13:54] by the Belmont Police Motorcycle Unit.
[13:57] Save the amount.
[13:58] Yes.
[14:00] Please save the amount.
[14:02] In the amount of $75,000.
[14:05] Second. All in favor?
[14:07] Hi.
[14:08] Hi.
[14:09] Thank you all.
[14:09] Thank you very much.
[14:10] Thank you very much.
[14:16] Okay. Next on the agenda, we have discussion and possible votes on community path right
[14:23] of way acquisition.
[14:34] Maybe if you know my introduce yourself.
[14:36] Sure.
[14:37] Good evening.
[14:38] Madam Macarius, Anderson and Quigar, town council, and Whitney, thank you all for that
[14:43] partner.
[14:44] See you.
[14:45] Okay, so take us through.
[14:47] Yeah, so I'll start at the high level and I'll allegedly take it one by one here.
[14:53] We reviewed some of this in our last time we before you a couple of weeks ago in order to stay on.
[15:00] The schedule for the ad date for the phase one of the by ad project, the committee path project. The board needs to take a number of votes in the right-of-way acquisition as a reminder for the public and for the board. How the job is to acquire rights of way, work with the engineers to make sure that the project is planned out. And then the funding gets unlocked from the federal state through the state government.
[15:29] So this tonight's tasks are all related to acquiring the right-of-way formally, again,
[15:37] the votes needed to do that in order to be able to certify to mask thought that you
[15:43] have, and then for mask thought, you'll certify to a higher administration that you have
[15:48] that required property rights to do the work.
[15:51] So there's generally speaking five sets of things you may not need to vote on one of them,
[15:57] I just want to at least fly where we are with them.
[16:00] The final form of the MBTA Greece, which we will ask you to be able to get at a high
[16:08] level through in substantially the form in the packet, there are still some minor clarifications
[16:16] that the engineering team is working on with MBTA's engineering team, but the legal language
[16:21] which is a set at this point or we believe it's set
[16:25] and are recommending it for approval.
[16:27] The permanent and temporary easements on private property,
[16:31] we've discussed those, those go through an entire process.
[16:34] Those will be voted to ask us as orders of taking
[16:39] with which we'd like to follow up
[16:41] and then we can talk about the process
[16:43] from here of how folks get notified of how we payment
[16:48] and where to get it, et cetera.
[16:49] as we go through each one, accepting the donation
[16:54] from the Belmont citizens forum for their portions of it.
[16:59] The fourth one is on here.
[17:02] It's the one that you may not need to do anything with,
[17:04] I believe, the Department of Conservation Recreation,
[17:07] which is a path up as for the portions of the trail
[17:11] that go through their property, which is also,
[17:15] that was obtained for the use of the bike path.
[17:18] They are committing the town to use it and so that is already done, you know, really have to do anything on that one
[17:24] And the last one is a school committee a couple months ago in terms of their land
[17:29] You need to take those from land under that school. That's excuse me. That's a lot more central
[17:33] And so those are the five items today taken together. It gives you the acquisition rights for all of the things you need for the path and
[17:42] ideally that will be it and then we'll go out to
[17:45] today didn't come forward from there.
[17:50] Thank you, Mr. Jeremy.
[17:52] I present a little bit to give a little more context.
[17:54] Absolutely.
[17:56] Thank you.
[18:05] I'm going to see if I can do
[18:09] you have sharing.
[18:10] I do have sharing.
[18:11] Okay.
[18:17] I just want to give both the summaries for the board, the audience here, people following
[18:21] along at home, kind of some of the broader context around it.
[18:25] I'm going to call the last 5%, a lot of the land for the right of way for the community
[18:30] path is either owned by the MPTA, owned by the school, the town, or is part of the Belmont
[18:38] Citizens Forum donation. And so I've been going through a bit of a process. This final phase of
[18:48] phase one has been a long time coming and I think no amount of time would be sufficient to thank
[18:56] everybody, but I do want to specifically thank the neighbors and a butters of the path that have
[19:01] been meeting with us and talking with us about their concerns and their needs. I think a lot
[19:07] of people support the path, but it doesn't necessarily affect them directly, and so I've been
[19:12] meeting with the folks that it does affect in a much more direct way. I want to thank our state
[19:18] representatives, especially Dave Rogers, especially Will Brownsberger, who I don't think without them,
[19:25] we wouldn't be here today. I want to thank our town employees. You know, even going back to
[19:30] office of community and development, when we move it's under that, there's been a lot of work
[19:35] from town administration, DPW, engineering, a Metcouse, especially has been really wonderful in terms
[19:42] of meeting with the butters and explaining things and helping through the process. Also,
[19:47] me and Macarius and Anderson Krieger have been a huge help in terms of this right-of-way process.
[19:53] There have been multiple generations of path committee members.
[19:57] I don't think we have yet any children on the path committee or members, but we're getting
[20:02] to about that time.
[20:05] And especially, I want to thank Holly Muson, the chair, who's done a really good job of
[20:11] ushering the path in the committee forward.
[20:14] I think also just representing not just the path, but the neighbors as well, and setting
[20:19] the tone of working with them collaboratively and trying to problem solve their concerns.
[20:24] I want to thank the town meeting members who've approved this and the additional funds and
[20:27] especially kind of the roller coaster ride that was the annual town meeting.
[20:32] Metropolitan Area Planning Council, Council, Mass.mbta and probably leaving many alphabet
[20:39] organizations out. Even filling had to weigh in in terms of approving the Fitchberg line shutdown.
[20:45] I want to thank Knitch Engineering who's done a lot of work this past year and a half.
[20:50] I've been a real scramble, a lot of problem solving.
[20:54] And I'm sorry to the scores of people I have left up.
[20:59] For people, I just want to catch you up on the recent timeline.
[21:02] So I've been meeting with property owners since April.
[21:07] They have gone through a formal and regulated process.
[21:11] We've got them. We had initial appraisal estimates, which if you're a town meeting member,
[21:15] you saw some of the early versions of what we were potentially looking at. The appraisals were
[21:22] completed in July, about a month later, and letters of just compensation were sent on July 9.
[21:29] So I guess we've got three weeks after town meeting. The tonight, the select board is looking to vote
[21:35] the right of way as Meena described. The advertising date for this project is September 5th,
[21:41] 2026, just a few short weeks away. The state will select winning bidder in the late fall
[21:48] of the early winter and they'll be planning an onboarding through the winter and into the spring.
[21:54] There's been like the plans this is hot off the presses from just last week. This is just kind of
[22:05] you can see in 2027, so they're kind of calling this the permission to proceed,
[22:12] the kind of date would be in January 2027. There will be a lot of coordination,
[22:18] drawings, site visits, and walks, plan review for much of the, it looks like first six months of
[22:24] 2027, then procurement and a lot of the restrage, they call like outage, the outage being the shutdown
[22:33] of the Fitch Perk line that kind of happens in the middle
[22:36] is that green.multi-day outage underpass construction.
[22:40] And the pre-outage, I think, is initially planned to be most
[22:43] of the pavement from end to end. Essentially, then there'll be an outage
[22:47] and then where they do a lot of construction of the underpass.
[22:50] And then there'll be post-outage, which is wrapping things up,
[22:53] you know, finishing up the spurs around Alexander and stuff like that.
[22:57] And so you can see at least at this point,
[23:00] while we need the temporary easements for five years as a time contingency, it's still looking
[23:04] at about a three-year schedule. Again, that's at this point. For what we're voting tonight,
[23:10] the temporary easements are a five-year window, so it's like kind of like with time contingency on
[23:14] the three years we are initially discussing. The town is required to get non-exclusive rights
[23:21] in order to construct the path, and those easements are the maximum area that the project can use,
[23:26] so you can't use area outside of those easements and the contractors required to protect and restore
[23:32] the property in and around the easement area. These are all things that I've discussed with
[23:37] property owners and are part of conditions attached to the project. The permanent easements are
[23:43] still non-exclusive rights but there's a range so some of these might be we need a permanent easement
[23:50] in order to maintain like a fence or a retaining wall.
[23:53] In other areas, there's like a part of the path
[23:55] goes over the property.
[23:57] And so there's a range of rights that would be needed.
[24:01] And the property owner was still allowed to use their property,
[24:04] as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights
[24:07] that the path needs.
[24:09] So like if we're not actively maintaining the wall
[24:13] then any permanent easement for maintaining a wall
[24:15] is just like your regular part of the yard's path.
[24:17] And so some of the examples where, you know, we needed more rights would be like the
[24:23] path spurs on Alexander Avenue and at Belmont Center.
[24:27] I'm going to talk about the process here for people following along because I think it's
[24:32] a big interest.
[24:34] The town did not choose the just compensation amount.
[24:37] We followed a regulated process.
[24:39] We hired an independent appraisal firm to develop the value of the rights that we
[24:46] required to get for the project. This appraisal was peer reviewed by a second independent firm.
[24:52] It factored in the rights needed, the land value, any improvements on that land,
[24:57] the time it was needed for and specifics of the owner's property. Property owners will be paid up
[25:03] front.
[25:06] In addition to trying to problem solve property owners concerns, we did a couple of things.
[25:12] So, the project is going to hire a resident engineer.
[25:16] This person will be a point of contact for the town,
[25:19] for the butters, and also to coordinate.
[25:22] We've updated the design where possible.
[25:25] So, some places that meant like, hey,
[25:27] we were able to put in a privacy fence,
[25:28] for example, where it wasn't originally a privacy fence.
[25:33] We're getting the propane tanks removed.
[25:37] That are along the tracks behind Channing Road.
[25:41] another example is we've been able to accommodate the design is able to accommodate some utility connections for
[25:46] Belmont electric and light where the underpass is going up and then you know the project is required
[25:54] to maintain access to everybody's properties but in cases where it would disrupt the driveway for
[26:00] the business or the homeowner the town is operating alternative parking to help accommodate that and the
[26:05] town fill cover road and mitigation around the tunnel construction. That wasn't part of it.
[26:12] People had questions about so there's standard conditions that are attached to the project.
[26:18] So like the typical construction hours are 7 a.m. to 3 30 p.m. Monday through Friday
[26:22] for people who were concerned about early morning or late night construction.
[26:26] The resident engineer can approve hours outside of that when needed.
[26:33] They can't disrupt the roadway.
[26:36] When it says disrupt, they mean trenches, lane closures, stuff like that.
[26:41] They have to maintain access to your property so they can't prohibit you from getting in and out of your home.
[26:47] And if they keep the town informed of the schedule, but then realistically we should expect essentially 24-7 construction at some points like around the tunnel when the Fitchberg train line is shut down.
[26:57] And there's a really intense construction to write a schedule around that.
[27:01] If I scroll back up to the schedule, you'll see it's currently scheduled for summer of 28.
[27:09] The intent there is, it needs to be during the summer to be not disruptive to the school operations.
[27:16] I forgot to thank the school department and the school committee also.
[27:22] The contractors required to coordinate access to the businesses,
[27:26] prefer starting to work on their property to not use the temporary easements for stalling
[27:30] materials or equipment, try to minimize the impact while completing the work, right?
[27:35] You know, can't minimize the lowest impact would be not doing the work at all, where I need
[27:39] to complete the work, but they should do so thoughtfully and maintain access to your home.
[27:44] And so this whole process has been a lot of meetings, phone calls, Zoom meetings, discussions
[27:50] with the butters, with tenants to try to understand and address their concerns. All of these are
[27:57] documented, either as conditions on the project. The assurances that we've given them are also
[28:04] handed off to MASTA as part of the approval process. We've done site walks. We've shown them
[28:10] scale drawings and tried to mark out the lines and delineate the easements. We haven't been able to
[28:17] address everybody's concerns. We can't do private property improvements and stuff like that,
[28:22] but we've really tried to problem-solve for our neighbors who are affected, and I keep that in mind
[28:29] as we take these folks tonight.
[28:34] Thank you, Matt.
[28:38] So, Mina, what do we have next?
[28:42] Sir, I think Mina actually did a very comprehensive summary for a high-level summary,
[28:47] but we can, is it easiest to put on them one at a time?
[28:52] I believe you have a draft vote in front of you.
[28:54] The clause A of that vote is the vote that you described.
[29:00] To dedicate the appropriate parcels that are held five
[29:05] found by the select board to discuss the reasons.
[29:08] So we see the clause A, maybe each one of these?
[29:12] Okay, yeah, the
[29:18] appendix. I know that's all right. You should have a document. The top of which says both
[29:23] Select boards the time fell on
[29:26] I have an extra copy if he's like
[29:29] Okay, so yeah, I mean
[29:32] I'm any comments for before we take you votes. Well, was it was it sent to Pam?
[29:38] Yes, yeah, I haven't an activity just
[29:40] I sent her a number of documents
[29:44] Yeah, I think it's the last item each section before appendix A. I'm going to keep doing this
[29:50] the rest of the night. I forgot to also just briefly acknowledge the the amount of citizens
[29:54] for and I think explicitly for their generous donation. And they're foresighted to by the way.
[30:02] Before we hop into it, any other comments from the board? Okay. All right. Well, Carol, I would
[30:09] energy an emotion on this first one. So, would our motion be to approve or to execute the
[30:16] vote of the select board? What's the problem? You know what he's like. So, if you want to
[30:21] vote them all at once, you could and we could describe each one. I don't think you have to
[30:27] read each vote out loud, as long as you all have the same home before you, I think what
[30:32] Jillian was proposing is we would take a sort of A, B, C, D. And so I can describe each
[30:38] one.
[30:40] So it's not a terrible.
[30:41] It's okay.
[30:42] It's a kind of a part of the land.
[30:44] You can read it.
[30:47] Okay.
[30:48] So do you want to do this as individual votes or one?
[30:52] Let's do one big one.
[30:53] I think unless, you know, if no one has comments on any of the individuals, then.
[30:56] My vote will be the same on all of them.
[30:58] Yes, that is going to be how I feel.
[31:00] If that is the case, then, to you, Mr. Chair, but I think rather than reading an entire
[31:06] page, then you can take a vote on the form of a vote presented to you on the evening of August
[31:16] 10, 2025, and include it in your passage to the meeting.
[31:19] Can we do that if it wasn't—
[31:20] No, 26, 26, 26, I'm sorry.
[31:23] Sorry, but—
[31:23] Can we do that if it wasn't posted on the website?
[31:26] Okay.
[31:26] As long as you all know which one you're voting on, yes.
[31:31] But if you'd rather read it on, can I just want to make sure we're not missing any word
[31:35] in any verbbid.
[31:36] Okay.
[31:38] For a purpose while I'm at home, they say to dedicate certain parcel and with soft temporary
[31:42] easement number, temporary easement number, or BP 14, 16, it's a lot of jargon.
[31:50] Okay.
[31:51] So what exactly should Carol read?
[31:53] Should she read?
[31:53] Why don't you join me to just go for it?
[31:56] Yeah, let's do that.
[31:57] Okay, so move to approve the vote of the Select Board of the Town of Belmont date at
[32:05] August 10, 2026, specifically citing items A through E as presented.
[32:13] Second.
[32:14] All in favor?
[32:15] Hi.
[32:16] Hi.
[32:16] Hi.
[32:20] Now I do have originals here.
[32:22] We were hoping to vote a record tomorrow.
[32:23] We'll be willing to sign an app to notarize and
[32:29] read documents from three of you to sign
[32:32] and the rest are all perpetries.
[32:39] And while Jillian is doing that just for the public sake, explaining what those three documents
[32:42] are.
[32:43] Okay.
[32:44] One of them is the vote itself, and then the other two, okay, the first one is the vote itself
[32:53] that we just voted on, and then the other two are each the orders of taking for the easements
[32:59] that Matt described for us. We have two orders of taking because one parcel is registered
[33:05] land and all of the acts are reported land. So, handling those logistically as separate
[33:11] documents for registry purposes is tough.
[33:14] I just want to know for the orders of taking the form is one order of taking for a civilian
[33:21] sector, all the parcels put together based on registered or the land. And then you'll see
[33:27] the appendix, a, someone referenced that earlier, that lists the different properties.
[33:32] So for the recorded length, it only includes one property.
[33:34] It also includes the award amount and just forecasting this for a question of, sort of
[33:39] about it.
[33:39] You're also by doing this voting on the award out of an amount in the amount shown on appendix.
[33:47] Great.
[33:48] We did a title rundown today to confirm that all the ownership information is still accurate
[33:53] as it is.
