e e e e hey Charlie unmuted all righty let us know when you are ready to go in the room okay give me a couple more minutes sure I got to get the folder open e [Music] [Music] [Laughter] for [Music] 3 2 one good evening I'm Bernard Green chair of the Brookline select board and this is the select board's meeting for April 9th 2024 uh let's start off with announcements and updates I'd like to start by saying that uh Miriam Paul and I attended along with other select board and school committee candidates the first annual Stanley rabinovitz candidates Forum at the Young Israel synagogue on Sunday many of you may know uh Stanley rovitz uh wonderful guys that he helped me with my campaigning early on um unfortunately he passed away during covid so we never had an opportunity to have the type of public uh uh recognition for him that uh we really should have fortunately however uh he passed away at home with his family around him so uh the Young Israel which he was the president of for a while um has started this candidate for because of Stanley's great uh involvement in the political process in town and supporting town uh departments so just wanted to mention that you know that was uh an event that I think is going to you have meaning for many years to come for someone who is very important here in town so that's that anyone else Paul maybe no I've got a couple of okay John thank you very much so um it was a distinct pleasure to attend um a uh service earlier today for elanar Kaplan and I just want to say a few words about elanar Kaplan who died uh this past week um she uh died at age 103 wow um yeah 103 um lived an incredibly full and um rewarding life um largely because of U just a splendid marriage and wonderful children and grandchildren um her part for so many years before he predeceased her and then she went on and lived another 13 years was suar Kaplan who our chair might recognize is a past was a past chair of the select board um was a State Rep was a brigadier general who went um in service um at you know the lowest possible rank at the start um right in the sort of hot part of the World War II period um fortunately survived um their marriage um prospered um he then had his political career in Brooklyn she ran his campaigns um and was sort of legendary for her Effectiveness in running his campaigns um her daughter Ruth uh went on to become a chair of the school committee and to serve Brookline in other Capac capacities um she also had a daughter Marjorie so um th this particular service which was the kahill Israel was a Love Fest um I don't know what else to say it um this is a woman who was beloved by um her Rabbi everyone in her congregation her children her children's children her grandchildren um and uh it was a wonderful um time to sort of hear stories shared of an extraordinary person ellanor Kaplan so um my um sympathies go out to the family um and um they have the satisfaction of knowing that uh their late father and now their late mother lived extraordinary lives um second thing I want to mention um and I'd be uh remiss if I failed to mention it um is that people have five days maybe six days maybe even not that many to decide to support a runner for team Brookline um and those Runners have six days left to train and to be ready to to run the marathon on next Monday and um I don't have to tell people what an extraordinary event that is made all the more extraordinary if you happen to be supporting one of the team Brookline Runners so check out uh Team Brookline great thank you uh I may add that Ruth Kaplan was a law school graduate with me at Boston College um and you know through her I heard about her parents and the extraordinary lives they lived so I mean it was uh yes it was uh they were extraordinary lives Paul has his hand Paul hi uh thank you uh Bernard um I I just want to acknowledge because we have not met since the hateful incident anti-semitic message uh that was um uh defaced the Longwood t stto I don't want to dig into it um but I I do want to say thank you to you Bernard Green for your quick response um you know it's it's difficult for the select board to gather without a public meeting it's actually a violation open meeting law but you took the initiative to draft a statement which I believe that uh each of us I won't speak for the board but I know um it resonated with me and I was very grateful for you uh sharing that message and in particular stating that an attack on our Jewish Community is Attack on all of us uh and um you know that really resonates uh with the community um Brook line is not a place for hate uh we need to condemn it at at all types of hate um and again I just want to thank you for taking the initiative it's important that the community heard from the board quickly uh and you took the initiative to publish uh your statement through our news portal so I just wanted to say thank you specifically for doing that thank you Paul uh let me just say that to get that statement out as quick as I did I needed the help of Our Town Administrator Chaz and our Communications person Christina medcap so they get some of the credit also but uh anyone else Mike mam you ready y I'm ready thank you Bernard I'm going to spend a few minutes addressing a rumor that I know is being per perpetrated about me that I am a self-hating Jew I believe it may be in response to my role on the cdic or my comments on Warren Article 19 but it is not exactly clear where it is coming from that said I feel compelled to respond because it has happened quite a few times now for those of you who are unaware I am very pro-israel I shouldn't have to say this but I am I'm the daughter of a holocaust Survivor who fled Nazi occupied Austria as a child I spent nearly every other summer working on my cousins moshav and kafar mesar I attended the Alexander mus High School in Israel and I went to Tel Aviv University for medical school the entire side of my father's family lives in Israel currently and their political views cover the gamut though mostly labor and that said I do not support Netanyahu and his government and I never have I would also like to point out that I worked very hard to honor the wishes of the petitioners of the special town meeting in the fall and I have been very honest and open at this very Forum about my thoughts on Warren Article 19 I was one of two Jewish students in a high school of 1400 growing up in Salem Oregon I was subjected to near daily anti-Semitism including a plan to convert me by the local Young Life Club I have no idea where these rumors are arising that I don't support Israel or somehow am not opposed to anti-semitism I am frankly at a loss I am a loss that I'm experiencing anti-Semitism from my own Jewish community and I implore you to stop spreading this hurtful hateful and patently untrue rumor if you disagree with my politics I completely understand and welcome the dialogue with you but nothing I have done publicly or privately would support these statements or assumptions if you have more questions if you want to talk to me please email me at my select board account and I will respond thank you thank you uh Miriam what you're facing reminds me of uh attacks that you know I've faced as not being sufficiently um um obedient to what some people view as the views that black people should have so you're being told that you're not sufficiently obedient to the official line on um on you know Israel and other things so I can relate to that and it's uh you there's no party line that we have to tow and I'm not going to tow it and I assume you're not going to either so thank you ber uh anything else okay uh next we have public comment and uh Charlie first give the rules and then I'll add a little piece of mind to it okay that sounds good so thank you for joining us for public comment this is an opportunity for us to hear your perspective on the issues in Brookline that matter to you each person speaking tonight is limited to three minutes you don't need to use the entire time but you may if you like once a total of 15 minutes has been met there will be an opportunity at the conclusion of the select board's business for additional comments members of the public sometimes raise questions during public comment we may be able to provide a quick answer to a question but are more likely to work with staff to get a more thorough answer and respond over email we'll let you know when you have 30 seconds remaining and when you're time is up please conclude your remarks at that time if you have more to say you are welcome to send an email to board members expressing your thoughts and greater detail okay thank you Charlie let me just add that U Charlie will tell you when your time is up and I will enforce that okay oh I do hope so now I I I was on a school board in Cleveland Heights Ohio and while when I was President I had a gabble like this unfortunately it wasn't the audience that I had to keep in in um in line but rather my fellow board members so I assume that's not going to be the problem here at the select board but any rate uh Charlie the first uh first Speaker sure uh we have one person signed up for public comment other folks that wish to speak can use the hand rais or Q&A feature on Zoom or let us know in the room if you'd like to speak first person signed up for public comment isy Hall is online promoted to a panelist now oh Amy's here's am's in person okay great I saw the name online so Amy please feel free to appr approach the presentation station and your three minutes will begin good evening my name is Amy Hall I'm a Brookline police officer this evening you're scheduled to make two promotions from from Sergeant to Lieutenant and the police department s Megan key who is bypassed for this promotion by Chief p received the second highest score on the promotional Lieutenant exam by nine points her score was lowered greatly because it took in consideration her years on the job on the academic section Sant KY scored a perfect 100 I don't know any other officer that scored 100 based upon her spotless personel record that includes multiple accomodations her mental health deescalation skills her inner compassion towards the public her outstanding record of arrest including a recent bank robbery an individual who was wanted for numerous felony crimes who had a violent criminal history that included firearms and drugs I believe the only reason she's not being promoting promoted is because of her association with me how do I know this because a few years ago at the lowest point of my career in the police in the in in my career the entire police department azed me and sent me sent a message that I was not welcome Sant Megan keany did not send this message Sant key treated me fairly and with dignity and now she's paying the price the decision to bypass Sant Megan key in this promotion is not only retaliation against her but it's retaliation against me since she's being punished for our association take a closer look at why she's being bypassed for another white male who is connected with management and scored far lower than she did in this difficult EX exam let me please reiterate SJ Megan key scored nine points higher than this white man that's that Chief pastor wants to promote you have to ask yourself why this is only the second time in my career of 23 years that anyone was bypass with such a huge difference in the score this is done only by Chief pastor with Sergeant Megan keany a female also an Asian male officer who scored higher than listen carefully the chief's brother-in-law who she promoted you should not be approving these promotions I know you will but these promotions are in the spirit of personal agendas thank you for your time okay there are 16 attendees in the chat and currently none of them are using the hand raise or Q&A feature to indicate that they'd like to make a comment do we have anyone in the room Bernard uh no no one in the room is Raising their hand or indicating they want to speak is the great okay um let's go to our miscellaneous agenda starting with question of approving the meeting minutes from April 2nd 2024 uh unless there are any edits all in favor please indicate by saying I John vak i m mkazi i Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren I and chair votes I next uh items I'd like to take in uh Omnibus fashion items uh 3B through 3K uh anyone have any desire to discuss any particular item in that list see none Bernard can I yes I'm gonna raise my hand real quick I'm just wondering if maybe we could read isn't the omnius the uh the awards for the students um yes could could we read the uh the state yes we were going to do that oh okay sorry okay um so no other no um items you want to pull out uh item 3j uh question of acknowledging the following Dexter Southfield school students for earning placements in the 2024 C-SPAN student cam video documentary competition um the names of the students are and anyone want to describe what that competition is a it was a short film competition our C-SPAN for student documentaries on non-fiction subjects and the students that Dexter won both second place third place and severable honorable mentions and they're being honored at the school on Thursday great good for them okay the students are Troy bassu Basu Andrew Sloan Nicholas Dow Ryan Kelly Abigail Matthews Emma U Sophie Kravitz and Katie Kirk and congratulations to those students of Dexter Southfield school um they're it's quite an achievement so okay so um items 3B through 3K yeah yes sir 3K 3K um all in favor please indicate by saying i d vanak i Mariam ashkanazi I Michael Sandman I Paul Warren I and chair votes I okay next calendar items departmental budget review let's start off with the recreation department um do we have someone on the zoom those folks are online I'm promoting um director nning and uh Jerry Kelly and uh and then Justin L and let me know of those three let me know if you have anybody else from W joining there's Justin and Jerry um still waiting on Jeff he was in the uh he was in the zoom attendees there he is great okay I do have presentation when you uh when it's when it's your turn Justin if you share screen everyone in the room should be able to see it as well and and before we start let me um just sort of add something we we have asked the um departments all departments to structure their presentation to maximize the benefit that we get from them and help us identify areas where we can express our concerns on the record toir the committee regarding their budgets um who will present the budget to town meeting and then ultimately our concerns to town meeting so we ask for uh the following things um num their number one their three biggest accomplishments of the previous year two their goals for the upcoming year three new initiatives within their current budget and four initiatives they would pursue if they if they were not constrained by their current budget we also ask them to tell us how they measure success of their accomplishments in fiscal year 202 24 and how they plan to measure success for fiscal year 2025 just to give you a sense of what we're looking for in terms of uh budget presentations um so with that uh who's going to start off um thank you Mr chairman Jeff nutting in director um we've put together a brief presentation uh uh to try to respond to the board's concerns overall uh our budget's pretty status quo uh we had to increase some wages as a result of collective bargaining or to be competitive in the workplace in the case of the pool but other than that you won't see any changes really uh in our propo proposed budget uh Justin and Jerry put together a great uh presentation I think Justin's going to take the lead on that and then we'll H happy to answer any questions you are you able to share screen you should um if you don't make sure oh it's only that to hosts there you go you can now you can all right is everybody able to see my screen yep yes okay uh good evening uh select board and uh all the folks that are joining us remotely tonight my name is Justin Lawson I'm lucky to be the general manager of the Brooklyn golf course I'm joined by my colleague uh Mr Jerry Kelly he's our business manager for the recreation department myself Jerry and Jeff and our entire team uh have worked uh tirelessly on our fy2 budget and uh we've put together this present ation as as Jeff has mentioned so we're going to start out with our biggest accomplishments from the last fiscal year FY 24 Jerry you want to take on the equity our Equity Initiative Program um last year we had a warrant article come in front of the recreation department that uh people are looking forward to U getting some free Recreation for low to moderate income families and families that qualified so um we have some Opera funding or receive something for this year so what we did we started an initiative Equity Initiative Program and we've gone through and we've been attending um veterans housing W Street departments and eggmon Street departments and other areas where a load moded INR families uh live and we've been um getting people to sign up for what we're call the memberships and they go into our system they get a membership and then they're eligible to sign up for programs that we have set for that current season that we have for free Recreation for the participants um we've doing this for a little bit over a year right now and we have 157 families signed up in the initiative and in the past year we've given out 113 scholarships that are worth $273,000 in Opera funds and that given free Recreation to those families is that a,3 correct okay awesome one of our other biggest accomplish ments uh involve the golf course we recently completed the creation of our landscape master plan for the golf course it's something that we've been working on for about over two years uh quite an extensive process and it's a quite a comprehensive plan looking at improving the functionality the accessibility and the playability of our Golf Course uh the Park and Recreation then subsequently voted to approve uh the plan uh unanimous unanimously which was a great uh sign of uh approval we've also uh our biggest accomplishments is really maintaining and and excelling our operations in the challenging environment that this fiscal year has provided us we've seen increased demand for our programs as we all know we Face a very challenging labor market uh as well as you folks are aware uh vacan within the leadership um of our recreation department so all of us our entire team has been diligently focused on not skipping a beat and uh continuing to provide great Recreation opportunities for the town our key goals for this uh upcoming fiscal year uh as Jerry mentioned the equity initiative uh is really successful uh we're going to try to continue to grow and increase that and increase memberships by 20% we really want to renovate the sus Courtyard that's been something that's been in the works for quite a few years now uh We've recently hired an architect and uh are moving forward with that project as I just mentioned uh the landscape master plan has identified multiple phases of improvement at the golf course so we're really looking forward to begin uh a major construction project this coming winter uh really focused on functionality uh most recently we've been challenged at the golf course uh with a historical rainfall that's really impacted our operational abilities to keep the golf course open so we feel confident that the uh the plan will address those and allow us to be more resilient to the rainfall we also want to increase the amount of junior golf here at the golf course we feel that we can do that uh by supporting the local school teams as well as increasing in our junior golf memberships by 10% just a quick uh overview uh for the recreation department uh being the recreation department we do have three uh budgets that we prepare manage and execute uh the general fund that's really covers a lot of the ad administrative expenses uh as you can see our fy2 uh requests slightly over $1.2 million are that's decreasing by about 14,000 over fy4 our Recreation revolving fund uh that's really the program costs uh and expenses associated with the actual programs uh that is increasing by about $200,000 to a total of $4.5 uh million and our golf Enterprise fund um is also increasing by $217,000 for an approximate total of $2.7 million long-term goals uh we picked one key word to summarize uh our goals uh and it's really focused on leadership as all of you know uh Jeff is our interim director and uh we do not have a full-time director as of this point or an assistant director so I think our leadership our soon to be leadership will be heavily involved and we' be happy to probably expand upon uh what those long-term goals look like once they're in place new initiatives we've got several initiatives that the team uh is focused on is growing our adult sports leagues increasing our vendor programming expanding those offerings Beyond Just Sports Programming I think one of the neat new programs that we're uh going to be offering is public speaking something that nobody's really comfortable at it's just an acquired skill uh adaptive swim working more closely with therapeutic recreation and we to answer one of your questions about the demands for Department Services we definitely have seen an increase in demand for those services the only uh Personnel adjustment within our fy2 budget is a removing the site coordinator for our after school program from the for the fy2 revolving budget you may remember that uh we used to run this program inhouse and now have outsourced it to kids to Pro as the vendor uh but does not this removing of this Personnel uh position does not impact our ability to provide those services this is our fun slide and we love fun here in the recreation department so if we weren't constrained by budgetary uh limitations our priorities and these will probably be interesting for you to know uh family changing rooms at the Evelyn CL Kine Aquatic Center an Aquatics office in an locker room renovation Soul Child Care we feel that child care benefit for Town and Recreation employees would be really highly advantageous better field conditions for our Sports programs and then not only just better field POS conditions but more Fields so land acquisition uh we have a passionate team that likes to take care of uh and provide opportunities but uh as you all know land is probably the most scarce resource in town and uh so we felt that these we our list could be exponential but we wanted to kind of keep it in a conversation tonight and that concludes our presentation uh that we've developed uh for tonight and happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you thank you any questions from H selectboard members miam so um the outsourced child um care how is that working um sure it's going pretty well their numbers are a little bit lower than they'd like we have um I think it's 25 that they have down there in the room right now but uh they have been running the program during the year and looking to do it again next year but thank you what's the experience been on both ends have you had feedback from the families and how has it been for us working with this outsourced organization I mean I I was there at the at the beginning and so they seemed quite organized but I'm just wondering you know what's the actual working experience been both and for us they've adapted well with our facility and they've been doing well with the families um here at the recreation department we've got no complaints for the families involved and um they would absolutely let us know if there was something they wasn't H they weren't happy with so we're content on that end we work well with the kids to Pro organization check in on a regular basis with the staff downstairs and they've actually had um some higher up members in the organization came in and meet with us and we've also met with the ad mid management staff as well on a regular basis great thank you yeah I think Paul was next hi uh thank you and thank you for your your presentation my family uh I have two young children we are great users of the recreation program so thank you um I'm curi I have two questions um the first is related to the equity initiatives you had some statistics do you have any breakout as to how those uh scholarships are being um used by different programs sure so um we've given out 314 aquatic lessons so far um 156 students have enjoyed 462 weeks of summer camp um soccer was a big program for us 132 students have taken advantage of that um taiw do 59 basketball 45 uh flag football 38 I'm just going to bounce down too to some non-sports activities because uh we've been priding ourselves on getting some programs in there that aren't just for students that like to play sports um so we've had seven take blast babysitting course um five children have taken our nature camp program four have taken a Pokemon class and um 23 have actually taken chess Wizards so thank you uh Netflix for program there that has really helped with that so you're seeing it kind of across across the various programs um I didn't hear golf on there are we offering golf scholarships um there you know for our side of it we've been focusing on the program side uh not necessarily going into a facility on a one1 that way but uh that doesn't mean it can't be offered well but you're offering you are getting uptake on other programs but not Justin there's no golf scholarships being offered to youth not at the moment we've done some uh great Outreach programs with the Brookline Housing Authority where we do golf nights at the golf course uh we provide food we provide instruction and that sort of stuff we are in the process of um launching and and developing a first te chapter program uh which would be a huge um uh program that would be uh a great Equity um uh Initiative for us to undertake so that's helpful so Jerry and I'm going to dig into this a little bit more because I one is I I I worry that there's not a single scholarship for a golf um and I I'm curious about that um so what what is the when we give a scholarship what is the average discount is it 100% funded are we is it some percentage Jerry based on income sure it's 100% funded that's on 65 cents being covered by the OPA funds and 35 to the revolving account okay so it's it's 100% okay I I do I think it would be good to see um you know a similar type of program Justin P you know uh offered for golf not just you can come at night but if someone wanted to play golf uh you know around of golf and they income qualified they should get the same deal that the kids get for basketball or swimming or anything else um that's the first thought and the second uh question I have is about the so I you talked about the operating budget this is probably Capital um my son is a frequent user of the Soul uh uh facility there with the play basketball um you know and uh it's in pretty rough shape uh the Water Fountain is just you know if you go over there it's it's half taken apart the scoreboard doesn't work and frankly you know if you need to go to the bathroom you walk down a set of stairs you walk through an equipment room uh you're you're in kind of the basement and then you go into a single bathroom where the door doesn't lock um I don't have that experience at other facilities in Brookline uh you know where there's multiple bathrooms do we have any plans to uh work on that is there cap is it the capital budget or there's none on you're talking about the gym where your son go yeah the gym yeah there's no current plans um on on the capital budget that that I'm aware of um you know this the what we reference to is this very small courtyard the back door where the children that participate in the school program is going to get renovated but and I think the park itself is on the capital plan for some years out but the uh we're just as frustrated that at that building as everyone else but CH can I ask chz chz is there any uh is there anything planned in the the CIP for some investment I mean Lally you have to go if you haven't been in that building and you know there's a 100 kids in that building in a weekend go try to use the bathroom uh it's it's ridiculous yeah I've been I've been in that building too and I know I know the condition of the structure we work with parks and recck to set their CIP and you know within the sets of priorities they have um you know I and you know we we try and you know balance their priorities accordingly and so I think in this instance there are just so many Recreation facilities uh and so many things that require that level of investment that you know to renovate that gym to any sort of you know standard adding bathrooms fixing the floor it's yeah it's a it's a multi-million dollar project um and so we have to be realistic with the limited funds we have for for wck in order to figure out how best to you know maintain what we have well I guess I I'll close by saying this this is an issue of equity guys uh the kids that are getting scholarships of playing basketball they got to go into a basement into a bath that doesn't lock there's no scholarships being offered for golf where there's two beautiful bathrooms that are cleaned on a regular basis this is an issue of equity and if we're going to be serious about Equity access uh across Brook line we need to really deal with this thank you thank you Paul um Mike pass yes go um I wonder if um one of those in um who's here and I think it's probably Jeff nutting could give us uh bring us up to date on where things stand with the carine ice rink so um currently um the park and W commission authorized a program study that will look