[33:56] Great.
[33:57] Thank you.
[33:58] Thank you.
[34:00] And this.
[34:02] It
[34:15] is truly a tie-knot back to because you said that.
[34:20] The trace is many more than the rest of the piece.
[34:22] Doing it this way is kind of the cleanest path for homeowners that may have a more gage and among other things.
[34:30] I'm not giving up any of their other rights by doing it this way.
[34:36] Nice reference to a path.
[34:38] Yeah.
[34:38] Yeah.
[34:40] Yeah.
[34:40] Yeah.
[34:41] I have to go.
[34:42] Yeah.
[34:42] Those are the after you've been saying that we have taken them as loaded and one for each
[34:49] property.
[34:55] So there's nothing further from us unless you need petries for the next item.
[34:59] No.
[35:00] Uh, no.
[35:01] Well, they might be a little bit.
[35:03] I'll take you on.
[35:05] I'll take you on.
[35:05] You might need them.
[35:06] The next item.
[35:06] But it won't be good.
[35:12] I think it's going to take for less than a minute to do and that will.
[35:17] You're officially giving you a lot.
[35:19] I know
[35:23] the agonizing silence.
[35:25] All right.
[35:50] I'll double check for you.
[35:52] I appreciate it.
[35:53] All right.
[35:59] Thank you very much.
[36:01] You're finished.
[36:02] All right.
[36:03] We're going to have a path.
[36:05] Yeah.
[36:06] We're going to have phase one of a path, right?
[36:11] Awesome.
[36:11] Well, we have more path discussion for a few minutes.
[36:14] So next up, we have discussion and possible vote on partial survey approval for community path
[36:20] phase two.
[36:22] I think Collie Mieson is here to talk about this.
[36:30] Are you doing, Holly?
[36:31] Good.
[36:31] Thank you.
[36:32] Also, Holly Mieson, the chair of the community path project committee.
[36:36] And thank you.
[36:37] Thank you for your both.
[36:38] Both Matt, thank you for the incredible amount of work that you have undertaken to make
[36:44] this happen.
[36:45] It went without poor dedication.
[36:48] Thank you.
[36:49] And I am looking forward to phase two.
[36:52] Getting started very soon.
[36:54] I just wanted to ask if Amy Arch for endemic cause might be online.
[37:00] Are they attending?
[37:05] I see.
[37:06] I'm not.
[37:07] Okay.
[37:08] Just in case there are.
[37:10] Amy Archer is, and you said I'm at, I know, at Puzz, so let me see.
[37:18] Amy Archer is our project manager as our corporation, the designer for phase two.
[37:25] Yeah. And I cannot seem to promote her.
[37:30] And one of you, we have not gotten the signal from the state to unlock those dollars yet.
[37:38] So I just want to make sure I go and understand that.
[37:41] So, I'm still waiting for the reason that I'm here is because there's been a very recent
[37:46] development in the area or proposed development in the area of Maureen Street where there's
[37:52] a very large parcel of land that runs and a piece of it runs down to the tracks.
[38:01] This is between the south side of Lexington Street and the Waltham border.
[38:08] and this is an area where the terminus, the western most terminus of Phase 2, will have to run. There's really no other place
[38:18] while the route for Phase 2 has not yet been approved by the select board and we're working hard to finalize that with some of the
[38:31] the abutting parcels. Once it gets too waverly square at Lexington Street the only place that
[38:39] the path can run is along the northwest edge of the tracks towards the Waltham line and it will
[38:48] either finish right at the Waltham line or it will make a sharp turn and go to Beaver Brook
[38:54] But in any event, the footprint of the path will not be different in that very small section of phase two of the path.
[39:05] So I'm here to talk to you specifically about that area.
[39:09] And the reason that it's come up is because there's a proposed development along the rain street and the developer has laid out a site plan
[39:18] where they might put their buildings, where they might put a retaining wall and we want
[39:23] to make sure now that that will not preclude construction of phase two of the past and
[39:31] make sure that we have enough clearance both to build it and any other sort of support
[39:36] structures would be necessary.
[39:38] And so the developer has given us a site plan which I believe Amy and Matt could provide
[39:45] and to show us where that might be.
[39:48] And we have about $50,000 remaining in the balance
[39:52] of what has already been appropriated for phase two.
[39:56] I was wondering where are you gonna get that?
[39:58] You was allocated, earmarked by our survey work.
[40:03] This would be a part of the survey work
[40:07] that's necessary to complete the design of the project.
[40:10] But we would also require some engineering
[40:12] and work by their subcontractor tool to make sure that the structures will be
[40:20] able to fit in there. So it would be not just survey but also some engineering and
[40:24] design work that would be related specifically to this area between Lexington
[40:30] Street and the Waltham border. And so I am here to both give you that update and to
[40:37] you ask for your approval to go ahead with doing the survey work and design there in order
[40:44] to coordinate with the proposed future development on Lorraine Street.
[40:48] Does that make sense?
[40:49] And then I'm at end and you, of course, please fill in the blanks if I've left something
[40:54] out.
[40:56] Yeah, I can chime in if everyone's okay with that.
[40:59] Thank you very much, Holly.
[41:00] And thank you all for having us here.
[41:02] as Holly was saying, essentially, we are trying to modify the scope of the funds that do remain.
[41:09] So I appreciate Patricia's comment that the remaining funds that should be coming from the state are not yet aligned.
[41:15] This is money that was already approved that still remains in our budget.
[41:19] Instead of completing the entirety of what remains for the survey,
[41:22] we would be repurposing it to do the survey in this portion of the path,
[41:27] path, as well as advance some of the design work to make sure that we know exactly how much
[41:31] space we need to make sure that it's a viable path for all of the users. As I've been explaining
[41:37] to Holly and I met recently, our intent was to build a wall directly along the north side
[41:43] of the trail, along the north side of the rail with the required offset from MBTA. We would
[41:48] then have a buffered offset to our path, build our path, and then we were going to regrade
[41:53] the slope into the abutting parcels. But now that this development is trying to build out as much
[42:00] spaces it can and build a wall itself, we want to make sure that we don't get pinched to narrow.
[42:06] If we need a wall separating us vertically from the tracks and they need a wall to support their
[42:11] building structures, we want to make sure that the users aren't confined between the rail and the
[42:17] wall in a space that feels uncomfortable. So working with tool and the actual survey for
[42:23] this location between the rail and the proposed development property, we'd be able to advance
[42:28] something that we think would be adequate, comfortable, provide the amenities that we've been
[42:33] describing to the public, the community, and the board about this phase of the path.
[42:40] It would be $50,000 just to do survey and engineering for just that site.
[42:46] Can you speak to that, Amy?
[42:48] We're finalizing the number. We had just had this conversation at the end last week,
[42:53] So I've reached out to both of my subs and we are compiling it.
[42:56] I believe it would not exceed that.
[42:58] We may not need the entire amount.
[43:00] We would give Holly the committee.
[43:02] And then we could relate to the town of the final number.
[43:09] If I may just add one thing to this is a met with the DPW
[43:13] engineering department.
[43:14] Thanks for your time everyone.
[43:16] We are in contact with the development team.
[43:19] We actually have a meeting with them tomorrow as well.
[43:21] they're going to share possibly revised version of their plan. Obviously, we'll share that with you
[43:28] as well as it comes in. They did do an initial survey for their portion of work as well. However,
[43:33] the survey does not incorporate the tracks, so that's the necessity for the additional survey work.
[43:41] Assuming that the route is on the north side, correct? In that location, it can only be on the
[43:49] north side because it needs to connect to the path and Waltham, which is on the north side of the tracks.
[43:56] So, and you spoke into the developer?
[44:00] Matt, have you spoken with the developer? I have not until the meeting tomorrow.
[44:04] Yeah, we've had two meetings with them so far. The first was just an initial stop-by. They dropped
[44:10] off their plans and then we looped in Amy Archer and the development team. And since then Amy's sort of,
[44:17] been working, trying to work off their survey and sort of see the feasibility of it.
[44:23] We may have some additional information tomorrow, but I don't know if it's going to, I don't
[44:27] think it's going to incorporate the tracks, I don't think their survey extended that far.
[44:31] Yeah, okay.
[44:34] And I want to add one thing, from what we're being told, they are very eager to get going
[44:42] on their project.
[44:43] So I think timing is an issue, I don't know if they have acquired the land yet or if they're in the process of acquiring the land.
[44:50] Yeah, I mean if I were them, I would want a community path, a body man instead of trying to ask for a community path is an enhancement to the property.
[45:03] I suspect my guess is that you guys will have productive meeting tomorrow. I hope so, and I just think that it's important to be able to move forward with this as soon as we can to make sure that we can protect as much space as needed for the construction of the path. And to be able to coordinate with them from the very beginning of the development work they're doing if they're going to be points back to us or anything like that.
[45:28] It would be much better to be doing it before anything while we're still on paper.
[45:36] Awesome. Any questions or comments from the board?
[45:41] No. I just appreciate looking ahead and trying to line this stuff up ahead of time.
[45:48] Yeah, I agree. I think it's a good idea because it would be a shame.
[45:53] I mean, if we don't tackle this now, it seems like there's a pretty high probability that we'll regret it later.
[46:02] I think so. And thank you for squeezing this in to meeting a short notice.
[46:07] It does seem that the developer is trying to move very quickly and this is the first that we had heard about the plans that they have and how close it potentially comes.
[46:18] All right. So do we need a vote to money's already been appropriated? Right. I think it's
[46:26] really just I think you're approving the survey. Okay, so we're just voting to approve the
[46:32] survey ad. I mean, we don't, it sounds like we don't have a final price, so not to exceed 50.
[46:38] Not to exceed. And do we have a name for the site? I think it's just design and survey work.
[46:45] All right.
[46:47] Partial.
[46:48] Okay.
[46:49] Okay.
[46:49] All right.
[46:51] Move to approve the partial survey for the community path based to with the cost not to exceed $50,000.
[46:59] Second.
[47:01] Second question.
[47:03] All in favor.
[47:04] Hi.
[47:05] Hi.
[47:05] Hi.
[47:06] Great.
[47:06] Thank you very much.
[47:07] Thank you.
[47:08] Thank you.
[47:10] For your time.
[47:11] Thank you.
[47:12] All right.
[47:13] All right, how about this, you want to do the yard sale?
[47:17] Yeah.
[47:18] Or extra.
[47:19] Oh, you snuck in.
[47:20] Yeah.
[47:22] Sitting in the front row.
[47:23] That was the trip.
[47:24] I said that today.
[47:24] I'm with the front row.
[47:25] Yeah.
[47:26] That's great.
[47:27] You show us that.
[47:30] Oh, we're going to do, we're going to, because we're a little bit ahead of schedule, and
[47:34] we want to squeeze something in before we take comments from town residents, we'll talk
[47:37] about discussion and possible vote on the townwide yard sale, which is item 6F.
[47:42] And I'd like to say that under the new policy, I technically could have approved this,
[47:46] but given that it affects a very wide spot of the town, it's better to bring it to you,
[47:51] and have it give them some air time as well. That's right.
[47:56] Awesome. Well, take it away. Good evening, Peter Struser,
[47:59] Director of the Belmont Public Library. I come before you'd sign to ask for permission for
[48:03] a blanket permit for our fourth annual townwide yard sale, which we'd like to have on September 26th.
[48:11] Several reasons why this is a great event and it's been successful for three years in
[48:14] a row.
[48:15] Each time we've done it, we've had over 100 houses, which is great, so I've got five
[48:19] reasons that I'm going to roll right through.
[48:21] Number one, it keeps lots of items out of town, trash and recycling.
[48:25] Number two, it attracts citizens from other communities to Walmart and reminds them what
[48:30] a great place we are to shop and eat and a great place to have a cup of coffee and a place
[48:35] where they're really great library, et cetera, et cetera.
[48:37] Number three, it makes it easier for residents to have a yard sale as a high common get the blanket permit and they don't need to reach out and request permit themselves.
[48:46] Number four, it also makes all those yard sales all that much more successful because it's a draw.
[48:52] You can come to Valmont or if you're a town resident, you can head out for a few hours and you can hit 100 yard sales in one day.
[48:59] And number five, not least of all, it's a lot of fun and a great chance to meet people.
[49:06] And that's a time-wide yarn sale and an awesome thank you Peter.
[49:12] That's a great event so I really appreciate your role at organizing it.
[49:17] Any comments from the board?
[49:18] I appreciate all your efforts. It's been great the last few years so glad you're going to keep it going.
[49:24] Thank you. Thank you. All right. With that I would entertain a motion.
[49:28] Move to approve the request from the library and community services to hold the fourth annual town wide yard sale on Saturday, September 26th, 2026 from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m.
[49:40] Second, all in favor?
[49:42] Hi.
[49:42] Hi.
[49:43] Thank you very much.
[49:44] Thank you.
[49:46] All right.
[49:50] Jay, how long is it going to take to talk about water maintenance placements?
[49:53] That's why we project every year, so can you do it in 10 minutes?
[49:59] Yes.
[50:10] Okay, Mark.
[50:10] TPW, director.
[50:12] So, let's see.
[50:16] On June 4th, six, we received six bids for our annual Waterming projects, part of our upgrading
[50:25] our older pipes to the newer line, when I say line meaning, concrete lined cast iron.
[50:39] We received six bids, six bids, excuse me, and GTA company, I think, was the lowest eligible
[50:47] bidder.
[50:49] What's in Samsung did their due diligence and looked at their work history and I can say
[50:57] with, I have some experience with the GTA with my time and effort.
[51:03] And the funny thing too is that Western Samson was in Everett for about two years and
[51:10] Western Samson was the engineering firm that we used when GTA was doing work there.
[51:16] So it was kind of like, everyone's back full circle here.
[51:20] So the main streets that needs to get done, Elm Street has been a problematic street for
[51:26] many, many years. That is going to be a little bit intricate because the Cambridge waterline runs
[51:36] in that area as well. So we have reached out to Cambridge and they have approved the plans that
[51:42] we have placed and when it gets to certain parts of the project, Cambridge would require a request
[51:48] that they would be present for that type of work that they want to make sure it gets properly taken
[51:55] care on there and so I would recommend that the select board vote enter into a contract with
[52:01] GTA company ink or contract the amount of nuts rate seen in $45,987.85.
[52:13] Great. I don't have any
[52:16] questions. Do the other board members have questions or comments? Just one that we've seen
[52:22] throughs on Elm Street so much, is that gonna be nice to get that tape?
[52:29] It gets on my radar after my ward was managed to tell us we have another
[52:33] break on Elm after like you've heard it feel like every two or three months we
[52:39] have another one we have another one so it's a problematic aircraft also. Matt?
[52:46] Just to appreciate that we got multiple bits so I'd like to hear to that
[52:49] unless we also overuse the state bid list. Thank you.
[52:54] Awesome. All right, well, thank you, Jay. I would
[52:57] entertain a motion. Move to approve the contract for the FY 2026 water main replacement project to
[53:04] GTA company in the amount not to exceed $1,1987.85. Second, all in favor. Hi. Hi.
[53:15] Hi.
[53:16] Thank you.
[53:17] Thank you.
[53:20] Let's see.
[53:21] Brandon.
[53:22] Let's.
[53:23] I don't think we're changing just two minutes.
[53:25] Okay.
[53:26] Just.
[53:30] Why don't we do?
[53:33] Yeah, I think he's going to want to probably take more than five minutes.
[53:35] So I'm going to do minutes.
[53:38] I had no edits.
[53:40] I do not have any edits.
[53:43] Yeah.
[53:44] My only question.
[53:45] I had just asked the question as to what constitutes.
[53:49] a roll call vote as opposed to our other votes. Sometimes we do roll call votes where we say
[53:55] our name and then our vote, and these were all classified as the same, but it seems like
[54:00] classifying it as a roll call with either is fine. I've sometimes gone through and corrected it
[54:07] or changed it to a voice vote when we're not officially saying her name to try to distinguish between
[54:12] time-pervied who take an official roll call vote if the person is remote where our rolls call
[54:22] I don't think, as you said, it's a major distinction in the minutes.
[54:26] Okay.
[54:29] Okay.
[54:30] Then I would entertain a motion.
[54:31] Move to approve the minutes of June 29th, 2026.
[54:35] Second.
[54:36] All in favor?
[54:37] Aye.
[54:37] Aye.
[54:40] So we are.
[54:42] Let's see if there's anything that we might build a squeeze in.
[54:45] Otherwise, New could just take a quick recess.
[54:47] and I would like to start public comments at the time that we said we would.
[54:54] All right, let's take a quick recess until 7 o'clock.
[54:57] Let me just say a couple of, till 7 o'clock, you know.
[59:29] Okay, we will now return to this meeting of the Belmont Select Board.
[59:34] So we're going to do a public comment at this time, and I will just remind everyone that we will
[59:40] We'll allow 15 minutes of public comments.
[59:41] Each commenter will be given up to three minutes to make their comments, and I will give
[59:46] them a 30-second courtesy warning.
[59:48] At the end of public comment, I will allow members of the board and town administration
[59:51] to make comments of their own.
[59:53] You can also email us at selectboardfbelmont-ma.gov with questions and comments.
[1:00:00] With that, looks like we had somebody start us off. How you doing, Ira? Good, how are you? Good
[1:00:07] thing. And do you mind just introducing yourself to the record? Our ordinance term precinct
[1:00:11] seven, I'm a town meeting member.
[1:00:16] And let's
[1:00:19] get some notes out here.
[1:00:23] For the last few
[1:00:24] select board meetings, I've raised the issue of not providing citizens the documents that
[1:00:31] are being discussed at the select board meetings.
[1:00:35] And so not getting those documents in advance.
[1:00:38] And, you know, just to put some meat around that,
[1:00:41] it seems like having citizens sitting through
[1:00:44] select board meetings,
[1:00:46] without a chance to review the documents beforehand,
[1:00:50] it implies that the citizens views are not valued
[1:00:55] and it is contrary to the spirit of transparency.
[1:01:00] That's my concern.
[1:01:02] First, though, I want to apologize for saying less, less
[1:01:06] select word meeting that this could be an open meeting wall
[1:01:10] of violation.
[1:01:13] Both Matt and Patrice corrected me, and what I was citing was
[1:01:17] incorrect, so thank you.
[1:01:21] But moving forward, I was interested in how our peer group
[1:01:25] in close neighboring towns handled this issue.
[1:01:29] Did they handle it like us?
[1:01:30] they handle it differently. So I looked at 17 towns reviewing their agendas and links to relevant
[1:01:38] documents and they many of them had separate information packets that would give citizens a
[1:01:45] chance to review critical docs in advance and these would generally in advance. What it turned out
[1:01:52] is 65% or 11% at a 17th had either links in their agenda or info packets. Info packets was
[1:02:02] quite common. 35% or six out of 17 did not. Newton was hard to discern. But to give you an idea
[1:02:12] who they were, it was Arlington Concord, Lexington, Lincoln, Medford, Melrose, Milton,
[1:02:20] in Needham, Newton, Sudbury, Waltham, Watertown,
[1:02:25] Wadland, Wells, Leif, Weston, and Winchester.
[1:02:30] So I really tried to get a pretty good sample.
[1:02:36] Eight of them had info packets.
[1:02:40] And you have 30 seconds.
[1:02:42] 30 seconds.
[1:02:43] OK.
[1:02:44] I can provide a list of those companies with the links
[1:02:47] and agendas, and the epokets that you'd like them, it's probably not, I'm hoping it's
[1:02:55] not heavy lifting that a lot of the documents that we'd like to see are already digitized
[1:03:01] and provided to you folks that way.
[1:03:03] So hopefully it's not heavy lifting.
[1:03:06] Many citizens want the access to the documents in advance and to increase transparency.
[1:03:12] Okay.
[1:03:13] Thank you, all right.
[1:03:14] I ask the select board and our town administration in the process. I just want to be respectful
[1:03:22] and everybody follows the same set of rules, so thank you. Thank
[1:03:28] you.
[1:03:29] And
[1:03:32] then here are the other comtors in the room, okay, then I will put online,
[1:03:46] Charles, Sakre,
[1:03:54] Charles.
[1:03:59] Are you hearing me now? Yes. Well, just a comment
[1:04:04] about what was said by the gentleman with all due respect just now. The issues
[1:04:11] you are discussing are complex and reviewing them needs multiple people, engineering, administrators,
[1:04:23] accountant, different contractors dealing with them. So it's very interesting what I saw in
[1:04:32] the meeting here, but from there to tell you send me all the documents and I am a professional
[1:04:40] engineer myself by career and you know is not I can help you but it would be 5% lucky if there is
[1:04:52] an issue that is part of my specialty structural engineering but I'm listening and enjoying to see
[1:05:01] such a team who is very well tied together and how they are very respectful with the presenters
[1:05:10] and it's very interesting. So I think the job is being very well handled and thank you.
[1:05:20] Thank you.
[1:05:23] Next up we have Lisa Pargoli. Go ahead Lisa.
[1:05:31] Thank you Lisa Pargoli.
[1:05:32] precinct for what you remember. Back on the commuter path, I heard this said that the
[1:05:40] project was going to hire an independent appraiser and a second appraiser. Who is the project?
[1:05:48] Is that the Belmont taxpayers? Who will be paying for those appraiser's? And the second
[1:05:52] one is you also, I heard, was that they'll be hiring a resident engineer. Who's paying
[1:05:59] for the engineer. Thank you.
[1:06:04] Thank you, Lisa.
[1:06:09] Finally, we have Larry. Go ahead, Larry.
[1:06:15] Larry Lank, precinct 149 orchard. It's now been three weeks. No one in my immediate
[1:06:22] neighborhood has heard anything new about the imminent and considerable sidewalk and three
[1:06:33] have been provided to us.
[1:06:35] We were given two boilerplate emails
[1:06:37] with reference to non-specific generic repaving letters,
[1:06:42] which everybody gets when their street gets repaid.
[1:06:45] There was a mention of an explanatory engineering memo
[1:06:50] purportedly drafted to help us in our particular neighborhood
[1:06:54] understand what was happening.
[1:06:56] No one has been able to find this.
[1:06:58] We see the expense of granite curbing,
[1:07:00] keep piling up on the donated orchard circle grass without notice or warning to
[1:07:06] neighbors. Tonight we heard supportive and understanding messaging from the
[1:07:11] SB for those of butters to the community path which I fully value and
[1:07:17] appreciate. I know that that will be an imposition to those residents but I think
[1:07:21] it will have value to everyone and yet here we are in orchard circle there's been
[1:07:30] While that curbing is intended for orchard street or orchard circle, a reasonable mind will
[1:07:36] question the value.
[1:07:38] Maybe 10, 15, or 20% of the entire town sidewalk budget will be concentrated on two-tenths
[1:07:46] of a mile stretch with no substantive discussion of higher priority or explanation, nothing
[1:07:53] before tack let alone the actual residents.
[1:07:57] I'm sure our industrial engineering staff have reached the, have researched the origins
[1:08:02] of the gifted land to orchard circle, and while they might argue, they aren't abusing
[1:08:08] the original intent, several of us wonder why a simple explanation wouldn't be forthcoming.
[1:08:15] You guys know the picture, there's lots to do in town, but a lot of balls get dropped along
[1:08:21] the way.
[1:08:22] Thank you.
[1:08:23] Thank
[1:08:27] you, Larry. We do have a handout for someone labeled Geek Squad Water Town's iPhone.
[1:08:35] Can you please change that to your real name before I allow you to speak?
[1:09:05] If you're not able to put your real name up, I can't let you speak.
[1:09:12] Let's see, Lisa Pargoli has raised her hand again.
[1:09:16] I'm happy to give you another moment.
[1:09:26] I'm going to press a lot of talk at least so you tell us if you had another comment.
[1:09:32] Well, I asked two questions and you ignored me again.
[1:09:37] What's the point?
[1:09:38] I'd like those questions answered.
[1:09:40] I answered questions.
[1:09:41] You think I answered questions without an answer?
[1:09:43] Could you please answer those questions?
[1:09:45] I mean, this is the second time, please.
[1:09:48] There's a reason why we have comments and questions.
[1:09:52] Lisa, we took read you that at the end of public comment to reserve the full 15 minutes for members of the public's comment.
[1:10:00] I don't understand what I'm a member of the public and I asked two questions within 10 seconds.
[1:10:07] So why can't you answer the questions? I don't understand.
[1:10:11] We'll take them on at the end of public comment.
[1:10:13] at the end of, okay.
[1:10:17] So can you remind me what your two questions are?
[1:10:19] She wants to know about the appraisers.
[1:10:21] Yeah, I want to know.
[1:10:23] And she wants about the engineer and who was paying for that.
[1:10:25] Okay, and I will tell her about that.
[1:10:26] The resident engineer and the two appraisers that are supposed to be hired by the project,
[1:10:32] whether the project is.
[1:10:34] Okay, thank you.
[1:10:35] Well, we're done with public comment and we'll come back to this.
[1:10:37] Thank you.
[1:10:41] Yes, Roger.
[1:10:42] Here,
[1:10:51] Roger Fisa, resident of 123 Chain Road, and butter to the committee of that,
[1:10:57] a super comments.
[1:10:58] I would like to thank Matt Taylor for all your efforts to listen to our concerns that
[1:11:08] my wife and I expressed for coming to our house for site visit or being responsive and
[1:11:15] thoughtful for everything we shared.
[1:11:17] We thought it was fair and reasonable and we very much appreciate your service to the town, and you went above and beyond.
[1:11:25] And so I just want to comment on that.
[1:11:28] The other thing about the committee path that I'd like to say.
[1:11:31] And this is just a quick call to something I said at town meeting when I was the town meeting member.
[1:11:37] Another part of this project that ideally the town will get in front of as quickly as possible are issues involving parking, traffic, etc.
[1:11:50] So because that could where we are or one house over from the tunnel, it's a concern about how that will play out.
[1:12:00] We do understand, however, this is an important project for the town, and as I've mentioned
[1:12:05] before, I've parked another in front of other people's houses for years, and now it's our
[1:12:09] turn.
[1:12:10] However, we just wanted to be a thoughtful process in how it's done.
[1:12:14] Thank you.
[1:12:19] Any other comments in the room?
[1:12:25] Okay.
[1:12:25] I've seen none online with the news.
[1:12:29] Are there any comments or questions from the board?
[1:12:36] So, in response to the other questions, or matters of personal privilege?
[1:12:42] No.
[1:12:43] Just in response to other people's, but I'll add to you.
[1:12:48] Oh, I'm going to have a couple of other questions.
[1:12:53] I want to follow up with Mr. Pargoli.
[1:12:55] So, the town paid for the two appraisal firms.
[1:12:59] They were hired by our town council, so I kind of try to keep it as arms like this we could.
[1:13:04] and the town is paying paid for those appraisals, which were completed in
[1:13:12] end of June or early July.
[1:13:14] I think we used some of the grant money, so it was already appropriated money.
[1:13:20] It was already appropriated money, it's not a pending charge and that was part of
[1:13:24] the regulated process for determining the just compensation that goes out to
[1:13:29] to a butters. So it's not, isn't the town trying to
[1:13:34] high ball or low ball residents. We didn't pick what's the just compensation numbers were.
[1:13:40] The resident engineer is all part of the contract. So the state and also with federal funds
[1:13:49] is covering the estimated $48 million construction cost. And the resident engineer is one of
[1:13:57] the employees that will be hired by the project and there's conditions and descriptions on what
[1:14:05] that role will do but also that they'll be a point of contact and coordinating a butters of
[1:14:10] the path may get a phone call or a knock on their door and this person will also be a point of
[1:14:16] contact for the town and the butters and that's paid for as part of the project.
[1:14:22] Okay.
[1:14:24] In terms of posting documents, you know, our town administration, especially with the
[1:14:29] transition to GIC and HR turnover and stuff, it's going to be really hard to do that.
[1:14:36] But if you have a, want to send me a short list of, you know, say what Arlington or Lexington
[1:14:42] is viewing in this area, I would happily take a look and look for ways to do that as well.
[1:14:46] Yeah, it's going to be hard.
[1:14:47] We're not staffed.
[1:14:47] It's not just that the most of the communities you've enlisted, if not almost all of them, are
[1:14:53] town manager for the government. The select board is a policy board. This is a
[1:14:58] the kind of administrative former government.
[1:15:00] The select board is the executive body. They see and vote on things that in other towns, other communities, the town manager would, would, wouldn't have to bring that to the select board. So, the, the material that's required, the material that's going to this, this, this, the select board was the select board. This is entirely different. I think that's one piece of it. The other piece of it is span with other staff. We get the packet together. Sometimes the packet does not go out to the board until 11 o'clock on Friday. We close at 12.
[1:15:29] My staff is then, if they're obligated to then post that information online, there's
[1:15:36] no time for them to do that.
[1:15:37] So that's an additional burden to the staff.
[1:15:39] I call it picking up my homework binder.
[1:15:42] I think that we appreciate what the comments are and if people call the office and there
[1:15:48] is an ability once the select would receive the material, we can send it.
[1:15:52] But generally in my office, I'd be Tuesday morning, I meet with my staff, we go through the
[1:15:57] agenda point by point, and then we go from there as to what gets posted online if there's time
[1:16:02] to do it. We really do have a time and a staffing issue. The other thing about those
[1:16:06] times you mentioned is I know from professional experience, they are staffed much higher than my offices.
[1:16:12] They have much higher staffing levels than we do. So extending the offer to discuss specifically,
[1:16:21] for example, what Arlington and Lexington are doing in this area and to collaborate on it as a way
[1:16:26] are following up. I do disagree that how we operate implies the citizens views are not valued.
[1:16:36] The select board isn't required to have public comment, the chair is making a lot of guarantee time
[1:16:42] at a stable point in our meeting for residents to comment, and then we have to commit and perform
[1:16:48] all our business in public meeting to recorded live streamed on demand. We do
[1:16:55] leave follow-up with minutes. We post do-legendas. So there is the transparency. I take
[1:17:02] to heart that you might want to review the details of the documents as if you are on the committee,
[1:17:07] but I think that's a hard ask for the staff you have right now. But again, if you want to talk
[1:17:11] about what Arlington and Lexington specifically do, I'm happy to discuss. I want to follow up with Mr.
[1:17:18] link. There is an extensive email thread going back to the middle of July, Town Engineer
[1:17:24] Wayne Janard responded several times. In detail, two detailed questions, I believe, on the
[1:17:36] 22nd memo was sent that detailed the planning incurred. I believe there was, despite
[1:17:44] residents, frustrations, a lot of outreach and engagement. And if you would like, I'd be happy to
[1:17:51] refer to this email thread as an example of the kinds of emails, staff, fields and tries to
[1:17:57] respond to. Let me know. I'm happy to talk to me a call any time. Thank you. And thank you, Roger,
[1:18:07] for your kind words.
[1:18:12] And I appreciate your point. You want to get ahead of traffic and parking.
[1:18:18] We're going to finally have a fourth way across the tracks in our town. Hopefully and that will
[1:18:24] not be over the tracks. Some kids are getting to school right now. It's going to be a big difference.
[1:18:30] Thank you.
[1:18:33] The only thing I'll add, I know a number of residents heard about the Pellet Tax Board's
[1:18:41] ruling.
[1:18:42] It was in the paper last week.
[1:18:46] We have heard your concerns and your frustrations.
[1:18:50] I can't really say much because this is the kind of thing that we're going to have to discuss
[1:18:54] in executive session due to the legal implications, but we will be meeting on it this week in executive
[1:19:03] session.
[1:19:06] Okay. And with that, we're on Meet Velmont.
[1:19:24] Thank you guys very much. Brandon Fitts,
[1:19:27] Director of Community Services. He has Meet Velmont. Yeah, and Department of Fund. And Department of Fund.
[1:19:32] And Department of Fund. And Department of Fund. Most days. Yeah. So, thank you for coming, Brandon.
[1:19:38] And then I think I'll just set the table with a high level like what we're trying to do
[1:19:43] and why.
[1:19:46] So before the pandemic, the town used to do this thing called neat Belmont, which was
[1:19:49] kind of a, it was almost like a, like another flavor of town day and we would do it in the
[1:19:54] fall and town day in the spring.
[1:19:55] And this one was put on, sorry, neat Belmont was put on by the town itself.
[1:20:02] It was one of those unfortunate casualties of the pandemic.
[1:20:05] and we would like to bring it back.
[1:20:07] I think we may do a pilot this year this fall
[1:20:10] to see how it goes and then build upon that
[1:20:14] based on what we learned.
[1:20:16] Yeah, absolutely.