at revenues expenses of various options uh for a potential future rink and that would be a covered rink an open rink and enclosed rink and variations of that so um that's supposed to be delivered to the park and rec Commission for their May meeting um they have indicated that they'd like to move rapidly after that with a recommendation on to the board and meet with the board uh as to what option they think it will best serve the community going forward balancing out the needs the costs uh potential locations uh Etc so um that should probably be uh coming forth in after town meeting to the board for further discussion thanks um somebody about to add something I thought I heard somebody was gonna add something Bernard do you mind if ask second question this is this is a second question altogether uh and I apologize for the fact that I have not yet gotten up to speed as to the CPA awards that were made last night the community preservation act Awards um but uh I'm going to guess that maybe um some of that money is is going into Recreation but you tell me it would be news to us oh okay so it's not not going into recreation no it's going into Parks going into Parks okay yeah okay John can it actually go into is Recreation one of the categories or yes yes it is okay we were our Our Hope there was that in the recreation category we may have been able to find space in there for the planned recreational use of the bridal path Beacon Street Bridal path But ultimately we were given legal advice that that probably wouldn't be that they be because it is also a space that is used for multimodal Transit uh that the state probably wouldn't let us do that uh unfortunately so we are back to plan A with that which is we are going to use arpa funds for our federal match there which you have already allocated um that was the big attempt at a recreation project this year and we were ultimately uh you know because this is the first year of you know allocating CPA we're we're encountering the lims of what we can and can't do with that money hey Mike okay thank you Bernard um so uh I I I'm very very impressed with the fact that you've you've U provided $273,000 worth of Rec scholarships and and uh roughly um $270 on average a piece uh for a thousand uh a little over a thousand uh uh kids um and I don't know how many individual kids you know there may be some of them have had two or three of those and so I'm not sure how many individuals you're serving but that's um really very very encouraging because when we started this uh we were concerned that there wouldn't be much update in the first I think the first time around there wasn't very much I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the what the marketing the way you're getting the word out and the kind of response that you're getting who you're working with the with the housing authority on it or and and so forth and tell us a little bit about how you've got to that that uh that level of success sure um never been working with the housing we've been working with just groups in Brook on that uh started the Warren article we've been doing a push on ourselves to our own marketing campaign and uh we've just been doing some constant contacts sending out to households there as well and now it's just really getting into Word of Mouth um families had to taken part of letting their neighbors know so it's it's starting to increase which is really really nice to see okay and what about you expect to see more demands uh how's it grown over the last we've uh we' set a goal for going up 20% um but I think that I think we can actually surpass that at this rate um it's growing pretty pretty good right now and um I really think just the word of mouth do it and I think just when kids are on a program they're going out and telling their classmates and the classmates parents have stoen to talk about it we've heard a couple of those stories but people reached out to us and letting us know that they're hearing it from their um just friends in the neighborhoods that have taken as well like their neighbors all right that's very encouraging thank you great any other questions from the board okay thank you I just want to say thanks to specifically to Jeff and the whole team at wreck I know to your point about leadership it's been a long long haul here and you all have done Stellar work um managing this department and you know just want to give a special shout out to the whole team over there um grateful for your leadership and I know the whole um you know just the entire body has been doing great work so thank you it help us on the way it helped us on the way right yeah and uh especially thank to thank you to Jeff yeah he he bails us out more than once or has bailed us out more than once we really appreciate uh the assistance that you've given us across a number of departments so thank you you okay um unless there's anything else thank you see okay next you find my here are you going yeah yeah so I'll introduce sure um so um it's we have now the matter of appointing a recreation director my pleasure to uh recommend to you the appointment of um Tim David to be the next Recreation director of the Town um Tim is a dedicated professional he served as Recreation director of the town of Southborough since 2019 previously served as Recreation and assistant Recreation director for stoton uh but he began his career here in 2012 as a Rec leader since 2019 he served on the Executive Board of the Massachusetts parks and recreation Association it's Treasurer position which he was recently reelected he previously served in the Recreation Commission of his home Community been a member of the National Parks and recre Recreation and Parks Association since 2013 he also an MS in Recreation and leisure studies from Southern canak State University a BS in Recreation management uh and a suff certificate from suffk University's local government Management program uh Tim was one of 90 over 90 applicants for this position uh it was an incredbly competitive process um I had a wonderful screening panel of community volunteers to provide input uh to me in making the ultimate decision on who to appoint uh I want to thank that panel now they were Clara Bachelor who's the chair of the parks and rec commission Carla Bena who's a former advisory committee member was deeply involved uh in the Warren article 26 process for the 2022 annual town meeting and is currently pring 14 town meeting member Deborah Brown who is co-chair of that Warren article 26 committee Melissa Goff you know Deputy Town Administrator Carlos red rejo and advisory committee member vak select board member land Alexander ve the parks and open space division director I also spoke individually with me many members of the community from all walks of life about the state of the recreation department Equity issues and the desires for the future there um we went through two rounds uh of screening as John knows it was a uh uh an adventure trying to schedule that many people to do that many things I want to thank uh an Braga our director of human resources for handling that process and running it in such a successful fashion um we screened through those candidates we invited nine for first round interviews uh from there we narrowed the field to four we asked that candidates per conduct a written examination which was Judge blind we also asked them to make a mock presentation to the select board um and at the conclusion of that we had a discussion um and I made the decision to invite Mr Davis he came in person uh he met the other department heads he met members of the staff down at Elliott uh folks came in from the other uh areas of wck to meet him um and uh we conducted reference and background checks so so um any number of the finalists would have been wonderful candidates for this position um we were embarrassingly lucky to have an incredibly good candidate position um but Tim really checked every box um he is deeply committed to equity and inclusion um you know he tells a wonderful story of walking the community uh encountering people playing a sport he wasn't familiar with asking them about it and then developing a program for it um you know just that kind of on the ground Act and and realization that there was unmet Community need uh really a stellar uh an eye for that kind of work um growth he's constantly interested in creating new programming but also evaluating the current programming that we have figuring out what works and what doesn't um and nurturing staff um he took time out of his busy schedule during the uh process uh at the um uh Convention of local recck leaders to actually meet with a couple of Brookline folks just on the sideline to get a sense of how the community was doing without alerting them that he was in the running for the position uh and just you know really demonstrated a care and uh and desire to see the department succeed um so Tim has accepted a conditional offer to begin working for the town on May subject from approval from you and the parks and rec Commission in the passage of any remaining background checks and the other conditions of his employment so I want to thank members of the screening panel I want to thank all the applicants uh and I thank again Jeff for serving in such a wonderful fashion inter in interim process so are there any questions um I I just want to I want to make a comment first of all um uh when I listen to the process uh it sounds very thorough and I I really want to I I want I appreciate the fact that somebody had to Wade through some bodies had to waigh through 90 applicants that's that's uh that it's actually rather encouraging to hear that b line attracted 90 applicants um but uh that's that's great um in the past um we the select board and the Town Administrator have been criticized for having just one candidate presented by the Town Administrator for a department head uh in that case as well as this one there was a very thorough um process for uh uh evaluating candidates and um the it wasn't as though the Town Administrator pulled somebody's name out of a hat uh or did this all by himself uh and I'm really very pleased to see this repeated in this pattern I think this is a great idea uh and um with that kind of a with the kind of committee that you organize for this uh and I hope we'll do that again in the future great uh we're voting we get so unfortunately unfortunately he's currently meeting with parks and wreck he's double the same time uh vote then after we meet him well you're you should you can vote you can vote now if you'd prefer we prefer to be able to appoint him and then we'd like to you obviously introduce you just add a comment just to this um um yeah it it was it was a privilege to be part of the um the hiring process or at least the screening process um and one of the things that resulted from speaking to person after person um you know as we started to do our various rounds of interviewing of the top candidates um was that person after person said that the Brookline the reputation of the Brookline Recreation Department is just the highest it is absolutely the highest this there's a reason we had 90 applicants is because in the world of Municipal Recreation um people view Brookline as pioneering and continuing to lead and having a depth and breadth of uh recreational programs and a commitment a community commitment to Recreation that is you know above um way above what uh a lot of communities experience um and in the highest ranks of sort of towns in terms of measured by by their Recreation programs so I I I think in a way we're we're we're really excited about the person who's coming in um but I think it's also very exciting to know what a good Department we have and the kind of reputation um it has in the the world outside of Brookline and for that we we owe a thanks to all of the people who served it previous to today um they have made it the department that um it is and uh Tim Davis is going to do a terrific job of leading it into the future um I say that based on being very impressed with him in the interviews that we did so just want to add that thank you yeah thank you John that's very helpful in terms of yeah yeah so um maram you have something to add I mean my preference is to actually meet him before we vote on but if everyone else feels comfortable voting I will defer I do think this is a bit of a perfect storm with scheduling and I apologize because parks and wreck both have to approve him as well we schedu for the same night thinking we will be able to get through this um I mean I'm happy to I'm happy to if you if the board would rather wait I'm happy to wait a week and introduce week you're not if everyone else is comfortable that's that I'm I'm and Paul well then I'm happy to defer I'm just I'm expressing my opinion as singular rather than wait a week how about waiting an hour a half an hour whatever parks and wreck you know here to the schedule he's still working for his other community so he's going to parks and wreck and then he's got a GH aftera meeting that he's still ah oh okay all right all then let's let's go I I I'm and especially after all the things I just said about the process with that said I understand that concern and in the future I will make sure that you know I also you know the one of the things that we do about this process is I want to make sure that candidates are able to be seen and seen by the community I thought it was important for him to me parks and wreck um but in the future I will make certain that indiv both individual select board members can meet in advance of these meetings and that we have that opportunity for public introduction this is just an odd situation I apologize so so we can meet him in probably a couple weeks because next week is um zoom and um miam's to be here anyway and Paul won't be here next week either you zo me I'm sorry be here next week that's right Paul's not gonna be here next week Paul's not gonna be I'll try if I can I'm GNA be in Jamaica okay can I make a quick comment sure yeah so um generally I I I would agree with Miriam um my preference is to meet the department heads before I vote I don't need to have a vote uh you know as part of the process of selection or down selecting and then you know picking an individual candidate I'm I'm happy to be able to approve at this level uh but it would be good to be able to um you know speak with folks um just as a natural course of the process um it really would it really would be helpful but I I'm gonna um you know kind of reiterate what what Mike said you know this this was a robust process um I the people that um were involved in it I trust uh in in in making a sound decision and it sounds like you you uh you did uh did that uh in in the betting process in the interview process um I'm also encouraged to hear and i' I'm looking forward to talking to him about this that he seems to be uh you know on the Forefront of equity uh and how to uh include equity in Recreation I really think this is an important important issue as you heard me speak about earlier um you know we as we become a community of rich and poor we're rapidly becoming that um this issue of being able to provide access to uh Recreation programs including exclusive Recreation programs have traditionally been exclusive I think we need to be able to uh have someone um leading us on those efforts so I'm encouraged to hear that that he is that type of individual so I'm comfortable uh voting this evening okay I see an Braga has popped up on the screen do you have something to add an I just wanted to let you know um obviously the the scheduling is what it is and we couldn't schedule a time for you all to meet with him um the um the conditional offer said that that approval by both bodies there wasn't a specific order for either select board to go first or Parks and Rec to go first um and we would be looking to schedule some time for you to meet with him um in the near future as he comes in um to be able to have those those conversations about various issues okay yeah okay yeah I I think we can rely on the work of the um committee uh and the decision making by um Town Administrator uh us meeting him is probably not going to change our opinions uh our positions so I I I move that we vote uh right now um so I move of approval of the appointment of Tim Davis to be the recreation uh director uh subject of course to the approval of Parks and Recreation and passage of all required background checks all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I Mary masazi I Mike samon I Paul Warren I and chair votes I okay with that I'm GNA run over to the parks and rec commission meeting I will be right back and tell them we want to see him soon yes okay next if he showed up in a Godzilla suit that might influence the uh but I don't think he yeah picked up as in his Godzilla inclinations in the uh interviews right John uh he he's very very Natalie atired okay no no good godzillo no okay I that that actually might be a well never mind okay okay uh next we have um change affordable housing restriction um Gus communities at 1876 Beacon Street a change in one units area medium income limit for a Mass Housing Grant and I see Emily deog is here yes right so tell us about this yes um I'm Emily deog for those of you who haven't met I'm the senior housing planner um in the planning department so Brookline is being asked by keratos communities to sign a new affordable housing restriction for 1876 Beacon Street um and we're asking that the select board make a vote on whether to sign the Restriction um so far hap has recommended so 1876 Beacon Street is a 15 room single occupancy apartment owned and managed by keratos communities keratos provides housing for formerly homeless and very lowincome individuals um there requests in the town of Brooklyn to sign the affordable housing restriction agreement from the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency and that will change just one unit from 100% to 80% so it'll lower the Ami restriction for that unit um and as a lean holder we're a lean holder in this project um that's why we're being asked to approve this um so this money will go towards um some repairs for maintenance and improvements mostly to common areas on the property great thank you and um this is not ex excluding the potential of uh that unit being what we're calling uh middle income um or moderate income housing because this is for people who uh are in crisis uh for the most part and um are using this as a place to live um okay any any questions or comments okay oh Paul I see your hand all right yeah thank you thank you Emily I just I I wanted to understand a little bit more so this they're moving from 100% or is it market rate or 100% Ami as it's current it's at 100 right now it's 100 and go and going to 80 what what is the what are they getting in return for some funds to do M yeah so it's m housing's neighborhood stabilization program it has a restriction at 80% for the units so they have to lower one of the units the only one that's at 100 to 80 okay and is there other what are the other levels of the units in that in that building J know yes um so there one of them is one out the 15 is the site manager unit on sites there are two at 40 five at 60 5 at 65 um one at 80 and currently one at 100 that will drop to 80 okay that's that's that's really helpful that's what I wanted to understand so we this is a wide range of of uh of Ami levels perfect thank you so much and and these are individuals who um otherwise would be homeless or what are the other uh yeah I'm not sure all their backgrounds but it is you know it ranges from 40 to 80 um so 40% of the area Med why why are they coming into this un this um facility um because they need they can't afford anything else okay so so it's like a halfway house I think Mariam mentioned yeah single room occupancy so they share common areas and then there's also the site manager to help out I I guess I'd like at some point for um someone to to sort of let the public know about all of the opportunities we have in this town for uh housing for uh people who find themselves homeless for one reason or another as well as opportunities for people with disabilities you know whether that's physical disabilities or um cognitive disabilities and we do a lot and I think it's important for people to realize you know how generous Brookline is uh in helping people who are struggling with very types of uh situations in their lives so yeah anyway uh Charlie you had something to say I just wanted to point out that Paul had his hand up oh okay y ber I did I did have one more thing I wanted to add um you know this just and it's tently related to this issue of moving one unit from 100% to 80% um at at the time that the the town was going through the process of working with 101 month Street uh for a variance change to build a building across the street which is going to be market rate housing uh there was some discussions about finding a way to um offer incentives or other programs to um uh rental buildings that that have been fully depreciated these things have you know they're they're they're basically just cash machines right now they're very profitable uh is there a way to move units uh through deed restriction onto our uh our Shi roles so that so that we can start having more instead of having to build it uh you know there's a ton of of depreciate fully depreciated buildings in Brookline that again that you'd have to have the right program but there's something there seems to be an opportunity and maybe this is something that we can talk about with Roger and the hab but um you know that was a potential for 101 Mammoth they ended up going in a different direction um but being able to convert in incentivize existing market rate rental buildings into deep restricted buildings I'm not sure exactly how you get there um it would be one way of increasing our inventory of deed restrictive units yeah I don't know of a program that does that but um I have worked in communities that look into naturally occurring affordable housing um and you know trying to preserve that um can be quite tricky but yeah I think you know get in contact with Roger and um I'm sure he'd like to discuss it as well y good okay unless there any other questions I'd like to move of approval of the uh katas communities at 1876 speakon Street and their change in the area medium income limit in one of their units in order to qualify for a Mass Housing Grant all in favor please indicate by saying I John V skak hi mam asazi hi Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi and chair votes I thank you thank you okay uh next electricity and natural gas bid schedule is that you jlee yeah I will handle that tonight um I'm joined by our chief procurement officer Dave Janus who will help answer any questions that you may have uh for folks watching I'm Charlie young I'm the assistant Town Administrator for finance and we are here tonight asking for the authority uh asking for you to Grant Authority for Chaz the toown administrator to sign contracts for supply for electricity and natural gas um after we open bids for them hopefully on uh the 11th this this Thursday so the reason we have to ask for that for those who don't know is that after you open a bid for something like supply of electricity or natural gas we have a very limited amount of time that we can actually sign that contract and lock in that price the prices fluctuate so much generally you have to sign those contracts the same day so we are here asking in advance for you to give us the authority to do to actually do that so to give you some background we are currently paying um a very very favorable rate of 10 cents per kilowatt hour for supply and 62 cents per THM uh um for supply of electricity and 62 cents per THM for for supply of natural gas um and the reason these are very favorable rates is we locked them in several years ago uh during a good time um I think it four and uh three years ago each um and unfortunately we are looking at potentially seeing a significant increase in our cost for for supply of electricity and natural gas going forward as the market has really ballooned in the last couple of years and looks to really continue going that way um the only real big change that could help us would be say an end to something like the GE the geopolitical conflicts we're seeing around the world so with that in mind our um our um energy advisor uh came to us and pointed out that look right now uh the the supply of natural gas the cost of the supply for natural gases at lows of maybe up to five years um three to five years natural gas is the most common form of um of providing electricity in in New England um fr we do you know pay for you know on the electricity side for green we can't really do anything about that on gas so uh so you know that since the natural gas market is so such so prominent New England seeing that dip in the price right now for the fiveyear uh time frame has a real impact on both the price of natural gas and electricity going forward so we're in a very favorable market right now we're looking to go out to bid and we need Authority from the from uh the select board in order to do that in advance um and so I'm happy to answer any questions um to give you an idea we are seeing price price increases of around 30% on both electricity and natural gas but again what we're hearing from our energy adviser is if we were to wait a year um or uh were to wait for us to essentially climb out of this very this very deep dip we're in right now in the market those prices might be even significantly higher um and so you know while we're looking at a 30% increase it's really it's really because we've been benefiting from very low rates for the past few years years so U Dave and I are here to answer any questions you may have questions about the percent green of our electricity I'm happy to dive into that if you have um questions about that uh but that's that's the authority we're looking for tonight Paul hi uh thank you so Charlie just a quick question and you may have said this but you gave a lot of information quickly that's okay y That's the the uh the the we have a contract today contract when does that contract end yeah happy to answer that question so in the electricity Supply contract ends in fiscal year 26 it's in March of fiscal year 26 um so that's March 2026 um and the natural gas contract expires in FY 27 I'm not sure of the exact month but essentially you're going to see around a 30% increase in the price of in the supply cost of electricity in FY at the end of FY 26 and a 30% increase in the supply cost of natural gas in FY 27 so likely both will hit hit in like the bulk of both of those increases will hit in FY 27 Charlie is there any cost to exiting a contract early or if we if we go out to bid again is how does this work yeah so we're going out to bid for the period starting at the end of that contract so the prices we would be securing on Thursday would be starting at the end of those terms I got you okay all right great thank you okay any other questions no no that was uh thorough appreciate that it was a thorough explanation I appreciate Paul's question that was a yeah that was in my mind as well yep okay um let's see John stepped out for a second but we can still vote we have four people uh I move approval of granting uh Town Administrator is John back authority to execute potential multi-year electricity and natural gas supply contracts with Ender based on a favorable bid result scheduled for for April 11 2024 um Freedom energy Logistics our electricity Supply consultant is handling the bid and would be making a recommendation to the town so I move of approval of that all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi maram ashkanazi hi Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren I and chair votes I thank you next chest Hill study update who we have the pleasure of Listen to For That should be Meredith was oh Meredith Mooney okay good evening good evening Meredith hey Meredith hello okay so um Meredith Mooney economic development director I apologize I did get the chance to go out for a walk today and enjoy the weather I'm paying for it now the seasonal allergies have started for sure Meredith money economic development director I'm here tonight to present an update on the Chestnut Hill commercial area study and the last time the select board had a discussion about this project was back in late fall 2023 and the outcomes of that discussion uh were select board approved a scope of work for the project and project objectives uh and gave the green light for us moving forward with this project as a staff Lin initiative and one of the expectations as a staff initiative project is uh staff will return and provide updates at appropriate intervals and at a minimum on a quarterly basis about the project and its process so tonight is the first um of those updates and I have 11 slides I wanted to walk through um an update about our work with the project consultant there scope of work walk through the project timeline discuss the role and responsibilities of the community Advisory Group and um talk about upcoming Community engagement events Meredith could we go back to the first slide and just want to confirm that the dotted red lines um represents uh not only the project area but also the boundaries of Brookline yes so the do goes yeah the scope of the study are and the parking lot for the Star Market I think um over as part of the street development as part of Brookline I'm I'm sorry the parking lot is part of Brookline and the gas station and CVS but not Star Market okay right correct okay just let make sure I was clear on that sorry go ahead all right so and uh just a recap the overview of the study objectiv um we're looking to incentivize net new commercial tax growth to enhance the livability and identity of the chest Hill commercial area and as I mentioned before we're moving forward with this as a staff-led project um so we're sort of experimenting with a modified planning process and we're looking to um optimize the planning process and build off of this hopefully the success of the chest Hill commercial area study for future studies so our consultant is rkg Associates they're an economic planning and real estate consulting firm the scope of work is summarized on this slide here there's uh a lot more detail in the cover memo for tonight's meeting regarding the scope of work but just sort of a um overview of the different components and how they interact with each other so the commercial Market study is already underway uh we're looking to identify the commercial development opportunities in the study area once we have that analysis and have a better sense of um what types of uses and industries would likely be successful in the Chesnut Hill commercial area we'll work with rkg with guidance from the community Advisory Group to develop a set of scenarios based off of key Parcels in the study area um and you know find what would be financially feasible um and successful from the market standpoint uh for Chestnut Hill and once we've sort of decided on a couple of scenarios that um are viable uh and that align with sort of the community goals and vision for this area rkg will develop some 3D massing models that'll give a sense of the height bulk um you know parking and give a sense of how the potential building massing based on these scenarios would interact with the surrounding area our kg is also helping to support our public engagement efforts they're going to be um supporting the facilitation of the community Workshop events we have coming up and some other smaller scale Community engagement events as well this is the project timeline uh this time next May it's our um goal to be involved in the warrant article public uh hearing review process how do we plan to get there uh April and May we're really leaning into community outreach engagement um which I'll go into more detail uh in a few more slides the real estate analysis work is already underway we're hoping to wrap up the majority of that by the end of this fiscal year um and start with the fiscal impact analysis in July the Stars indicate at points at which we think um it makes sense to return to the select board for an update at that point um but of course I will defer to select board member Sam man um who's chairing our community Advisory Group for this project about when he feels it's appropriate for us to Circle back and update the select board so we anticipate coming back at some point in uh early summer to sort of lay out the key findings from the community input process and uh the analysis from um our real estate uh analysis work um and the intention is over the summer that we'll be working on developing some rough draft zoning and design guidelines so that by the time people resume their normal schedules in September we'll be able to bring a draft to the community Advisory Group uh and then Circle back with the community engagement event to demonstrate how Community input was integrated into the draft recommendations at this point uh so that we have a working draft by the time uh early October arrives it is Our intention um to invite Property Owners developers who we know have some near-term Redevelopment plans within the study area to come and present their Redevelopment proposals to our community Advisory Group and the expectation will be um you know property owners are very aware of this study uh I think one of the uh opportunities that we have in launching the study is that we've been having conversations at the planning department with property owners in this area who are very eager for the town to engage in these resoning discussions so there's uh high level of awareness amongst uh Property Owners um and prospective developers that this work is underway so the intention with the developer presentations is to demonstrate you know how their Redevelopment proposals align with the draft zoning and design guidelines um that you know they've been following along the development of this process so the goal is to finalize zoning by the end of this calendar year and then once we have that zoning and design guidelines in a good place we'll also work on developing some design renderings just so that people can see how the zoning and the design guideline documents translate um visually and so people have that point of reference as we move through the town meeting process so we will be circling back uh in early 2025 with the select board sort of present our final recommendations make the rounds to boards and committees um in early 2025 with the goal of submitting our warrant article proposal in time for the spring 2025 town meeting deadline we assembled a community Advisory Group uh chaired by select board member samman um they're listed here the affiliations uh a lot of our community Advisory Group members like a lot of Brookline citizens where many different hats are parts of different Community organizations as well as different towns uh committee and Boards so the affiliations noted here are really just in reference to to the um membership requirements or Target requirements for the community Advisory Group that were outlined in the project scope so uh we have our select board liazon we have um residents who are involved in local neighborhood associations representatives from town meeting member or town meeting precincts 14 and 15 and then representatives from our Economic Development Advisory Board as well as advisory school committee and the planning board so the community advisory group's role it's a their staff-led project Advisory Group we're really relying them for guidance and feedback um to staff and our consultant team as we move through this analysis work and as we begin de developing project recommendations so we're also really hoping that um Community Advisory Group will help amplify the town's community outreach engagement efforts and help promote awareness and productive dialogue about the projects objectives and draft recommendations we convened the community Advisory Group for their kickoff back in late March um the key agenda items and uh Tas for that meeting staff received feedback from the group on our draft Community engagement plan we had a discussion about the roles and responsibilities of the community Advisory Group and then Eric helverson our consultant for rkg Consultants um Associates uh facilitated a discussion with the group analyzing the strengths weaknesses opportunities or a swap analysis of the study area um and it was an excellent discussion I'm very excited for um continuing to work with this group upcoming Community engagement events so the two events highlighted in the top right of this slide are sort of our big ticket item um community outreach engagement events so we have an in-person workshop on the evening of April 24th at the Robert T Lynch Municipal Golf Course it was made very clear to us as we started this project and began doing Outreach to prospective community Advisory Group members that um there should not be the expectation that Chestnut Hill residents go down to Brookline Village to participate in this type of a workshop we should come to them and we were um happy to follow through on that so we're looking forward to the event at the golf course if people are unable to attend the event on the 24th we'll also be offering a virtual workshop on the evening of Wednesday May 8th um and people could also choose to attend both following the community Workshop event we're organizing and looking to confirm these dates within the next day or so but we have tentatively scheduled two community site walks uh one for early evening on Friday May 10th and then one for the morning of uh Saturday May 11th and I think the goal is that these s sidewalks will be an opportunity after we've had the opportunity to uh engage in these Workshop events and receive a lot of input from the community that staff our Consultants Community Advisory Group members and members of the broader Community can process that feedback um and sort walk through the site together and um apply the concepts discussions over the past couple of weeks uh to the the site itself the community Advisory Group this is sort of A New Concept that we're excited to be experimenting with uh we are asking members of the community Advisory Group to help to facilitate many workshops within their neighborhoods and sort of their Community Network groups these are smallscale Community Workshop Workshop sessions we think it would be really valuable to be able to apply the framework from our other larger scale workshops more at the Grassroots level I think it might would lend itself to um some helpful feedback that um we are hoping to relay at the second Community Advisory Group meeting on Monday May 13th this meeting is going to be I think uh we'll be receiving an update about where we're at in terms of the commercial market analysis but a big Focus for the meeting on May 13th will be um sort of digesting all of the feedback and input that we've gotten from the workshops laying out um all of the the qualitative and quantitative data we might have gathered through an online survey we'll be launching as well and identifying key themes um that are important to carry forward with this work how to stay informed uh we are encouraging anyone who's interested in uh following this process more closely and getting involved all of the meetings that we talked about on the earlier slide are posted most of the meetings on the earlier side are already posted on the town calendar as well as the project web page and as we confirm you know the community site walk events those will be added to the calendar as well so uh I would encourage um anyone watching to uh either follow the QR code or um you know internet search just Hill commercial area study uh Brookline it should be one of the first search results that uh gets returned and scroll through until you find the icon for notifying me about meetings and then scroll through the list and subscribe to the Chestnut Hill commercial area study Community Advisory Group for um updates notifications in addition to the community engagement events that I talked about earlier we are also conducting interviews with commercial property owners and institutional Partners about the study later this week we're going to be flying businesses in the Chestnut Hill commercial area um and uh rolling out lawn signs that'll be displayed in the public areas within the study area but then also available to community Advisory Group members select board members anyone interested in helping to get the word out about the project so uh and also going out this week there'll be direct mailings to Residents commercial property owners businesses in or in the area adjacent to um the study area just to make them aware that the project is happening uh and that we have these upcoming Community engagement events so that's kind of what we've done to date and looking ahead to the next several months where we're headed uh this is my contact information if um anyone else watching has questions or um issues with the notify me subscription I'm happy to help walk through that okay thank you uh let me start off please um you know one of the things that I think all of us on the select board are um trying to get people to focus on is to not not exclude um or not fail to include the um the um perspectives of certain community uh the senior community being you know one of them um but I'd also add uh the BHA Community down on the other side of uh of route nine I mean it it's not close to for example High Street Properties but you know route n could be in the future a a um a public transportation uh line you know between the two areas that's maybe way off in the future but you know that's a possibility um so I I guess I'm a little concerned that except for Janice Khan um who has you know her own PE peculiar expertise um not peculiar um specific unique particular particular um yeah we don't really have a senior you know perspective or or or sensitivity uh on on the committee and you know I'm not you know criticizing I'm just saying that in the future let's just make sure sure that we go out of the way to make sure that we identify different communities whose whose perspective whose um concerns uh whose you know issues um need to be part of our our our thinking process here and you know seniors are the most obvious U ones um pardon me Carla B is awes well yeah it's not just that people are are seniors I mean I'm old but you know it's not and I'm older right I we're really we're really talking about someone who who really has has made it a point to um understand and uh articulate the the concerns of that Community um so to to you understand we're talking about about resoning for commercial development here no I understand that but you know even there um you know we can't uh exclude the fact that maybe there are some issues that um need uh that that sort of perspective of the senior community um I mean for for example um you know Transportation issues uh how you know how how people get you know can get to development the types of properties that uh are going to go in there um I mean there are a lot of other areas that maybe we haven't thought about that that you know we we need to make sure that we and need to make sure that we give ourselves the opportunity to learn you know what we may not uh uh be uh may not understand or or be thinking about well um again this is not a criticism right okay I'm just pointing out the importance of always having that that that in mind so we don't miss miss anything I I mean I think a developer who developer who is going to recognize who the the customer base the client base is whether it's commercial development or retail what whatever it is uh and um whatever their development is uh they need to accommodate to the fact that those customers may have specific needs um I think except that it may be more profitable to have U uh uh businesses that really um focus on the young exciting crowds as opposed to the you know older crowds and and it's the advisory committee that should really get them to think Broad hard than just what's going to be the most profitable um businesses in in the development now I know this is a market economy and and and the you know almost dollar prevails but you're talk you're talking to a recovering Republican here um so but I'm pretty well recovered uh so I I take the point okay yeah um let's see maram did you have your hand I did uh thank you for this Merin um I have one suggestion and one question um the suggestion is when you go to the town the website for this on the T the loss of words you know what I mean the the on the the link to the yes okay you cannot expand the pictures of the little Maps um and for people like me who may not be that old but still need a bigger picture than this it would be nice if there was something I could zoom in on um that's my um and then my and the reason I was trying to zoom in and and even in the packet it was it's bigger in the packet which is helpful but it still was small um that the little stretch from Hammond route nine where you take a left onto Hammond that's already being redeveloped is that correct there's that's already having in that corner yeah yeah that's so I don't know if there's some way to like it doesn't I didn't see anything that refers to that so I just feel like that might be helpful that people know that Parts already been purchased by somebody and it's already being PL multif family yeah multi family hous yes absolutely so we we are um those are excellent suggestions we are working on uh more of an interactive map um so we're hoping to launch that on the web page soon so people can actually scroll over parcels and you'll get a lot of information that's included in our assessor database um but then I also I think your point we're also um updating sort of the property owner map uh just so people can get a sense of the scope of ownership but I I really like your idea about indicating where there's construction already underway I think that would be a helpful reference right because right across the street too there's there's construction too so right thank you hey Paul I uh thank you for Nar if that was an outstanding uh presentation it really was uh very clear um I'm hoping that you can do more of those for when I need to present on things like that um so the first thing I'd ask is can that presentation that you just gave can we either get that into the packet or posted somewhere that we can reference uh it really is an outstanding summary of what's going on um so that's my request and then I have a few questions related to maybe what Bernard said I I agree with Bernard it's not a very diverse group and that may be by Design um because I keep hearing commercial um have we already concluded that this is going to be 100% commercial area or is it gonna going to be mixed use um mixed use yeah so so the I I agree it seems to be the Advisory Group doesn't seem very diverse to me um it certainly uh yeah I guess I won't I won't go too far I know Mike you're waving hold on right well well I want to qual with that statement you you can you can go with it all you want but I you know I um it was the first thing I noticed and again I I respect everybody that you have on there um but I too worry a little bit about um do we have the the perspective of you know I won't just say old people people that are concerned about mobility and transportation um you know do we have a perspective on uh if it if it is going to potentially be mixed juice housing uh mixed juice development I I don't see that uh that type of resource um or perspective on the committee um so my question is I'll ask one more time to clarify it that that dotted area that you've outlined are we planning on 100% commercial because I keep hearing it's a commercial District No I so the ches hill commercial area it's certainly one of our eight commercial areas in town the project objective is to make recommendations to incentivize net new commercial tax growth so that could certainly be in the form of mixed use development um but I think there is certainly the emphasis given the unique characteristics of this site which you know people are sort of described as the Last Frontier in terms of being able to incentivize really impactful net new commercial tax growth on the commercial piece okay which which you should know I'm very very supportive of net new 100% commercial I just I what I'm hearing is I'm hearing two different things we keep talking about the commercial District but then and then we're talking about also potential opportunities for housing U which is is okay I just um I wonder if if there's enough representation um on the advis I guess it's a staff LED committee right so that's why you're picking um that that that perspective that's all that seems to be missing and I agree with Bernard I'm not going to nitpick I'm just agreeing with Bernard there there seems to be um something missing yeah um Mike so I think um if you uh we had a the first meeting we had of the of the group was really um very interesting because there was a discussion about the this very topic about well is there an opportunity for uh for mixed use commercial there was a discussion about stepping up in terms of height starting at Hammond Street and then getting higher as you go west uh there were some very thoughtful comments about um how to make accommodation to the neighborhood that already exists around the uh around the study area so I think you would be I be uh reassured uh if you uh if you went back I think we actually recorded that didn't we uh if you went back and and listened to the recording there were a lot of a lot of ideas that were uh were floated around some um kind of a couple of them were a little far out honestly uh but just the same uh it was a pretty free thinking group uh and there was certainly nobody who said this is going to be all commercial not quite the contrary then we may then Mike we may and again I I I have no outcome in mind here I actually I prefer more commercial just because it's going to help uh alleviate some of the the growth in residential uh residential taxes but I think the way we're pitching it the way we're talking about it it's commercial so I'm thinking across the street is the street there's not a single you know that's not mixeds that's 100% commercial so as I heard the presentation I heard 100% commercial which I don't think that's what your intent was um and frankly if that's the outcome then that's the outcome but I just it I you're I'm getting too different messages it's packaged is 100% commercial but yet you do have this component possible of mixed use that's all yeah well we're not and we're also not to the point where we can say exactly what's going to be the outcome so right um can I add with respect to the issue of let's just Li limit it to seniors I mean or let's not limit it toi seniors um I mean it's not it's not really a question of do you have a a body on the committee necessarily right it could be a question of do you have on the agenda thinking about how a project could relate to issues that that seniors um people living in Brooklyn housing authority buildings even though it's far down the road you know issues that they may uh may may have or issues that we should think about um that relate to them so yeah it's always good to have someone representing a particular community on the committee but it's more important for the committee to always have their issues or or have on the agenda thinking about what the the issues would be of those communities absolutely I I would say um that is certainly a lens that we can apply to um future conversations have that discussion with the community Advisory Group we did our list of stakeholders um The Residence at Boyston place is one of the properties located in the study area so the elderly caregivers and visitors of the senior center we identified as one of our stakeholder groups so as we're moving through community outreach engagement it is Our intention to um bring them into the the process um but you know I think you know beyond the senior's example I I understand what you're saying about um being inclusive and thoughtful of other user user groups who might not um be obviously seated at the table good any other discussion so we're not voting on this this is just a presentation we appreciate the presentation it's very very thoughtful and very informative uh so thank you well we'll look forward toing back in July or sooner depending on guidance we get from select board members men right great thank you thank you okay next um police general orders policies uh I see Chief Pastors in the in the audience and it's going to present these to us not major policy changes but still some important ones that is exactly right good evening thanks for having me I think we're g to spend I don't know the next six hours together or something like that have a few things wait a minute we had to end this meeting the same day it started okay gong me out when it's time um so what I have in front of you now is updates to 11 General Orders uh like the chair mentioned no major overhauls here with regard to our policies and procedures we provided redlined versions um that point out the changes um that are really mandated by empac our accrediting body our accrediting body um it nothing um reflected here in these changes changes how we operate or anything that we really do it's semantics it's grammar um a few of the modifications actually fold policies and procedures that are um already in our special orders into our general orders which is a more appropriate place um and by that I mean things like you know when you see general order 23.1 with regard to search and seizure um this is something this is how we're already operating um it was reflected in a special order that came out of the reforms of 2020 it's just now um mandated by accreditation and we agree more appropriate to have it in the general order um it also includes updates that are mandated by post again we made the updates at the time that you know post rolled out the mandates it's just now incorporating them more formally into our policies and procedures um I am happy to answer any specific questions we can go through it Point by point if that's if you'd prefer but uh I'm gonna try to read the room and assume that's not the case any here um yeah one one of the um two to that I think um I'd like to just hear your um your thoughts on um the search and seizure and the traffic enforcement uh orders I mean a lot of lot of the um changes are basically you know minor as you said but uh you know these are important uh general orders I was wondering if there's anything that uh you know we should particularly know about them no like I say I mean they are important I acknowledge that but um we've already been doing things this way it's just um I think as the board's aware I can remind you know those watching at home our general orders are things that are in our manual online um that the public can view um they need to be approved now first by the pcac and then we you know forward them to the board for a vote where our special orders are meant to be issued um by me and I with notification to the board um and they're meant to so that if case law comes out we have to change something um you know it doesn't require getting in front of town meeting or sorry in front of the board um or you know a delay we can just make those changes right away so these changes were made um by way of a special order back in 2020 um but they're just now being Incorporated more where they belong okay um yeah I'm sorry Mike I I think it's important to point out to anybody who's listening or watching that um a lot of this has to do with procedures for handling evidence especially digital evidence um isn't about how police officers will respond to people on the street uh it's very much about the nitty-gritty of uh of uh handling materials of taking photographs particularly as things move to a more digital they've already moved to a to more digital um than uh Than Physical uh evidence when it comes to photographs and and other sorts of evidence yeah so so modernizing our our policies and procedures however for example um General general order 50 does include an added section requiring training and on the issue of Duty to intervene so that's kind of new and kind of important um although we've always had that responsibility um correct yes so the requirement um in order to maintain accreditation is new however we have been doing it as you might recall that we received a grant to roll out the able training that was four years ago that's exactly what that is is training on the duty to intervene that was Department wide and we do do that anyway as part of our annual usually it's um in conjunction with use of force and our firearms training okay any other question I mean I just first I I appreciate Deputy Paul Campbell's memo where he outlines all of the changes it's very helpful good um but I do have a specific question so I hope you can answer it you may not be able to and uh at some point if somebody answers it that would be fine but on General Order 48 bias free policing the term profiling is replaced with policing per accreditation standard I don't understand what that means so the accreditation commission is very specific in the language that they want to see in any policy and procedure and has somebody who's been in that role you can fight until you're blue in the face what they they want the words that they want um but the full text is actually bias free policing okay as opposed to racial profiling um so it's intended to get at the same thing they're just particular about but without actually saying words right I I will give you numbers if you want to fight impact I I mean I understand but I understand it's not under your control but I also understand it's important to call out that it's like saying racially motivated instead of saying racist it's this that's what's happening here right instead of actually calling it what out which is what you guys were doing you're being required to Shadow it um I understand that but I just think it's worth at least pointing that out yeah yeah so did we and that's why we yeah right thank you but but we we still and maybe I'm misreading this we still use the word profiling it's just that the subject of of that section is uh is different so or am I am I missing something no oh yeah Miss okay sorry can you ask it again the word profiling is deleted in several places okay yeah in this yeah in this particular policy by it's replaced with bias based policing as opposed to bias-based profile okay good okay yeah so and it's a honestly it's a difference with a distinction without a difference as far as I can see good any other questions discussion I would just PA you have your hand up sorry if I can just add judge fabricant regrets that she couldn't be here tonight but the pcac has been made aware and they approve all of these changes yeah so that was uh that was my my question maybe what what the chief had just touched upon so I'm going to assume that that these general orders uh could make their way into litigation um if something were to happen has has Town Council combed