[1:20:17] And so that's exactly right.
[1:20:19] So I guess the way I'm thinking of it
[1:20:21] and we found some old materials from pre-pendemic
[1:20:24] with vendor lists and all sorts of things.
[1:20:26] But it's effectively like a vendor call
[1:20:29] or a college fair where people can go around
[1:20:31] and interact with different town departments
[1:20:33] get plugged into boards and committees, volunteer, so considering this town, it relies so heavily on
[1:20:40] volunteer. It's a way for people to engage and interact and hopefully sign up. Our office
[1:20:47] over at the recreation side was looking potentially doing something in August. Obviously we're in
[1:20:53] August. The pool camp, the speech recently, it's been, it's been a busy summer. So talking with the
[1:20:59] team say, we're tentatively eyeing October 19. It's a Monday night, and it had previously
[1:21:05] been done on a Tuesday night, but I think Monday night might get easier for town departments
[1:21:09] to be more engaged with it. But when the preliminary phases of it, and hopefully we'll hit the
[1:21:15] ground running and start reaching out to people soon, and yeah, more information will be forthcoming.
[1:21:21] Awesome. It's fun. To be continued.
[1:21:26] Well, thank you for all that you do for the town and for putting some effort into this
[1:21:30] Brandon.
[1:21:31] If any comments or questions from the board?
[1:21:33] No.
[1:21:33] It was a great event in the past.
[1:21:34] Thank you for bringing it fast and a lot of opportunities for collaboration.
[1:21:38] That's exactly it.
[1:21:40] So awesome.
[1:21:41] Awesome.
[1:21:42] Thank you.
[1:21:43] I agree.
[1:21:43] Thank you.
[1:21:44] Thank you guys very much.
[1:21:46] Thank you, Brandon.
[1:21:46] Well, thanks.
[1:21:48] Thank you.
[1:21:50] Okay.
[1:21:52] Next up, we have discussion and possible vote of host community agreement.
[1:21:56] with Clover partners LLC.
[1:22:01] As the board knows, you agree to be a close agreement for Mint Retail Facilities LLC.
[1:22:09] They have first their ability under a Master on Law, transferred their license to Clover,
[1:22:16] and we have to accept a new model host agreement.
[1:22:21] The board has to vote that in.
[1:22:23] What I gave you is a pretty much the template that the state gives you, and Michael is here
[1:22:28] to speak on behalf of the owners that I can answer any questions, whatever you need.
[1:22:38] Awesome, Megan.
[1:22:39] It's a cool review.
[1:22:40] Whatever you guys.
[1:22:42] That's great.
[1:22:43] Awesome.
[1:22:44] Well, maybe feel free to use this opportunity to talk about your store.
[1:22:48] Yeah.
[1:22:48] So we're in the paperwork process right now, but we're getting out of everything.
[1:22:53] So we have all of our stuff in the row for now.
[1:23:00] We'll give it to the state, but we've already submitted everything, so they're actually
[1:23:03] just waiting for that right now, and two other minor pieces of paper hopefully get the approval
[1:23:10] from them on the next agenda, which would be September, sorry, on October, and get some
[1:23:19] inspections done by the town, fire department and health inspection, and then hopefully
[1:23:24] we can be open before the end of the year or the goal.
[1:23:27] Awesome, yeah.
[1:23:29] And what variety of Elmont?
[1:23:30] Like what made Elmont a factor place to open a business?
[1:23:32] Well, we had heard of the men's
[1:23:35] and how they weren't gone open.
[1:23:37] We had kind of been looking, but not all relationships,
[1:23:41] anything, and we thought it was a good opportunity
[1:23:43] to go over the town.
[1:23:45] I live in Canton, so I'm not too far away.
[1:23:48] She's certainly got 30 minutes to get here.
[1:23:50] Grew up in West Virginia, so I'm pretty well-cooked.
[1:23:54] We have a cultivation facility down at time, so, you know, we wanted to try to get it to retail and see if we could do that.
[1:24:03] So this is a three-year agreement.
[1:24:06] I think you can do longer but it's given you three years is what I would recommend.
[1:24:11] And then we also have any discontinuance of the relationship with 30 business days notice.
[1:24:17] So those are the two things the board could change if they chose to.
[1:24:21] It's on page 9 of the government.
[1:24:28] It's pretty, like I said, it's boilerplate, it's what the state gives us, pretty similar
[1:24:33] to the last.
[1:24:34] Gotcha.
[1:24:35] Thank you.
[1:24:37] Any comments or questions from your board?
[1:24:39] Just a comment.
[1:24:40] We had the opportunity to meet and I appreciated the more in-depth backstory that I had on your
[1:24:46] business and the high standards and your track record in other communities.
[1:24:50] So I am excited to have you come in next time and wish you well.
[1:24:54] Thank you. Appreciate it.
[1:24:55] Thank you.
[1:24:56] Yeah.
[1:24:57] Welcome.
[1:24:59] And for folks following along that this is just part of an administrative process.
[1:25:05] The post agreement is typically centered around.
[1:25:08] It's mitigating community impacts a negative impact on the community.
[1:25:13] We already have marijuana dispensary operating on western street.
[1:25:19] I'm not currently aware of any real negative impacts on the community, so just for people
[1:25:27] understand what we're evaluating here. We also used to have a different host agreement,
[1:25:33] but the state said we should follow much more closely to what the template is, so that's
[1:25:39] what we're looking at tonight. And I see no reason to – every reason to support it.
[1:25:45] Next, thank you for your support.
[1:25:49] Well, there are no other questions or comments.
[1:25:52] I will entertain a motion.
[1:25:54] Move to approve the host community agreement
[1:25:56] with Clover Partners LLC.
[1:25:58] Second.
[1:25:59] All in favor?
[1:26:00] Hi.
[1:26:01] Hi.
[1:26:02] Thank you and welcome to Belmont.
[1:26:03] Appreciate it.
[1:26:04] Thank you.
[1:26:04] We're excited.
[1:26:08] Next up, discussion and possible vote
[1:26:11] on extension of Memorandum Agreement between the town
[1:26:14] of Belmont and the Belmont community media
[1:26:16] centering corporate.
[1:26:25] Mark is supposed to be here. Well, the agenda says a little later. Do you
[1:26:30] want us to wait until Mark is here? I don't see Mark online. Do you want to wait for Mark?
[1:26:37] We could meet less efficiently. Yeah.
[1:26:42] Well, Jeff, I mean, do you want us to wait for Mark? Do
[1:26:45] We can do other agenda items while we wait.
[1:26:48] I'm sorry.
[1:26:49] Do you want us to wait for Mark to get here?
[1:26:55] It's up to you all, I mean.
[1:26:57] Yeah.
[1:26:58] Yeah, I think we should wait.
[1:27:00] Okay.
[1:27:00] So why don't we?
[1:27:01] Okay.
[1:27:02] I'll let you know when he's.
[1:27:03] Yep.
[1:27:04] Sounds good.
[1:27:05] Why don't we do the discussion and possible vote on draft Belmont sports complex advertising and sponsorship opportunities RFP?
[1:27:15] Yep.
[1:27:15] So, brought a draft to the board about a month ago.
[1:27:20] I took your comments, went back.
[1:27:22] Actually, I also ran it by a member of the community
[1:27:25] just to make sure it was landing correctly.
[1:27:28] We can see back and Brandon has been helping kind of craft the visual portion of it.
[1:27:34] Matt and I were doing one of the technical RFP required.
[1:27:40] Yeah, so we would like to get this out on the street.
[1:27:43] So it's a two packages. It's it's the bell must go complex. The nice pretty part of it. And then the request for proposals
[1:27:50] We wanted to start off small because obviously there's still a lot going on with the rank in terms of um the building can still some updates.
[1:27:58] We'd like to, you know, get some proposals back and start maybe potentially bringing those to the board for some time in the fall.
[1:28:05] So we wanted to kind of get a jump on this, especially when peak season starts, we wanted
[1:28:09] to really kind of have something in place.
[1:28:11] So this is really the final product we'd like to put out onto the street.
[1:28:14] Cuff.
[1:28:15] Oh, if the board agrees.
[1:28:18] Cuff.
[1:28:18] It kind of looks part-I did.
[1:28:21] The blue?
[1:28:25] No, I don't, I'm going to look through this, I think, because I thought you guys did a good
[1:28:29] job and I don't have any comments to other members of the board.
[1:28:33] I just had a couple.
[1:28:34] So, in the about us where we have it listed, Belmont is a family oriented and supporting
[1:28:40] community.
[1:28:41] I felt like maybe if we did something more of community oriented, instead of family
[1:28:45] oriented, just make sure we're inclusive everybody.
[1:28:48] There was also a typo at the end of that line, I believe, it should be area, instead of
[1:28:55] R.
[1:28:58] The end of where?
[1:28:59] in the greater Boston are, I think you meant greater Boston area, that top line?
[1:29:04] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:29:06] It's a little bit better.
[1:29:06] The object doesn't hit those things up.
[1:29:08] It's the marauder speakers.
[1:29:12] And then it was that the sentence after I just feel that by changing community oriented,
[1:29:19] we work that with your magic a little bit.
[1:29:22] But under our programs where we have a few things that are in present tense, but are
[1:29:31] really future objectives.
[1:29:33] So maybe just correcting it, the rig will provide non-ice programming during the off-season
[1:29:37] and things like that.
[1:29:38] Just so that way, we're not caught in a position where some of these things haven't been implemented
[1:29:43] yet.
[1:29:45] Got it.
[1:29:45] Yep.
[1:29:49] You were saying a comment after Belmont Hill School under youth hockey.
[1:29:52] And then again, just the wording of adult hockey versus women's hockey.
[1:30:00] There's, there's some opportunity to just take out some of the ICIC. I love the, the separated programs and the one that is amazing, but I do think that generalizing it might be a little cleaner. Yeah.
[1:30:18] Underring advertising, we actually don't have live burn. I know that they had come in, but I don't believe that that was live at that. It got installed yesterday. I believe they finally came back to do the final installation. Very nice.
[1:30:35] And then, under the ads and the ranks displayed for 12 months, my only concern, and we
[1:30:42] had talked about this previously, is we're having things reset and per rated, would that
[1:30:47] be better than saying that, you know, if one person comes in in September and somebody
[1:30:52] else comes in in November, that we're going to reset them all on the fiscal year, because
[1:30:56] we do say further in that it's going to be done, I think it would be with the dates bar.
[1:31:01] But I think it might be easier to just kind of get everybody on the same calendar season.
[1:31:07] So that way, we're not constantly having people come in and out.
[1:31:10] It would probably be more cost effective, efficient.
[1:31:13] I think that's what we were doing, but are you not reading it that way?
[1:31:16] Because I think we were saying, like if you came in the beginning, you're supposed to get
[1:31:19] it for like the peak season here, right?
[1:31:21] So it says, as on the inside of the rink or display for 12 months, from the time of installation.
[1:31:25] So if we're installing a lot of this is not going to be relevant, but I think where we do have the occasional offseason or something like that or something changes that just avoiding anything that's going to give you headaches.
[1:31:47] under the Zamboni ramp.
[1:31:53] It's 10 minute intervals. They're not always every hour. And so again,
[1:31:59] just like I think just putting something a little more generic, periodic. If you want to give one
[1:32:04] specific for one high school hockey game, for example, the Zamboni runs four times because it'll be
[1:32:09] beginning the end and between the first and second and second and third. So I think that could be a good little shout out for how often the
[1:32:15] Zamboni is going to be circling. But there's some programs that they're on the ice for two hours and just to make it a little bit less.
[1:32:23] Yeah, but they take that 50 minute gap and they take the 10 minutes to stay back to back.
[1:32:27] Exactly, but sometimes they don't do the 10 minutes. Sometimes you're just on for two. So I don't want someone to be able to come back and say, you know,
[1:32:33] Well, it's not every hour and because sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, but yeah.
[1:32:39] I'm
[1:32:46] there contact. If you'd like to become a sponsor, I'm just wondering if we should have
[1:32:50] it diverse, so whether people are sponsors or advertisers, because sometimes sponsor has different
[1:32:55] implications than advertising, where they're paid advertisements. I think either is fine, but a
[1:33:03] just for parity. Where's that one? Untacked?
[1:33:08] Oh, okay. I'd like to become a sponsor.
[1:33:11] But I don't know if it should be sponsor advertiser.
[1:33:14] They're generally the same thing, but again,
[1:33:16] just where we can clean it up in advance.
[1:33:18] What's that?
[1:33:19] It can be vendor as well.
[1:33:20] I mean, it could be advertiser as well.
[1:33:30] So under the minimum bid requirements,
[1:33:32] we have estimated minimum bid.
[1:33:33] So I'm just wondering if somebody,
[1:33:35] so when we put these out,
[1:33:36] if someone comes in and says, well, I'll give you 6,000 for the sample only rep and that's the
[1:33:42] highest bid. No, we accept that. Do we have bottom lines and how are we going to handle that?
[1:33:51] Are these the minimums or could someone get lower?
[1:33:55] Okay, because it's estimated so that's why I just wasn't sure if there was wiggle remunet.
[1:33:59] We're going to take, you know, obviously, the most favorable.
[1:34:03] And then I just wasn't sure the total requirements, I didn't, so company background and relevant
[1:34:08] experience and a few things that I, you know, I mean, depending on who our advertisers are,
[1:34:13] I know we want to make sure that it's company that is meeting the guidelines that I thought
[1:34:17] you outlined really well of what restricted categories could include and I, you know, not limited to
[1:34:23] so that I think that was really well done. But I feel like looking for relevant experience and things
[1:34:29] like that. We just for some of these simpler ones, I think, be easier, easier options for
[1:34:36] getting people's interest in their therapy. But it is a, it's a very inclusive proposal.
[1:34:43] So thank you for all the work you did on it, and the layout is beautiful.
[1:34:48] Thanks.
[1:34:48] I'll go ahead and make those edits more clean up tomorrow, too.
[1:34:51] Thank you.
[1:34:52] We already, we have had folks are you asking about sponsorship, which is perfect.
[1:34:56] Thank you.
[1:34:57] I think that's a bit.
[1:34:58] Yes.
[1:35:00] Matt.
[1:35:02] Just by the light.
[1:35:03] I can send details separately.
[1:35:06] I just, I found the white text on the light blue background.
[1:35:08] Sometimes a little tricky.
[1:35:09] Yeah.
[1:35:10] Yeah.
[1:35:10] I just make it black and white.
[1:35:13] Consider having, if you want, like we've had, we've been bitten in the past with emails going
[1:35:20] to an employee that isn't necessarily in that role or something in the future.
[1:35:24] So, especially things that were putting out for, like, long-term, consider having a dedicated
[1:35:28] email address or something like that.
[1:35:30] That's a guy.
[1:35:31] It's nice, rather than sending it to a particular, um, I love individual, and I can send
[1:35:39] another minor comments separately, really appreciate that we're thoughtfully trying to get started
[1:35:47] on this, every dollar counts, and I think we have an amazing community brand that businesses
[1:35:55] and people want to be a part of.
[1:36:01] Okay, so we'll make those changes and we'll get it on the street.
[1:36:04] So do you need a, do you know, approved as a mandate?
[1:36:07] No, no, I don't need a vote.
[1:36:09] Great, no, just put it on.
[1:36:10] I just have to ask one more question.
[1:36:11] Are there sponsorship options for the concession areas?
[1:36:14] Eventually.
[1:36:15] Eventually.
[1:36:17] I really wanted to start with, you want to start small.
[1:36:19] Okay.
[1:36:20] This is a new bench for the town.
[1:36:22] We didn't want to overwhelm the ranks.
[1:36:24] We wanted to kind of do it slowly.
[1:36:26] Perfect.
[1:36:26] I could have been mentioned many, many, let's hope that I could.
[1:36:30] I mean, we can put out our fees that's more pins as we go along.
[1:36:36] Right.
[1:36:36] Again, the building can be still in there.
[1:36:38] So we just kind of want to do it when we had full control of the ring.
[1:36:45] All right.
[1:36:46] Well, thank you.
[1:36:47] Please.
[1:36:48] Thank you, man.
[1:36:52] Now on to the ring report.
[1:36:55] work. Great work. So we are waiting on our consultant to join. I did let him know that
[1:37:02] we're running early, but I don't think he's been able to come quite yet. So how about
[1:37:07] we do a Shea tree committee proposed by law update?
[1:37:15] I can provide an update if you'd like.