these and um reviewed them and and given a thumbs up down councel I'm coun you been L Joe C and Town Council so um this is this would be something that would rely on the accrediting um agency here so we wouldn't second guess it um this is the standard that the police department is now going to um hold themselves to so that's what we would want to see we wouldn't be in the position to say on page six line four you should change this word this is what the accrediting uh service wants the police department is agreeing that these are the standards that're going to be held to and from a liability um perspective it's better to have standards that are current and that the police department adhere to that have a standard from 1966 seven that no one agrees you know everyone agrees doesn't apply and everyone ignores that could be used as evidence against us that we're not complying with the standard even though that standard would be illegal so all this is good news as far as I'm concerned and I'm happy to support it yeah so just to make just to make sure so so because we're adopting we're integrating a standard uh by the accredited agency that that um that's why you're supporting it and we're 100% sure that everything's been adopted properly integrated into the documents that's I'm just making sure we've dotted the eyes and crossed the te's I assume if we find an error we can fix it so if I understand your question correctly are you saying is Brookline adopting what the certification agency's standard is yes yes you Pastor tells me yes so that's what I I would have thought that's what I uh uh assumed but now it's been confirmed yes okay thank you and if if I understand this correctly if certifying agency says this is how you should operate that basically is the law we have to follow so no we want to get a credit pardon me if we want to get want to get credited and there's well tell me if that's not correct Joe that is correct but then if we had a standard that's different we could be in the situation that we complied with the certification standards standard but then it's evidence that we didn't comply with our own standard when they're inconsistent so that's why it's good that our standard is consistent with the certifying because we got have to comply with both right and if and if they are inconsistent and that puts officers in a horrible situation where we all know we're supposed to comply with the certifying standard even if we have an outdated policy that's going to be used against us good any other question anything else okay so we just have to vote to approve cor Do It um I move of approval of the changes to the police department's general orders to reflect the Massachusetts police accreditation commission updated set of Standards um and uh listed here in the agenda uh all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I Mary M Kazi I Michael sanman hi Paul Warren I and chair votes I thank you and now you have another um issue or item on the agenda Chief sure uh we ready for promotions yep great um so I have two candidates to recommend for promotion from the rank of Sergeant to Lieutenant um this is due to the fact that as you may remember over the summer we had two openings at the the rank of Lieutenant um we had to fill those provisionally uh with two candidates at the time we promoted Sergeant Al Gusty and Sergeant Chris Molin to the rank of provisional Lieutenant because we didn't have a valid Civil Service list to choose from um so once a list was certified um we went through our process of looking at test scores having a panel interview reviewing Personnel files um and I present to you um the first candidate Sergeant Noah brother who's been member of our department since 2006 and was promoted to the rank of Sergeant in January of 2020 in addition Sergeant brother is a certified paramedic a certified level three rescue specialist he has been assigned to the Patrol Division for his entire career but he's availed himself to teach our first responder in CPR in service courses to serve as the Department's Deco and to assist when needed on the covid-19 task force he's currently a supervisor on the patrol warrant unit um some a position that he volunteered for and became certified recently as a drone operator SED brother has a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of New Hampshire and a master's degree in criminal justice from Curry College second sergeant Robert Collins Sergeant Collins has been a police officer since 1994 primarily in Brooklyn but also for approximately three years in the city of Boston he has prior experience as a dispatcher and after his appointment as a police officer has worked in the patrol detective and traffic divisions he is a three-time recipient of police officer of the year a Hannah award recipient which is the Medal of Honor in 2000 and a nominee for that same award again in 2010 Sergeant Collins has been awarded the medal of valor by the American Legion as well as by the Massachusetts Police Association of Italian American police officers he's a recipient of the Joseph P O'Brien medal of valor which is the highest Award presented by our department in addition Sergeant Collins has numerous departmental commendations and letters of Praise from the public that thank him for a range of assistance from providing family mediation services to recognition for interrupting a serious part a crime in progress he holds a bachelor's degree in management from the University of Massachusetts and a master's degree from Anna Maria College in criminal justice thank you any questions from the board before we vote to approve these uh promotions no okay so I move um I'd like to move approval of um the following promotions within the police department Noah Brothers uh Sergeant Noah Brothers to Lieutenant uh Sergeant Robert Collins to Lieutenant all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I maram asazi I Mike sanon hi Paul Warren hi and chair votes I thank you and I do want to make sure to publicly thank sergeant mlin and um sergeant and Gusty they did a phenomenal job while they were in their provisional roles um it was a civil service decision to right great have them return uh so don't leave no I'm not leaving but I will warn you that the fate of the rest of the the night relies on me being able to operate this power so and if not um I brought my Public Safety business officer uh Mike denafo and he'll do the presentation of the PowerPoint doesn't work so all right just remember to um share your screen in the zoom call on that laptop so that it goes out to everybody who's remote so if you do if you once you hit once you hit present go over to the zoom or after once you have it loaded go over to the zoom and hit share screen and that way we'll all be dat it for a remote thank you yeah all right okay so okay we're good looks good over here okay thank you okay jump right into the questions that were asked by the board um and highlight our three biggest accomplishments of 2023 um our annual report is available online I didn't want to spend a lot of time going over all of our stats um they were presented last week or two weeks ago at the pcac as well um there's a lot of information in there with regard to our police activity but the highlights um are that in 2023 part A crimes um were up about 1% not a significant amount in my opinion um but we had a clearance rate of 47% of part A crimes and that is significant in 2022 that looked closer to 39% so I'm proud of the work that um our entire department is doing with regard to clearing crimes particularly part A crimes um and pictured here um is the high-profile arrest of three suspects that were wanted for the Warren Street home invasion on July 18th um all three are du back in Superior Court or sorry were earlier this week uh they were charged with home invasion conspiracy possession of a firearm possession of ammunition um and discharging of a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling so one crime a high-profile crime that I chose to highlight however um clearance rates being up um is something that I am proud of uh number two our staffing levels have improved we are still authorized uh for 134 uh however as we're aware six will be held open next fiscal year uh this past year we were able to put 15 new officers on the street we have an additional four officers expecting to graduate in May uh and two in the pipeline to enter the academy in early June we do have um sorry we did lose three officers to retirement uh sorry give me one second please um and three to other departments one of those I'm not going to count because it was lieutenant amandola left to become the chief in Carlile um and he's doing quite well out there um but we remain 12 positions ahead fill positions ahead of where we were at this time last year and thank you to all of you for allowing that to happen um again I think we've we've seen this slide but it's just to point out where our vacancies currently are um you know when we're short staffed we have to decide where to pull from um similar to how you have to decide uh which initiative to fund as a town and so the decisions were made to not completely fill the community service and detective divisions at this time until we can get Staffing levels up uh just a little bit um we do have some vacancies still in Patrol um but I've made the commitment to make sure that we have enough uniformed officers on the street to respond appropriately to 911 in emergency calls that won't be compromised uh third it's a hard thing uh to measure and I know you've asked for you know indic ators or or proof um but I do feel that morale is improving um and what I chose to highlight here is the police self-initiated or other activity that has gone up our total calls for service went down slightly um but our arrests are way up a metric that people might not think is a good thing but I'm looking at it as officers are becoming more engaged they're out there doing police work um and that's indicated in that stat our field interviews are up uh 229 per our police officers are no longer afraid that they won't be supported if they get out there and do proactive police work moving violations are also up 8% um and parking tickets are up 38% in almost $900,000 in Revenue compared to last year um in addition something that uh is a key indicator of morale is sick leave um our officers used just over 11 sick days each last year um and this year it's closer to eight I have a minute video if you'd like to see it yeah please if it works if not it's Mike's fault no no not you take resp that there's volume I'm not sure the audio will come through unless it's played on the hearing room laptop the one over by the Fel board um if you have a link to this I might be able to play it um over Zoom we can hear it in the okay oh you can I'm sorry no worries I think I think it's a slideshow yeah yeah it's Cupid Shuffle if you can't hear it home zero officers good there he is okay I wonder how long Mike's beard will be next year well let's just make sure to turn the audio off on the presentation uh oh okay okay so moving on to next year three key goals um sorry can I can I I just want to um say there was a reference in there to my monties and a thank you um and I had a conversation with uh someone connected with uh the synagogues in in Brookline who um said that the Brookline police have been very very helpful in providing support um some training uh and so forth through a very difficult time and uh I think it's important to acknowledge that thank you um primarily that's officer Pete muse from the Training Division of Lieutenant Hatchet they do a phenomenal job yeah yeah 10 Hatchet was mentioned specifically in fact yeah well deserved thank you for saying that uh so key goals if things go according to my plan at town meeting I will um town meeting will vote to allow us to remove from civil get removed from Civil Service um and we're hoping for a smooth transition there that will involve uh drafting a new hiring system a new promotional process a new disciplinary policies and procedures again understanding that with regard to disciplinary policies and procedures anybody that was hired under civil service will still be afforded those same protections um but as we on board officers uh through other processes uh they'll you know need to find a similar but um improved um set set of rules and regulations and policies uh two we're hoping to make some significant improvements to Public Safety headquarters um our women's locker room Expansion Project is is still going um we're just getting started with that we're looking to make some security updates to the front desk area um both to allow for the public to successfully interact with the front desk officer but to also um make sure that they are safe and while they're doing their job and three um we'd like to see some updates to the community room we have asked for CIP money to conduct a feasibility study uh we're kind of constricted by um the historic significance of the building um and just you know some things that just can't be moved it used to be an Old Firehouse if you remember so um we're going to do the best we can with that and at the very least hope to make some improvements to um safety like to include u a second point of egress um some improvements to the audio visual capacities of the room and maybe some ways to improve the seating or Aesthetics uh and finally uh the effective full scale roll out of body warn cameras they're here we have them uh we have the charging stations mount um we have servers ready to go um you know to be able to digitally store all of the footage um and are we are anticipating to have them out on the street as a pilot program shortly after the marathon with a full scale rollout really that'll start at the beginning of the next fiscal year we're looking forward to that so for new initiatives within our current budget um what we'd like to do is offer be able to offer some of our community programming um in additional languages um pictured here is off officer Oscar Santos who taught our first ever Spanish speak uh rad class fully in Spanish it was very well received by the Spanish speaking Community he was commended for that both internally but also by the mass Latino Police Officers Association um and we want to be thoughtful about ways we can expand Community programming to be more inclusive um not just of language needs but also you know cultural differences also um Deputy superintendent Murphy in the Traffic Division um is kind of wrapping up his research on a more automated detail system that'll modernize and increase efficiency with regard to uh police details um currently we have a detail Sergeant who makes a lot of notifications to a lot of officers by sitting at a desk and calling out um you know 100 phone numbers a day there's got to be a better way we recognize that so um that is something that I do feel comfortable saying we can do within our current budget new initiatives within the current budget it's a little bit of a cheat here they're not really within our current budget but I am looking at Grants um constantly and looking to expand some of our programs um using grant funding so one of the things I would like to pursue is a co-response clinician I don't think that's a surprise to anybody here uh but particular for the evening shift the 3 to 11 shift where other social services are not open um and in addition um where with the school department um to look into grant opportunities for a behavioral threat assessment team um to really just be more Mindful and have evidence-based ways of determining um if our students or staff are in such a crisis that they could pose a threat to our community Money Was No Object um you know one of one of the things that we've talked talked about is with the positions being cut those six extra positions being held open next year um it is six less officers on the street but in reality uh we haven't had that number of officers on the street for a while what we've been doing as you've seen us come before the board uh before is to be able uh it's for the to ask you to approve fund transfer requests to fund these non-salary items like technology equipment and training opportunities um as you can see here we're still down uh where we were in 2020 for those non-salary items and as you've heard from everybody inflation is really um you know restricted our ability to buy the equipment that we need um allow our officers to go to training which is another thing that in addition to you know making us better making us Smarter on the street it does Boost morale when an officer is able to go out and get specialized training um that's where we're really going to see the impacts of those cuts if money was really no object um plan to take over Newberry College uh with our new Public Safety headquarters I'll leave it to the board you can name it after me or not that's your choice uh but yeah we're really you know it's no secret again we're crunched for space um we'd like to be able to host our own trainings there like to think about an indoor firing range of this building I've already descided designed in my mind it's more centrally located as our um population is Shifting to the south side of town that would provide us um better access to emergencies straight from the building there'd be a lot more parking for our Fleet and for our Personnel um and would allow us to really think about a state-of-the-art evidence storage as evidence storage is starting to look different and more um a lot more digital evidence is coming in that's my you know maybe next year and that is uh that is all I had great thank you uh let me start off with some questions um if you thought of I mean a big headquarters at newre college is probably not not only not in the next couple years the next couple decades I had to try yeah and I appreciate that um have you thought of U maybe a smaller scale satellite office for South um Brooklyn I know we're thinking about it down at hanock Village but you know maybe in other areas that would provide some space for some of the U uh uh facilities that you're running out of room for at the headquarters any thought of that yeah we've thought about it um and specifically within chestn Hill real there might be some complications there we have um gone up there and used their um they have a nice community room up there where we have done a rad training um in another Community event but the I think it was kind of a meet and greet with the community service officers um I love that idea we used to have uh years ago maybe 20 years ago we had a substation at new Terrace Road um which was great it was really well received um in a way for you know the residents of that area to come in and just like more casually say hi maybe they would wouldn't think they have a problem big enough to go all the way to the police station to report it but if they see an officer you know they can kind of just like the the water cooler conversations yeah um kind of get a feel for what's going on in the community I love that idea I'm open to suggestions or if anybody that's listening wants to take us in we'll set up shop we'll put it out there and we'll think of how how something like that could be uh could be done the the other thing is um you used to have a simulation room where the fire the um firing range was at one point do you still do have that so uh technically yes but it's about to get swallowed up by the expanded women's locker room oh the women's locker room will expand into that space I I I just recently heard a number of people uh talk about the times where they were able to go down there and do simulation and they found that very meaningful but uh one of the things we'll look for again with advances in technology um we're kind of looking into whether there's a more portable smaller maybe we could take on the road and use with a drop down screen or you know some other way so that we don't lose the capability to train on that kind of you know equipment but we just we we have to sacrifice the space unfortunately yeah any other that was good oh Paul see your hand is up yeah I just put it up thank you uh thank you Bernard um and uh boy but your your current location of the police headquarters would make incredible mixed use housing frankly if you location so I would I I kind of like the idea of another location but first I want to thank you and uh for the presentation and for uh for your service for the remarkable turnaround that I personally have seen uh in the police department um in Patrol morale is up hiring is up um I see blue lights now pulling over drivers which I have not seen for years confidence is up um and I think that is directly related to your leadership and I just want to recognize that and compliment you um I do want to speak to the issue that you touched briefly You whizzed by it um which is I think the how open position have been funding um other items in the budget that have been uh declining um you know if you look at uh supplies for example uh the 20 2023 actuals for supplies was 23 32,000 uh this year the budget's 138,000 uh other Educational Services in 2023 actually was 73,000 uh now it's 31,000 um and you know that that that incremental decline happened last year in 2024 um and I and I suspect that what you just said is that the way that you've been making up those monies is from those uh those uh salaries that were unused because uh because they were open positions and I'm I'm just I'm concerned that we're whittling away at your budget uh on certainly on the supply side and the equipment side um and and we're not recognizing it and I think that the uh this locking those positions now where we we've used those funds to underwrite um the the the new contract which is fantastic the contract but I am really concerned about this impact uh that I was completely unaware of frankly until I started to dig into this uh that by us holding those positions and not making that any of that money available to you we actually are cutting your budget more uh than we have in the past um and I'm really concerned about that can you talk about some of the equipment and supplies and training that that inflationary pressures have been uh you've been underwriting through the salary Savings in the prior year or two uh sure I mean I can speak to recency and I will say at this point um in April we have gone through our training budget for the year even with the additional $45,000 that was given to us for arpa funding um I would hope that that's available a to us next year but I certain um ongoing expenses uh replacement schedules for things like computers um technology I imagine down the road when the grant money Runs Out body wward cameras uh things like that um vests our fingerprint scan analysis for example as things come up um you know that that's what our equipment line item is things are more expensive um needs are changing and you're right that that effect is real but you know okay so let me maybe I can get it this a different way how much money did we did you request to transfer last year from salaries over to equipment and training you give me one second I mean about 480,000 um according 480,000 I see Charlie nodding yeah and I believe so does that so so Charlie you kned so does that so if we have this similar situation where there's 480,000 uh because they've been relying on salary savings that that's not available this time correct right well I think we have to look at what was included in the 480,000 right Paul so are these regular purchases are they one-time purchases were they catching up on you know outdated equipment or were they again like purchasing something that's going to be needed every year that's not my understanding so um for example you have a a police officer become vacant um the the vacancy is filled and you need to order new equipment because it's special to that specific officer right during the time that that position is vacant you can you you there will be some salary savings generated and that will shift over to pay for the cost of the new equipment right so we actually will have fewer vacancies right because we're holding positions open uh we'll have fewer of those liabilities to cover and uh and so while there will be less money available there'll be less need for that money as well uh and so just to be clear you know we have been working closely with uh arreo and uh and chief Pastor looking at their budget you know asking them for more information on the stuff that they're looking for I think we've gotten some information on what they're looking for you know for example they gave us a list of classes that they're hoping to do uh for for trainings one of the things that we've asked is sort of like okay what does it cost to train an officer what does it cost to train a sergeant and how how many trainings do they need and how often do they need it that's information we don't really have right now Paul so we we we don't have a good idea of sort of what the liability is on a year-to-year basis or going forward and I think once we have a good idea of that once you know Chief pastor and Mike have had a chance to really get the budget under their feet I think we'll be able to really look at what what is an appropriate level to be budgeting for supplies or services in the police department I think you know it's important to note that while their budget has you know decreased their non-personnel budget has decreased other departments have been have still been cut since CO as well you know there are other departments that are still looking for some recovery as well so we're sort of taking this year bye Paul we're looking at what they're submitting for requests you know for example the police submitted a $40,000 uh request for a training this year turned out that they were able to find a grant to to cover that so so again um I think we're we're in a good place working with the chief and Mike um on this and uh as much as it seems like we are cutting their budget you know more than we normally would because hey we're taking away the positions we were using to find some of these we're also seeing that the need for that might be going down as well so I think uh it's just a matter of collaborating on this going forward and making sure we know what we need to spend I I appreciate your perspective Charlie Chief is the need declining the specific one that uh that Charlie just mentioned you know hopefully if we have new officer we'll have fewer officers on boarding that will need their first round of equipment and uniforms and things like that the um bigger ticket items it's hard to say you know computers things like that um constantly needing updated he's right in saying that it's it's a work in progress we are trying to make up four years of uh purchases being you know these requests happening things not being documented properly um well I guess I guess in summary I I would hope that uh Charlie and the chief that when a deficit is identified because we're still trying to figure this we're you know we're trying to change the wheels while we're driving the bus us um that those requests would still come to us uh as a board uh to find money to fund these important items because having a having a a a a well staffed but understaffed uh police department that isn't fully and properly equipped is insufficient so um if we do end up with a situation where bullets cost more or equipment costs more or whatever is costing more that uh that we do have a very serious and direct conversation about finding ways to fund that uh because I I do believe it's important that they be properly equipped thank you thank you any other questions can I um let me ask something uh in your report you talked about t traffic enforcement being up can you confirm that uh while we have increased uh traffic enforcement that we've reduced uh the racially biased uh stops that um you know in fact we we we suffered from many years ago and and some people still think that we uh have a problem with um I know you're bias free policing policy it helps in that regard I I I think that you've stopped um stopping people for economic violations like you know broken backup lights and things like that but you know so talk to me about that I would love to and it is contained within the annual report um that I sorry to say I don't have in front of me um other than to say that I am not particularly concerned about the numbers as they were reported for last fiscal year with regard to um race and gender profiling um whether we're talking about traffic stops or arrests or FIS things um we are able to compare our data with communities around us and communities across the state and we fared well there's always that question about you know being able to identify your driving population no body seems to have an answer um but there's relative consistency with the percentages um one broken down by race and gender of who were who we stopping who we ticketing year after year some might say you know that doesn't answer the question but um when we're kind of stuck with the data we have it's just um you know we look at individual officers to make sure that their citations don't point to a particular problem with regard to racer gender um but overall I don't have any concerns about the work being done out there but and looking at individual officers you're saying that the supervision Pro the supervision system uh enables you to identify areas where there may be problems and address them sure our records division uh clerk Neil Harrington uh sends a breakdown every month of officers productivity um the number of citations they've written um and then takes um you know provides