[1:37:17] So we have been chatting and there has been a lot of good feedback provided to the Shea
[1:37:24] committee about the proposal. There is generally a lot of support for something to work towards this
[1:37:31] goal, that they are realizing that fall is not going to be feasible for bringing anything forward
[1:37:39] to town meeting at this time. They did coordinate with Chris Ryan and are going to do a follow-up
[1:37:43] meeting. They're meeting again at the end of the month to try to find two in their direction
[1:37:48] a little bit more. And we're going to continue to meet from there. So there's potentially a few
[1:37:54] changes with who's going to be leading the charge with us from within the J-Tree Committee.
[1:37:58] So we're just going to give them a little time to work that through.
[1:38:02] You talk about some of the feedback that they've received and you said there's some changes in
[1:38:06] direction. So they were, they were really active to some of the conversation about not limiting things
[1:38:14] within buildable footprints because they understand the potential complications where we have certain parts of our
[1:38:22] by-law that we can't inhibit construction. So with an ADU, for example, if we had said, if you're taking that
[1:38:29] tree down to build your ADU, that could potentially be a violation of state law because it would be putting additional
[1:38:36] requirements in. It could be a little gray because it would presumably be the same requirement for a single family, but it
[1:38:42] adjusted starting to start, you know, a challenging area and we really don't want to discourage
[1:38:47] some of those activities. So that was one thing. There was conversation about maybe trying to
[1:38:52] focus on new construction where they are actually tearing down building new and clearing lots
[1:38:58] to build new properties and doing it in a simpler way to cut down on the administrative cost where
[1:39:05] this would potentially be going to a revolving fund. We need to make sure that the expense to the
[1:39:11] town and the burden to town staff is not going to be so great that it becomes really complicated.
[1:39:17] So looking at things in a more generic way to address some of the concerns that were raised
[1:39:22] about the tree warden not having per view on private property and things that could just open us up
[1:39:29] for some challenges to what's being proposed. There's a lot of looks at what's being done in other
[1:39:34] communities, and so they're definitely using that guidance, but trying to find a smaller starting point
[1:39:41] that can hopefully be built off, assuming that it'll be successful. Any questions or comments, Matt?
[1:39:51] Oh, do you think annual tell me like, is there a goal? That's what they were talking about,
[1:39:56] but I think that they'll have a better idea after they meet at the end of the month. Like,
[1:40:00] many of our committees, people are traveling and meeting over the summer has been challenging,
[1:40:03] So they are working on a meeting towards the end of the month, but also some changes personally for a couple of the members are going to change their direct involvement, so they're looking for other people to take active roles in this to try to bring it for a spring, but spring would be the goal.
[1:40:18] If they can do that, and then of course it's going to depend on versus schedule and coordinating with their office.
[1:40:24] I mean, this is an area where I think members of the select board can be extra helpful because
[1:40:31] there's like, I think like this touches so many other areas.
[1:40:36] And so helping them navigate that is like and like figuring out what is going to be acceptable
[1:40:44] to town meeting, too, right?
[1:40:45] We want to bring forward something that would be acceptable to town meeting.
[1:40:49] Yes.
[1:40:49] I think the more you can help that without obviously we don't want to step on the toes of
[1:40:53] a separate committee, I think that would make a big difference. It's an area that I just think
[1:40:57] is really hard for the Shake Tree Committee to navigate independently.
[1:41:02] Yes, and we did talk a lot about the process and the people to be in touch with to make sure
[1:41:07] that we were going to be getting this on the right track so that way it can work the way they want it to.
[1:41:13] And it's been a good opportunity for gathering more information because they didn't have the
[1:41:19] information about the revolving fund and what that takes plus the setup for advertising
[1:41:24] and having this go through the proper process to actually become something that we can enforce.
[1:41:31] But also, you know, enforcement, immigration, implementation and everything like that is
[1:41:36] something that is going to take a lot of consideration from the office of building and planning
[1:41:39] because this would be, from the conversations, it's going to be easiest to tie this to the building
[1:41:45] permit process and have this be a step in that, so it's not really adding an entirely
[1:41:51] new process to the system.
[1:41:52] All right.
[1:41:55] Well, thank you for your work on that.
[1:41:57] Any problems?
[1:41:58] More to come.
[1:42:00] How about we move on to discussion and possible vote on final language for two holdable
[1:42:06] conditions, item 13 amp.
[1:42:19] So Patrice, these are from, these are from the annual town meeting and it was the, what
[1:42:27] was the name of the committee?
[1:42:28] They like the senior tax, tax relief committee, and the, the Michael Crowley, like from
[1:42:35] remote town.
[1:42:36] Yeah.
[1:42:36] This is just a council putting into paper after the approval of those, so this is one, one was,
[1:42:45] one was one.
[1:42:46] And it's really for the EU to just review the language,
[1:42:49] and if you approve of the language,
[1:42:51] then we can send it to the legislature
[1:42:52] and we'll go through that process.
[1:42:56] Okay.
[1:42:57] I mean, I sort of look at this.
[1:42:59] It's just housekeeping.
[1:43:00] To me, this is how many has spoken, right?
[1:43:03] And we just have to pass it upstairs.
[1:43:07] Yeah, as long as the board agrees with the language,
[1:43:08] I think that some of the language usually
[1:43:11] is about the board trapped at home.
[1:43:13] Yeah, that's right.
[1:43:14] This is the council has drafted for each of those subjects.
[1:43:21] Any questions or comments from the board?
[1:43:26] Just to that's my understanding of the
[1:43:28] axi relief legislation.
[1:43:30] The net effect is we can basically do a catch-up with inflation
[1:43:35] from when the statute was first available
[1:43:39] for all the years that we didn't take advantage of it
[1:43:41] of the inflation adjustment.
[1:43:44] But cannot exceed that amount.
[1:43:46] Correct. That's my understanding.
[1:43:49] And then the other one that looks like it's essentially very similar to Homeworld Registration.
[1:43:55] That's been submitted by other towns to basically say, hey, we would like in-person, hybrid,
[1:44:03] or remote town meetings.
[1:44:06] And I believe this is worded specifically for town meetings only.
[1:44:10] Is that that I read that right?
[1:44:11] but this is just physically that way.
[1:44:14] This is as opposed to committee meetings as well.
[1:44:17] Correct, this is Anderson Krieger represents Lexington
[1:44:21] and they did something so that I suspect this would be back.
[1:44:27] I can't, I don't know, they'll talk about the catch-up,
[1:44:32] consumer price index legislation,
[1:44:36] but I think especially the hybrid town meeting one,
[1:44:39] It's almost like a new two vote of like hey lots of committee communities are supporting
[1:44:46] this and so hopefully we'll get a statewide law rather than a dozen or more of these special
[1:44:53] legislation. I mean, again, as we're represented, we're in our towns that are open.
[1:45:00] It was likely wouldn't apply. It's open. How meetings are tricky. Okay. That's it.
[1:45:09] That's the roll call. The roll call, the roll call. The roll call. The roll call. The roll call.
[1:45:15] News to approve final language for home or petition for an act authorized in the town of Belmont to
[1:45:23] increase the asset limitation ceiling, income limitation ceiling, and benefit limitation
[1:45:29] ceiling applicable to seniors applying for tax abatement, pursuant to clauses 17D, 17E,
[1:45:36] and 41C of section 5 of chapter 59 of the general laws.
[1:45:42] Second, all in favor.
[1:45:44] Aye.
[1:45:46] Aye.
[1:45:46] Aye.
[1:45:47] Move to approve the final language for home role petition for an act authorizing remote
[1:45:51] participation at town meeting and special town meetings in the town of Belmont.
[1:45:57] Second, all in favor.
[1:45:59] Hi.
[1:46:04] Okay.
[1:46:05] Do we have our consultant on yet?
[1:46:08] Oh, but we do have Mark, but Mark.
[1:46:09] How many are?
[1:46:10] All right.
[1:46:11] So why don't we go back to item number?
[1:46:15] We would never have.
[1:46:19] No.
[1:46:21] No.
[1:46:25] I'm sorry, I'm a little not tied, but you're ahead of schedule, so I don't know where
[1:46:33] it is.
[1:46:33] Yeah.
[1:46:34] If you don't mind, just introducing yourselves to the record, of course.
[1:46:37] Mark Huello, a member of the Treasurer and member of the Belmont Media Center Board.
[1:46:44] Jeff Nassau, the executive director of the Belmont Media Center, and we're here seeking
[1:46:50] in renewal of our agreement, a five-year agreement.
[1:46:52] And I think what we'd like to do is we drafted a couple
[1:46:56] of copies of the agreement that you could sign tonight.
[1:47:00] It's if that's, you choose to do that.
[1:47:02] And so I'd like to ask Mark to say a few words.
[1:47:05] We'd like to, and now I have a very short point to go through.
[1:47:09] Thank you, thank you for that, Jeff, some chair.
[1:47:11] Thank you again for agreeing to renew this.
[1:47:14] I extend this agreement for the next five years.
[1:47:16] I think as you know, the town has agreements
[1:47:19] with all Comcast and Verizon that are expiring later on, so this will continue to allow us to provide
[1:47:25] three public access stations to the community, and so we're thrilled about that. We're also thrilled
[1:47:31] that we're in our new space. I'm sure you visited both the library space and the space at the school
[1:47:39] and we're grateful for the support we've gotten from the board of library trustees and library staff
[1:47:44] And also from this school department, school committee, school administration, we're thrilled
[1:47:49] about that.
[1:47:50] We have more visibility now, we're going through a strategic plan and we look forward
[1:47:55] to coming back sometime this fall, as part of the agreement, you may have noticed that
[1:48:00] we have a requirement on the agreement to come back and present to you our financial statements
[1:48:04] which we'll do along with a broader sort of discussion of our strategic plan when the
[1:48:09] plan is going forward.
[1:48:11] Thank you.
[1:48:12] And prior to this meeting, we did submit the FY 2425 documents, financial statements,
[1:48:19] form 990, for PCD, so we have all that as well.
[1:48:23] So this is sort of a catch-up meeting to do a couple different things.
[1:48:28] I don't know if we should, do we discuss the contract at all, or do we feel...
[1:48:33] I think we need to.
[1:48:34] It's pretty straightforward, right?
[1:48:35] Unless the board have any questions?
[1:48:38] I don't have any questions.
[1:48:38] I pretty much the same agreement that I signed five years ago with the dates and
[1:48:43] And continue to be committed to do this.
[1:48:46] I think you all know as well, one other comment to make is that, from a revenue perspective,
[1:48:51] we'll talk about this in the fall.
[1:48:53] There is a streaming bill, I don't know if it's a state legislature, I don't know on
[1:48:56] Apple with that.
[1:48:57] And we're continuing to seek support and we appreciate the support from the board for that
[1:49:03] from franchise fee because it's diminishing because more people are streaming today than using
[1:49:07] cable.
[1:49:09] So we'll talk further about that sometime in this fall.
[1:49:22] So I thought I would just go over a couple of things to keep you up to date about a couple
[1:49:28] of items.
[1:49:28] The legislation that was in the state house, unfortunately, it did not.
[1:49:35] It was an under final consideration, the treaty bill got it as further along as you could
[1:49:39] get.
[1:49:40] It was not put up for a vote.
[1:49:41] But it will live on that in the next session.
[1:49:46] It got further along that we ever had it.
[1:49:49] It also was shortlisted among 10 bills that should have been passed.
[1:49:52] It was mentioned in the Melafine report of the formal session.
[1:49:58] And our colleagues and advocates around the state are going to be advocating
[1:50:03] during this informal session in the possibility that could be passed without objection.
[1:50:08] It's good for January.
[1:50:09] that would be tricky, but it's possible with, for example, the governor was strongly supported,
[1:50:17] so we'll keep pushing for that.
[1:50:21] And I thought just because we turned in the report through 24,
[1:50:25] 25, it might be interesting to look at just a couple of statistics. These are the number of meetings
[1:50:31] that we covered in that fiscal year 170. I live in Cambridge. I'm proud to live in Cambridge.
[1:50:37] Roger, Roger.
[1:50:38] Okay, Roger.
[1:50:39] Okay, Roger.
[1:50:40] Roger, is that our fundraising chair?
[1:50:45] By Cambridge covers 5% of the meetings that we cover
[1:50:49] with twice the budget we have.
[1:50:51] So we should be proud of what we're doing and absolutely.
[1:50:56] And that of course covers a number of different committees
[1:50:59] from the begin meetings in the morning
[1:51:01] and then the late night as you know,
[1:51:03] analytical sports to be coverage
[1:51:04] with a lot of participation of students and parents in that year.
[1:51:08] We covered 92 matches and games, I can't believe we did all that many.
[1:51:16] In studio programs, in the field, two productions,
[1:51:19] Tamwood events community events for the year was 191 total programs produced.
[1:51:23] So that's a lot of the community get involved, really, right there.
[1:51:28] A couple of things just to mention, which we mentioned at our donor event,
[1:51:32] but with the leadership of Roger, Cheryl, Ellen Schreiber, and everyone on the board,
[1:51:38] we raised $250,000 to help pay for the studio and his construction when we cost.
[1:51:44] So it was something we had never done before.
[1:51:47] First time we've ever done a fundraising event like that.
[1:51:52] And what we're doing right now, just up to the moment is coordinating phase one of the auto-wiring
[1:51:59] upgrades in the VMHS auditorium to make it more time meeting friendly, to make it a lot easier
[1:52:05] to put on time meeting there and take a lot of the stress out that.
[1:52:12] So that should be complete
[1:52:15] this week at least days one of it, I'm expecting that to happen. And just in terms of the progress
[1:52:21] where we are in the new studios, you've seen that we've, for the most part, completed the studio
[1:52:26] in the library. We have a podcast set now, we also have a new set and we have a, that's the full
[1:52:37] set as well. And I want to thank the obviously the library library board of trustees for allowing
[1:52:44] us to move in and make the adjustments and your modifications needed to have a modern state of
[1:52:51] And it really is a state of the art facility.
[1:52:54] So I'm very anxious to get going with that.
[1:52:58] We already have a lot of people lined up
[1:52:59] to do podcasts and in training.
[1:53:02] We have a, just mention one thing,
[1:53:05] Nina Livingstone who some people may know.
[1:53:07] She's been in town forever.
[1:53:08] She's deaf and she's blind
[1:53:09] and she's doing a podcast by disability issues and other things.
[1:53:13] So it's fantastic, it's a really fun.
[1:53:16] BMHS TV studio, that's in progress.
[1:53:19] That's maybe a little bit more work.
[1:53:20] but a little bit more of a challenge, but we are working on that to complete that summer.
[1:53:27] And then a couple of things that you may be interested to know, we manage all of the
[1:53:31] high-tech video systems in town, which we have seven all together, you know, the number of meetings
[1:53:39] that we coordinate in town. And then we developed over the past few years a digital-wide,
[1:53:45] town-wide digital signage network that we're sort of calling Belmont Billboards and have been
[1:53:50] working with the town IT department, the school technology department, the library, the
[1:53:54] rank and COA to spread this out. So we now have 10 screens across the town and we should
[1:54:01] have one in downtown in Belmont Center sometime soon. So it's a way to promote events and
[1:54:08] meetings around town in a more visible, visual way. One thing that we may not have heard
[1:54:17] about is we did help COA with the grant, hybrid programming grant, and we currently manage
[1:54:24] the iPad project for the Council on Aging, 20 iPads that are at COA.
[1:54:30] And we also with Brandon designed a new sound system at the Beach Street Center, which
[1:54:34] improved that operation as well.
[1:54:38] Let's just look at the snapshot of some of the things that we've gotten at the end of the
[1:54:48] I don't have any. Thank you for all you do. I think Belmont Media is one of the quintessential
[1:54:54] functions of, is a quintessential element of our local governments. And I appreciate
[1:55:01] all that you do to make government transparent for the public.
[1:55:05] Thank you for that, Mr. Chair.
[1:55:06] Any other comments or questions for the board?
[1:55:09] Yeah, it's more than government. You bring us closer together and you give so many options.
[1:55:13] family members get to watch sporting events from all over the place and the live streaming
[1:55:17] options are really amazing and I'm always impressed at how many places you are at one time because
[1:55:24] there's constantly so many different things going on in town and the number of times that I know
[1:55:28] I've had to zoom meetings up at the same time and it's the people behind the cameras that keep it all
[1:55:34] moving at sometimes at a very fast pace is really impressive and very grateful.