that data to supervisors who are tasked then with looking it over to look for any outliers um with regard to stops as they you know cross with race and gender I'm sure the system is not perfect but I think people really should understand the attempts that are made to address that issue as well as you know similar issues I will also add that the pcac seemed pleased with how the numbers uh presented two weeks ago um and I will thank them also they asked a lot of really good questions that um gave our crime analysis unit different ways of thinking about um how what data is being presented and how um so I think you'll see a report that looks a little bit different this this year to kind of get at what the community was asking us for right thank you Mike uh yeah just uh along the same the same lines a couple of years ago we had um two uh two task forces looking at the police force and and I was on one of them and one of the things that we found was that um the data was showing that there were more citations issued to uh drivers who were registered outside of Brookline than inside of Brookline and as a Brookline resident I hardly support that but but just the same there is that that was a that was a a concern and then there were um there were disproportionate number apparently a disproportionate number with um I believe it was drivers who ident ified as Asian uh and uh I I um I only mention that because I think it's important for you to to recall that as you look at your own data um one of the most important things you can do with that data is say what is this telling me uh and I think you're in particular uh more aware of that than some of your predecessors were honestly uh and um I I but I just the same I want to remind you that of what we saw previously and it that it's worth going back and looking at that absolutely yeah I want to thank you sorry I assumed you were gon to call him um I want to follow on what Mike is saying too is you know I would love I would really like to see that year-over-year comparison and also just for me personally I I I try to avoid the Bad Apple narrative this is I I try to not make it about the individual I I want this to really be a look at the systems and the structures um so I would like that kind of lens on I think it's if you don't have the numbers now that's fine um because we're here talking about the budget so it's a but I think we should see those numbers I think it's a conversation we need to continue y so yeah I think um I can send those out actually back from my desk so that you all have them but the annual report is out as well as a separate report extrapolated from that um specific to race and gender breakdown of the police interactions great um and I was able to attend this morning the chip CH yeah yeah um which actually presented some very interesting demographic data with regard to the community and uh some of the sad conversations I had uh suggest that we should look at you know what their data was saying versus what our you know calls for service and other data is saying how they match up and how they don't and what to do with that information so we're thinking about it thank you could you explain what you just uh what meeting you you you're talking about uh you want to talk about either I just want to know what what what what the name we attended the kickoff the sharing of the initial findings of the community health assessment very interesting and now it's about finding the priorities for um the Imp the implementation plan Community Health implementation plan okay thank you any Mike one last thing um uh. newws had an had an interview with you and and you mentioned that you are eight weeks away from um graduating don't jinx it yeah unlikely that you're going to flunk a test at this point be awkward so uh I just uh while you're here congratulations in advance thank you very much a long time I know you're working at it for a long time a long time great okay thank you thank you thanks you okay warrant articles public hearing we have two warrant articles warrant article nine and warrant article well three 13 and 14 um on article nine chapter 40D section 13d of the general laws establishing an ACR liability to work fund um we've talked about this in the past and now we have a warrant article that we're going to discuss in Greater detail now um and then Article 13 regarding the um accessory dwelling units and article 14 regarding uh setbacks needed for energy saving devices that's a Zab uh Warren article so let's start with Warren article nine and I see Lincoln Hinman is uh on the screen and and and Braga so yes um I I I can start off uh good evening uh Lincoln hman the Town's director Finance um so as you mentioned chair green this has been discussed uh some in the past what article 9 would do if adopted is to uh accept the provisions of Mass General Law chapter 40 section 13d which would U establish a reserve fund um for the future payment of acred liabilities for compensated absences for employees so compensated absences in the case of Brooklyn are um vacation and compensatory compensatory time uh uh acrs um the uh those acrs uh have um are are uh at this moment more than4 million um what the uh budget separately uh in in conjunction with this article passing if it does the budget uh would appropriate $1 million into this Reserve fund to pay for um to address some of those future uh uh compensated time uh liabilities the the um balances have built up um over many decades uh the and it should be noted I think that there have been there has been some success recently with particular groups of employees in working down those balances and uh bringing those balances down into what we call the Caps the um the official uh uh maximum levels that are allowed in particular with middle managers um and uh but but this is another tool I think in the toolbox is the town continues to address this issue of um of seeking to bring down this liability this future liability uh and in particular I think this would uh assist in um uh addressing some of this liability or seeking to address some of this liability prior to retirement rather than paying out um the entire of what's owed to employees at retirement and uh in most on all cases a higher level of salary when uh we're losing you oh I'm sorry so um can you hear me now sorry yeah okay yes so um so that is what this warrant article will do and uh as you mentioned an broga um Human Resources Director is also here to help answer questions okay and first of all as I understand this what we're trying to protect against is uh one year when we have a lot of retirements and and a huge um uh liability as U all these people cash out their ACR um benefits so this is just to protect us in the future or future uh you know select boards from you know having that type of a hit suddenly you one year so I think I think it would certainly help with that so uh the the payouts at retirement due upon retirement have traditionally been U paid from the personal services reserve and so this would um this would alleviate some pressure on that account okay uh and did you have something to add to that no I'm just here to answer any questions from the HR side of things okay Paul yeah I just uh Lincoln you had mentioned the first thank you for the explanation this is similar to the one we did uh we've talked about another account like this or maybe it was this one before um uh for some reason I'm having Deja Vu we' talked about this before is this the second time you've spoken to us about this or is this similar to one that you've discussed yes yes this has already been presented to us correct right yeah right okay so uh the only question is you mentioned this other account is there how much money is in that in that other reserve the personal services Reserve yeah um Charlie can you help answer that yeah absolutely so that account is budgeted at around $715,000 a year currently it has a little bit of extra funding into it um due to the salary studies so that's where the salary the non-union salary study money was put in as well so it's budgeted around a million this year but again we're not going to use that money is intended for the salary studies we're trying not to use it for other purposes like backfilling vacation and balances and it has been 715,000 since Melissa started um in Brookline um 17 or so years ago um so this would this would really go a long way to help alleviating the pressure we've seen on that account in the past few years which has been drained to its to its full extent in the last couple of fiscal years um due to significant buyouts um this year Alone um I'm tracking and you know this is you know I can go into this as much as you'd like but I'm tracking around $900,000 in sick vacation and AA BuyBacks we've already done this year most a good chunk of that is going to be back is going to be filled by salary Savings in the department which sometimes we benefit from if one of those retirements is vacant for a while um so we're not in any threat of fully you know of going into deficit in that account this year but again it's just an indicator that Melissa and I are seeing that this account has been seriously pressured by uh retirements in recent years and when you say seriously pressured because each year you're draining the 715 or 750 that you put into is that what you mean by that exactly yeah the the amount that hasn't grown for 20 years or so is now is finally coming to be to not enough to get to get through so that account we're going to put a million in this year instead of 715 no not quite so um Lincoln can explain further but this money would be going into a trust fund and each each sort of issue with you know uh with B with high balances would be dealt with one at a time and there there are different issues that looking to resolve and Lincoln may be able to yeah so so the personal reserves the personal Reserve account is an appropriated account that expires at the close of each fiscal year as part of the budget what this article nine would do is to set up a reserve fund that would operate like for example the stabilization fund or a trust fund so that the funds stay there they are able to be invested in for example um equities um and and the funds stay there for this purpose year after year year after fiscal year so when you say they expire if you didn't use them they go into free cash is that what that means correct right from from the from the personal services Reserve correct they go to free cash whatever isn't spent there this does not revert each year correct okay and just one last question Charlie did we always empty the 715 or the 750 the reserves or did it expire so that is in the operating budget so so that 715,000 is in the Personnel Services Reserve so it expires at the end of each fiscal year we don't get to continue using that money historically Melissa has seen a balance of around 250,000 in that account in in healthy years um and it's it's shrunk and shrunk and we're turning back less and less from the Personnel Services Reserve okay miam yeah thank you um when we discussed this before I think we had I just want to confirm and I want the public to know that we had discussed about changing some of the policies where we could to keep this a ability to acrw this kind of endless phase from happening yes so I just want that that to be out there that we're addressing the root of the problem not just uh the thank for it right a good a a goal here is to get everyone under that line through whatever means we whatever the statutory maximum was you know we don't have the history of how this came about it's been going on since well before Melissa was here I was here anyone any anyone currently on staff was here but it's a it's a practice that needss to stop um I'm you know my contract limits me to hard and fast rules on vacation and days I stick by that rule I don't ask to for that to be waved everyone else needs to play by the same rules so we're gonna vacations and take vacation I will say that's another area where Chief Pastor has done very well particularly with you know staff moving into the senior staff level positions because it's defin few grievances you Charlie you're not on mute uh um thanks that's okay just want to make sure you didn't call out your dinner order by accident or something uh too late um um you know but you know all of those things come into play it really is my goal to ensure that people who have had that opportunity that is money they've earned uh are paid appropriately and then that that opportunity does not arise again Mike uh I so we're setting up a a reserve and one of the questions that and it's a a protective Reserve that carries over from year to year right yes we're setting up does the when when we have our uh inevitable um evaluation again for what our overall reserves are by the bond rating agency does this is this one of the funds that will be calculated into that that amount that is a great question I do not believe so um yeah I I I will um seek that answer and make sure that that's the case but no I don't believe so because it it is for intended it's intended for a specific purpose right not unreserved okay got it okay I understand yep all right thank you and it and it's a trust fund not a reserve oh okay right oh yeah that's a significant difference trust that's a difference you don't have to go any further I was gonna fight them on the revolving funds but okay any other [Music] questions um okay this is our the second time we've had this as a warrant article no so actually initially when this is a little complicated procedural vle initially I came before you to ask whether or not we could do this but we could put this on the warrant so you authorized us to put this on the warrant now it's having its official public hearing and then you'll be able to vote on it at a later date if you so choose okay so we have to open up the public hearing this is a public hearing uh Charlie do we have anyone on line who would like to speak or is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak we have two me two individuals in the audience um and I'm seeing 22 attendees folks in on Zoom can use the hand rais or Q&A feature to indicate that they would like to make a comment so you can um do that now um of the 22 attendees no one is using the handraiser Q&A feature Bernard okay then I'll close the hearing and uh move um are we ready to vote uh favorable action on this yeah yeah yeah Paul you ready I think so yeah um let's just get this out of the way I not get it out of the way yeah let's get it out of the way okay that's a good we're have a lot of other yeah okay I'm a favorable action on article 9 which would accept chapter 40D section 13d of the general laws establishing an acred liabilities Reserve fund for compensated balance uh absences um and uh all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanet I maram ashkanazi I Mike samon I Paul Warren I and chair votes I okay next uh Article 13 uh this is going to take a little time amend the town zoning bylaw to reduce the restrict for dwelling units uh submitted by Roger blood Advisory Board I'm promoting Roger now um and poly Telco as well can you hear me okay yes okay good thank you um oh I'm U I'm Roger blood uh chair of the U housing Advisory Board and uh lead petitioner on Article 13 which is um um a u an initiative to um make the um creation of accessory dwelling units by single family homeowners um a little bit more user friendly um this is probably the first of two articles on this subject um a later one to uh to follow um after if and after the state adopts um a uh a statute relating to um accessory dwelling units which may preempt uh uh local Authority and Zoning for accessory dwelling units and then the town might have to return and align its article with whatever the state may may do but for now um I I have a brief uh well I'll make it brief uh presentation uh on with some PowerPoint slides that I'd like to to share with you to um to uh help get a good understanding of um of what this article is all about so if we could start that uh Charlie I appreciate it um hold on just a second Roger I think I have that got it okay all right Roger it was not ready to pull that up but I'm pulling it up just now okay thank you all right just let me know when you want me to move to the next slide okay I think we can do away with this one right away um and start with the uh the smaller words um so um town meeting originally proved an authority to do accessory dwelling units in single family homes in 2019 um adus are basically um a a second smaller um subordinated dwelling unit to the main unit in a single family home uh that has to include a a a cooking facilities uh uh bathroom and uh sleeping um facilities um the uh the original article had some many restrictive Provisions in it and we were disappointed uh pleased to have it passed but disappointed that It produced um practically no results in the way of the creation of new affordable dwelling units um so the current initiative um was um was delayed for about a year but the hab had committed to bring this article to town meeting by the um by uh by the this annual town meeting now uh I mentioned that the state is also planning to um they seeking to pass an Adu as of right um article which could preempt some of what we're trying to do locally um so the the um the current um article um recognizes brookline's Uh current Adu bylaw uh but could be preempted as I mentioned next slide please um the um the intent um that you're seeing here on this screen I won't try to read through the whole thing but uh this is the same wording that appeared as the basic uh purpose for the article four years ago and that in that intent remains um remains today and uh it you know in in short form it's to uh to uh serve the the needs of single family homeowners in terms of their housing which can change over time um while at the same time um in a non-subsidized manner uh add some rental units to the town's total housing stock um this is um not something that's going to be in the hundreds of units but uh most likely even with some moderate success uh in in the dozens rather than the hundreds but certainly more additional units for these different purposes than we than we've gotten from the original article next slide please and so let's just cover some of the specific changes that are proposed in the in Article 13 next slide please um the the um there are as of right parts of the zoning article and then there are special permit Parts which are much more uh the special permit is more of um of a hurdle for homeowners more costly more time consuming and with a less certain outcome so the as of right part would be uh would include or would increase the um maximum square footage of the accessory dwelling unit from 750 ft up to 900 square ft and that's uh that part would be consistent with what the the state is also proposing at 900 square F feet uh as of right um that square footage would be um uh uh would be effective as the lesser of uh the square footage or the uh percentage of the total uh area floor area of the of the home and we're proposing to increase that from 30 to 40% um with a special permit uh uh the the article uh proposes to allow up to 1,200 square feet for the for the Adu which would also be the lesser of 1,00 or 40% now rather rather than 30% at present um there was something in the current article that had a special carve out for applicants um who would have a would have have a handicap member of the household that needed a full-time resident caregiver on site the 750 square foot U maximum that exists at present would be insufficient to make that accommodation uh but the 900 would allow that and we're now proposing to simplify the article by making that 900 available for any applicant next slide please um so uh one of the um the perhaps the the most um interesting or different aspects of this article versus what has come before and I'm sure it's going to be the subject of uh of discussion perhaps tonight and certainly at town meeting and and advisory committee um the the um the definition of an Adu and I I'll shorthand the accessory dwelling and call it adus from now on um uh both in Brookline and and well beyond on State and National has always been completely tied to uh the concept of a homeowner and owner occupancy of of a single family home um that is uh this article would make a very uh slight um change in that that would allow applicants to declare themselves when they when they come to the to the building department and put in an application to create an Adu they will either state upfront that they will be an an owner occupant or if they will not be an owner occupant um they can still put in an application but um they would have to commit upfront to um uh if the if the uh if the completed Adu does not is not um become a part of an owner occupied property in other words if they don't sell it to a a homeowner who who's occupying they would have to deed restrict um the um the uh the the unit as an affordable housing unit um uh for a minimum of 15 years um also on this slide you're seeing that um we would eliminate the fact the current requirement uh that the uh the property uh subject of the application uh would have to be uh owner occupied for at least five years which which has been called a form of a look back period next slide please um well this slide actually um I I got a little ahead of myself uh in in reporting from the last slide but this slide actually provides a little more detail on what I just went through with you uh as as to how the owner occupant versus non-owner occupant uh would present themselves at the point of application uh both having to agree and writing to comply with all terms of the Adu bylaw for the life of the Adu um but in the case of a non-owner occupant um uh having to do a deed restricted affordable unit um next slide please um I'm going to add something before going into this uh exterior appearance uh uh uh component um one of the um kind of heavy probably more redundant documentation requirements that the current bylaw imposes on any applicant is um regarding the documentation of their owner occupancy they were going to have to do annual affidavits with recorded documents uh and we've eliminated all of the owner um burden of documentation proof of the owner occupancy because with a closer uh um examination of this and and more extended discussions with our uh Town assessor um we've reached the the conclusion that the so-called residential exemption database that the cessor maintains on all owner occupied properties where there's a significant incentive for getting a property tax break by being an owner occupant and and as a result of that if they're not that the property tax is considerably higher the uh Town assessor maintains a very robust um monitoring program for uh assuring that when his database which is public uh says that a property is owner occupied that that that is um that is a reliable piece of information that the town already has and therefore we don't need the owner occupant to do a lot of additional personal um swearing on an affidavit so on on this slide on the there are several current bylaw physical restrictions that we're proposing to eliminate and as you see them here uh we are proposing to eliminate uh the prohibition of a Second Street facing uh front door entrance elimin the current requirement that a property can have no more than one uh mailing address eliminating the requirement that the property can have no more than one physical Street facing mailbox or mail slot and eliminating the requirement that the that the property cannot separate the um utilities which are serving the the separate Adu um and in the case of the the Adu being rented um that that could be a a use full Freedom uh or to have as far as the regulation goes um I I will mention at this point um there's uh something that's known uh in as an acronym Noah no oah which is uh viewed as n naturally occurring affordable housing we also um many of you um have heard us talk about affordable housing with a capital A and affordable housing with a small a the capital A is a deed restricted affordable housing unit that is legally required to uh have income incomes verified and validated and then rents in turn uh regulated um for homeowners who are owner occupying who create an Adu and choose to rent it they may have a variety of motivations including uh tenants who uh can watch the property when they're gone who will help maintain it Etc but the bottom line is that um the rent in those owner occupied adus is is not formally uh regulated because the rent itself tends to be almost entirely uh something that's below what a profit seeking landlord uh can get who's in the um rental housing business next slide please um uh this slide is included not because it's new or unique to Article 13 but um that what you're seeing on this slide uh will continue to be in effect um th those applicants that want to create an Adu by creating an addition to their home rather than by creating one entirely within the existing homes envelope um will all the addition will trigger the requirement for a special permit and therefore a a a public process that will involve the planning board and eventually the the zba um this is um a language that is to provide some assurance that um such additions as may be made will must be in U design keeping with the um uh and compatible in design with the existing home so again I'm not going to read them through but these are the things that the planning board would be looking for for an applicant seeking a special permit to put in addition on on their home next slide please and we're almost done um I mentioned earlier the subject of a look back period we're no longer going to require um uh not only that the owner owner has lived there for five years but even the minimum age of the property itself um and and um the uh basically uh a change here would be for example that someone who is um a contractor for example could buy a home uh a large one presumably uh and create an Adu with or without without an an addition uh and then sell it to an owner occupant who is looking for a home that has an Adu in it and the town wants to see these adus created so that would be something that would be allowed under the new bylaw because we're eliminating this five-year minimum age requirement um that would not not have been allowed before um uh the the existing owner and the um subsequent owners will will still be required to provide a one-time affidavit not not annually uh uh just u in writing acknowledging that they will be uh uh continuing to comply with the requirements of the Adu so each subsequent sale will trigger the same requirements that that would happen with the initial application next slide please um and while the the motivation of the hab is to uh create more affordable housing in any way they can and the town we think um uh generally agrees with the with the goals of of this um the new creation side from the building department side The Building Commissioner they are the they are of course the enforcers of the zoning uh article and are are are looking at it from from that perspective and and in particular uh um the town assessor who assesses the existing conditions of all properties and all single family homes uh has has reported um that he he sees approximately 150 150 plus um existing single family homes that have have unauthorized adus in them and from The Building Commissioner standpoint he likes to see something such as this zoning article which will in continue to encourage those owners to uh kind of come out of the shadows and get get an inspection to confirm that the um the existing Adu however long it's been there um uh is is uh uh conforms to the current U safe and sanitary codes uh and the building code so that that ends the my formal presentation and certainly would welcome any any questions that you may have okay any questions from the select board here John wait who John oh John sorry that's okay uh thank you for the for the presentation I had a question for the chair um or maybe for Chaz um we're not we're not voting on this tonight no this is just a hearing and we're going to open the hearing okay um I don't there's a limit to what I can say about this but uh I'm worri you and Roger and I have had conversations about this he's done a terrific job of helping me to understand it as much as I can um at the same time uh o only within the past 24 hours I've had another conversation about it that has raised questions as to the interpretation of what would happen if we adopted this and it was in place and then the state adopted something that um departed from uh what we had adopted and what would then govern would would we be able to um go with what we had adopted or would we automatically um and by all precedent have to defer to the state what was was adopted by the state so that's a very important thing to get right and I'm hearing two different interpretations of that so I I just want that to be on the record that I want to be sure we get that cleared up um and then an additional question was raised as to whether uh if we did go ahead and adopt this and the state did go ahead and adopt something um that might actually be uh we might actually view more favorably in Brookline and want to sort of dial back what we had adopted to what the state had adopted that we could run into problems in doing that at town meeting um so two questions just to put on the table for us to do our best to get answers too may may I comment on on at least hold on Roger I was I was just gonna ask Charlie May to promote Jonathan Simpson uh oh sure yes um versus Town