[1:55:40] Yeah, I think we're looking to do more expand the way we do business as well and we had a really productive all day
[1:55:45] Saturday meeting two weeks ago and talk about so I think we've got some input from all of you as well on that so
[1:55:52] I think there's different ways we could present what we do as well within the community.
[1:55:56] You make it look easy too. I covered a lot of the game and I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to run a camera.
[1:56:00] Well, off camera moments.
[1:56:02] Oh yeah, so I'm only one IT or a technology that appreciate that comment, did you?
[1:56:07] Thank you.
[1:56:08] Great.
[1:56:11] Second, my colleague said, you guys do everything with nothing.
[1:56:17] It's kind of like not all heroes where it keeps.
[1:56:19] Some of them are called Belmont Media Center.
[1:56:22] You guys are, I think, a real hero for our community.
[1:56:25] We're grateful for that.
[1:56:27] And just by this partnership, is working both
[1:56:30] of our state representatives advocated for the funding bill.
[1:56:33] It's due, right.
[1:56:34] I think that is vital. I see what Belmont media provides for our community and keeping it
[1:56:41] funding and operating is just a view that is essential. Thank you for that. Can you appreciate it?
[1:56:48] Thank you. Okay. Great. Take a motion. Yeah. Hang tight guys.
[1:56:54] You want to prove the memorandum of agreement between the town of Belmont and the Belmont
[1:56:58] committee, media center, Inc. Second. All in favor. Hi. Hi. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
[1:57:05] Sign this before we let them go. What is the sign of it? Maybe it's something that we would
[1:57:11] have a signature. By the way, thank you as well for supporting. Was that the home role petition?
[1:57:15] We passed the town meeting. So as a member of the team attached will be working to appreciate that
[1:57:20] approval as well. That would be both. Good. I was telling Taylor that we're beta testing
[1:57:29] five more. And we're one of the first genus values. We're doing it in terms of media centers,
[1:57:34] but it's a way for us to take a stock board meeting and using AI,
[1:57:39] cooperation with the human being, spend out the highlights of the meetings.
[1:57:45] We're looking at testing right now.
[1:57:47] I think that'll be awesome.
[1:57:58] Well, people do want to sit through four hours worth of meeting.
[1:58:02] I told them to help to summarize the meetings, right?
[1:58:07] Or look forward to inform our community more about what you all are doing.
[1:58:11] I mean, look at it as you either want, right now,
[1:58:15] you either want to get all of it or none of it, right?
[1:58:18] You and I have talked about the sporting events as well so we'll get to where people don't have
[1:58:22] the time to look for 10 the event and then watch it. I don't want to spend two hours.
[1:58:27] It was 92 games you broadcasted probably about an hour long. Like I don't have 92 hours in my life.
[1:58:32] Right. So watch to watch high school sports. But if you said me like highlights of kids
[1:58:36] they're best, I would totally take that. Absolutely agree with you.
[1:58:39] I am. You can show. Can I see? Yeah. I'm going to take a picture. I never get a picture of myself.
[1:58:45] That's what we got.
[1:58:47] As we're, as you're selling pieces of paper,
[1:58:50] we just like to say, we're proud to be able to support Tham
[1:58:54] and our partnership with you is, but most important to us.
[1:59:00] Right here.
[1:59:02] We're gonna do some of that.
[1:59:03] We're gonna go.
[1:59:04] We're gonna go.
[1:59:04] We're gonna do it together.
[1:59:05] We're gonna go.
[1:59:06] So, wait, Jeff, Jeff, usually...
[1:59:08] Let me get one.
[1:59:09] Usually we get, if you want to get a picture with the boys,
[1:59:11] that what you're trying to do.
[1:59:12] Or you want to picture with you at the table.
[1:59:14] I think you want one at the table, right?
[1:59:16] Do you want to picture sitting at the board?
[1:59:18] It's like board meeting.
[1:59:21] Perfect.
[1:59:23] Thank you.
[1:59:24] Sure.
[1:59:26] Thank you all.
[1:59:28] Thank you very much.
[1:59:30] Good to see you all.
[1:59:32] All right.
[1:59:33] Thank you all.
[1:59:36] Do you have our consultant for the...
[1:59:38] Not yet.
[1:59:40] Got a person.
[1:59:40] And so he's trying to get on to the next one.
[1:59:44] Let's do, we've got the vote to accept resignation,
[1:59:47] Renee Guel, for the playboard.
[1:59:52] So I want to start by saying thank you to Renee
[1:59:55] for her long time of service to the board.
[2:00:00] She was part of the team that helped them navigate the ABT communities act. She was part of the team that navigated to the Belmont Center Orelation. Navigated a number other zoning reforms in that time, and we will, we will miss her. But thank you for your service, Renee.
[2:00:17] Any other comments from the board? No, it was very fortunate to work with Renee and really appreciate everything she did. In addition to what you mentioned, she was also involved with the library. I think she kind of put it out on the ring, Belmont Hill.
[2:00:31] and ADUs and a lot of individual projects in between.
[2:00:36] Thank you.
[2:00:37] Thank you.
[2:00:39] Move to accept the presentation over and as well
[2:00:41] from the planning board.
[2:00:42] Second, all in favor.
[2:00:44] Bye.
[2:00:47] You.
[2:00:48] Hi.
[2:00:49] You just don't want to let it go.
[2:00:51] Right?
[2:00:53] Okay.
[2:00:54] Now we've got item 15, which is discussion and possible
[2:00:58] We'll vote on appointments.
[2:01:00] I think here's my name.
[2:01:13] So let's start with the registrar of voters.
[2:01:20] So, Bob McGaw, thank you for your service.
[2:01:22] He is stepping down.
[2:01:26] The registrar of voters is required to include at least one member
[2:01:30] from the two major political parties, Bob is the Democrat, and he's stepping down from
[2:01:38] a Democrat slot, the chair of the Belmont Democrat Talent Committee, has recommended Amy
[2:01:46] Rose to sign for Bob's seat.
[2:01:55] Any questions or comments?
[2:01:56] Yes.
[2:01:57] I just want to thank Bob for his many years of very detailed, oriented staff.
[2:02:03] That's me.
[2:02:03] He's an amazing individual and contributes at a very high level and I really appreciate
[2:02:09] all the time that he has dedicated to this role.
[2:02:13] Great.
[2:02:15] Well, I would entertain a motion.
[2:02:17] Move to a point, Amy Rosenstein, for a three-year term to expire 630-2029 as the Registrar
[2:02:24] our voters.
[2:02:26] Second.
[2:02:27] All in favor?
[2:02:28] Hi.
[2:02:29] Thank you.
[2:02:30] Thank you.
[2:02:31] Thank you.
[2:02:33] Patrice, there's an item here that for election workers, but is that just like the superset
[2:02:37] of registrar voters?
[2:02:39] Yes.
[2:02:40] It's all the names that was submitted to us from the town clerk and the registrar.
[2:02:44] Yeah, it's like a, you have to put a couple of years, but you can vote them as a slate.
[2:02:49] You don't have to read each individual's.
[2:02:50] Okay, so that's another one.
[2:02:53] That's the spreadsheet.
[2:02:55] I want to make sure what this is.
[2:02:57] Okay.
[2:03:00] Unless there's anyone on the list you want to.
[2:03:03] Yeah.
[2:03:03] You could remove it.
[2:03:05] You could remove it.
[2:03:06] People from that list.
[2:03:08] These are fine.
[2:03:11] Thank you for all these individuals for their service.
[2:03:14] This is a great example of some of the less visible,
[2:03:17] but no, it's important what happens and run our democracy.
[2:03:20] So thank you for serving.
[2:03:25] Yes, that would entertain a motion.
[2:03:28] Unless you guys have comments.
[2:03:30] Second, what you said.
[2:03:33] Move to approve the list of election workers for registrars as presented.
[2:03:38] Second. All in favor.
[2:03:41] And then we have the planning board.
[2:03:46] So I think that was, let's
[2:04:30] try to find the, here it is.
[2:04:34] Okay, plenty of word applicants.
[2:04:36] Okay, so with Renee's resignation, she resigned from a full member slot.
[2:04:41] So we'll need to appoint someone to that slot.
[2:04:46] And then someone to the associate member slot, if not, see.
[2:04:53] So maybe I'll just start with full member slot, you know, traditionally, but not necessarily.
[2:05:00] We appoint the associate member to a full member.
[2:05:02] I see no reason not to do that in this case.
[2:05:04] I think Steve has been a great addition to the planning board.
[2:05:08] And yeah, I think he would be even as associate member that has not, he has made excellent
[2:05:15] like intellectual contributions to planning, so I'd like to see him move up to full member.
[2:05:22] Before we go into specific members, I just want to address the process that we're working
[2:05:28] with tonight on this.
[2:05:30] I did connect with Bayer earlier and because she had sent an email, she didn't have any
[2:05:37] of the other applicants information, so she didn't get a chance to speak to the other applicants.
[2:05:44] Didn't know it came in.
[2:05:45] And we don't have the applicants here.
[2:05:48] We didn't get resumes for two of the applicants or for Steve.
[2:05:52] We do know his history because he has served on the board.
[2:05:56] And I don't necessarily disagree with your feelings on Steve.
[2:06:00] I think that the board is doing a ton of work right now.
[2:06:04] But I do feel like this has been a process that has changed dramatically in the last few years
[2:06:12] from the process that used to be that you would submit a resume, you would be interviewed.
[2:06:18] And with everything that's going on with the planning board a little publicly, I don't remember the last time the planning board has been on the front page of the Belmont voice for something.
[2:06:26] Quite so noticeable, I think that really looking at the process, this was just added at the end of last week.
[2:06:33] So Chris is out of town, so I didn't get to ask Chris about his thoughts on the new applications that we received over the weekend.
[2:06:40] And I feel like we are pushing this a little bit without a whole lot of information.
[2:06:46] You know, these applicants have been in the portal, you know, someone been in the portal
[2:06:49] for a while, you know, and yes, like I think some applicants took it upon themselves to do
[2:06:55] outreach to the planning board to learn about the job before they applied and others, you
[2:07:01] know, and some people do not, and that's okay.
[2:07:05] You know, I'm pretty comfortable because I, you know, I think we have at least a couple
[2:07:11] of really strong applicants and, you know, for me, it's really simple just like finding
[2:07:18] somebody to think is really good for the job and getting going.
[2:07:23] And you think that without asking them questions are going through the qualifications that we
[2:07:27] can do that?
[2:07:29] I have, like, people reached out to me too and I talked to them and I was very impressed
[2:07:33] by some again does.
[2:07:36] Well, let's continue the conversation then.
[2:07:38] Sure.
[2:07:39] I just want to add to that.
[2:07:42] Yeah, I think, I think, you know, sometimes the perception of how you get appointed or not
[2:07:50] appointed to a committee has varied.
[2:07:52] It's varied by committee.
[2:07:54] It's varied over time.
[2:07:57] I think sometimes, as Taylor referenced, certain candidates knew, you know,
[2:08:03] to reach out if they're really motivated. I think motivation is obviously a really important factor
[2:08:08] when it comes to volunteer positions.
[2:08:14] I agree with Taylor that a number of these candidates
[2:08:18] appear really strong. I appreciate those that took the time to submit additional information
[2:08:24] or to list out qualifications. The portal does prompt people to submit documentation and
[2:08:31] reasonings, you know, strengths they bring to the committee.
[2:08:35] One of the applicants has served previously.
[2:08:38] We also have the two members of the committee
[2:08:40] that are applying for reappointment.
[2:08:44] So I think it's important to take at least some action tonight
[2:08:48] so that we have a full planning board.
[2:08:51] I don't think we're right now.
[2:08:53] We have, well, two that are, I guess, continuing to serve
[2:08:58] by default because we haven't reappointed them
[2:09:00] or anyone else to their seats. And I think we do have enough to fill at least the active
[2:09:10] whole number of slots if nothing else. And I don't want to get too without formalizing it
[2:09:19] if it's something that us three we're interested in doing is like writing up a policy.
[2:09:24] I don't want to have an ad hoc interview process. I think we should actually write it down if that's
[2:09:29] what we're going to do. And I think that it hasn't been written down kind of shows that it's
[2:09:33] always been a little ad hoc. And that may not be the perception the public has. They may not
[2:09:41] have realized that that's kind of how things tended to run because it wasn't documented in standard.
[2:09:47] Yeah, I mean, last summer we just sort of just went down the list and think we appointed like 20
[2:09:52] people on a night.
[2:09:56] I think we've got good candidates and I see no reason to leave the
[2:10:06] planning board down a member. To clarify, I was part of the process last summer and
[2:10:14] inaccurate statements were made and I was not allowed to speak on my own behalf.
[2:10:21] You refused
[2:10:22] I think that when we are talking about individuals and their qualifications and their credentials that giving them the opportunity to speak is the bare minimum that we can provide people that are willing to dedicate their time to serving this town.
[2:10:38] Okay, thank you for that.
[2:10:41] So I'm inclined to appoint their, reappoint their, reappoint Alisa and move Steve to the full members lots.
[2:10:55] I would support that, but I also want to reemphasize that I think it's really important
[2:11:03] that the associate member is not assured, being promoted, that I think there's been
[2:11:10] presumption in sometimes of like, hey, if I've served as the associate member, then I'm next
[2:11:15] up.
[2:11:16] And I think our job as an appointing body is to evaluate the candidates and the people
[2:11:23] and the nature of the work and how they're operating as a team, right? That's also a big part of it,
[2:11:30] and then make the decision that's best for Belmont. In this case, I would support
[2:11:35] promoting Steve, but I think there's also, like if Steve were not there, there's candidates off
[2:11:40] this list that I would happily appoint as full-time members to start as well. And I said that about Steve
[2:11:46] of the time to.
[2:11:48] Chris, it specifically mentioned that there was a gap on the board with construction experience
[2:11:55] and the ability to replance.
[2:11:58] So I think that before we continue with what we have, it would make sense to look at the
[2:12:05] other applicants that we got.
[2:12:07] As Matt mentioned, Jeff Beerenbaum has served on the board and has significant construction
[2:12:12] experience applied. We also have an application from Justin Robolo who has significant construction
[2:12:18] and development experience. So I think looking at those as potential additions to the board
[2:12:26] would be helpful. Yeah, I think so Justin did reach out this afternoon which I appreciated.
[2:12:32] And I do appreciate that. I've got his construction experience. I think kind of like with the lightboard
[2:12:38] or it's a really competitive slate.
[2:12:42] The other person that I was very impressed by
[2:12:44] was Madeline Frazier Cook.
[2:12:46] She was a technical advisor to HUD.
[2:12:48] She was a key at a community investment bank.
[2:12:51] She's got a planning background.
[2:12:54] And I think to me, the other key skill
[2:12:59] we want to keep reinvesting at the planning board
[2:13:01] is strategy and executive experience.
[2:13:04] I feel that they are really serves that role a lot.
[2:13:07] I didn't get any of those details on her background.
[2:13:10] I only had the statement that she served in the Housing Trust for many years and has two decades
[2:13:15] experienced in community development. So I feel like the planning piece on the planning board is
[2:13:19] very well covered and we're seeing the gaps in the construction and Chris has specifically cited
[2:13:25] the ability to rebuild in plans. So I really feel like planning's covered. But I didn't get a resume
[2:13:32] or anything else. I did reach out to her today. I only received her application this morning
[2:13:35] and we didn't get to connect but I did try. I reached out to the other applicant too, but also didn't connect.
[2:13:46] I'm not inclined to go with Madeline over Jeff or Justin.
[2:13:50] Thank you.
[2:13:53] Yeah, and then the other piece is there. I asked there what she think of the candidates and she said she would like to.
[2:13:58] She would like to be reappointed and she would like to see Lisa reappointed and she would like to see Steve.
[2:14:04] Steve promoted a fall, and then she, of the other candidates, she'd like Madeline the
[2:14:08] most.
[2:14:09] She had emailed me that she didn't see any of the information on the other candidates.
[2:14:13] Okay.
[2:14:14] And so.
[2:14:16] Yeah.
[2:14:17] Yeah, I think.
[2:14:18] Can I just say the information on the other candidates came over after Friday afternoon.
[2:14:22] So we just received them this morning.