Council who's been working on this issue I think you be able to answer those questions good good could we also take down the presentation that's uh blocking the screen thank you I I do think uh um okay right I I I do think the npta communities act uh the response of the state to um Milton's uh decision not to go not to comply with it gives you a pretty good idea that state law would Prevail but I'm certainly certainly happy to hear I'm not taking it but and in fact um I raised that example with the other party of the conversation and um it was it was argued back that in fact there's not really a clear comparison to the mbtca at this point but there is clear precedent that uh in a zoning matter that um of of this nature that the states what whatever the state says is the new Adu zoning in force will be the new ad zoning in force I we totally jump in yeah please yes John yeah so I think I think the important thing to note at the outset is we don't know what the governor's proposal would ultimately look like once it would got through the legislature so it's difficult to uh to well you don't want to jump to any conclusions about what impact it it might have or might not have on what what happens with this particular warrant article what what Provisions might line up and what Provisions might might present a conflict uh second it is very likely that the whatever ends up should it get passed uh it would likely have an effective date that would not be uh necessarily be immediately um I think while there are some important distin from the MBTA CA that I'll that I'll get into it it is clear that from that act that the legislature is aware that revising how towns do zoning can take time so um especially when rather than something like changing the voting threshold which would happen sort of go into effect at at Future Town meetings changing something that's going to have an effect on the ground um likely would be something that they would they would give you some lead time to to figure F out how your how your community was going to adjust to it all that is however Preamble for ultimately John's to get back to John's point which is that the the state um has the ultimate can can overrule whatever we do and I think in large part what we've seen of the governor's proposal would effectively particularly with the as of right Provisions would do that it would just simply say you just have to allow these you can't require a special permit you can't put um excessive uh requirements on them um some of which Roger alluded to in his in his presentation but it it's likely going to Simply Be you don't you don't get to say no um when if there if they're other than if they exceed the the requisite size or something like that as with everything we could we could loosen it further example if it's allowed for adus up to 900 square feet as of right under the state statute our byock could allow them up to 12 1200 square F feet as of right we could always loosen it but it would would present a floor under which we could not under which we could not go so there would be some a certain amount of of uh I would I would councel that as soon as it's effective staff has to act as though that's the law of the land but then we we subsequently do move to amend our bylaw to come into compliance simply for um uh as a public service people you know should be able to read the zoning bylaw and know what they can expect to get I think it's just better for everyone involved okay Paul I'm sorry Roger you wanted to add something um I I would if I might I I um I it's because it's a it's really the a critical question um so and this is a judgment call I you know it's not it's I don't know I don't think it's a a legal opinion but it's a judgment call that could go uh you know either way the but the rationale is looking at what the state is proposing um it's where they're completely detaching any connection between a homeowner and an edu they're changing the actual definition of an Adu to have nothing to do with homeowners basically uh it it would allow um a for-profit developers to to uh purchase or or redevelop any single family property by by by right totally for-profit maximizing both rents incomes and the like on both the home and the Adu so U the U the the critical kind of a phrase in what the state is proposing is uh that will be by right and cities and towns cannot unreasonably restrict um uh anything relating to owner occupancy so the question is where we are proactively uh adopting something that says uh the Adu if it's a complete for-profit entity that's doing this or an absentee you know um is it unreasonable to have an existing provision in our bylaw that says simply the Adu has to have this uh affordable housing restriction which is at a level which is identical in terms of the income and the rent to the states 40b the the so-called 80% Ami and and so I I would say one must ask from the town's perspective and anybody who's going to speak for the state at that point is an 80% uh deed restriction on the only the uh accessory dwelling in it um an unreasonable item now if we were to do that after the state were to pass its that particular type of requirement uh would it not be more likely to be viewed as an effort to to uh to thwart the uh you know what was already passed so that's kind of the thinking um um maybe the Strategic thinking about is is this a reasonable thing to do now I don't want to talk too long but that's essentially uh the the the rationale and um as you may know there will be an amendment proposed at town meeting and unfortunately you won't have a presentation tonight about it that would uh basically support what the article is doing but except for this particular um small window of allowing a non-owner occupant to create an Adu yeah we may want want to take this up again after the advisory committee deals with the amendment but uh Paul yeah uh thank you uh Bernard so I briefly I'm going to respond to R real quick just while it's fresh in my head and then I'll go back to my comments um you know part of and I I spent I think an hour with Roger on the phone recently about this as well as three other people um I think at the same amount of time have really dug into it um firstly the you know this idea that you know whether we're restricting or not restricting uh whatever would come out of the state reality is we have no idea what's going to come out of the legislature uh there's just there's no possible way of knowing uh what they're going to pass and when they're going to pass it uh and what it would specifically say and whether we would be restricting or not restricting and what are we so it's all speculative so strategy around spec speculation is usually failure uh in my past experience uh but I do want to say there's there's things that I like about this article um I like that that it is loosening up the restrictions that have prevented adus from actually being developed um I think you know removing the restrictions for um owner occupied um adus to look back um you know all of the changes that you uh that you're putting in that you're removing from the prior article I think those are good um and I support those I will say the thing that I'm wrestling with the most and Roger this is no surprise to you because I I called you on this subject really is is the uh the investor uh developer uh um ability to build an Adu and and there's three reasons why I'm wrestling with this one is we know that some of our moderately priced housing stock um is our older homes and when you open those up and and set and essentially create more profit opportunity for developers they're going to go after those um and and I worry about that because um it will you know dramatically we may get more tear Downs we've seen what happens when a developer goes in and purchases two families today they're turning those two families into two $4 million units and I really worry that that this will be a a a an unintended consequence of uh allowing for um investors to to have this um opportunity um two you know I I think about uh the fact that we're just we just passed the MBTA communities act it was a it was a Herculean effort by staff and T meeting to do it um and you know we're now going into a period of of initiating the comprehensive plan which is going to last 18 months um I feel like this this the the other piece of this the investor piece essentially opening up single family zoning into two family zoning which may be the right thing to do eventually I feel like that really needs to be part of and considered as part of our community-driven uh comprehensive Plan update and then finally um you know it it The Quirk of of of zoning now and housing Choice it takes 50% of a vote 51% to allow investor owned uh Redevelopment of single families into ad years it takes two-thirds to undo it so if we feel that we turn the knob too far um we won't be able to pass t a change to restrict it back it's 50 it's 50 plus one% to uh to make a zoning change that adds housing it's 2third of a vote I believe to turn it back so I'm I am concerned about this uh it's as a technical point but my other two points are really the more important ones so I'm I'm I I need to hear more about this Roger um and I do know that the the um the uh amendment that was filed uh we certainly do want to uh hear when that does get filed to hear back from the petition and what advisory does with it two third can Jonathan Speak to that because I I'm not that's I get you yeah Jonathan uh yes I I well I first and foremost the decision on what voting threshold is required for any article is up to the moderator um not not me but uh given the discussions we had with the Attorney General's office about the housing Choice act last fall um I I in my opinion I do not believe the Rogers Warren article um would could pass with is appropriate to be passed with just a 50% vote I do recognize that the housing Choice act does reference affordable excuse me accessory dwelling units but the is my understanding is the Attorney General's office is reading that very narrowly and when Rogers article does a number of other things most particularly the the um the the uh bringing in of the affordable affordability restriction for the the uh the investor units um um investor properties I believe that would push it out of what is uh passable by 50% uh you know Paul but I mean Paul is right to point out that these these kinds of decisions uh especially if they're made with less uh with a a Le less uh sort of diligence than Roger has sort of the with the fine-tuning a much a bigger sort of grosser proposal to just sort of allow them throughout the town uh would potentially be passable with just a 50% vote okay uh Mike no um there's a a history to this to adus in Brooklyn the first time adus were presented town meeting turned them down uh I think it's fair to say as a result of some Scare Tactics that were uh thrown around in town meeting the second time we passed something that um because of the stringent rules on residency requirements the fiveyear look back and so forth um really threw cold water on the whole idea really it emasculated the whole the whole purpose of the uh of adus uh and this time I I look at what Roger's done and I think well this looks pretty good and I respect the fact that I want to hear more uh about the potential economic impact uh or the the the potential attractiveness that investors have I don't think that uh it's quite reasonable to con you know if somebody buys a two-bedroom or sorry a two family unit they've got two 2500 3,000 squ foot uh properties to deal with uh they can sell those for a great deal more money than anybody's going to be able to sell a 900 foot unit so you have to put into context what it is that an Adu is um but just the same uh it is in effect uh as as Paul says in effect we're turning the uh single family um uh zones into potentially uh two family uh so uh yeah let's think about it very carefully but let's also remember the history and not be scared off by the challenge that this presents uh to figure out the best way to uh to go forward with it uh particularly in view of the fact that we're as with the NBTA act we're very likely to be confronted with something that we have to comply with at the state level here yeah um oh I thought Paul had his stand up okay this I was just I was just gonna make sure that Mike Mike I don't think Mike was saying that I was presenting Scare Tactics I'm sure that's not oh no no hardly that's not he that's not what he was suggesting no no that was that was that was like four years ago Paul okay thank you not your problem I put my scary mask on when I'm going to do a scar tag okay this is a public hearing uh we'll open it up to U the public uh I see one hand up in the audience here um why don't we go with uh Regina fry and Charlie are there any other hands up and Roger no just to remind folks use the hand raiser Q&A feature if you're on Zoom to let us know that you'd like to speak at this public here okay Roger do you have your hand up I do um but if you want to take the public first I I just okay no I I just want to make sure that yeah you still had it up yes Regina sweet uh you have three minutes and I will enforce that I hope it's at least two minutes this is a very serious issue and I live in the part of town that will be most impacted by this bylaw were it to pass um first of all we have only 25% single family zoning in the whole town this is heading Us in the direction and I had a long conversation with Roger last week into heading us into excuse me uh into two family zoning uh right now it doesn't allow for a separate building but Roger acknowledged that in the future it could easily allow for adding a whole uh unit of some kind in your small backyard I live in an area that's called S7 in fact I almost I don't think there's half a dozen houses on free Block that have S7 the rest are much smaller so I think our greatest concern right now is going to be the non-owner occupied if you read the New York Times Sunday article one in five single family homes right now in the United States are owned by investor ultimately llc's they said you cannot find the owners and ultimately it looks like they're hedge funds I know I get calls several times a week do I want want to sell my home cash cash that is clearly not somebody looking for a home to raise their family that's looking for an investment so and flipping is the number one thing according to the article and that's common sense we've actually been dealing for a long time with um our very humble and chobby H rest your souls said that we were the most affordable uh single family units in all of Brooklin you can still get an affordable house there if I'm sure it's gone up since then but it's still less expensive than many other parts of Brookline the um what started to happen was these little modest 60 70 80 year old ranches were being purchased by people claiming that I need to build a bigger house because my mother-in-law is going to live with us or our children are coming home to live with us without exception without exception they flipped the house within two years so this is the kind of instability that we don't want in neighborhoods we we've reached the point where the concept of neighborhood itself is under attack and this is just going to play to that very heavily so I know in my neighborhood I'm already talking to people you have 30 seconds they are not happy to talk about um uh investor nonresident uh people for the adus as to the final thing about why are we doing something when we say the state is going to to do something talk about a lot of busy work that can be undone and cause even more busy work later doesn't make sense thank you thank you the next person signed up for public comment is Michael Rubenstein Michael I am promoting you to a panelist now Michael you've been promoted to a panelist you may share your video if you feel comfortable and unmute and your three minutes will begin uh thank you very much uh and thank you for this opportunity to speak uh my name is Michael Rubenstein I'm a town meeting member in Precinct 13 um I just wanted to make a couple of uh comments and additions to give people a sense of the scope of this um based on uh the presence of adus in other communities across the country um given the uh number of homes in Brookline uh and the relative rate of adoption of adus um which is roughly um you know between 0.5 and 1% of overall housing stock um on the number of single family homes it it's unreasonable to expect over a very long period of time um that there would be any more than say 140 or 150 adus across town being built as a result of this um even in the best of circumstances if there were uh no investor uh requirements uh and the size were larger which some uh communities have adopted um the number of adus would not be uh as has been characterized potentially overwhelming um so I I would uh caution uh those of us who are considering uh that this uh could uh cause an overrun of uh two unit uh uh uh buildings in our single family zones that the evidence of of that from uh researchers like the urban Institute um points in an the opposite direction um and the uh the uh deed restriction that uh has been put in place in this uh in Warren Article 13 for investor owner occupants actually not only will affect uh investor occupants but it will also potentially aect effect the ability of owner occupants to be able to finance their homes um because of the possibility of lenders uh who do not want to make loans to owner occupants um in an environment that has such a deed restriction um so I would just uh make those two points and thank you very much for their consideration thank you the next person signed up for public comment is Fran pler Fran I'm promoting you to a pan pan now BR you've been promoted to a panelist you can un you can share and your three minutes to begin hi Frank carer town meeting member peent dat so I'm very conflicted about this in the concept of having single family owners be able to have a granny uh Adu I could really support that and I I like that idea but when I look at the fact that it's very easy um to go and get a special permit for 1,200 square feet which is like a big two or three family unit it worries me it also worries me um the point that Paul has brought up that um because investors can do this with the deed restriction um it might decrease the housing supply of Cheaper older single families and the third is is there any protection for some of these un houses that are near the universities to have an investor rent uh a couple of thousand dollars of room to four college kids in the main house and then rent to three more college kids in the Adu are there any protections for those sort of situations in the investor owned adus thank you um at this time Bernard no one is using the handraiser Q&A feature to let us know that they'd like to make a comment okay uh then I will close close the hearing and see if there any other comments from the select board Miriam um can we just get confirmation on the the statistic that 25% of brookly homes are zoned for single family I thought it was more than that no well I don't who knows yeah that's what I hly might you know the exact percentage of what's was owned for single family currently you're on mute oh you're on mute hi to me I'm afraid I don't I don't okay we'll try that down oh Roger Roger yeah so um uh 40b tracks the town's total housing stock and it's uh around 20 28,000 plus units uh housing units um recognized by the uh by the census and um there are around 4600 single family homes in Brookline um about 90% of are occupied but the but the that percentage is not 25% it's if somebody's got a quick calculator it's 4600 out of 28,000 yes but the the that's some of those 28,000 are part of multif family uh buildings so the question is structures not uh I think the question buildings zoning what percentage of line is zoned for single family I'm we'll get to the bottom said it was public public so we'll get to the bottom of it okay um yeah could someone actually put together maybe a memo that has those numbers on because I think that is an important um yeah there will be a question in the town meeting an appropriate question so so percentage of uh um what percentage of uh what areas thaton what percentage of Brookline is zoned single family houses and and what percentage of units are Zone single family yeah okay I also do just want us and I think Jonathan might be able to be but just because the question was raised by a public commenter we always have to be careful of our obligations under the Fair Housing Act uh not to discriminate against particular class of individuals so for example questions regarding can we prevent young people from being rented to the answer is no even College young people yeah um okay Paul you have your hand up so yeah I just had a a process uh question Bernard do we uh do we know when advisory is taking uh this matter up including the Amendments that have been filed well I can tell you that the land use subcommittee of the advisory committee is going to be meeting this Friday at 9:00 am so the full advisory committee will have to meet of course after that and I don't believe that's been scheduled yet okay that that that's really helpful so we're so um Bernard it sounds like we'll we're going to take this up again in more detail after what advisory ends up doing yep correct okay great okay uh Rie you have your hand up um yeah I I I guess I just wanted to um comment that um I think one one of the public comments was that owner occupants would have a hard time financing homes if they were deed restricted and uh to be to be really clear that the only deed restriction uh that's that's proposed in this article is is not at all for under occupants it's for only for those that choose choose not to under occupy for the investors which arguably would be would be a very small percentage of the total so just want to clarify that thank you okay thank thank you next uh on our agenda is um we're on article 14 amend the town zoning law owning by law to reduce the setbacks needed for energy saving devices that's is theab Warren article uh do we have what Wendy stall here I'm promoting Wendy now okay hi hello hello um I am GNA need to share my screen um I'm sorry can I just go ahead and get started I couldn't hear during the process of joining as a panelist so I go ahead okay you're in charge I'm going to share my screen and let me move out of the [Music] way okay so my name is Wendy stall I am the chair of the zero emissions Advisory Board also known as Zab and this evening I will present to you zab's article 14 which we call reducing barriers to electrification there have been some improvements to this article since it was first filed and I'm going to be presenting the improved version that has been approved by both the advisory committee and the planning board um we worked extremely closely with Town staff in crafting this article including Town Council the building department and particularly Maria Morelli from planning department and I'd be happy for any staff member to chime in as they see fit as a bit of context the state has a legally binding Mandate of reaching Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050 Brookline has committed to Net Zero by 2040 a short excuse me 16 years from now the graphic here is from the state's 2050 clean energy and climate plan and it shows the state's four key priorities for addressing our climate crisis the first priority is eliminating emissions from energy end uses which essentially means all our cars and buildings need to stop burning fuels like gasoline oil and natural gas and instead be powered by electricity the second priority is maximizing the efficiency and flexibility of the of energy use to ensure electric grid reliability and cost effective decarbonization from step one and third the electricity Supply must transition to low emission sources such as solar wind and battery storage and finally in a future where some emissions are likely to remain from challenging sources such as air travel Massachusetts must balance residual greenhouse gas emissions with carbon sequestration so it's pretty clear there's a lot to do big policy changes need to happen at both the state and National levels but getting to zero also requires local action and municipalities like Brookline can make things a little easier over the last few months the zero missions Advisory board has committed to focusing our priorities on removing roadblocks to climate action this warrant article is one example of that with this proposed change to our zoning we can make it easier for those living in our dense neighborhoods to accomplish Priority One of this graphic Electrify their properties and transition off fossil fuels so what does warrant article 14 do it's actually pretty simple it changes our zoning bylaw to allow for the installation of electrification equipment within 2 ft of side and rear lot lines you might be wondering what is electrification equipment well we Define it as any device that's powered by electricity and that is capable of both Heating and Cooling or vehicular charging so essentially this means heat pumps and EV Chargers like you can see in these photos um it's important to note that in order to meet Priority One of the state's clean energy and climate plan pretty much all our homes need to install heat pumps in place of our current fossil fuel heating systems currently the Building Commissioner considers mechanical devices such as heat pump condensers to be accessory structures so like any other accessory structure they're not permitted to be installed within 6 feet of side or rear lot lines if a property owner would like to install a heat pump closer than six feet to their lot line let's say they're in a building with a small lot they must request a special permit and have a hearing in front of the planning board followed by a hearing in front of the zoning board of appeals the good news is that in recent years everyone who has applied for a special permit for a heat pump has gotten one the bad news is that the special permit process is inacurate many people end up hiring professional help to navigate the confusing and uncertain process of a special permit some particularly well-informed homeowners who also happen to have free time elect to do this themselves but the majority hire assistants at the low end of cost people can do some of the process themselves and only pay $11,000 for a land survey and on the high end they can pay up to $10,000 for the additional Services of an engineer architect or lawyer and the process takes four to six months but it's only people who live in our denser neighborhoods that have to endure these additional burdens it's difficult enough to make environmental changes to our homes I'll remind you that three years ago Brooklyn to meeting decided to advance the state's climate goal by 10 years um and we need to transition every home to a heat pump in order to meet that goal and the way things are now we're making it we're making a hard thing even harder especially for our residents who already live in our less affluent neighborhoods and are less able to afford the additional costs of a special permit we simply can't afford to be doing that when we're trying to save the world furthermore I've heard multiple stories of contractors simply refusing to install heat pumps at a residence due to these limitations and Other Stories of home owners who don't even try because they know they're not allowed closer than six feet to the lot line and they don't know there's a special permit process with this article Zab is presenting a more Equitable option we propose eliminating the extra costs and the extra time for any heat pump or EV charger as long as you can maintain 2 feet between the device on the lot line here are some examples of real situations where this has come up in Brookline these are pictures of what we're trying to make more accessible in the middle photo you can see former associate Town Council Patty Korea at her house in Precinct 6 um she would be speaking tonight but she is on a vacation uh but the process of getting her heat pump installed was a headache and the uncertainty was incredibly stressful even for a person with her skill set from these photos you can see that these heat pump units can be fairly narrow they can be mounted on the ground or on a wall or even on a roof and Patty has a snow guard she's mounted over hers um with respect to historic buildings existing design standards will still apply buildings listed in or eligible for listing in the National register of historic places have to comply with the regulations in the town's demolition delay by law and buildings located in local historic districts have to comply with local historic district guidelines um there's some exceptions to these new standards for example properties in the Harvard Street District have to comply with the zoning standards of that district and secondly if a property has very minimal space and two feet from the lot line is not feasible a property owner still has the option to seek a special permit to reduce that distance to some value less than two feet and lastly rear yards that AB but alleys are traditionally considered front yards but for this purpose they're not and a heat pump or EV charger could be installed in such a yard and there's a list of exemp as well this is essentially a list of everything that won't change the list on the left contains items that currently require a special permit to be installed closer than six feet to the lot line and will continue to require a special permit this includes air conditioners pool and spa heaters and backup generators the list on the left also includes a new provision added by the advisory committee and accepted by the petitioners to exclude larger residential buildings from the new standards as well this change was made to accommodate concerns around adding too many devices in a potentially small space between properties larger multif family buildings will still need to go through the special permit process for heat pumps to be installed closer to the lot line the next section are items that are currently not allowed to be installed within setbacks and do not qualify for special permits including batteries and ground mounted solar those have their own setb setback requirements and um this bylaw will not change that the final section here includes ground Source heat pumps and roof mounted solar panels which are currently Allowed by WR in setbacks and which this article does not change we understand that people are concerned about noise this is a sound level chart that comes from our own noise bylaw it lists everyday sounds and their sound ratings in decb the decibel scale is a logarithmic scale so a difference of 10 DB means something is a 100 times louder after combing through spec sheetss for a variety of Manufacturers I found that traditional air conditioners are between 70 and 73 Deb which is the sound of a car passing on the street heat pumps are more than 10 DB or 100 times quieter than traditional air conditioners the sound levels of heat pumps are almost always below 60 DB and can be as low as 45 DB 60 DB is quieter than background noise at night and 45 DB is the sound level of a typical office space but the best way to understand this sound difference is to hear it for yourself and I have a little video these are our old air conditioners and they're big and they're noisy this one vibrates so much it actually sends a vibration up the wall of the house got to turn on the left on one minut at this speed they really sound like a fridge oh W you can hardly hear them that's somebody's car you can hear in the distance you go closer if you like um so we don't expect noise to be a problem from these units but just in case there is a problem and the noise is louder than expected or louder than in that video we have safeguards in place in our noise bylaw our bylaw states that Mechanical Devices like these have to be less than 10 DB of a background noise day and night for a typical Urban environment such as our dense neighborhoods that means anything installed has to be less than 75 DB during the day and less than 65 DB at night that shouldn't be a problem for heat pumps since their sound ratings are lower than that but if a certain installation is louder than expected the building department the public health department or the police department can come out and require that the unit be shut off until it is fixed and can comply with the noise bylaw okay okay i' like we're at about 10 minutes I just want this is the end the end thank you I'd like to finish with the fact that we're not the first municipalities of varying sizes and settings have already altered their zoning in recent years to allow heat pumps to be installed in setbacks citing Equity concerns and a desire to make climate action easier this has been done in Newton Somerville and Welsley take a look at that overwhelming vote count in Welsley and even Brookline approved this change already in the small residential district in the Harvard Street plan we approved last year since the communities have had this in place for a while last week I reached out to all of them to get a sense of how the reception has been so far especially with regards to noise complaints while I'm still waiting on Somerville getting back to me the deputy Building Commissioner from Newton and the zoning enforcement officer from Welsley both confirmed there have been no complaints about sound or any other issue in the years since they implemented the zoning change in other words they've taken this for a test drive and prove that it's okay Brooklyn can feel confident in removing this be barrier at a time when there's so much that's hard about taking climate action this zoning change gives us a chance to make it just a bit easier and more Equitable and will allow us to move a little bit quicker towards our goal of zero emissions by 2040 um I'm happy to hear any questions you have but I sincerely hope you can report this warrant article favorably and these are the votes that have happened so far thank you any questions from the select board uh thank you for that presentation I thought it was very interesting especially the sound um comparison anyway Miriam thank you yeah this was great and as somebody who would very much consider switching out my current unit for a heat pump if this warrant article were to pass do you have any idea how much it cost to replace uh a system oh that that I I think we should discuss um outside of this public hearing it's it's a very complicated process and really unique to the home it's self okay yes but I'm happy to have any conversation with you I know that's one of the things the ab is working on is making this more affordable as well making sure that in situations that is more that are more complicated if you have a 100- year old home not properly insulated that's going to cost a lot more than if it's new construction and you're just taking out something from 2005 and putting in something 21 thank you CH and and your your how-to guides on our town website would also provide some assistance they may want to look at those quite a bit yeah after this passes yeah well no I mean right now they have a lot of information that will help you prepare for after the passage Paul Paul hi uh thank you Wendy great presentation I also appreciate the sound the sound example uh make sure you do that at town meeting um so the the thing I didn't understand was there was an exception for multif family buildings or large buildings could you just what's the parameters for that um well I can tell you that parameters I'm not sure so any multif family building of seven units or more oh SE okay seven units or more is is the definition yes so if it's seven units or more they would need to go get a special permit they couldn't do it by right but they could still do it they just have to go to the planning board in the zba okay and the concern there is what to have a stack a row of these things yes in okay uh magnifying the issue Wendy so you know there's always something like what what what is the one thing that that um that we haven't thought about with this is there is there anything I know you talked to the other communities and I assume they actually did some installations and honestly I I I mean I I've brought this up to multiple people and they think it's a no-brainer I I the main concern is noise and so that's why I put that video up there to show that it's not really a concern is you know sometimes when buildings are really close is there an issue of getting access to the units to be able to maintain them well that's why the The Building Commissioner suggested that we have this two feet um between the lot line to maintain enough um access without having to trespass on your neighbor's property okay and two feet is sufficient yeah and usually the manufacturers um recommend having about two feet as well okay okay all right great thank you any other questions from the board okay this is the public hearing I'll open the hearing uh Charlie do we have anyone we don't have anyone in the audience except Town Council do you have a question Joe okay do we have anyone um online that would like to speak at this public hearing sure um let's take a look folks on Zoom if you would like to speak at this public hearing please use the hand raise or Q a feature to indicate that you'd like to make a comment and we'll promote you to a panelist um so again that's the hand raise feature or Q&A give that just a few seconds Bernard we have 16 attendees on zoom and no one is using the handraiser Q&A feature to let us know they'd like to make a comment okay um I will close the hearing so you know um what other the board well Miriam is has left for uh he's going to pick up at home I'm hesitant to say this m i I think if you're suggesting that we vote on it now there's Miriam will not object to that Miriam is connected on Zoom did there she is did did advis already vote on this yes advisory voted in favor of this the full advisory or the sub full advisory did okay I'm I'm I'm I can vote on this tonight if yeah let's go um sorry Miriam I didn't realize you'd get there so fast she's in the basement oh you're in the basement we may we may not have her for much longer now she's Frozen um okay I Mo a favorable action on Warren article um 13 I don't think there's I it's a no 14 14 I'm sorry 14 yeah um any objection to that hearing none uh all in FA favorable action I'm here just so I can vote yeah okay and we'll vote fast so you can leave um I'm a favorable action on Warren article 14 all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I Miriam asazi I you can leave now Mike sandon hi Paul Warren Hi and um chair vosai great thank you Wendy thank you have a good night and make sure you have that uh demonstration at town meeting probably compare the heat pump to the um um Utilities in the auditorium which can be kind of loud but but they're different Ty anyway okay um next next is there a next yeah oh yeah we have Street streetway policy yes this it's going to be a long long night um DPW and Mobility plan program update which is basically a will include a discussion of uh complete streets I see commissioner CH is there and um one other the person who I don't recognize I'm glad to do some introductions okay okay uh good evening my name is Ain Chu I'm the commissioner of Public Works and I am joined today uh by Kevin Johnson our Deputy Commissioner of Public Works and our director of Highway and sanitation Amy Engles who is our transportation administ ministrator and um uh listening in the audience we also have Jake Jake scorpo who is our staff engineer and the project manager for the transportation Mobility Program uh also joining us are our Consultants Conrad Ledger and Margot Shon Felder from environmental Partners who work with us and support us in all aspects of this program uh so this evening we're here to discuss a crucial aspect of our community's infrastructure the roadways in Brookline the our roadway is inclusive of bicycle and pedestrian accommodations facilitate Commerce connect neighborhoods to schools parks and business districts they support vibrant and healthy quality of life and ensure the smooth functioning of daily activities however ensuring that they're safe and good repair and designed for Equitable access and use requires considered effort time funding and strategic planning so this the transportation and Mobility plan is our effort to pull these together from maintenance through to policy asset management and construction so I want to see if Conrad has the ability to share his screen so he can go ahead and pull up our presentation uh we have a presentation for you this evening to talk about our program uh Conrad you can go to the next slide and then um certainly we want to open it up to questions so this evening we're going to discuss the town's assets the plan itself uh the approach our approach to infrastructure improvements and then uh upcoming work for 2024 and 25 next slide in terms of the assets that we manage uh the town has about a 100 center lane miles or 250 uh Center Center Line miles for 250 Lane miles of roadway uh we assess the pavement condition every 3 years using artificial intelligence to rate and document pavement condition and deterioration we'll go into more depth uh on this but what we see is that the pavement condition between 2020 and 2023 uh declined uh based upon the conditions analysis the roadway is assigned a pavement condition index number so the PCI is used to assign recommended treatment types to preserve the life the roadway these range from major Rehabilitation which you see in red which is like a full depth Reclamation to minor Rehabilitation generally Mill and overlay we have preventative maintenance which could be a bonded wearing course or other types of surface treatments to routine maintenance crack sealing and patching uh next slide so we've assigned a color to each of these they carry forward from the map um to this slide um and about 40% of our inventory need major or minor Rehabilitation but what this slide does is uh it shows what percentage of our Network falls into each of these maintenance categories next slide we also have an inventory uh of our uh network of sidewalks the town has 150 miles of sidewalk infrastructure with is uh over 2100 curb ramps 40% are um considered in fair condition 10% and poor and we have over 50% uh that are uh rated as being in uh excellent condition uh this asset deteriorates at a slower rate uh than the roadway pavement and uh we update this every five to six years all right next slide so the so what do we do with all of this uh information how do we go about planning roadway work in a way that's clear understandable data driven and Equitable in its application and use of town resources uh to pull this together we created the transportation Mobility Program the purpose is to improve Assets in a predictable transparent and cost effective manner uh understand and establish B benchmarks for future infrastructure assets um for infrastructure assets identify budget requirements to keep infrastructure from deteriorating and to improve and expand facilities for those biking walking and using public transit next slide so um once we understand the conditions um the REM recommended treatment and preservation priorities we look at the town's policies uh the town adopted a complete streets policy in 2016 the policy the complete streets policy approach to roadway um Renovations prioritizes the creation of Transportation networks that accommodate all users including pedestrian cyclists motorists and public transit Riders the approach emphasizes multimodal accessibility safety and Equity it involves redesigning Street to include features like sidewalks bike Lanes bus lanes and traffic calming measures complete streets most often for us includes moving curves to slow down traffic and shorten pedestrian Crossings designating bicycle accommodations not necessarily a raised uh protected cycle track like Gateway East or what we discussed last week or the Washington Street Corridor um but painted striped and separated bike uh bike lane like you see here on Babcock Street so here we have bicycle accommodations uh there also uh was incorporated this is uh considered a complete Street ADA Compliant curb ramps shortened pedestrian Crossing curb extensions rectangular rapid flashing beacons updated signage and pavement markings next slide please uh we also have a sidewalk policy that's stipulates that when we're doing uh roadway work um roadway renovation work and the sidewalk is in poor condition uh that we replace that sidewalk in full um just like we have a um assessment inventory of the pavement conditions we also have an inventory on the conditions of our sidewalks and I gave you those ratings but just sure demonstrating here that we have that mapped as well for the town and so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to turn it over to comrad with environmental Partners um who's going to disc discuss the pavement management approach overall uh and how these work together thanks Arin and uh thanks for allowing us to be in here tonight so I've had the opportunity to work with the town of Brook line now since about 2018 on the pavment management and the asset management program so we're happy to be in front of you here tonight to kind of explain some of what we do and why payment management is important to uh manage the overall assets for the community so uh just in general uh pavement management is the practice for planning pavement maintenance to maximize the value of the road Network on the right hand side that is a pavement deterioration curve and on the left you see the PCI rating that Aaron mentioned that 0o to 100 rating so a roadway on the top of the curve being in excellent condition and brand new and on the bottom it's a scale in years so what we see over time is that the pavement will deteriorate from being a new pavement to about five to 10 years you have an opportunity to do maintenance on that uh on that roadway to keep it in good condition so I lik in this to uh doing maintenance doing oil changes on your car or vehicle um and you know making sure that you're doing that maintenance to prolong the life of that asset so uh one of the keys to payment management is it gives you data to enable you to repair the uh to perform the right repairs at the right time on the right roadway so I'm going to get into a little bit about how we do that and why we do that so first in in terms of the assessments themselves I know Erin mentioned a little bit about how we collect the data but the idea with a payment Management program is first and foremost to collect data that's reliable and usable for us to make sound decisions later on um in uh Brookline I've been a part of two different assessments and one of the things that's changed about uh pavement management in general is the techn technology that's available to be able to perform these assessments so the the technology that we used last year to do our uh pavement data collection was uh lar enabled and also uses artificial intelligence and uh photography to be able to scan the roadways and give us a non-biased opinion of the rating of each of those roadways so this is just kind of the process on the left- hand side that's kind of what the vehicle looks like it perform uh it produces Point clock similar to uh what you see in lar scanning uh which is a visual that is shown in the middle and then it gives you those ratings in a map form uh at the end of the assessment so one of the things that we do as we go through the pavement management process is we calibrate calibrate the program uh based on actual unit costs and this gives us very sound uh planning level cost estimates so on the right hand side you can see the graphic that shows those 0er to 100 ratings on the left hand side again the pcis and then the the key here is that what it does is it puts every segment of roadway from intersection to intersection into one of these repair categories so it's the major Rehabilitation minor Rehabilitation uh preventative maintenance routine maintenance and then no maintenance required on the top uh in 2022 we went through and we calibrated the system based on neighboring communities information and also some information that we had for the ton of Brook line um and we came up with these costs in the 2022 column that show approximately what it was going to take um po per square yard and per repair category to be able to um rehabilitate the roadway or maintain the roadway based on the existing ratings so in the middle and in the right hand side we've recently kind of gone through and in 2023 we had uh a significant amount of work that was completed and planned for and budgeted for um and what we did is we recalibrated those um those unit costs to give us more accurate planning numbers moving forward so what I want to do is I want to turn it over to Margo Shan Felder and I want to have her explain kind of the difference between the 2024 ADA compliance methodology and then the complete Street upgrade methodology great thanks Conrad and thank you everyone for having us this evening um so Conor you can go to the next slide um so the previous slide showed two cost scenarios for budgeting upcoming infrastructure work with those 2024 numbers I just wanted to spend a minute explaining why we had two scenarios instead of just one so the first scenario with the 2024 prices considered only the scope of work that is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act or Ada whereas the second scenario with those 2024 prices in included an expanded scope of work that better aligns with the town's policies and programs um so why does Ada come into play at all when we're performing roadway work at the federal level when a municipality rehabilitates a roadway such as milling and overlaying the road from Curb to curb that municipality is required to perform certain work in addition to the roadway work specifically the scope must include reconstructing any pedestrian curb ramps within the project limits that are not compliant with Ada as well as restriping any crosswalks that are connected connecting curb ramps within the project limits for routine or preventative maintenance work such as crack sealing or bonded wearing course these ADA requirements are not triggered um whereas for rehabilitation work such as milling and overlaying or that full depth Reclamation these uh uh requirements are triggered which factors in the jump in unit cost between maintenance work and Rehabilitation work um many of Brook Line's rehabilitation projects include work Beyond what's required by Ada um so I just had a list of some specific scope items that are not included um or not required but are often included um including reconstructing sidewalk along the corridor um providing sidewalks or curb ramps where there are none currently upgrading pedestrian Crossings um installing traffic cing treatments or adding protected bike facilities so the second scenario with those higher unit costs incorporates these types of improvements that DPW DPW often includes in their roadway projects to upgrade the existing infrastructure in line with the town's complete streets policy next slide so with all the data that we obtain as part of the pavement Management program how is maintenance and Rehabilitation work identified and prioritized so first an analysis is performed for each roadway segment M to weigh the costs of a given roadway treatment with the benefits that are associated with performing it so a couple factors go into that analysis including the amount of traffic on that roadway with the benefit being directly correlated with how many drivers are using that roadway the cost of the maintenance to what degree the recommended maintenance will extend the lifespan of that roadway and what the roadways pavement condition indexes um DPW prioritizes maintenance and re abilitation projects based not only on this cost benefit value but also what underground utility work is planned for that roadway what the design and public engagement process looks like what type of treatment is being proposed and how easy or constructible the project is next slide so with all these planning level unit costs and generalities about what a project scope might and might not include we thought it would be helpful to give it specific example um so this is Chestnut Street from Walnut to Kendall which was designed last year and is currently under construction so this portion of Chestnut Street is a one-way roadway with a pavement width of about 26 feet and an area about 3,300 square yards the team during the design process identified several complete streets opportunities for this Corridor including reconstructing the sidewalk implementing a road diet and add add in dedicated bike facilities by striping a roadway level um buffered cycle track um installing high visibility pavement markings at Crossings for bicyclists and pedestrians and improving pedestrian and bicyclist safety by tightening intersection corners and reducing Crossing lengths for this roadway in particular the construction cost associated with a more barebones approach of only incorporating Ada improvements was about1 170,000 or $52 per square yard whereas incorporating the suite of complete streets improvements that I talked through is um increases the cost to about 585 um, or about 178 per square yard so again this is just one example of the many situations that we encounter when assessing the roadways and illustrates how those planning level unit costs might vary based on the specific circumstances involved at that location thanks Margo so um I did want to talk through you know what this means from a funding scenario standpoint um and I want to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to kind of ask questions about this but um we have a pretty robust uh forecast model that we can put together based on a number of different um variables as part of the pavement Management program um and for uh Brookline we are taking into account the potential sidewalk work that has has to go with the roadway work that has um has to be completed so uh for instance in the 2022 model when you plug in the assumptions on the right hand side based on the unit cost that we had put together the forecast model looks something like this or would look like something like this moving forward so um you can see here what we try to do is we try to look at what what would keep the roadway uh Network at kind of the even number or the starting point in terms of The Benchmark um and then what would it take to increase the roadway rating overall and then some other funding scenarios based on you know likely to deteriorate the roadway Network so for this one here uh we had assumptions of the initial planning level estimates that we had going into the program when we first did the calibration um and you can see here that I believe at the time uh the town was spending around 2.8 or 2.9 Million on their roadways so we had um looked at that initially and then um the the stay level standpoint was about $5 million and then to gain ground it was $6.5 to $8 million so this is what what was presented back I believe in 2022 so you can obviously with the differences of the unit costs it's going to change the model substantially or potentially substantially so what we did was is we took those two pricing standpoints that we just looked at that Margo just explained the differences of and we forecasted that out as well so you can see on the right hand side this this is for the quote unquote Ada upgrades only so um you know in that example that Margo showed that was the Bare Bones approach and you can see here that those funding levels are now kind of ticked up in terms of that $5.5 million that was kind of staying at your your level Point um in the previous model is now going to intend to lose ground and that's just from the added cost of not only doing some more sidewalk work but also this is generally um based on the fact that um construction costs has gone up substantially over the past three years now when I change that to look at the complete streets upgrades you can see that that model changes even more drastically so you can see the 5.5 million now is losing ground quite substantially over the next five years uh now it's taking about $9 million to be able to kind of stay at at an even level of that 68.1 five and to start gaining Brown you're looking at about 11 million to 13 million so one of the things that I do want to uh reiterate here that is that we're looking at these unit costs on a road by-road basis the types of work that we're doing on each roadway and then we're kind of recalibrating our models and our projections based on the unit cost that we're seeing actually come in from a engineering level estimate and then also when the bids come out we recalibrate again so in terms of the upcoming work of what we're planning to do in 2024 and 2025 five we've outlined this in two different ways one is the maintenance and the preservation and then what you're seeing on screen right now is the minor and the major Rehabilitation projects so right now we're currently working on getting the bid documents out the door for the first package which is going to happen in the summer to the fall of 2024 that's going to be Brown Street Parkman Street sou Street and Tully Street those roads are planning to be bid here soon um and then moving forward the next bid package that we're working on or the um next groupings of roadways are Alton Place little little Road Avon Street russet Road Arlington Road and then Kensington Circle um we're also looking at um full depth Reclamation on Grassland Road as well um and then other work that is going on I don't want there to be a con um a perception that there's only that work going on in Brookline uh we're also looking at the maintenance and we're also looking at Future considerations in terms of starting the design on roadways and going through the complete streets process of making sure that we have um a Quee of roadways that are ready to be constructed year-over-year because we know that as part of the process here in Brook line there's a complete streets process that we have to go through to make sure that everything's being taken care of so uh the idea here of planning forward and understanding budgeting is that we can cue these roadways up have them ready so that when construction season comes we can put them out at the appropriate time so just in terms of the maintenance that's going to be happening um in 2024 and 2025 um we're going to do some preservation on Beacon Street um and Hammond Street and Washington Street as well Washington Street obviously was um done a couple years ago and the gas work was done there so we want to make sure that we're going in and repairing the work that the gas company did to preserve that roadway for the tip project um and commissioner is working with National Grid on reimbursement for that roadway too um in terms of full depth patching we know that we can't get to every roadway as quickly as we want to based on budgetary considerations so we want to make sure