[2:14:24] So the information on Madeline, it looks like came in on the 6th of August, and Steve's
[2:14:32] came in, I think over the weekend too, and Michael's came in on August 7th, but the
[2:14:39] other two, one was received on July 3rd, and the other was received on.
[2:14:46] So a couple came over the weekend myself, but I also three of them.
[2:14:49] My staff wasn't asked to reach out to there, so I think that that is why she didn't get all the information.
[2:14:58] Yes, it's hard to
[2:15:02] And I can say just by sitting in this chair for the last eight years, when playing board comes up, how the board approaches, it depends on which board is sitting at the table. It depends different every time we use the point. As to the level of interaction, the level that the board wants to see, I know in the past, the board has spoken to the applicant, so it changes based on the board.
[2:15:28] My inclination is we should
[2:15:29] to point the active members tonight so we have a full planning board because there's
[2:15:35] a lot of work to do. We're trying to get to Falltown meeting on Hills Crossing or at least
[2:15:43] keep that project moving with appropriate haste. There's also other projects being reviewed
[2:15:50] for special permits or approvals. I also think that as we're looking at the multi-year arc
[2:15:57] of the planning board. One of the things we are looking for is to be more about planning
[2:16:02] and less about special permits. Yeah, so I think in that spirit specific planning experience,
[2:16:10] especially at some point there were not on the board. I think having that experience, especially
[2:16:15] as an associate member to start could be extremely important. From my experience on the board,
[2:16:24] the special permits are some of the really important things that we do. That's what is the most resident basing, so I think understanding the construction, the height and all of the impact that comes along with it.
[2:16:37] I think is a spot that is severely lacking on the board right now and essential.
[2:16:42] You know, it's also been a challenge that Carol, there's a enormous backlog of planning work,
[2:16:48] and I think a lot of us, because we didn't use the value of putting planars in the planning
[2:16:51] board, like we have put such an emphasis on special permits. We've thrown so many things into
[2:16:58] that process that, I mean, like, you know, I used to joke, it's not the planning board, it's the
[2:17:03] permitting board, and I just, I think we need to dig out of that backlog, and I think we have
[2:17:10] somebody with really phenomenal experience that can help us get there.
[2:17:16] But I think if you look at the planning part of it, that's some of the challenges that
[2:17:20] we're dealing with right now. It's the design guidelines. It is the sometimes stretching
[2:17:26] beyond the by-law that comes from the planning pieces of it rather than the actual construction
[2:17:34] basis of it. What do you mean by stretching beyond the by-law?
[2:17:38] So, there's a lot of situations, you know, I mean, we just had a situation, obviously,
[2:17:42] everyone's been talking about Chestnut Street and whether or not that fits into the scope
[2:17:46] of the neighborhood, but then at that same meeting, dormers were questioned in a single
[2:17:51] family neighborhood that really weren't that far off from what the board has improved
[2:17:55] before and in scale to what the board had approved on Chestnut Street to look at those fitting
[2:18:02] in versus not fitting in.
[2:18:03] It gets a little subjective sometimes, and when you have people that are really focused on their design preferences, I think it can weigh in really heavily on that.
[2:18:15] And as I said, Chris said himself that they're lacking in the ability to really be able to evaluate building plans.
[2:18:23] Who's focused on their design preferences?
[2:18:27] I have had conversations about her preferences on design and it's come up that many other meetings.
[2:18:32] I think, but, you know, I mean, you have to balance that with the, the, like, the satisfaction
[2:18:42] with the permitting process. I like, no permitting process is ever going to be perfect, but it has
[2:18:50] gone up considerably. People used to not bring stuff to develop on planning board because
[2:18:54] exactly what you're talking about. It was like, can you move this window two inches to the left,
[2:18:59] come back to the next meeting. Well, no, I actually don't like that. I move it to
[2:19:02] interest to the right. Like, I think we have we have so buttoned up the process and
[2:19:07] yes, there's going to be issues with could be just because of the nature of the
[2:19:14] work. But I don't agree with the assessment that somehow this planning board is
[2:19:19] deficient at permitting. I didn't say they were deficient at permitting and
[2:19:23] permitting is actually done by the office, not the board, but I think you're
[2:19:29] actually supporting my point that the people that file permits are the ones that are choosing
[2:19:34] to do work in other communities, charging more to do work in Belmont because of our cumbersome
[2:19:39] processes, so having somebody that actually pulls permits and does construction would be
[2:19:45] able to weigh in on the planning piece of simplifying that processes to encourage development.
[2:19:50] Yeah. Can you think? It sounds like you might have, can you talk more about your perspective on the construction experience of the candidates you mentioned?
[2:20:03] Yes, so if you Jeff's experience on the board, he had served also on zoning on the zoning board of appeals in addition to the planning board, and it's literally what he does.
[2:20:15] and Justin has been in construction and development.
[2:20:21] There was something in here about his union experience,
[2:20:26] but I also think that this is the other reason why
[2:20:28] it would be more important to actually have these people here
[2:20:31] to explain what they do and what they contribute.
[2:20:35] We cannot interview every applicant for every role.
[2:20:38] That's just like not, we just do not have the time to do that.
[2:20:42] And that's fine.
[2:20:43] I don't think that we necessarily need to for every role, but I think this is one of our elevated
[2:20:47] boards that it's important to really fully. I am pretty, so I am confident, and in what I said
[2:20:56] before, I would like to see a fair reappointment. She's been a phenomenal chair. I'd like to see
[2:21:01] Alisa reappointment. She's been excellent. I'd like to see Steve elevated, and I would vote for
[2:21:06] or a Madeline as the associate member.
[2:21:10] So I, I worry, I'll tell you where I am right now is I think the construction experience
[2:21:18] is a little too in the weeds for what we're looking for from the work ahead on the planning
[2:21:24] board, which is zoning for right-sized growth, right?
[2:21:33] But having taken a step back from the building a framework, rules and regulations bringing
[2:21:43] bylaws to town meeting that help us not need special permit process to show that Belmont
[2:21:51] is open for business, that people can do the modifications they need to stay in their
[2:21:56] homes, you know, age and place, do right-sized renovations, things that comply with the existing
[2:22:05] zoning, but making sure that zoning is clear and applicable, having more of a neighborhood
[2:22:11] plan and the cohesion so that we don't end up with those kind of thorny edge cases that
[2:22:18] you're referencing.
[2:22:19] I also appreciate that the Office of Planning and Building is partnering with the Collins
[2:22:24] Center to review the processes and permitting and the procedures around that, and I think
[2:22:31] that's going to make a big difference.
[2:22:32] I don't view that as a planning board function, and then we have the upgraded CAMA system,
[2:22:40] a computer assisted assessors software, and then we also have switching to open-gov, right?
[2:22:49] These are all things that we're trying to automate and scale our process at a town level rather
[2:22:54] in a specific project by project level where it just doesn't keep up with our rising costs
[2:23:00] and the needs of our residents who are trying to do practical things at their own property.
[2:23:07] So with that, I'll say that at this point, I would support reappointing those that are
[2:23:14] seeking reappointment, elevating Steve Weinstein to a full member and appointing Madeline
[2:23:21] Frazier Cook. I like her planning experience, and I think that's what the town needs for the
[2:23:26] multi-year view. We want to be a town that says, yes, and we make it easy to do business and
[2:23:32] help our residents.
[2:23:38] We're all familiar with the makeup of the board, so you two have the votes,
[2:23:41] and I'll leave you to it. Okay. I would
[2:23:45] in this case, if you disagree, which is my impression of where you stand, I will make
[2:23:57] the motion in daily, you can second it and you can vote no. Sounds good.
[2:24:04] Move to reappoint, fair, donum and Alisa Gardner-Todres to the planning board for a three-year term
[2:24:14] to expire to expire June 30th, 2029.
[2:24:25] Second.
[2:24:27] All in favor?
[2:24:29] Aye.
[2:24:30] Aye.
[2:24:33] Move to a point, Steve Weinstein,
[2:24:39] as a full member to the planning board for a one-year term.
[2:24:44] Well, yeah, for a one-year term expiring June 30th, 2027.
[2:24:51] Second, all in favor.
[2:24:53] Aye.
[2:24:54] Aye.
[2:24:55] Aye.
[2:25:01] The other associate, what's the term of an associate member?
[2:25:04] One year.
[2:25:05] Is it one year?
[2:25:06] I just—
[2:25:08] This is associate member 630-2028.
[2:25:11] I know.
[2:25:11] That's the—I think it's two.
[2:25:14] I believe it's a two-year term.
[2:25:15] Okay, and so is this someone, is this filling Steve's?
[2:25:21] Yeah, you can do it as a, yeah, because the term,
[2:25:24] or is it in New Zealand or not a person?
[2:25:27] Okay, thank you.
[2:25:27] Can I ask a question for you?
[2:25:29] Did you two get copies of her resume or anything?
[2:25:31] Do you have details that I don't have?
[2:25:33] She did reach out to me.
[2:25:35] Thank you.
[2:25:35] I spoke to her.
[2:25:38] So, all right, so this would be a two year term
[2:25:42] expiring in 638. Okay. Move to a point Madeline Frazier Cook as the associate member of the
[2:25:52] planning board for term expiring June 30th, 2028. Second, all in favor. Hi. Hi. No.
[2:26:06] Thank you for discussion. And we are actually just about right on time for
[2:26:12] to bring great work to have our consultant yet.
[2:26:16] We don't, so I'll just go right here,
[2:26:18] something come up and he's not going to make it.
[2:26:21] Is there a part that you can do without him?
[2:26:24] I was going to say, I'll give kind of just the generalities
[2:26:26] that puts in your packet backup.
[2:26:31] And if he pops on obviously.
[2:26:34] We can get some slides.
[2:26:35] Yeah.
[2:26:36] Share.
[2:26:39] We're getting to that if I may, Mr. Share.
[2:26:41] So I filed a disclosure with the down clerk on October 6, 2025 to disclose the appearance
[2:26:59] of conflict of interest because I have a family member who participates with Belmont
[2:27:07] youth hockey and I am a customer at Belmont youth hockey. So when and where we are potentially
[2:27:17] discussing issues that might affect Belmont youth hockey's rates or decision to rent or
[2:27:24] utilize the facility in any way, I've been advised through an abundance of caution to not participate.
[2:27:32] So given that this is just a discussion and there's no vote for the abundance of ethical
[2:27:40] compliance and caution, I am going to step out of the discussion and fully refuse myself.
[2:27:51] And please comment that again. I can always catch it up via the recording on the
[2:27:59] I also filed a disclosure regarding the appearance of a potential conflict of interest
[2:28:05] about this, but in this particular situation where the ability to set the rates for the
[2:28:09] rink was designated to be with the town administrator, and this is not going to be setting
[2:28:14] off rates. They did not feel that I needed to abstain from this.
[2:28:19] So I don't know, Matt.
[2:28:22] Yes, so I had to follow up conversation with them because this was specific to the rates.
[2:28:27] They get the final say on the issue. So all right. Thank you for doing that.
[2:28:31] All right. So go ahead. Sure. So at just a high level, we use the vendor reptiles. We've
[2:28:41] used them in the past for water and sewer rates. They do kind of rates across the board. They're
[2:28:45] very popular in the New England area and in Massachusetts. So with working with them, with working
[2:28:51] with the trees with working with the rank manager.
[2:28:54] We came up with a set of assumptions
[2:28:57] that we believed were correct for the knowledge
[2:29:01] that we have at this point.
[2:29:02] The ranks only gone through one peak season.
[2:29:05] So there's not a ton of data to base everything off of.
[2:29:08] So we'll look again probably in the spring time next year
[2:29:12] at doing another study to make sure that we're
[2:29:14] in the realm of where we thought we'd like to be.
[2:29:17] It's also going to be our first season
[2:29:19] with the concession stand open for a season with the advertising.
[2:29:23] For season with the baseball?
[2:29:25] Yes, with the football games. So there's going to be a lot of changes even though we've already run one
[2:29:29] season. But we are happy with the assumptions that kind of reptiles was able to take from other
[2:29:37] drinks in the state area. They looked at public. They looked at DCR. They looked at private.
[2:29:44] but you granted that Belmont brand new
[2:29:47] and so that gets us a little bit of a premium
[2:29:49] on our rates compared.
[2:29:51] And then obviously used, you know,
[2:29:55] our Carrington's input from just being kind of boots
[2:29:57] on the ground and, you know, what things we're doing.
[2:30:00] Work for him and did not work for him, to come up with a rate study. Basically, the highlights that it seems that we can without going too far, expect probably an easy 3% increase in revenue every year. And then two and a half on the expenses just because, you know, Massachusetts prop two and a half, try to stay within the window even though this is outside of the general fund dollars.
[2:30:30] So yeah, you're saying that we can expect a 3% increase per year and ice rates.
[2:30:37] And well, not necessarily the rates every single year, it's similar to like the water
[2:30:40] sewer rates.
[2:30:41] Sometimes we go up high or sometimes we go lower.
[2:30:44] Yeah, we're going to try to average over a period of time.
[2:30:49] Also, things in the future we can't project like the dehumidication.
[2:30:54] You know, if something breaks in the next couple years, we'd have to look if we don't
[2:30:58] have money within the operating budget, we'd have to look to the revolving fund to pay for it.
[2:31:02] So it's kind of, there are knowns and there are unknowns. Some knowns are at the salary,
[2:31:07] but the salary is paid right now through the full-time salaries of paid through the operating
[2:31:11] budget. Part-time salaries of paid through the revolving fund. So it's things like that as we're
[2:31:16] kind of ramping up. The advertising that comes in, the advertising is going to come into the
[2:31:19] revolving fund. That's also going to help us with some of our revenue challenges that we can
[2:31:24] lean ourselves off of the operating budget. That is the ultimate goal. And the rates were
[2:31:28] set based on, well, the rate study was based on the expenses that we've incurred to electric
[2:31:35] utility maintenance, cleaning, things like that. And then it's kind of matched up against what
[2:31:43] that rate should be. So it's a balance, right? It's going to be a balance between what we need to run,
[2:31:49] what we need to lean ourselves off the operating budget, you know, potentially as time goes on and
[2:31:54] things like that. So that's kind of the things I think Pratelis was looking at as we,
[2:31:57] is that what you're doing this day. For the early years for the 3%,
[2:32:02] because I think you've heard Jay say it in the past that you don't want to be the top of the list
[2:32:06] for rates. So we're hoping that because the rank is becoming, we'll be more well-known,
[2:32:15] become more popular. We're hoping that those 3% increases can just be based off of having more
[2:32:20] ice time sold versus having to increase the rates every single year.
[2:32:25] I see.
[2:32:25] So the 3% growth is in revenues, which can come from more units sold or increasing the price
[2:32:32] of the units.
[2:32:33] For increasing the advertising, as Carol stated, you know, there's plenty of other wall space
[2:32:39] or other areas, and we're starting small so we can grow.
[2:32:42] And so the 3% is going to come from all sources, not necessarily tacking 3% on to each individual
[2:32:49] line. I don't. Got it. We also looked at for public skates.
[2:32:52] Taking part, we looked at a Belmont rate versus a non-resident rate that's in your packet.
[2:32:59] So we're trying to accommodate residents to give them, you know, a break as to public
[2:33:04] skates. So where we'd landed with, and I think what
[2:33:08] Beth tell us is recommending is that the rate is done, which is, you've run the ice in
[2:33:16] the warning that it is during peak hours of the day, peak season. So from 6am to 8am,
[2:33:23] it's two minutes six dollars per 50 minutes, 8am to 8pm is 350 minutes and 8pm to 11pm is 300.
[2:33:31] Right now the peak time is 365, I think.
[2:33:35] Yes, so the kind of time is going down a little bit, but the other areas are going up, so it's kind
[2:33:45] of it's not a wash, it's actually in that positive of more dollars for the ice that we actually rent.
[2:33:54] And then you'll see the caveat at the bottom that it's sold in fifth increments.
[2:34:00] So if somebody wants to rent the full hour to point about the Zemboni earlier,
[2:34:04] if they want to run the whole hour, then we'll pro-rate the extra 10 minutes and so it'll be 350 to
[2:34:10] certified.
[2:34:11] And then the weekend race, sorry, also the weekend race we did 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
[2:34:16] That's the flat rate.
[2:34:17] So we definitely are looking to lower the rates, at least in the peak time.
[2:34:23] Yes.
[2:34:25] Is there any defined usage allowance for the opening time specifically?
[2:34:31] So one of the things that I think came up with the question last season was, if you had
[2:34:35] ice time that starts at 8 a.m., there were days that the
[2:34:39] ranked doors would open at 8 a.m., and that's not the correct time, for example, but are
[2:34:45] we setting up that when you rent the ring from 8 a.m. to 850, that you are given locker
[2:34:50] room access starting at 737.45, something like that, because I think that that is something
[2:34:56] that might not have been fully flushed out.
[2:34:59] It's a staffing challenge, especially when it's a 630.
[2:35:02] and there were also issues with the doors.
[2:35:05] Yeah, there were issues with the doors.
[2:35:06] But the doors aside, I think it just,
[2:35:09] it's something that requires some consideration
[2:35:12] because if your ice time starts,
[2:35:14] you need a few minutes to tax the case.
[2:35:17] Is that dependent, Carol?
[2:35:19] Yes, we only have two, right now we really have two full-time people.
[2:35:21] I do agree with you.
[2:35:23] It's just people need to understand
[2:35:24] when they rent the rink, when are you allowed?
[2:35:26] Like, it should be in the contracts
[2:35:28] that you're either the door opens at eight
[2:35:30] and your time runs 8 to 850 or whatever that is,
[2:35:33] I think we just need to make sure we're clearly communicating it
[2:35:35] to set proper expectations.
[2:35:37] I agree with Carol.
[2:35:38] Like the understanding when you rent ice time is that your ice time,
[2:35:42] like the start time of your ice is when you're getting on the ice,
[2:35:45] it's not when you're getting into the locker room.
[2:35:48] And for every other hour of the day, that's how it works, right?
[2:35:51] Because you come in while somebody else is using the ice.
[2:35:54] So, you know, I'm not, I hear the staffing issue.
[2:35:58] maybe we need to think about exactly how we price that first hour if we can't give people
[2:36:03] like that full 50 minutes, right? And so I do know I've had conversations with Eric and Keith
[2:36:09] the two managers down the two full-time staff with the doors being fixed. I believe that they're
[2:36:14] fully fixed now to be able to the same as Town Hall open on their own so that Keith is normally
[2:36:21] the person in that very early morning slot. So if somebody does six to eight, the doors will unlock
[2:36:26] have 5.45 people to enter and if he hits traffic there is a 5.30 in the morning, but if he hits
[2:36:35] traffic or if he grabs a coffee and he's two minutes late, those people can already enter the
[2:36:41] building and he'll be just right behind them so that they will have the time to go and tie their
[2:36:46] skates and things like that. Because it's usually really coordinated as to who's in what locker room
[2:36:51] when you can get in there because for certain teams,
[2:36:54] the kids are expected to be there an hour before game time,
[2:36:58] usually not at the early, early games,
[2:37:00] but you never know, depending on what you're working with.
[2:37:04] Especially for younger kids, 15 minutes
[2:37:05] to put their skates in gear on.
[2:37:07] It's not always time.
[2:37:09] But so I'll definitely make sure that
[2:37:12] when Eric is selling those early morning times
[2:37:15] that he coordinates with that person,
[2:37:18] what time they want to enter the building.
[2:37:20] and if it's a reasonable request.
[2:37:22] Yeah, well, I don't know if we have to ask the user when they want to go into the building
[2:37:26] because that's like a lot of work. We can just say this is how much this is what time you can
[2:37:30] enter the building. This is what we're allocating to you. Yes. And I think that makes sense because
[2:37:34] then people just show up prepared rather than saying getting the panic calls if someone
[2:37:39] grew up to open the rank when people are there early. Did we look at annual passes for residents?
[2:37:43] So we have tried to look at it, it just gets a little difficult with the if you do an annual pass,
[2:37:54] you kind of have to guarantee a certain number of times that you could use it. And with the, you know,
[2:38:00] staffing structure, we can't necessarily guarantee a certain number of public skates. So I don't want to
[2:38:05] sell you a pass for $100. And then, you know, only have 10 public skates. And actually now you didn't
[2:38:11] to get a good deal. So we were trying to come up with somewhere to maybe do a punch card
[2:38:18] or something in the future. We've been talking with Brandon because obviously Reck has a lot of
[2:38:23] great ideas around how to make usership more popular and cheaper for people who do use it a lot.
[2:38:30] The other thing is that under the children's day pass, five and under is free, must be
[2:38:36] company by an adult for a lot of other non-resident options in other communities, the underage must
[2:38:42] be accompanied by a paid adult because there's a lot of people that don't feel that they should pay,
[2:38:46] even if they're on the ice, but it's usually if you're on skates or paying, even if you are just
[2:38:53] there because you're still skating, but so that could be a nice little benefit to a resident perhaps,
[2:38:58] but something that we charge for otherwise. And this is probably going more policy, but since we're
[2:39:04] talking ages, I think we do have to have some clear communication about what ages children
[2:39:08] are allowed to be there on a company.
[2:39:11] So between, you know, the five and under, you have to be accompanied, but our six-year-olds
[2:39:18] going to be allowed to be dropped off, or is that more of a 12 and over type of an age range
[2:39:23] because it does get a little, it could turn into babysitting, you know, which we don't
[2:39:30] really want the rank staff to be working with, so we just want to make sure that we have
[2:39:33] age-appropriate expectations with that, but maybe as we do regulate the schedule, the annual
[2:39:40] pass could be, could be another option for residents.
[2:39:43] It's just, I don't think we're at that point yet.
[2:39:46] I think it's an evolving thing.
[2:39:48] Yeah, I mean, look, we are, we are operationalizing a pretty big enterprise here.
[2:39:55] I mean, the productions you guys have in these are well-known,
[2:39:59] like that half a million dollars per year, right? And so there is no way to do that successfully
[2:40:07] by expecting the staff to do everything, like up front all along.
[2:40:14] So I mean, I sort of like the framing that you started us with, Matt, which is like,
[2:40:19] we're trying to go revenue three percent per year. It's going to come from different buckets.
[2:40:23] And I think that's going to reflect the rink getting operationalized. So like, hopefully, you know,
[2:40:27] this year that, you know, hopefully this year the growth is going to come from these RFPs,
[2:40:32] right? That's going to be, that's going to be where the revenue comes from. And then hopefully
[2:40:35] the following year, it's going to be that, hey, word is out about the Belmont Sports Complex.
[2:40:40] And we get more people buying more ice.
[2:40:43] But at some point, it's also the plan to, you know, have it be not an ice facility.
[2:40:50] Yeah, or yes, that's right. So maybe in 2027, well, 2027, it's like, we've got the RFP out,
[2:40:55] and we've got the non-eye sports for the low season.
[2:40:59] They should both give us some wind in our sales.
[2:41:02] But I just like the framing that you took, Madison.
[2:41:04] We're trying to get 3% growth per year.
[2:41:06] It can come from different places.
[2:41:08] It's got to outpace the 2.5% growth
[2:41:12] to get this to the financially viable place
[2:41:14] that the town expects it to get to over the next several years.
[2:41:20] I think the other thing is,
[2:41:25] So, we will start seeing that revenue as well, which we'll only help.
[2:41:30] Yeah.
[2:41:31] Can I ask a question about some of the projected revenues?
[2:41:33] So, private events and tournaments for per season.
[2:41:35] What were they basing that off?
[2:41:37] Did that come from?
[2:41:38] So, that was actually a higher number.
[2:41:45] Received it.
[2:41:46] So, that was took all of our information.
[2:41:49] and then they provided me this list of assumptions and said, hey, take a look, does this seem like
[2:41:54] feasible for Dalong? And the private events and functions number was much higher at the time,
[2:41:59] and it's because they were basing it off of all the other ranks that have been up and running for
[2:42:04] a long period of time. So I had that lowered down to about four, because I know there's been
[2:42:10] discussions of, you know, our rank manager has put on tournaments by himself in the past,
[2:42:16] And so being able to do that on a weekend or being able to use the non-ice facility for
[2:42:23] a large function because of the space is so large, trying to fit maybe four things like
[2:42:29] that in the year.
[2:42:30] I know that we've reached out to some curling groups and maybe giving them a weekend
[2:42:35] and having some tournament of the sort.
[2:42:38] And so just trying to come up with new ways to use it, but to be honest Eric sold a lot
[2:42:45] already, so we can't really take away something that's already there to create something new,
[2:42:50] so I didn't want to promise, you know, 10 events. Yeah, but that's beginning getting back to,
[2:42:56] this is the finances are tracking the operationalization, like the mandate to error has been
[2:43:02] sell as much I assume possibly can. We may reach a point in the future where the problem is,
[2:43:07] okay, we want to allocate it to different things, so don't just sell every patch of ice you've got.
[2:43:14] But we're not there yet.
[2:43:16] No, did they bring up smaller events because a lot of other rings will have a designated
[2:43:20] locker room that you basically tarp and do it as a birthday room.
[2:43:24] So that way during public skate, you can pay for as many guesses you want to come into public
[2:43:28] skate and then you pay a certain amount.
[2:43:30] And what a lot of facilities do is they give you a flat fee so it's a dollar amount per
[2:43:35] head and then get the pizza from Belmont Center and cupcakes from Belmont Center and things
[2:43:40] like that.
[2:43:41] So that way it's a little bit of a full service and we have more control about what's being brought in, but that's a
[2:43:48] It's a more passive thing where you're still getting your revenues from public skate and people just
[2:43:53] Roll the dice on how many extra kids are going to be there, but they get the private locker room
[2:43:58] To do their balloons and things. We definitely have that option. We worked with Brandon and Rec to add kind of like birthday party
[2:44:06] Options for using that back room space. I'm trying to spend a little bit of money to improve it
[2:44:12] Yeah, once we get some additional dollars into that evolving fund, we can publish some
[2:44:16] work into that. But yeah, great idea. And one of the reasons why we left it out of this version
[2:44:23] is the staffing challenges of having that separate room with other people. If Eric's the only
[2:44:29] person there, it becomes kind of a hurting cat situation of, you know, every 15 minutes he has to
[2:44:34] jump on the zamboni, but then he also has to go check on the back room and make sure that, you know,
[2:44:38] But I'm still working properly and the whole list of if there's only one person in the
[2:44:44] building, it gets tough.
[2:44:47] And on the part-time staffing number of $150,000 per year, what's that based on?
[2:44:52] What hours is that assuming?
[2:44:54] So that's our hope that American Keith can actually work 40 hours.
[2:45:00] So we, instead of 60, and so it's taking kind of the data that actually the tailor was putting up kind of month to month during peak season of how many hours it was actually open, you know, take out some of our full time staff hours and then also trying to keep the Zamboni driver rates fairly high. We are seeing some success, but we hope to see more. We said that we set the part time rate too low. We weren't getting anyone. So then we increased it.
[2:45:29] I think it's a 22.
[2:45:30] It's like 22 to 25, and we are actually,
[2:45:34] we're almost in peak with the other ranks
[2:45:35] because we were so below what other ranks were paying
[2:45:38] the Zembo and each other.
[2:45:39] Okay, so that seems like a very high amount.
[2:45:43] Yeah, perfect.
[2:45:43] Have we looked at some minimum wage,
[2:45:45] maybe even high school age employees
[2:45:48] that would be more of the harder type roles
[2:45:51] where they can crowd control assist with different things
[2:45:54] because there is a lot going on
[2:45:57] And especially if Eric is on the Zamboni and there's something going on.
[2:46:02] I think that some maybe small positions at higher ability, though, Carol,
[2:46:07] because I think what we found in Brandon has kind of told us this is
[2:46:11] we want staff that is more permanent in the building,
[2:46:15] because it's going to be dependent on whether or not to open.
[2:46:17] So I think as we get maybe a little bigger,
[2:46:20] and as some time goes on in terms of our staffing,
[2:46:23] we can probably incorporate stuff like that in,
[2:46:25] but I don't think we're at that point yet.
[2:46:27] We need more debt, we need people that we can,
[2:46:29] they say they're gonna be there, they're gonna be there.
[2:46:31] And, you know, high school kids today.
[2:46:33] And trust.
[2:46:34] It's a little bit.
[2:46:34] These days, kids these days, right?
[2:46:36] Hey.
[2:46:36] Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
[2:46:38] No, but I think that, you know,
[2:46:40] there's still the concern of, you know,
[2:46:42] helmet enforcement and fostering the virus,
[2:46:44] what's not and things like that.
[2:46:46] I think when we went out to get some part time position,
[2:46:49] I think there were some high school kids that applied
[2:46:51] and when Eric told them what was needed,
[2:46:54] they couldn't meet that.
[2:46:56] They just couldn't, they couldn't commit to it.
[2:46:59] I mean, I think as we get, you know,
[2:47:01] some more time under our bells,
[2:47:02] some maybe we can increase some staffing, it might help.
[2:47:05] Yeah, because we do want to like have enough staffing
[2:47:07] to keep like the skate sharpening open
[2:47:10] and to maybe open the concession more often
[2:47:13] than we technically need to and things like that.
[2:47:15] Yeah, we're also concerned about, you know,
[2:47:17] with the football games, right?
[2:47:19] The bathrooms, I mean, if the concessions open,
[2:47:21] the bathrooms are gonna be open.
[2:47:23] We need somebody in the building, because that door that gets to the ice is not, can't
[2:47:29] lock it.
[2:47:29] We don't want people roaming, using the bathroom, doing a football game and then roaming
[2:47:33] around the facility.
[2:47:34] It's nuts.
[2:47:35] It's not safe.
[2:47:36] We can't find a way to lock the door.
[2:47:38] I don't think we can lock it.
[2:47:39] I have to double check.
[2:47:41] I'm pretty sure, I will ask the question, I don't think we can lock it.
[2:47:43] Okay.
[2:47:44] I don't know if it was a safety concern.
[2:47:46] That seems like it would be a solvable issue.
[2:47:48] No, I know.
[2:47:48] The reason why we can't lock it is to get into the vending area, because of the car.
[2:47:52] the concessions. Yes, that's right. That's why.
[2:47:54] Again, to the concessions, you have to have that role.
[2:47:57] To look at how things are going to happen.
[2:47:58] I don't know, but there's also, if you want to do concessions within the building, you have to
[2:48:02] enter through the space and to walk the side.
[2:48:05] So there's some concern that we'd have the staff, we'd have to have somebody there during the
[2:48:09] building.
[2:48:10] They could use the side doors, though.
[2:48:12] You know, so that way they have their emergency exit.
[2:48:16] But they'd be able to run throughout the entire building.
[2:48:18] The people who are working the concession stand.
[2:48:20] Yes.
[2:48:20] Yes.
[2:48:21] Okay.
[2:48:23] It's something we can do.
[2:48:23] It's just a concern.
[2:48:25] Once you open a building up to the public liability, we'll just shoot out if nobody's there.
[2:48:29] Right.
[2:48:29] And you keep mentioning the football games, is it going to be open for other games as well
[2:48:33] or just football?
[2:48:34] I don't know.
[2:48:34] We haven't got it.
[2:48:35] I say we do have to work with them.
[2:48:36] I feel like that's going to be a community conversation if we're just picking one sports team
[2:48:40] that it's open for.
[2:48:42] It's going to be a conversation with Adam.
[2:48:43] I think maybe the next one is the football and so we've got to ask.
[2:48:46] Again, getting back to, as we operationalize it, we do more things.
[2:48:51] We learn.
[2:48:52] I mean, we've been post-correcting for the past, you know, 10 months.
[2:48:56] We've been, if something's not working, we post-correct.
[2:48:59] Yeah.
[2:48:59] Okay.
[2:48:59] All right.
[2:49:04] Okay.
[2:49:04] So, I think the next step is to reach out to our long-term tenants.
[2:49:10] Yeah, so.
[2:49:10] No, the rate is?
[2:49:11] Yeah, Eric's going to start getting calls the most tomorrow.
[2:49:14] I know that we're very anxious.
[2:49:15] Yes.
[2:49:16] All right.
[2:49:17] And just to close the loop on the potential appearance of the conflict of interest, we didn't do anything that will affect the rates individually through that conversation.
[2:49:26] Yeah, it's not a problem.
[2:49:34] You're on that is a meeting facility.
[2:49:39] We wrap the meeting and then I'll answer all your questions.
[2:49:46] So
[2:49:55] that speaks us to the end of our agenda, so I would entertain motion to adjourn.
[2:50:02] I moved.
[2:50:03] Second.
[2:50:04] All in favor?
[2:50:05] Hi.
[2:50:06] Good night everyone.