that we have a patch a a reliable patching program in place where we can look at small areas of roadway and make sure that we're you know on a roadway that's basically in pretty good shape patching small areas so that those roadways don't further deteriorate quickly and cause even more pain for drivers um so we want to make sure that we have a patching program in in there as well um to hit those very small areas that are starting to fall apart before they fall apart fur further and cause uh additional problems in addition um in the routine maintenance category we also want to have a a sound crack sealing program that is uh in my opinion the most cost beneficial um treatment that's out there if you can catch it at the right time and those are the little squiggly black lines that you see on the ground if you if you didn't see it be done uh but what that's doing is that's stopping water from penetrating into the roadway base and causing it to uh freeze over the winter time and pop out the potholes so very cost effective and um you know very good treatment lastly on the right hand side uh design efforts for uh future construction this is just a a variety of roadways that are being looked at or being designed currently um so we just wanted to make sure that we had the opportunity to show those at today's meeting as well so with that I'll turn it over Aon close it out okay next slide so I think just in summary and then we can go to some questions and conversation um the plan that we have really pulls together our assets our inventory the town policies the framework for our design protocol um the plan uh incorporates all of this the policies complete Street policy sidewalk policy uh and pavement management all together um the costs as Conrad mentioned uh when we're looking at bid prices over the last three to five years have escalated significantly uh and so as we revisit this um program each year we're putting in the new bid prices so that as we're looking at the uh work that we can accomplish for the town it's based on real numbers uh and the project Scopes are established in a way to maximize the use of the town's funding in accordance with uh all of these um policies and programs and as I mentioned we revisit this each year so um our goal with this is to be very clear about what the analysis is what the conditions of the road are how we're making our decisions that it's dat data driven and that um the public understands the work that we're going to do and why uh why we're doing it and so with that I hand it back to you uh chairperson green and if you'd like we can take the slides down and listen there's anything you want to go back to look at no let's leave the slides up thank you uh commissioner um questions from the select board so sorry M Mike yeah so uh one thing um that uh commissioner Sho and I have discussed and I know um select board M Warren and I have discussed separately is that uh the matter of well do all streets are all streets eligible for all streets appropriate for a complete streets process and that's something that I know that we need to get into in some in some detail and that's probably not sensible to try to do that here but I do think it's sensible to mention that that is uh something that we're I believe we're going to embark on uh with a a staff work group is that reasonable summary uh commissioner yes yep okay and I actually had a draft memo uh put together after but Paul has his hand up I'm sorry oh I'm sorry okay Paul I mean you can go ahead CH keep going I was gonna say I have a uh I it's all right with you I would share this copy of a draft memo on the board on the uh screen here yeah maybe before we dig into the memo can I can we do a few just Q&A first Chaz I think that's probably a better better idea yes sorry I think we're jumping to the chase too quick um so first thanks for the for the presentation um you know I think uh overall that the town has made is moving in the right direction with respect to Road and and sidewalk maintenance um you know chz when you brought uh with with the prior board's approval um the uh ballot question to increase funding for roadways that was an important step I think I forget exactly what that amount was but it you know it was approved by the voters and the voters said yes roadway maintenance is a priority for us to the point where they approved the ballot uh the debt exclusion and then further we we expanded that uh amount of money uh in the fy2 budget and pending town meeting approval we'll have nearly $6 million available to us uh to to repair roads or reconfigure roads um I I had I did I was curious two questions and it maybe in your pres I don't think it's in your presentation but maybe you have the data do you have data that shows how many miles of roadway we have repaved uh in in the past 10 years so promete streets miles repaved and then post complete streets policy I think the policy was 2016 do we have that information so we would have to go in and go individually to each contract and then extract the information in terms of quantities to determine what that is yeah and and the reason why I ask is I my my my assumption my premise is that the miles of roadway maintain of Brookline has precipitously declined through probably a couple of factors one would be the complete streets policy um as you demonstrated today and I don't know what it was like you know five years ago but it looks like it's three times the cost to uh repair a roadway uh with the complete streets full complete streets treatment um that is that's significant um so we're I assume at this point we're getting less mileage uh repair for our dollar um and then the the second question I had is is related to the backlog so I if there's a slide somewhere where you had the cost per uh per category I forget which slide it was do we have a sense oh you just move by there you go do we have a sense of the backlog the total backlog for each one of these categories uh in the total because Erin when you and I have met a couple of times on this subject you had quoted somewhere in the range of 50 million as a potential backlog in maintenance do we know what the backlog do we have it broken out by category con Conrad do you have those numbers we've talked about them I certainly know we had them at the 22 price um based on the um PCI at the time yep I uh I do know that with the the unit price that are on the right hand the leftand side here I believe the you are correct uh that they were around it was around $52 million um and you know I can pull up on the other screen right now what those numbers actually are for the full would that be is that the 2024 CS upgrades C no that that's for the 2022 unit prices so um because when we we're we're currently kind of recalibrating this right now um but I can pull up those numbers here fairly quickly if you'd like okay and then the um and if it's okay I have a couple more questions Bernard if it's okay well I've got a thread here um I I'm curious about how you're selecting streets to be refurbished so I I mean I'm not I drive primarily in North por line I go to Southport line uh periodically from time to time and I've driven across the moon a few times uh you know for example k Street between Beacon Street and and Longwood AV is absolutely atrocious I drive it every day um it is in deplorable shape um and I usually get onto Kent Street from Beach Street which is just as bad if not worse and I neither of those roads are on your list so I'm really curious as to the methodology that you're using to prioritize roadways uh for for repair so that's and I'm not asking for an answer tonight I'm just these are questions that it would be more helpful to be more transparent when you have a road and how you're prioritizing uh things um and then and then just in summary I would say um there there's a significant disconnect from the presentation that you just gave and what the community is experiencing with roadways in Brooklyn that this is this is my my my perspective um that that the number one issue that I hear over and over and over is the deplorable condition of our roadways and sidewalks they they're they're combined and um I'm really just from a policy perspective this is me speaking as a policy perspective not criticizing your work at all that the difference between that $150 per uh square yard versus the 225 for major rehabilitation in or complete streets you know where that map where you showed a few color roads being done uh it's really cons it's alarming to me it scared me actually if you could go back could you show that that the map of the yeah there that scares the hell out of me guys like we we've got we just approved we're going to approve $6 million uh in in roadway repair and I see five streets or six streets um this this if you look at Newton and I believe uh Conrad your company actually advises Newton I can go to Newton's website I can see this how much money they've allocated they're they're I I think it was three or4 million they're going to repa 51 streets um they're very aggressive in repairing roads and and I think that from a policy perspective again this isn't Conrad or eron's issue I think it's the boards from a policy perspective you know when we allow roads like Kent Street to get to the point where there's multiple 6inch deep Pooles and it you know that road is going to take just by your your estimates $225 per square yard versus you know a lot less money uh if if we maintained it I'm I'm really concerned this the path that we're going down of the absolute narrow-minded focus on complete Street Rehabilitation to the detriment to other roadways in town to do maintenance and I'm really concerned about it okay Erin any response or yeah um I appreciate this and select board member Warren has has shared his concerns um with me I've been uh sharing that as well with um with staff uh a I guess a few things so this what you're seeing here is [Music] um is the minor and major Rehabilitation we're we don't have the map up that has all the maintenance work and frankly Newton had 100 million over 10 years as part of a bond and then a huge infusion that they put of their arpa dollars towards their roadway work so they um we're in a similar situation just in terms of the condition of their overall um roadway Network and have put uh a significant investment into um making great strides uh on that and so we're working with Environmental Partners to have the same level of transparency plan and information online so that you can see exactly what we're doing um and what the costs are so I agree that they have great information that they're putting out there for the public and you can really see that they've made um some great advances um over the last several years um I think I don't want to lose sight of there's the overall sort of asset management and condition of the pavement we just don't want to lose that as as um select board member Warren was saying there is there is an absolute um analysis that goes into when you have these different conditions and you're seeing um you know these different colors but they're actually numbers and then they're averaged and so the town is with our consultant looking at if we spend X Dollar on different types of treatments across the board how are we managing these assets and preventing future deterioration of those roads that are in you know moderate to Fair conditions so that they don't get in poor condition which then become far more expensive to um renovate so it does seem a little counterintuitive intuitive sometimes you think you just hit your worst roads first and that is not the approach um with Newton or any other roads frankly in this um area that that you don't just simply hit your worst roads first there's sort of a whole methodology that you look at um and I think that we should be making that um more clear in language that the public can understand um and I think the last thing I just want to say is that the transportation board um you know has I think was really proactive in 2016 in implementing uh the complete Street policy it's something that the community really wanted and they have um several subcommittees the bike advisory uh subcommittee The Pedestrian advisory committee the shared Mobility um group and safe routes to school and so complete streets ultimately came about because the people in the community were asking for safer roadways and so um I look forward to having a deeper conversation um about this in terms of what that means and how we can still um move forward sort of making sure that we are making safety improvements where it really matters and where we need it for the community um and also um improving the overall condition of the entire uh Network just one quick hold on did you have your hand up I'm sorry okay go oh oh mam has her hand okay John too I don't care who goes first um the hour is late and and you know I'll speak for myself I'm hoping we can somehow wrap this up soon um because uh we've got a lot to discuss here and I don't think we're going to be able to discuss it all um in in the time that we have remaining tonight um I'll just say a couple of things uh you just made a statement um that um we don't necessarily do the worst streets first and I get the logic behind that that you you laid out but then when do we do them um you know I mean if if if a street gets into a condition that is the worst in Brooklyn but that's not good enough to get it repaved because there are other streets that we're trying to save from becoming the the next worst Street in Brooklyn um you know how do we figure out when when it's time to to pave that street and what are people supposed to do to live with that street you know while we're figuring out when we're eventually going to get around to it I mean I I just don't I can't grasp that concept I'm sorry um but the thing I want to say um I hope constructively is uh I really took encouragement from the fact that near the end of the presentation tonight we we um started to name some streets and that's all I've been trying to to get us to in on my part um and that is can we talk about which streets we're going to do in FY 25 and I I heard some streets named and I and I heard them refer to as being the streets we're going to do next um I'm not sure I heard you know a commitment to this is the list of streets that we'll do in F in fy2 with the money we have allocated in fy2 that's all I'm looking for and it feels like we're seeing that happen in nearby communities I'd love to see it happen in Brooklyn and I'd love to see it happen in the fy2 budget so I think on on the first part of the question right the question of you know if it if not this Street then what it really is just about scarcity of resources right is it the balance that has to be made and it really is on a case-by Case basis of what's going to be the broadest General increase in good to the community with the limited resources we have um and that's it's a very very tough issue because what you're not saying is we're not doing that bad street we're saying that is one of many bad streets on our list and we if it is better for the community to do five streets that cost the same amount of money as this one bad street this year and that's what we do um and that's why it can be so you know difficult to you know address those issues and I think the other you know and I I I'll you know I think we're taking these steps towards this increased transparency and Clarity on how to make sure people know what's coming up next in the pipeline with that understanding uh miam had her hand up okay Mary thank you um thank you for this um I think I I just really want to emphasize as the person who sits on represents the disability commission how important it is when we think of about ADA compliance and complete streets there is a subset of people that are really disproportionately impacted by their ability to use the sidewalk uh and the curb cuts and um we I know Brian K Transportation board came in front of the disability commission several times and we could not actually come to a consensus on what the best policies were for motorized devices on the sidewalk so I think that we just have to hold that front and center as we talk about this that ada8 compliance is a minimum but the more we do for complete streets actually the more we do for our disabled community and our seniors and our bikers and so I just I realize it's an added expense but I feel like it's a long-term investment so I just hope we hold that that's all thank you um I think um I want to try to address what John and to some extent Paul have asked about which is you know why don't you do the worst one the worst streets first um there are a number of things you have to you're looking at one of which is how much traffic is on that street how many people are using it um and you generally speaking there are some if there's a side street that's in terrible shape uh and uh a collector Street or uh that you know a street like St Paul or can or whatever uh that uh or Washington certainly um that's in tough shape you get more um uh you get more value out of uh working on the street that's uh that's carrying the heavier traffic um at some point you do indeed have to get to that side street that's wct I'm glad to hear that yeah um and and but the other thing is that there are the the side street that is erect doesn't and this is the point that I made at the very beginning when I was asking uh or or referencing the conversation that uh I had with commissioner sh um that street doesn't need necessarily need the full treatment that we're talking about for Washington Street or that we applied no it doesn't the Babcock Street yeah which is why it should be easy to just do it well uh and and indeed it can it it can be but you again you have to say well one of my priorities here um if you have if you have 5,000 cars going over the street uh versus 500 cars or 50 cars going over the street um well not many car not many streets of 50 cars but uh you have a small number of vehicles um you're going to get the best bank for your buck by repairing first the street that has the heavier traffic yeah Paul yeah so I just uh I want I know uh everybody's anxious to wrap up so Mike and I have offered uh to help um uh commissioner Sho and also I think perhaps the the transportation board uh chair Brian KES and uh and Miss Engles to just explore uh potential um ways that we could enhance um policies to see if we can uh help alleviate some of the strain here um and you know this whole presentation I think was triggered by a conversation that ER and I had about I think it was two months ago is what are the barriers uh we we're we're addressing some of the financial barriers but what are the other barriers and some of them are are potentially uh policy oriented I my children I have young children that ride bicycles I love complete streets but we also need to make sure we maximize the value that of of the short resources that we have so as Mike said perhaps it could be a volume isent Tropic I don't know the answer but I do know that I think we need more blue lines um on this or on this map that's all so I'm looking forward to moving forward ER okay so I I have a memo for you to look at here I'll put it up on the screen if I could share my screen briefly um just so we can move on this um I'll make it larger okay um so um it says uh how the 2024 update to the 10 Mobility Program provides an opportunity to review these policies after review of this presentation it's clear to the board that the increased costs of replacing set forth in our policies and procedures having unintentional effect on the overall health of the network our efforts to ensure that they are redesigned accidentally led us to SC area where because such conts are almost always complex and expensive fewer projects are completed year-over-year while the network deterior Ates further it goes on to talk about how even with the override even with the large amount of funds that you're infusing into the CIP um if all work has to be completed to these specifications um we're going to have increased costs as outlined in this presentation you don't want these policies to be abandoned but instead modified appropriately to avoid increased aggregation of the network um while continuing to reimagine and redevelop the roads um you know they're talk about the critical importance of complete streets to ensure access and safer streets for all users and preserve their intent while ensuring they don't produce perverse results accordingly we direct the Town Administrator to assemble a working group consisting of at minimum commissioner Sho Transportation administrator the chair of the transportation board and two members of the select board for purposes of evaluating and adding to the policies on how to prioritize radway repair and replacement and John to your point including how to increase transparency to the community on how those projects are chosen and commenced uh any such recommended changes to those policies would be subject to public review and approval in the ordinary course of business so there'd be a working group but they would still any ideas would still have to come back and go through the public process in front of the transportation board and you okay I would also hope that you look at the policies for examples uh complete streets policy and uh determine whether as currently written um you there are sufficient exceptions and and other uh other things that that uh enable us to do a little more uh in terms of our Street Maintenance than than we have been that's just the point yeah yeah yeah that's the aim here uh talk talking about figure out what what additional measures need to be taken to ensure that we're not that policies aren't producing this pervers we don't necessarily have to change the policy no you can you could create exceptions to the policy you can modify the policy well there already exceptions in here yes or you could you know you could but you know I think the point being made is if even if there are they need to be perhaps they need to be utilized more more often okay um anything else John well the I I do like the statement um but um what about the question of what are we going to commit to in the fy2 budget so I think right now you know we can look we can look through this uh and I Erin and I can the commissioner and I can go back and take this and take this back and try and get a list of streets for what's going to be done in fy2 with the understanding that it's a preliminary list and it may be subject to additional things you know we just got notification that there's a big pothole on Grove Street uh sinkhole sinkhole better that's associated with a drain though that we just TV um out there right now so um you're you're looking at at the list we shared the list and I can I can um do that um separately uh as well but what we didn't talk a lot about is these are not book jobs you're not just putting out you know no design these jobs that we do need survey and then they need design work and Analysis to determine what components of them need to be complete so it's it that process takes time so we have the list we've presented the list we're already in contracts we have a contract that's out right now we have work that's happening right now this spring we have a contract that's going out we have another one that's queued up so um the list that we we've shared is is what is happening um in 24 and 25 and I'm sorry but I I'm not sure which list you're referring to what was on the screen right okay um and um do we have that slide deck yeah we can try to make sure that's that will be in the matter of public record yes okay yeah you'll have the full presentation and we'll also put it put it on um on our website C far sorry to persist in this but can we have the the streets side uh matched with the cost so so that we can look at what is our budget for Street repair in fy2 and then look at the list of of the streets and and get get a sum that is actually the same as the set aside for Street repairs we can do that okay great thank you eron can I add one more ask to John list um could you also add the justification for that street being done whether it's you know preventative because the pcis at a point it would deteriorate further and cost more or or and is it actually a complete Street uh treatment is it a maintenance is it Ada like what category does it fit into um I'm just I'm I I have to tell you I'm shocked at the things that are not on that list but you know what what do I know um I'm really really really surprised that Kent Street between Beacon as Mike Sandman raise this went to me and I said yeah I drive that road every day um it's shocking to me that that Road's not on there because it's not like there's just a pothole or two the thing is is deteriorating really badly and it's not patchable um I don't think but what do I know but I'm surprised that there's a list already that is done um I'm surprised that we're just seeing that now so okay okay let's wrap this up Conrad has his hand up uh sure if I if I might just add some context here because I know select person Warren mentioned my work in uh in Newton as well so I can say that I've been working in Newton since they decided on that override since 2017 and they went through a number of these same challenges where they had even though they had an influx of money they had limited resources and they had many more roads that needed to be done than could be done with that money on a year-over-year basis in Brookline I'm looking at a number at about you know 40 miles worth of road that tomorrow we could go out and do Rehabilitation or reconstruction on so the backlog is significant in terms of the work that needs to be done um and some of these decisions that we're going through right now and uh select person warrant to your point um many of the roads that you're talking about that you say you know they should be on this list we absolutely had them on the list and the problem is that there's utility uh work that needs to go on under those Road ways there's there's and I'm not using that road in specific but you know there were other conflicts that made it so a roadway that was highly prioritized had to be bumped on the list because of other work that need to be done there but um so I can tell you that there are other highly prioritized roads and we can give you a full explanation of what what the prioritization is that would be great the transparency and and decision- making about prioritizing roads given the limited resource would be really helpful I think thank you great I think chairman green if I could just say that actually in 2021 we had a series of public meetings around Transportation Mobility we did the conditions assessment and um second time we just did it uh this past summer and had public meetings talking about it talking about the process talking about the criteria talking about the policy so this this is as transparent as as it has ever been uh in terms of uh talk about the roadways and roadway work and um the the process um that we've had and frankly there's been a significant underinvestment in the roads for for a long time and it is it is going to take us some time to um and resources to improve the condition of our of our roads we're glad to do that and we're glad to do it together and I think tonight what I wanted to do was to share with you the the parameters within which we are working this is year one of having additional dollars for the roadway um and so you know we're hoping that we can with your help turn this around thank you okay let's move on to our next item on the agenda which is Warren articles we have one Warren article which is article 16 John Van skak uh Warr article with respect to the diversity commission um any uh discussion or on that we've already discussed this and we're ready to vote Miriam didn't we vote on this already well I'm sorry there were some um revisions by the phrase it's there the advisory committee um made the observation that uh it is not 100% clear in the language of the original bylaw um that uh the voting members of the deic are the members who are the appointed members by the select board select board appointed members so they put a phras they inserted a phrase which says the select board shall appoint U these members who are the voting members of the commission and so they made that wording change but that's the only change they made to the minor minor proposal in the first place which was simply to change two numbers you know okay thank you for that explanation sure sure and they voted unanimously at their last meeting the cdic excuse me voted unanimously Thursday to support this good okay uh with that amendment I move uh well we have to we have to there no hearing it's just an amendment we don't need a a public hearing do we no okay that's an interesting question um so what are we we're gonna vote again to just erase our previous vote you reopen your vote yep and then reopen so we do have to reopen it yeah I'm sorry I move reconsideration yes okay I move reconsideration of Warren article 16 all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi m markazi i Mike Sandman hi um Paul Warren I and chair votes I um now that it's reopened I move of approval of Warrant article 16 as amended by the advisory committee um as indicated by John Van skak um all in favor please indicate by saying I John Van skak I Mary ashkanazi I um Mike sanon hi Paul Warren and chair bothai okay good we got through it even we had to reopen it that's okay that's good my bicycle stop functioning get 40 use your so yeah that's what I'm about to do this meeting is hereby ended all right